The Soldier's Lady (21 page)

I smiled as Katie came in. She was smiling and exuberant as she looked around at us seated in chairs and on the floor, her hair wet looking as if she'd been caught in the rainstorm too. But I was still feeling funny.

“What have you all been doing?” asked Katie.

“Sleepin'!” William announced.

We all looked over at the bed, not realizing the little boy had woken up. The others laughed and Emma scooped William from the bed and held him in her arms.

“We been tellin' stories, Miz Katie,” Emma said.

We continued to talk and tell Katie everything we'd been talking about. But even the sound of their happy voices couldn't shake off the peculiar mood that had come over me.

Strange as it is to say it, even though I was surrounded by so many people, a wave of loneliness swept over me.

I got up. The voices and everyone's talk and laughter faded behind me, and I walked out the door
Katie had left open. Slowly I wandered away from the cabin.

C
ONFUSING
T
HOUGHTS

19

I
t was so wet the water was running in tiny little streams through the grooves of every path and road and at the edges of the fields. There were puddles everywhere and every inch of the ground and every blade and leaf of the crops and the trees was glistening in the sunlight from millions of raindrops everywhere.

I walked away from the cabins, still hearing the voices of those I loved so much behind me but feeling, for some strange reason, very alone. I wasn't even sure what exactly I was feeling. I walked slowly, and it was so muddy that I had to pick my way so I wouldn't step in any puddles. I suppose I was feeling sorry for myself. Not only was I not totally colored like the others, I think for the first time I was realizing that I couldn't take Katie all the way into my world, and that I would always be separated, too, from Katie's world. None of the others back in Jeremiah's cabin could fully understand how I felt either,
because I was half white. I was caught between the two worlds of white and black but not fully a part of either.

I hadn't gone that far from the cabin when I heard steps behind me. I assumed it was probably Katie. I turned and there was Micah Duff walking after me.

I tried to force a smile, but I don't think it was very convincing.

“You look like someone carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said. “Would you like to talk about it?”

“How did you know?” I said as we began walking slowly together.

“I suppose another thing Hawk taught me was how to read what people are feeling. Well . . . not know what they are feeling exactly, but perhaps know when they need to talk . . . or need a friend.”

“I guess I'm not very good at hiding it, am I?” I said, smiling again.

“Let's just say I could tell something was on your mind. I hope nothing I said in there—”

“Oh no, it's not that at all,” I said. “It's just that I—”

I looked away. My eyes were suddenly filled with tears. Micah waited patiently.

“Oh, I don't know,” I said, sniffling and wiping at my eyes, “I just . . . in there—all of us, only us coloreds like we were talking—all of a sudden I realized that I wasn't like the rest of you at all. I am half black, half white. I have a white father. I don't know
why, it made me feel like . . . I don't know—where do I fit? Am I colored . . . or white? I'm neither.”

My eyes filled again. I looked over and Micah gave me the most tender smile I think I'd ever seen.

“You are who God made you,” he said. “You are His beautiful child. You are exactly the young lady He wants you to be. Do you think the color of your skin matters to God?”

“No,” I said, hardly able to keep from weeping at his words.

“Your mother loved you,” Micah went on. “It is obvious your father loves you—God loves you, all these people here, Mayme—they adore you. None of that is because of the color of your skin. It is because of the person you are.”

“Thank you,” I said, wiping at my eyes again.

Micah nodded with one last smile, then turned and walked back to the cabin. Even as he went I saw Katie coming toward me. She and Micah passed, slowed, exchanged some words I couldn't hear, then Katie joined me and we continued on toward the house together.

Neither of us said a word for a minute or two. When Katie finally spoke, her words were not what I had expected.

“Jeremiah and Emma were watching the two of you through the window,” she said.

I turned toward her. “Did Jeremiah say anything?” I asked.

“No, they were just watching. We've all been watching, Mayme.”

“Watching what?”

“What do you think . . . you and Micah.”

“But, Katie,” I said, “it's nothing.”

“Is it, Mayme? Are you sure?”

I didn't answer. I wasn't sure I knew the answer.

“What were you and he talking about?” Katie asked.

“He saw that I was sad and asked me about it, that's all.”

“I'm sorry, Mayme—why are you sad?”

“I don't know . . . I was just feeling funny about being half white and half black. Sometimes I feel strange around the others calling Papa Papa, with him white and them black. I'm not like them, I'm not like you. It made me wonder who I am at all. I don't fit in anywhere.”

Again I felt myself starting to cry.

Katie took my hand and squeezed it. “We may be different, Mayme,” she said. “But we are sisters, remember . . . cousins. Nothing can ever take that away from us.”

I nodded.

“What did Micah say?” asked Katie.

“He said some nice things . . . mostly that God loves me exactly as I am. He always seems to know just the right thing to say. He is the most amazing person. I can't imagine him as an angry street thief.”

“What!” said Katie.

“He was telling us about it when you were in town. That's what he used to be. Can you imagine it? It hardly seems possible.”

Katie looked at me with the oddest expression.

“Mayme . . . you're not in love with him . . . are you?” she asked.

I looked at her in astonishment.

“My papa asked me the same thing,” I said. “No—of course not.”

While Katie and Mayme were talking and continuing toward the house, Micah made his way back where the others all slowly emerged from Henry and Jeremiah's cabin. He reached Emma and William, then paused and stooped down.

“William,” he said, “I want to have a little talk with your mother. You don't mind, do you? Why don't you run up to the house and she will join you in a minute.”

“Okay, Mister Duff,” said William and scampered off with Josepha hurrying after him, though not with his energy or speed.

“That's quite a boy you have,” said Micah as they walked slowly away from the others. Emma did not reply and her nervousness at finding herself suddenly alone with Micah Duff was obvious.

“I am going to have to have a talk with you one of these days, Emma,” Micah said, “about some of those things you said about yourself in there.”

“What about dem?” said Emma.

“About how you think of yourself, Emma,” replied Micah. “Sometimes it takes someone else to help us see the good in ourselves.”

“Dere ain't no good in me.”

“That's where you're wrong, Emma. There is good in everyone.”

“Maybe in people like Mayme and Miz Katie but—”

“Emma,” interrupted Micah; then he turned and stared straight into her eyes. “God wouldn't have created you just as you are if He didn't think you were worth creating. He looks at you with even more love in His heart than you feel when you look at William. I've seen how you look at your child and the love that is in your eyes.”

“When you see dat?”

“I've seen it since the day I arrived here. You love him, don't you?”

“Yes, Mister Duff. But . . . you been watching me?”

“I have, Emma. And I see a lovely child of God that He cares for very much.”

“You sure you mean me, Mister Duff?”

“I am telling you what I see when I look inside you, Emma. And I am going to pray that you begin to see it too.”

Micah turned and walked away, leaving Emma more speechless than she had ever been in her life.

Later that night, Katie came over and sat on my bed. We didn't have as many times to share alone like we once had. I smiled and took her hand.

“I love it with everyone else here,” I said, “but you and I don't have so many special times as we once did.”

Katie was quiet a minute. Was she thinking some of the same things I had been earlier, realizing that as much as we loved each other, we couldn't help the fact that we were different.

“But we wouldn't go back, would we?” said Katie.

I shook my head.

“What's going to become of us, Mayme? The world doesn't see whites and blacks the same.”

“I don't know,” I said. “But at least here, in the midst of our differences, we all love and accept each other.”

“Maybe that's more important than anything,” smiled Katie.