An Elderberry Fall (24 page)

“You know it has been a good day. I am so happy Adam and Mr. Scott could join us.”

Mr. Hall got up and went over to her. “Merry Christmas, Darling!” he said. “I think this is the best holiday we've had in years. Carrie, Robert and Simon are like the family we always wanted.”

“What about me?” Nadine said, “Me and my children need a family too.”

“We are all family,” Mrs. Hall commented, and Nadine's eyes lit up. Robert and the girls were on the floor playing. Each of the girls had a doll baby and Robert had a little wooden train. The children were as happy as we were. When we finally decided it was time to go home, the Halls asked us to let Robert stay the night with them.

“Children make the holiday worth it all,” Mr. Hall said.

“So I guess it is time for me to leave too,” Nadine said, standing up in front of Simon as if she was waiting for him to ask her to move.

“It is time for us all to call it a night,” Simon replied, scooting around Nadine.

She peered at me. “I wonder if that Adam Murphy is alone tonight.”

I bit my lip.

“I think he's got a thing for you, Carrie,” Nadine remarked.

“No, not at all.”

Nadine turned toward Simon. “You better watch them two.”

“Nadine, please stop it! You need to go on home. The Bee's Knees is doing the talking,” said Simon.

“I'm not drunk. I feel good. Come on, children; let's go home.” She hugged the Halls. Then she said to Simon, “I would kiss you, but your wife is looking.” She turned and threw a kiss. I wasn't sure if it was for me, however, I was certain it was for Simon.

We followed her out of the door. We went up the stairs to our apartment. The moon was high and the snow was beginning to fall.

R
ichmond, Virginia, was a beautiful place, especially during the holidays. The bells on the horses and buggies rang out with each trot of the horse. The choir from the neighborhood church caroled throughout the community. Colored folk appeared to be happy in spite of that across the railroad tracks, the white people were looking down their noses at them, expecting them to serve their meals and clean the homes. I was glad we had our own neighborhood. It was like a private planet for us coloreds. We had our own schools, stores and merchants. I could find everything I needed in my own community. The winter vacation from school had been a good break. Simon had been home for more than a month. This was unusual. I had to get up to feed the baby, cook the breakfast and see about the two people I loved the most.

Now I was back in Petersburg. The start of the semester left me feeling guilty for leaving Robert and his daddy at home. Women were supposed to be housewives. “A woman should be home taking care of the family,” Momma told me in a letter she had written me.
Why were people so old-fashioned? It was the 1920s after all.
Most of the women I knew put the needs of their men before their own needs. I was raised to do the same, but for some reason, I couldn't do it.

My roommates and I had become good friends. One of them in
particular was a lot like me. She was a country girl and she was making her own way. Ethel Coates was from Petersburg, but her family lived on the outskirts of town on a small farm. And, like me, Ethel experienced the guilt of leaving home. Her parents wanted her to stay home and watch her siblings while they worked, and she rebelled and enrolled in school. They did not support it. As with many uneducated families, home was more important than education. We had just learned about George Washington Carver who believed that good farming and agriculture began with education.

We had been back in school two weeks before Adam Murphy took the train down for a visit. He surprised me the same evening an old man who worked at the rooming house decided to make a pass at me. Ethel had warned me about him, “You know that old man is mighty mischievous. He is always watching me.”

“He's never looked at me at all, and I am glad.”

“I would never want to be alone with him,” she said, shaking her head in disgust.

The man, Mr. Pete, we called him, was there only a couple of days a week. Usually he kept the grass low and fixed things up around the house. He shoveled coal into the furnace and made sure the winter garden of cabbage, kale, turnips and collards was weeded. He was a quiet man, short and partially bald. He reminded me of my grandpa.

But one day, after dinner was over and I was washing the dishes, which was how I paid my boarding, he tried to touch me on the bottom. All of a sudden, I was back in the place I had been with Mr. Camm. First fear and then anger came over me, especially when he pushed me in the corner. I had made a mental vow to never let anyone take advantage of me again. So, I yelled to the top of my lungs. Ethel came running down the stairs. When she got to the
kitchen, I had a knife on Mr. Pete. “Please don't kill him, Carrie,” Ethel pleaded.

“I didn't mean it,” Mr. Pete stuttered.

I didn't move. I was determined that what had happened with Mr. Camm would never happen to me again. I felt the sweat sliding down my face, my chest heaving and my breath panting. I was angry and scared all at once. I didn't know I had the knife at Mr. Pete's neck. I had lost it.

When I backed off of Mr. Pete, he started to cry. “I wasn't gonna hurt you.”

“You are a liar,” I heard myself say.

“Get out of here, Mr. Pete!” Ethel yelled, and pushed him from behind. It was at that moment I felt liberated. I had more power than I thought. After awhile, the tears rolled down my face. I asked myself,
Why didn't you stop Mr. Camm?
The only answer I could think of was that now I didn't have anything to lose. What my momma or the church members thought no longer mattered.

Adam's visit was timely. Together Ethel and I told our story to the landlady, and she didn't hesitate to tell Mr. Pete to find another job.

