Absalom's Daughters (30 page)

*   *   *

Late in August, certain that by now Grandmother had discovered the benefits of the tar and was long gone, Cassie wrote to Lil Ma. She used the Veranda stationery, which was thick and cream-colored, with a hand-drawn sketch of the hotel and its address embossed at the upper left corner. It was beautiful paper, and she wrote on it in her best hand.

 

Dear Lil Ma,

I am writing to tell you that I am well and in Virginia. Judith found her daddy. I don't know if he ran off with a hoor or not, but it turns out even though we have the same great-great-great granddaddy, there was no money for Judith or me in his estate. Bill Forrest got $85 as far as I know, and had to pay it all to the hotel where he was staying and where I am working. Otherwise the police would have took him to jail. I can send you money if you need it and you should come up here if you want, but I am not coming back to Mississippi.

I have had many adventures, but I miss you.

Your daughter,

Cassie

Days passed. Two weeks passed. In the laundry, steam rose in starchy puffs from the iron. Light filtered in from high, bright windows. The air was warm but not oppressive. The smell of bleach was a pleasant tang. A letter was imminent. Cassie could feel it. But the first piece of mail she got at the Veranda was a postcard from Judith.

Eden Pomeroy gave it to her with a
tsk
, like she'd already read it.

Dear Cassie,

I have made it to New York City. I stayin' with Shelly, who sings in clubs. She has give me a nice dress. We gonna be famous. Lissen for us on the radio.

Your friend,

Judith Forrest

It was written in a scrawl—presumably Shelly's—barely more literate than Judith's blocky signature at the bottom. The black-and-white picture on the other side was of the Statue of Liberty. Cassie read the postcard again.
Your friend
, not
Your sister
. That told her everything Judith hadn't told Shelly, and that Shelly was white. There was no return address.

“Girls all alone in the big city,” Eden Pomeroy said and threw the whites in the washer.

For the next few nights, Cassie stayed up late, listening to Radio WINS with the sound turned low. None of the singers sounded remotely like Judith. Her worry over Judith clouded her sense of how soon Lil Ma's letter would arrive. When Eden Pomeroy handed her an envelope from Mississippi a few days later, Cassie found herself relieved that it wasn't from Judith, full of veiled, worrisome news. She expected Lil Ma to be far more straightforward.

Dear Cassie,

I hope this letter finds you. Your Grandmother left six weeks ago on the train. She wouldn't tell me where she was going. She didn't even pack her things. She just took half of all the money we had and left. Perhaps she came to see you? I saw Judith's momma, and she was angry that Judith had run off to be rich just like her daddy, and now she is afraid that Judith will not send back any of the money. I told her what you said in your letter, but it made her even angrier.

Mrs. Duckett is running the laundry now, and I have enough money to come on the train. You do not need to send anything. I will be there on October 13 at 9:15 in the morning. I miss you very much.

Your mother,

Adelaine

Adelaine. Not
Lil Ma
. But not
Lainey
either.

Lil Ma sounded puzzled over Grandmother, as though she might find her in Remington. Since she'd mailed the tar from Richmond, Cassie had wondered if that was where Grandmother might go first, expecting to find her granddaughter erased and waiting. Cassie had pledged to herself never to set foot in Richmond again. She thought about Grandmother, but as time passed, she found her presence less insistent, as though Grandmother were physically moving farther from Richmond, Remington, and maybe even Virginia. Cassie folded the letter and put it in her pocket.

Iris, ironing sheets, said, “That from your crazy singin' friend?”

“It's from my mama. She's coming to see me.” It was just the beginning of October. Lil Ma would be here in ten days.

“All the way from Mississippi?” said Bethesda, pressing down on her iron. “Just in time to keep you from gittin' in trouble with that Winston boy.”

“She already in trouble with
him
,” said Iris. “Her mama comin' up for the
weddin'
.”

Cassie denied that, and they laughed.

