In Search of Satisfaction (41 page)

Yin found her rich man. After a proper time during which he learned about her property and how, as Arabella told him, Yin was a fine lady from an old fine family, he proposed. As instructed, Yin had shyly refused. But he was swept off his feet; he proposed again. Yin coyly accepted, much like her mother years ago. He was an older man, much older than she was.

Yin took her time. Aunt Ellen was still taking care of Joseph back in Yoville. Yin had to take her time. She wanted her son, but she wanted this rich man, too, and he would, surely, never accept a Negro son. “This color stuff has ever and always caused me problems!” she thought to herself. “Why can’t people just be people!?”

Yin married the man, Mr. Monigold, and stayed in the East. She came home as frequently as possible to see her son and Aunt Ellen. He never suffered for anything but a mother. She had another child by her new husband. It was a girl. A white girl-child. When Yin looked at the child, she would think, “Joseph’s sister. I will teach her love for all races. I will teach her what God has said, that we are brothers and sisters, all of us.”

Yin really thought she had stayed long enough in the marriage. She had given Mr. Monigold a child. He was not so concerned about having a new child, he had other older children by his former wife. He was not easy to get along with unless she was in bed doing some of the perversions he so enjoyed and demanded more and more the longer they were married. One day Yin said “enough!” to Arabella. Arabella said, “Well, get a good attorney if you wish to continue being a lady. Divorces are taboo!”

“To hell with being a lady! I want money enough to pay me for all I have gone through with this, this … man! I want to be with someone I love!”

“I have no doubt you will have all the money you will need. I don’t know about love.” Arabella’s satisfaction was in being a respected lady, with money of course. She was not sure she wanted love again. Love, before Carl, has cost her a great deal. But Yin’s satisfaction was in having money, a family and being loved. Her dissatisfaction drove her on.

That night when Monigold reached for her, Yin insisted on un-perverted lovemaking with her surprised husband or no lovemaking at all. The next day, she found the lawyer Arabella had recommended and filed for divorce. She had compromising pictures of her husband she had found among his private things. “There is no date on a picture so they can’t prove it was before our marriage. It’ll work! Rich sure ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

Then … she returned to Yoville, taking her daughter Kay with her.

n
ow, all these things were going on and on. Hosanna had given out her cards during the time when many people had returned to Yoville for the season. Sally had helped her. Hosanna stayed busy catering and very busy washing and ironing fine lingerie. She hired Lovey and Little Wisdom when they were not in school. Sometimes, Lettie. A few years passed.

Lettie had married Boyd and had two children, Ruth and Boyda. Hosanna loaned Lettie, not Boyd, the money to purchase a small, inexpensive house. The family moved into it so Hosanna could do her business in peace. She had to continually check to make sure Lettie sent the children to school. She loved to see her two little nieces, the older one pulling the smaller one, as they walked down the road on their way to school in their little, cotton dresses.

Lettie and Boyd argued most of the time now. Boyd did not like to work. Could not keep a job, no matter how many jobs Hosanna found for him. Boyd did not like Hosanna. “She try to be too damn independant! She need a man to whip her ass!” He sometimes whipped Lettie’s. Lettie was thin, unhappy and evil most of the time. Her satisfaction
was love, and she didn’t have a man who loved her. She sometimes envied Hosanna, but refused to work much for her.

m
en came to court Hosanna. She was very attractive. Some of them thought she must have some money because she worked all the time. A few really cared for her for herself. One in particular, Homer. Homer always tried to help Hosanna in some little way. A better fireplace for her soaking tubs. A better platform for all her tools. He would make things at his house where he lived with his mother and bring them to her completed. Always afraid she might not accept them. He would bring her a bunch of wild flowers, even a box of candy sometimes. He helped Hosanna in her garden sometimes, so they could talk.

Luke was living with Richlene now, they had been married the Indian way. All his garden time was at his new home now, though he did help Hosanna when he was on that side of the river or she sent for him for something special. He was proud of Hosanna. He liked Homer and was glad Homer was around to help his sisters.

Homer kept Hosanna’s kindling pile full, putting wood there even while she slept at night. She would just wake, go out, and there it was. Hosanna liked Homer, respected him. “He ain’t always over there at Choker’s juke joint, lappin up that liquor and the ladies hanging round there!” she would say. But she did not love him. In fact, he bored her. She thought his mind was too country, too slow. She treated him nice, joked and teased with him, because when he came around where she was working, he could make her laugh and she wouldn’t be so tired anymore. But she never let him touch her or get too close. Lovey watched them, longingly.

Lovey had heard that Lincoln had gone to fight in the war and had lost a leg. He still worked with Phillip, made a great deal of money, invested it. But when he came to Yoville to visit his father, he always stole into town and left the same way, quietly. He did not want anyone to see him with his one leg. Lovey always “just missed Lincoln,” old Mr. Creed would say when he passed on his way to visit Aunt Ellen. Older now, grown more beautiful, body filled out and luscious, Lovey had no boyfriend, no man. Lovey still loved Lincoln.

