The Sweet By and By (4 page)

Des Moines, March 1980

A slice of yellow light from the hospital hall fell over Beryl as her room door eased open.

“Is it safe?” Harlan's angular face peered around the door.

Beryl smiled, trying to shift upright, but her body wouldn't cooperate, exhausted from ten hours of labor. She slumped down on the pillow as Harlan tiptoed across the tile to her bed. His kiss was warm.

“Did you see her?”

“Yep, all bundled in pink and sleeping.” He sat on the edge of the bed and gripped Beryl's hand. “Six hours old and still an ugly little fart.”

“She looks like you.” Beryl squeezed his fingers. “How's Aiden?”

“Already spoiled. Your Paps has him holding up one finger telling everyone, ‘I one. I one.'”

“Tell Paps to bring him by, please.” Beryl sighed. “So what's with the suit coat, lawyer Fitzgerald? You didn't have to go to court today, did you?”

“No, I wore it to hide this . . .” Pulling aside his suit jacket, Harlan revealed a Dairy Queen cup. “Contraband.”

“A chocolate shake.” Beryl pushed herself up from her pillow. “Now I remember why I married you.” She drew a long, cold, sweet taste. The best, absolute best. Harlan
and
the shake.

He laughed. “Keep that in mind, will you? Listen, I couldn't stop them, but your mom has a crew of women from her church dropping off dinners and diapers and offers to clean.”

“She's determined to get us
saved
—one way or another.”

“Christmas is coming in nine months. We'll make our church appearance then.”

Beryl grinned, chewing on the tip of her straw. “Harlan, how'd savvy people like you and me end up with two babies in two years?”

He drew a deep, long kiss from her lips. “Darling, if I have to tell you—”

“You know what I mean.” She tapped his nose with the white straw. “I was breastfeeding—”

“Are you sorry, Beryl?”

“Just an odd place for two people who didn't want children.”

By the time she realized she was pregnant, it was too late to consider another option. And her wide-eyed, towheaded son, who fit perfectly in the cradle of her chest and brushed her chin with his fingers when he nursed, had awakened her maternal desires. “I'm just wondering how we're going to manage. The apartment is so cramped—”

“Maybe we don't have to worry about the apartment anymore.” Harlan brushed her hair back from her forehead.

“Uh-oh, what?” She wrapped her lips around the straw and a chocolate chill hit the warm middle of her tongue. Beryl shifted carefully to face her husband. Oh, she was still so sore. “Did Family Aid lose more funding? Did you lose your job? We can't move in with my parents, Harlan. We can't.”

“I quit,” he said, without flinching or a second of hesitation.

Beryl's mouth dropped open as she lowered the cold cup to her lap.

“I took the job with Bernstein & Lowe . . . as a junior partner.”

“A for-profit firm? Harlan, no, I won't let you. We can stay in the apartment. It's not that cramped. How can you abandon your work, your principles, for corporate hypocrisy? What about the job with the ACLU?” Passion flooded her weary muscles.

“I still plan to use the law to help the poor and discriminated. Bernstein & Lowe require so many pro bono cases a year. But I'll earn four times what I made at Family Aid. And that's just the beginning. Next year it'll be eight times, including bonuses. I can do more to help people this way.”

Was this her Harlan Fitzgerald or a stranger? “How could you do this without talking to me?”

“The offer came today.” He paced to the edge of her bed, hands in his slacks pockets. “They called and asked me to meet with them. Beryl, I'd be a fool to pass on this. I've not changed; I've grown smarter. Time to consider our future as well as the rest of the world's.”

She swirled the straw through the thick drink, shaking her head. “It feels cheap, as if we've surrendered. Given in to The Man—”

“I put a bid in on the farmhouse. Looks like they're going to accept.”

Beryl stopped stirring. “The one on Highway 117?”

“The rambling two-story you love, with the wraparound porch and twenty acres. Two miles from your folks, I know, that's the downside, but you can farm, grow your own garden . . . Shoot, create your own Prairie City commune for all I care. As long as I have my own bathroom.” He held his palms wide, grinning at his simple concession. “Beryl, two months ago the house was a pipe dream. This job makes it a reality. What good are dreams if they have no chance of coming true?”