*   *   *

On the morning of the thirteenth, Cassie walked down to the station. She'd wanted Winston to come, but he couldn't get the time off, and as she waited for Lil Ma on the train platform, she thought it might be better if Lil Ma didn't meet him right away. Lil Ma hadn't approved of the albino boy in Heron-Neck, but Winston was dark. Very dark. Even if Lil Ma had signed herself
Adelaine
, it didn't mean Grandmother's shadow had vanished completely.

The autumn morning was warm. There were only a few people at the station. Half a dozen white men stood together at one end of the platform, smoking cigarettes and checking their watches. A colored woman and three little children waited at the far end with suitcases and a picnic basket. A white woman stood alone between the two groups, hatless, smoothing her hair against a nonexistent breeze.

Cassie made her way toward the end of the platform where the woman and her children were. She passed the spot where Judith had waited through Cassie's two days as a white girl. It made Cassie nervous to be anywhere near there. Someone at the station might have witnessed Cassie's transformation. Some porter, some conductor, some engineer, some stationmaster with a bristly white beard. The fear that a guest at the Veranda would recognize her was a nightmare that often woke her.

The white woman on the platform turned to watch Cassie. She was elderly, with bleached-looking hair and a lot of lipstick. Her cloth coat was too heavy for the mild autumn air, but she hunched into it like she was cold. There was no way to get to the far end of the platform without passing her, and Cassie looked at other things—the leaves on the ground, the benches, the cloudless sky—anything to keep from looking at this woman whose eyes she felt examining her from head to foot. For a terrible second Cassie thought it was the waitress from the diner in Richmond who had offered her a place to live—back when she was white. But this woman was too old. Against her will and after months of resolve, Cassie glanced into the woman's face for just a second. As their eyes met, the woman flinched as though she'd actually been struck. She clutched her coat and backed away, and in that moment, Cassie saw the kinky iron color her hair had once been, her dark complexion.

Everything on the platform seemed to freeze. At their end, the white men paused in their smoking. At the other, the colored woman frowned in their direction. The white woman's face took on a terrible expression. “Get away from me,” she whispered in Grandmother's voice. With gummy slowness she took a step and another. She fled with tremendous effort, across the tracks and away from Remington, her feet seeming to stick each time they touched the ground.

Cassie stumbled to the nearest bench and sat, seized with fear that the tar could work in reverse, and that when she looked at her own hands again, all the whiteness she'd left in Richmond would come rushing back. She kept her eyes on the trees on the other side of the tracks. Had this woman—Grandmother
?—
been on her way to Boston to be absorbed into the Porterville
community
? Cassie dared to examine her own hands, her arms, her ankles. All still cinnamon.

In a while the train came, carrying Lil Ma in the car at the end, reserved for colored people. When she finally saw Lil Ma, all she could do was sob in Adelaine's arms.

*   *   *

Lil Ma loved Winston. He was charming and beautiful, and she told Cassie in girlish whispers what a catch he was. Mrs. Morgan fell ill and became very frail. Instead of looking for work, Lil Ma took care of her. She sent letters weekly to the widow's daughter in Baltimore, describing Mrs. Morgan's worsening condition. Often there was no reply.

In the kitchen one November evening, over tea and ginger cookies, Lil Ma said, “I'm worried about her. She's fading. Someone in her family should be with her.” Mrs. Morgan was asleep in the next room. Lil Ma kept her voice low. “Her daughter said she was glad we were taking care of her. She said she would try to come at Christmas. She sent money in case we need a doctor.” Lil Ma was quiet for a long while. “Children should come when their parents are in need.”

The house was silent. The tea cooled.

Lil Ma said, “Cassie, do you know why your grandmother left?”

Cassie took a sip of too-hot tea and swallowed, too guilty to speak.

“Do you have any idea where she is?”

“Nome,” said Cassie, “I don't.”

Lil Ma put her hands around her teacup and said in a soft voice, “I can't even tell if she's alive anymore.”

