The Sleeping Night (34 page)

September 22, 1946

Dear Mama,

I know you been sweating bullets, so I’m just writing to let you know we are safe. I’m fine, healing up so fast them doctors oughta write a paper about me. Angel fussed all the way, making me rest about three hours outta every four, so you know it’s all right now.

She’s so happy to be in England—we been to a couple of the castles around here and she lights up like a Christmas tree every time. The folks show you around just love her, cause she asks so many questions and makes them feel good. We’ve seen all kinds of things they don’t usually show people. It’s like they just take her on, even though Yanks are none too popular at the moment with all the problems there are here.

But the shortages and all don’t bother me, nor Angel either, far as I can see. There’s work for us both—Angel’s working for a preacher, organizing his notes, and I have a place building as soon as I’m well enough. This ankle .
 . ..probably have arthritis in it. No real help for it, since it didn’t heal right the first time. Angel puts all these packs on it at night—and much as I tease her, they really do help.

Anyway, I’m gonna go put this in the mail so you can get it quick as possible. Tell Aunt Muriel thanks again for risking her neck on our account. Hadn’t been for her, I don’t know what we’ d have done. Now she gonna take these letters back and forth. Send her my love.

And speaking of love, today is my wedding day—just never thought such a thing could come true. I wish you could be here, Mama. I love you,

Your son, Isaiah

The chapel was built of ancient stone.
In the crisp fall morning, the walls glowed topaz in reflection of the leaves tumbling by the handfuls to the earth on bursts of chilly wind. Angel had scouted it out for this moment, and as they stood before the chaplain, light streaming through stained glass windows, Isaiah thought it was the perfect backdrop for her. As she listened to the words of the ceremony, he couldn’t take his eyes from her shining hair and bright eyes. The chaplain had to repeat twice, “Isaiah High, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

His voice cracked as her dancing eyes lifted to his. “I do.”

“Angel Corey, do you take this man to be your husband? Will you care for him in sickness and health, for richer and poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

Isaiah felt tears in his eyes and though he blinked hard, he couldn’t hold them back. One fell from his eye and over his face as Angel smiled radiantly and said fervently, “I will.”

It was all he could do to wait until the ceremony was over to gather her into his arms and kiss his wife. His wife.

Out in the blustery day, she squeezed his hand and grinned up at him. “I guess now that we’re properly married, I can inform you that not only are you a husband, but you’re finally gonna get one of those babies you like so much, too.”

His mouth fell open. “You mean it? We’re gonna have a baby?”

“Probably about February, I figure.”

He grabbed her into a hug, laughing. A sudden flash of light hit his eyes and he blinked, looking for the source of the reflection. The focal window of the chapel was ablaze, a stained glass representation of the Shepherd. “Love One Another” was lettered below.

His grip loosened on Angel and as if drawn by some other worldly force, he found himself walking toward the window.

Love one another.

Love one another. He wasn’t a man for religious visions, but at that moment, he came as close as he ever had—or ever would again. Love would halt the evils and angers and horrors. Enough love would heal it all.

Might take hundreds of years. Thousands. But in that golden fall day, with his new bride and his new child, Isaiah knew he’d been granted a miracle. “Thank you,” he breathed, then turned to take Angel’s hand. They walked back toward their flat, toward the dreams they had spun as children.

Toward life.

An angel, robed in spotless white,

Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.

Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.

Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.

—Paul Laurence Dunbar

Gideon, East Texas

2005

After her reading, Angel mingled with the Black And Whites, eating things she would rather have never tasted again in her life. Spam and beans had not been good to begin with.

But they meant well, and she loved their earnestness and wish to please. Imagine them meeting right here in the same spot where the drugstore had been where she and Gudren had enjoyed chocolate sodas so many years before! None of them could possibly understand how far they had come, what just the simple presence of them here, reading books and arguing like equals meant.

Her grandson Miles, twenty-five and absolutely perfect, approached her. “It’s time to go.” Under his breath, he said, “Do you know that girl? Johniqua?”

What he was really asking was if it was safe, if she was family. “What’s her family name?”

“Younger.”

Angel smiled. “I know her family. Let’s ask her to come with us, shall we?”

“She is really beautiful.”

Angel smiled.

There was already a crowd
at the park, where a ceremonial stage had been erected before the white and Black granite memorial that still gleamed with brand-new sparkle, the copper and gold accents shining like comets.

As they got out of the car, Angel saw her family assembled in the front row, six children and assorted spouses, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-greats. One of the grands, five-year-old Nathan, leapt out of his seat at the sight of her and bolted across the grass. “Grandma!” He was her youngest’s son’s youngest son. He favored his mother with sharply angled African cheekbones and silky cocoa skin, but his hair was a wild apple and cinnamon tumble of loose curls, and it streaked out to gold in the sunshine. Angel’s eyes showed up every now and again among them, but never as clearly as in this impish little devil child. She adored him.

She bent down and kissed him. “Hey, darlin’!”

“Can I sit by you, Grandma?”

“How about after while? I already promised your Aunt Rachel I’d sit with her.”

“Okay!”