“Don't paint your sold-out soul pretty colors and tell me it's a rainbow.” She pinched her lips together, trying not to smile, resisting the sweeping tide of his enthusiasm. “You gave up your principles,
our
principles, about money and
things
. We're now a part of the world's problems. Another rat in the maze, grubbing for money and power.”

“A house isn't a
thing
, Beryl. It's a necessity. Isn't this the very issue we fight for? The right of every person, no matter race or creed, to have a house, a little slice of the American dream? Now it's our turn. If we can't succeed, how can we encourage others?” He gestured toward the window and looked out. “There's a whole world out there, baby, with all kinds of possibilities. Look at it this way: Bernstein & Lowe sold out when they hired me, a ponytail-lawyer with a fierce record on social justice.”

“But now you're the establishment, the other side, the type of people we loathed and protested.”

“You're looking at it wrong, Beryl.” Harlan came back to her bed and the light behind his eyes was like a hundred Christmas trees. “Don't you see? Hiring me affirms all we've stood for, Beryl. We've made a difference. And will continue to persuade society. One day, one person, one case at a time.”

His broad smile defused the last of her resolve. “You do this to me . . . win me over with your reasoned speeches and charm.” Beryl rested against her pillow.

“It's why you married me.” He kissed her hand, then reached for the shake, taking a long, smiling sip.

“It's one of the hundred reasons why I married you.”

From the moment she met him—in a Des Moines jail, arrested for a slaughterhouse protest and sit-in—she wanted him to be more than her lawyer. Her lover, certainly. But her husband? His out-of-the-blue proposal shocked her. She'd never had visions of white picket fences and jolly family dinners, and Beryl took the better part of a week to say yes. Then he surprised her with the jade ring at the Fleetwood Mac concert and she'd wondered why she ever hesitated.

But Harlan's dashing manner had hooked her heart. The night he'd gently pressed her for an answer, she knew she belonged to him. Everything in her detested the idea of institutionalized marriage, but she ached to
be
with him, to be his heartbeat, his missing rib.

“Your dad's already offered to help buy some hens and a noisy rooster, a couple of cows and a pig or two . . . if they're not too stinky. Come on, Beryl sweetheart, what do you say? It's good for us. Good for our future. Our values haven't changed. If anything, we're sinking them deeper into the soil.”

The door creaked open and a nurse peeked inside. “Feeding time, Mrs.

Fitzgerald.”

Harlan tucked the chocolate shake underneath his jacket as the nurse rolled in the bassinette. Beryl plumped the pillow behind her back, snickering at him. Big-time lawyer hiding a frozen treat from an LPN.

A second nurse rolled in the bassinette for the mother sharing Beryl's room. “Feeding time, Mrs. Ainsworth.”

The woman groused and rolled onto her side, away from her blue bundled child. “I told you, I'm not nursing this one. Keep him in the nursery, please. I want to sleep.”

“It's her seventh one, and we got a pool going to see if she's even going to remember to take him home,” Beryl's nurse whispered as she passed over the pink bundle. “I'll be back for her in an hour or so.”

“Jade Freedom Fitzgerald, how are you liking the world so far?” Harlan asked, shoving his thick finger into her tiny grip.

“She's getting prettier by the minute, Harlan.” Beryl smoothed the tuft of brown hair trying to spring up from Jade's crown.

“Looking more and more like her mom.” He peered at her. “Still want to name her for a gemstone?”

“Yes. And when she's older, I'll give her the ring you gave me. We're going to be the best of friends, aren't we, little Jade-o?”

Three

Jade spotted Max waiting for her between the stone columns of the First Baptist Congregation portico. His smile reminded her why she endured his mother, let her have her way for their wedding. Love.

“The shop busy today?” He winced as he leaned to kiss her.

“Tourist bus with vintage shoppers from Atlanta.” She curled into him, drawing her sweater tight against the evening's dewy chill. “The shop's a mess, but the cash register is happy and full.”

“That's my smart entrepreneur.” Max slung his arm around her shoulders as they headed for the giant sanctuary doors, leaning against her. “I love how you make old things new, babe.”

