Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (15 page)

“No, you listen here! He’s watched me while I’ve had everything and he’s had nothing!”

“Nothing! That’s a goddamn lie
, Paul, that boy’s always had—”

“
Nothing!
Not in comparison with
me
! Now
you
call
that
a goddamn lie!”

Everett stared at hi
s son in defeat. Paul was right.
He turned on his heel and walked out of the office. He never again raised a protest nor
allowed
Sadie to.

Th
roughout the next four years, the
private school continued. During the days, Joshua trailed Paul as he moved around town
, learning medicine by watching his brother practice it.
Joshua didn’t expect his adult life to be comparable to a white man’s
. No
r did he expect
to ever again
be
truly part of
the black man’s world.
He belonged
fully in
neither.
That was al
l
right, though, he was making his own world. But sometimes, oh, sometimes as he trailed after his brother, as he bent over his books
in the evening
, he heard the high-pitched lazy voices of his childhood friends
. He followed their conversations and
felt
isolation.

“Hey! You, Silas! You see
dat new maid over to de
Crosby’s house?”

“Yeah, I seen her. ‘An seein’ her be all you go
an
do, boy, no
high-toned colored like dat goan
be walkin’ out with no coal-black nigger like you!”

He wasn’t one of them anymore. Most times that was al
l
right.
Most times
.

Chapter
Sixteen

Paul and Chloe were a golden couple, not just in looks.
Their marriage was the envy of the town.
There was only one fly in Chloe’s ointment. She wanted a child.
Not because she
felt incomplete or unfulfilled or as thou
gh she were only half a woman. B
ecause it would be Paul’s baby, part of him mixed with part of her
. T
heir private monument of partial immortality.
Her disappointment grew with every month’s evidence that no baby
was coming.

“If you didn’t worry about it so damn much, we might have better luck.”

“But Paul! I want a baby!”

“Darlin’, I am doin
’
absolutely the best I can. I have to sleep sometimes.”

Finally, a
few months past their fourth wedding anniversary,
two months in a row had Chloe holding her breath.
The third month, she started breathing again, knowing her child was
finally
on the way.
Pa
ul settled
back stared at her every chance he got.
Chloe always glowed, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful than her
carrying this
child.

Doc Everett tried to be more professional.

“Are you go
in’ to
deliver that baby yourself, son?”

“Of course I am. Why? Oh, I know. You don’t trust me to deliver your grandchild. Is that it?” Paul grinned. His father’s professional detachment didn’t fool him one bit.

“Did you measure her pelvis? She’s so small.”

“Of course I did. What sort of fool you take me for? She’s just fine, Papa, won’t have a bit of trouble.”

“But narrow women—”

“You know as well as I do outward appearances have nothing to do with interior pelvic span. She’s fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure. But I want you to call me when labor starts. If you do run into tr
ouble—doctors
got no business tending their own when trouble starts unless they’ve got no choice about it. Too involved.”

“And you’re not? But al
l
right, al
l
right. I’ll send for you.”

When
labor began in the small hours of the morning of February 3, Paul saw no reason to call his father from his warm bed merely to pass time while things progressed. Sadie’d remained at the Orange Street house for the last several weeks as the time approached and that was all the help
he’d possibly require
in the early stages of labor.
Sadie’d seen a lot of things happen in childbirth, though.
She made sure early in the morning Joshua had Cyclone saddled and ready. Just in case.

I
n the end,
when the
sudden surge of blood burst from Chloe’s body
, it made no difference who was in attendance
.

“Oh, my God
!
Sadie!” Sadie was already out the door calling for Joshua
.

“Quick, son!
Get to
Doc
, tell him
de afterbirth’s probably separated, move quick as he can!”

She slapped Cyclone’s rump as Joshua settled into the waiting saddle
. Boy and stallion
flew down Orange and onto College Street in the gray February dawn and rushed around to the
kitchen
.

Everett was
drinking coffee in the kitchen and feeling lonely
while his cook sliced ham and cracked eggs into the well-seasoned cast-iron skillet.
A man’s children came first and he’d been the first to insist Sadie stay over with Paul and Chloe the last few weeks.
But it’d been a sacrifice,
that was
no lie.
He didn’t sleep well without Sadie. And he missed Sadie’
s eggs, too. Louise
’s just weren’t the same.

“Josh! Son! Is it Chloe?”

“Sadie says the afterbirth’s probably separated, come quick as you can!” Unconsciously, Joshua’s voice mimicked the underlying panic of Sadie’s voice.

Everett’s face
turned
ashen
.
He stood up
, moving so rapidly
his chair overturned.