Readings took a lot out of her, and before she’d gone to the store, she’d stopped by the graveyard. Now she sank down next to her daughter, and let her hand over a bottle of water. “How are you doing, Mama?”

“We knew it would be a long day. I’m fine.”

Other children and grandchildren came over to kiss her, everyone so proud, dressed up so tidily. Two teachers, a minister, an actor, a mother and a nurse among the children; a singer, a computer engineer, two soldiers, one doctor and who knew what else the grandchildren would be. She was proud of them for coming, some from a long way away, to help honor their grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather.

With joy, she accepted their hugs, kissing cheeks. “I love you,” she said. “Thank you for coming so far, Adele. Laura, you’ve grown a foot since the summer! Maddy, you look wonderful. Thank you all. Thank you.” They kissed her back, showed their new toys or rings. Later, there would be a reception for the whole family and she would have a chance to catch up with each and every one.

For now, a band in full military dress began to play, signaling the start of the ceremony. Angel took her place, and picked up her program. On her left, her daughter Rose squeezed her hand. “I’m so excited!” she whispered.

A man came across the grass, in his sixties, well-dressed and good-looking, with a spray of freckles over his nose. He looked familiar, but she had no idea who he was until he stopped in front of her and smiled. “Hello, Miss Angel,” he said in a softly elegant voice. “I’m the mayor of Gideon, and I’d like to welcome you and your fine family.”

“I’m happy to meet you,” Angel said. “Mr.
 . . 
. ?”

“McCoy,” he said, smiling. “Paul. Maylene McCoy’s grandson. You used to babysit me.”

“Paul!” she cried. She stood up, hugged him hard, and stood back to look at him. “Oh, my goodness! Look at you! The mayor!”

“I just wanted to say hello before we started. You look wonderful, and I hope we can talk some more later.”

“Of course.”

He lifted a hand and dashed toward the stage, moving with easy grace to the podium. He held up a hand and the band stopped. Paul said, “Hello, everybody. This is a day we have all been waiting for, and working hard for. We have a raft of people to thank and I’m going to get through that just as quick as I can, then we’ll get to the business at hand.” He ran through a long list of names—local business people, individual contributors, artists who made sketches, and the Black and White book club, which had raised over $27,000.

“Holy cow,” Rachel said, clapping.

When they had finished, Paul said, “I am lucky enough to say I knew our next guest as a child. I had more than a small case of hero worship, I can tell you.”

From the west side of the stage, from behind the memorial, came Isaiah. He climbed the stairs as Paul spoke, leaning only slightly on the cane he required more and more these days. Angel felt her throat catch at the emotion in his face.

Rachel took her hand. “Daddy looks so handsome!”

He did. He wore a suit, black, as befitted the occasion, and his shoulders were still straight and broad. He’d grown a bit of a belly over the years, but he liked to say it was so he could play Santa Claus for all the children. Or he blamed her cakes, depending.

“When I was four years old,” Paul said, “all I ever wanted was to grow up and be Isaiah High. He came home from the war wearing a uniform, and he taught me to fish for cat, and let me hammer and nail and do all kinds of manly things. He was one of the first African American soldiers to see actual combat in World War II, and his unit was distinguished in battle. When he returned to England after snagging himself a wife—” Paul indicated Angel, and her children and grandchildren whooped “—the two attended divinity school together, where both were awarded degrees in 1953.

“That tells so little of the story, my friends, and you know it as well as I do—but there’s no need to belabor the darkness of our past here in Gideon. We’re here to celebrate the achievements of our World War II soldiers, all of them, in a manner that honors their achievements. So without further ado, I present to you Reverend Isaiah High, to christen the war memorial named for his father Jordan High, who was the first Medal of Honor winner in Gideon’s history.”

Angel took out a handkerchief. A big one, and even that was not enough. As Isaiah—handsome, dignified, loyal—took the stage, he was so overcome for a moment that he had to grip the sides of the podium tightly, his eyes downcast. The crowd settled, quieted. Isaiah raised his eyes and looked at Angel, across time and events and the flow of history. “My father,” he said, “loved to read aloud. And he laughed just like God.”

Angel pressed her lips together, remembering Jordan gathering them up in his lap in the stillness of a summer evening. Long ago.

And not. Looking at her aged husband through her own aged eyes, it seemed they were still somehow children, and those impassioned young adults afire with love for each other, and parents, and co-workers.

Love, she thought. Love is all you need.

She kissed her fingers and waved the love to him, and it leapt from her fingers into forever, to Isaiah, to Jordan, to the fine life they had lived together, to all the children—practically a nation of its own—they had borne.

Isaiah wound up the speech he had practiced with her. “What I know my father would wish, and all the medal of honor winners, and all the dead, buried here and lost too young, is that we would find another way.” He raised two fingers. “As my grandson would say, Peace out.’”

The crowd stood and cheered.

Isaiah walked off the stage and directly to Angel’s waiting embrace. “Peace out?” she echoed drily.

He laughed, and Angel laughed with him, and they went together into the hall to celebrate service. And joy. And love.

(Please continue readin for an excerpt of In The Midnight Rain and for more information.)