“Someone has to . . . Your back is still bothering you?” Jade grabbed the wrist of his arm draped over her shoulder. “Aren't the meds helping?”

“Meds?” Max winced as he reached to open the sanctuary door. “Mom hasn't handed over the prescription yet.”

“Talk to your mama. She came by the shop to hijack the invitations, got nosy with my sticky notes, and took the one about going by the pharmacy. She didn't give them to you?”

His jaw tightened. “No.”

“But you're in pain.” Jade paused in the foyer. He was agitated. “She seemed so intent on helping.”

Max motioned for her to go inside the sanctuary. “I'll talk to her again.”

“It's a prescription, Max.” Jade tried to see his eyes as they walked down the aisle toward the church offices. “What's the big deal?”

“Nothing. Except for the occasional shooting pain down my leg.” Max tried to straighten his back, air whistling through his teeth as he did. “And my meddling mother.”

“Meddling? Okay, what's up? Do you want me to just call your mom? We can meet her—”

“I've got to go by the house tonight anyway.” Max leaned against the office door.

“Evening, folks.” Reverend Girden emerged, his long and lean runner's build moving in graceful synchronization. He watched Max carefully. “Max, what's with your back?”

“Whisper Hollow High versus East Ridge, playoffs, fall of '90.” Max eased forward to shake the reverend's hand. “You remember my fiancée, Jade.”

“I do. Nice to see you again.” Reverend Girden stood aside for Max and Jade to enter his office. “Ah, yes. The old East Ridge game. If I recall, you ran for ninety-five yards, Max.”

“And
sooo
gone are the glory days.” Max winced.

The men reminisced for a few minutes, exchanging football battle stories, then recounting the fourth-quarter tackle that sent Max to the ER.

Jade hung onto Max's fingers, listening, loving stories that deepened her understanding of the man she loved.

Besides, it took her mind off being behind the reverend's closed office door, from treading on holy territory—churches and ministers, God and holiness. The whole deal made her uncomfortable and threatened her sense of worth.

Reverend Girden reminded her of her granny's preacher back in Iowa— soft and unassuming, but with a laserlike gaze.

“How are things at Benson Law, Max?”

“Busy, really busy. Named best law firm in the Southeast by a couple of trades and associations.”

“Means you can charge more now, right?” The reverend sat behind his desk, motioning for Max and Jade to take the frame and leather chairs across from him.

A nervous flutter hit Jade. For the first time since learning of this meeting, she considered the implications. The reverend wanted to
meet
with them.

Next to her, Max didn't appear tense or anxious. He'd moved from talking football with the holy man to golf and his new graphite clubs.

The reverend's office was masculine and dark, with only a single floor lamp lit behind the desk. The walls were lined with bookshelves, double-stacked with books. Jade imagined it was impossible for one man to read so many.

But the room was hot. The books and heavy furniture sucked up all the light and air. Digging her fingernails into the wood tip of the leather arm, Jade's heart rate spiked. Why did the walls choose now to close in on her? Maybe she shouldn't be here, chatting with God's representative about marrying marvelous Max. She didn't deserve him. At all. Breathing deep, Jade glanced at the exit. Could she make a run for it? But the door was closed. Her pulse drummed in her ears.
Trapped.
If she ran, she just might never come back.

Max was standing now, his hands wrapped around an invisible golf club. Would he understand if she bolted? Or be embarrassed? Think she was crazy?

The reverend watched Max go through the elements of his swing, chin in hand, humming.

Breathe, Jade. Breathe
. She focused on the reverend's credenza and his arrangement of pictures. A mountaintop scene of blue sky and white peaks freed her thoughts from the claustrophobic space of her mind.

“Is that your family?” she blurted. Max snapped his gaze from the imaginary golf tee.

The reverend did a double take between Jade and the pictures to his back.

“Oh, those, yes, my wife and children.” He pointed to the frame on the left. “The rest are the grandkids.”

So the reverend was a regular man, a family man.

Max lowered his arms and took his seat. “Guess we didn't come here to talk about golf.” He winced. “My back is really unhappy with me now.”