“Time’s real short, then.
Let me take
your horse, son. Grab one from the stable and follow me down. And dear God, please tell me you
ain’t ridin’
Cyclone.”

“Sorry,” Joshua threw at his departing back. “I
’m ridin’
Cyclone.”

He caught up with Doc in time to hear Everett’s mumble a simultaneous curse and
supplication. “Well, I couldn’t get there any quicker, I don’t guess. Long as the good Lord keeps the damn horse from killing me ‘fore I do.”

* * *

Sadie handled the chloroform cone
as Paul
steeled himself for the first incision
. No time to wait on Everett. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to his father, why hadn’t he sent for him when the first pains hit? H
e lifted the tiny infant, blue-gray, from Chloe’s womb as Everett walked in. A boy.

“Son?”

Paul
didn’t
answer. Everett looked down at Chloe’s still form
.
T
he grayness of death settl
ed
over the beautiful face
as he watched
. The face that had always glowed with life. Well.
He could do nothing for Chloe. He could do nothing for his grandson. He
took Paul’s arm.

“C
’
mon, son. Let Sadie take you downstairs. I’ll finish up here.”

Paul shook off his father’s hand, touching Chloe’s cheek.
His low m
oan, animalistic in
intensity,
vibrated in the air.
Sadie had
w
rapped the
baby’s
tiny body in
a
soft waiting blanket and placed him
in the crook of his mother’s arm.
Paul stroked the soft skin
of
his son’s face
.

Then he turned on his heel and left the room. His footsteps, slow, steady, measured, measured his progress down the stairs and out into the first floor hall. Joshua, racing in through the front door, saw his brother’s back, caught the close of his office door and then the turn of the key.

Everett clos
ed
the emergency caesarean incisions with as much care as he would have used on a living patient.
Each stitch reminded him h
e’d never take
this
grandson fishing
. He’d
never see Chloe gracing the end of the dining room table again. Lord, Lord, death was a natural part of life and nobody knew it better than Everett Devlin
. But
its
bitterness
still tore savagely at
his heart.

Joshua raced up the stairs and stopped abruptly at the open bedroom door.

“Paul’s done locked himself in his office! Chloe
’s not—the baby’
s no
t—”

Everett s
ighed.
“Just leave Paul alone, Josh. For right now, we’ll just leave him alone.”

And so the household did. All that day, all that night, and part of the next day. Everett finally knocked on the door.

“Son?”

“Go away.”

“Son, you can’t stay here forever, there’s things has to be handled, decided.”

“You do it.”

Everett turned away and did so. He returned several hours later.

“Paul?”

“I said go away.”

“Paul, we have to bury her, son.”

“I told you to do it.”

“It’s set for tomorrow. You’re not goin’ to let her go to her grave without you, are you?” Everett cringed silently at the harshness of his words but didn’t know how else to break through Paul’s withdrawal.

“What time?”

“
Eleven
o’clock.”

“I’ll be ready. Now leave me alone.”

At
ten o’clock
the next morning, Paul emerged from his office. He went silently up the steps, to another room, and readied himself for his wife’s funeral.
He’d
never remember a word of the service
. But he’d always
remember the sound of the dirt as it hit the coffin.

“As
hes to ashes and dust to dust…”

He returned to his house, ignoring all hands, all hug
s, all words offered in comfort. He
locked himself in his office again, where he remained for the next three days.

Everett and Sadie
debated endlessly.

“How long you gone let him do
dis
, Everett?”

“Oh, God, Sadie, he’s hurting so bad. I just don’t have the heart to keep pounding on the door.”

“Go
an starve his
self sick and drive
his
self crazy. Everett, enough’s enough. You do
an
do something, I will. An’ do
an
you look at me like dat. He’s my boy, too. I raised him just like I did Joshua.”

Everett sighed. “Tomorrow, Sadie. Let’s give him till sometime tomorrow.”

“
And if he do
an
come out, what then?”

“Then I guess I’ll
take the
damn door down.”

Sadie subsided
.
Joshua
, who’d overheard from the hall,
planned his stealth mission.
He wasn’t about to let
his brother get
hauled out of his office like a
naughty
child.

That night, Joshua took up sentry duty outside the door. Paul shouted and roared. Joshua threatened. And finally, P
aul
opened the door
.
Joshua led him upstairs.

“Won’t go back in that room.”

“Don’t have to.
We got plenty of others.”

Chapter
Seventeen

Paul slept deeply that night,
emotionally
and phys
ically
exhaust
ed. Joshua
sat
by his bed and guarded his slumbers. The next morning, Joshua brought him piping hot coffee and new
ly
baked biscuits slathered with butter and Paul began the long and painful process of living without Chloe.