The same night I told Adam about Robert and how Simon had been the love of my life.

“So, does that change things between us?” he asked me in the library, and waited patiently for me to give him an answer.

I shrugged my shoulders, struggled with my words, found myself questioning my relationship with Adam. I enjoyed Adam in my life. He was a friend. And it was not a good thing for married women to be seen with single men, but I didn't want him to leave. “I wanted you to know the real me.”

He kissed me on the cheek. “I know you are good, Carrie. You are beautiful to me.”

What he said made me nervous. Perhaps I was leading him on or had I replaced Simon with Adam? I wasn't sure.

“I think it is time for me to go back to the house.”

Adam put on his coat. Then he helped me with my wrap and scarf. We left the small library filled with shelves of books by mainly white people and a few by coloreds Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. As we vacated the room filled with books, I pondered over the thought that if books could talk, what would they say?

When we got back to the house, Adam didn't want to go. “It is still early,” he said after pulling out his pocket watch, reading it, and putting it back in his front pocket.

“It is nearly eight o'clock. We have a ten o'clock curfew on the weekends.”

“Can I come in?” he asked with a begging face.

“I guess you can for a little while,” I said, opening the door.

In the sitting area were two couples, one of them holding hands so tightly, it seemed as if they could not let go, and the other in chairs facing each other and staring. Neither of them seemed to notice us when we entered the room. We sat at the table in the corner of the room. It was a large room. We used it for about everything. It was the parlor, our study area and where we received guests. It was a Victorian-style room, with colonial furniture and a fireplace that was lit and shooting out kindling sparks. It was warm, and when I saw the other couples, I wondered about Simon, who had a car and could easily come visit me, but hadn't.

We decided to play a popular game, one I'd learned from my primary teacher. We took out a sheet of writing paper, and made double crosses on it. It was something we did to kill time. So Adam chose an “O” and I used the “X.” He said, “ ‘O' is for you. A complete circle, because you complete me.”

“Well, I guess the ‘X' symbolizes us doing wrong.”

He frowned. “No, ‘X' symbolizes the truth.”

We played Tic-tac-toe until our eyes were heavy. All the time, I noticed Adam gazing at me differently, like he knew me and could tell things about me. His past seemed flawless and pure, but there was something he wanted to say.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked him.

“All this time I've been thinking about you, hoping one day you would leave Simon and then I could make my move. Now you tell me the entire story and now I don't want to wait. Simon is a good man, but you are a better woman. He doesn't understand you like I do.”

I sort of felt uncomfortable. “What do you mean, Adam? Simon knows me. We are from the same place. Everybody at home knows us.”

“That's not what I'm talking about,” he whispered.

Nobody was listening. The other couples in the room were occupied with each other. One of the couples was kissing passionately on the lips, and the other squeezing hands. Both of them so hypnotized in each other's presence, they didn't notice or care about our conversation.

Adam cleared his throat. “Listen, we both want the same thing. We both enjoy dreaming. We see education as a way out. Your husband finds his freedom in taking chances, like playing baseball or hustling at the club. You and me,” he pointed, “we are the same.”

I thought about what he said, yet it was not convincing to me. I liked Adam, and enjoyed the attention he gave me, yet I wasn't sure he was mature enough to take on the enormous responsibility which came with loving a girl like me. Simon had from the beginning. Besides, I was a married woman.

I noticed the vulnerability in his eyes from across the table. He
was peering at me with a certain intensity that was hard to explain, his eyes serious, and his hand across the table gripping mine like he didn't want to let go. We were having a special moment, and neither of us could envision where it would lead.

Strange thoughts came into my mind. “Can we stop talking about these things? It is wrong, Adam.”

He squeezed my hand tighter. “Can you please stop worrying about what is right, for Christ's sake, and think about what is good?”

I stood up. “I don't know what is good.”

“You know, and so do I.”

I handed him his hat and scarf from the coat hanger. “It is getting late; my curfew is almost over.”

“Come on, Carrie, we can do it,” he said, as we walked to the door, his face glowing with anxiety as if I were going to give in at that moment.

“You've got to leave; my time is almost up.”

With the front door wide open, he pulled me in and kissed me fervently. I closed my eyes, embarrassed by my reaction. I held him tight, knowing it was all wrong. Afterward, I watched him walk toward the colored section of town and then out of sight into the trees. I wanted to run after him and pull him back into my arms. I longed for Adam for days after he left.

B
ecause Simon was in town, I didn't travel home as frequently. And it puzzled me why Simon hadn't bothered to make the thirty-minute drive to Petersburg to visit me. I hadn't seen him in three weeks. So on Thursday, right after my history class ended, I packed and went straight to the train depot.

I had an eerie feeling when I arrived at the depot. A chill rushed over me as often happened when I sensed trouble. Nadine's man, Jessie, watched me with an eagle's eye like always. This time, he had more nerve—like he had to make something happen when he approached me, grinning. “You are going home early this week, huh?”

“I've been in school for three weeks now; my little boy is probably walking all over the place,” I said and sat down in the last seat in the colored section.