*   *   *

Winston proposed to Cassie at Thanksgiving, and their engagement was announced in the colored paper, the
Remington Opportunity
. Lil Ma cut out the announcement, and instead of sticking it on the wall, like in Heron-Neck, she put it in a nice frame. Mrs. Morgan died right after Christmas. Lil Ma sent the obituary to Mrs. Morgan's daughter, who had never come down from Baltimore. Mrs. Morgan's daughter gladly sold them the house. Cassie used some of Miz Eula's money, telling Lil Ma she'd been saving up. Miz Eula would have approved, she thought.

In January, Judith's second postcard came to the Veranda. This time the writing was even and crisp; an educated hand. Even Judith's signature looked neater.

Dear Cassie,

I am doing well. I am waiting tables. I am singing in church every Sunday. Jesus is my savior.

God bless you.

Judith Forrest

The picture on the other side was of Radio City Music Hall. There was no return address.

“Judith Forrest is singing for the Lord,” said Lil Ma. “Maybe she's finally on the right track.”

“At least she has a job,” said Cassie. Iris and Bethesda had told her everything they knew about New York City. They had friends, uncles, and cousins of cousins who knew how terrible and dangerous big-city life was. Cassie did her best to sort the absurd from the likely, but the likely was pretty bad.

The picture of Radio City Music Hall was in color, decked out with Christmas lights arranged to resemble an immense tree and a line of huge candles. The candles were twice the size of the people standing below in the snow, waiting to get inside. The place would speak to Judith. Clearly anyone who sang in the Music Hall would end up on the Radio. She hoped they sang gospel in the Radio City.

One rainy Sunday when Winston had to work and Lil Ma was napping, Cassie wrote a letter to Judith. There was no address to send it to, but Cassie felt that if she ever found out where Judith was, a reply would have to be quick. Judith didn't seem to stay in one place for long.

Dear Judith,

I am still working at the Veranda Hotel. My mother is here, too. I am engaged to Winston Childs, who is a bellboy. We plan to get married in March and start a family.

I have gotten your postcards from New York City. Iris and Bethesda tell me how dangerous that place is, but I know you will make the best of what you find. I am listening to the radio as often as I can. I know I will hear you one day.

Miz Eula left you an envelope with some money in it. I haven't opened it so I don't know how much, but when you have an address, please let me know so I can send you your part of our legacy.

She stopped. The hopeful words felt empty. Judith always acted like she enjoyed living by her wits, but she would almost certainly end up at the mercy of strangers with less talent and better lies. Cassie had pictured Judith homeless, dirty, frightened—at best, unhappily waiting tables—but always moving forward. She had never imagined Judith defeated, and she had no advice to offer. She wrote,

If you ever get tired looking for fame and fortune, please come back to Remington. We will always have a place for you.

Your sister,

Cassie

On the first day of spring, Cassie and Winston got married in their own backyard. Friends from the hotel threw rice and peach petals. Their picture was in the
Opportunity
, and Lil Ma cut it out and framed it. Cassie became pregnant, and Lil Ma bought a dozen frames, anticipating baby pictures.

One of the upstairs rooms would be the nursery, but now it was full of odds and ends from the late Mrs. Morgan. Before she got too big to do anything practical, Cassie set herself the task of cleaning out the room and making it suitable for a baby. Between winter clothes, old shoes, and a trunk of the widow's things, she found Miz Eula's portfolio, which she had brought from the hotel and forgotten about. When Cassie opened it, nothing had changed. The onionskin layers, the swaddled glass daguerreotypes, the ancient newspapers, and the yellowed pages of poetry. Cassie had seen Miz Eula's obituary in the newspaper. It had been short, noting that she had been a guest at the Veranda for some time, but made no mention of her age. Cassie had meant to cut it out, but hadn't, and now, seeing the bits of the past that Miz Eula had insisted on keeping with her, an obituary seemed out of place, like an end to something that could never completely end.
What's important is the past
, Miz Eula had said. Cassie took the daguerreotypes carefully from their wrapping, brought them downstairs, and put them in the frames Lil Ma had brought home for the baby.