• • •

l
ovey and Hosanna were alone in the little house now. Luke gone cross the river, Lettie in her own house. They had more space and they had fixed it up very nicely. Each would lay in her bed in their own rooms after a full day, thinking. Lovey of love and Hosanna of whether anyone would ever come along in Yoville who would be right for her.

Hosanna would toss and think, “I don’t want none, none of these no account men around here. They are too satisfied with makin do. I want some nice things. Yin is a woman and she has some nice things. Sally is a single woman, she has some nice things. Course they have plenty money now. I’m not going to have that much, don’t need that much, but I want SOME! Ain’t gonna be poor no more. Poor killed my daddy and my mother. I’m gonna have children some day, Lord willin, and I don’t want nothing to happen to them like it happened to us!” Hosanna had begun to pray more lately. She would say her prayers, have a long talk with God and slip into sleep before she was through.

Lovey would lay in her bed, thinking and praying at the same time. “I’m just layin here lookin at the rest of my life. Nobody ain’t ever gonna really love me. All this schoolin ain’t gonna do me nothin. I ain’t never goin to go nowhere away from Yoville and workin this little job for Hosanna. I’m savin money, but what am I going to buy?” She gave God a mean look at the ceiling. “Shoes?! WHO? Who gonna hire me anywhere else? I don’t even care about that either! Who gonna LOVE me?” Lovey’s pretty, little young body was awakening to its own music and life. Well fed now and exercised, it was a healthy body. Though its legs were lame, everything else worked really well!

d
on’t misunderstand, Hosanna loved her life now. Getting up in the mornings, fresh beautiful mornings, rain or shine. All the trees, their own trees and those off in the distance, green and tall and beautiful. Filled with birds of all colors, flying off and flying back to their nests with the sky, clear of clouds, still beautiful beyond everything. The sun coming up casting that golden glow over everything. The very color of
the morning, even without the sun, was a mellow, blue-gray fresh feeling of beauty. And their garden, green, gold and dewy, growing and healthy.

Little by little Hosanna was improving the house. It stood small, bright and proud. Yes, it was a good feeling to get up and begin a new day, every day. But … it was lonely sometimes. She turned to the Bible more, reading it alone or with Lovey.

l
uke had Richlene and the work he was doing and he had Little Wisdom who loved him. Luke’s satisfaction was love, peace and no worry. Richlene’s satisfaction was family, love and peace. They were happy. When Richlene’s hair started graying, she wanted to dye it, but Luke stopped her. “If it yours, I like it just like it is.” Sometimes he would look off into space and say, “Richlene, you got all that money! It’s a plenty poor people you could help. We got to think of somethin to do to help make other people as happy as we are.”

Richlene was, after all, Carlene’s daughter. “Aren’t … these Indians … happy? I did … that already.”

Luke would smile at her. “You broke?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s think of somethin else we can do.”

“Well … let’s do … something … for us.”

“We don’t need nothin else, Richlene.”

Then Richlene would speak of something else to distract his mind.

Little Wisdom had begun allowing other men to court her after Luke and Richlene’s marriage. She saw and respected the love in Richlene and Luke’s eyes. She really thought Richlene was too old, “At least ten years older than Luke!” but she knew from experience, “What does the heart care about time?” Little Wisdom’s satisfaction was love, respect and family. It was there, just around the corner, if she could just get Luke out of her eyes.

Sally had Russell whom she might marry. Her mind went back and forth. And she had Ann. And it was possible another grandchild, William, would be coming. Another “problem” Reginald had said, but he really did not want his sister’s child, Ann, to inherit all of Sally’s wealth, so he chose the child of his own he did not like, William. By now Sally knew what Reginald and Lenore called “problems,” and she was more
than ready to welcome her grandson. Sally’s satisfaction was peace, giving and love. She was happy.

Yin had had her rich husband, now divorced. She had her two children and Aunt Ellen, and all seemed to get along well. The baby girl was still quite young, and Monigold was trying to take her away from Yin. He knew Yin left for long weeks, leaving the children with Aunt Ellen. No one knew just where Yin went, except perhaps Arabella. Yin was an excellent mother when she was home. Her satisfaction was love, money and family. She seemed to have it all.

Old Mr. Creed had been lonely, too. But there was a worn path from his house to Yin’s to visit Aunt Ellen where he had dinner quite often and stayed to putter around for many hours. They were almost like a family. Creed’s satisfaction was an independant son, a little loving and doing what he felt like doing, which wasn’t much more than fishing sometimes.

o
ld Mrs. Befoe had an almost empty house. Minna had moved in after Richlene and Sally had gone. She still threatened, under her breath, to leave, but so far she had stayed. The spider still lived, going back and forth outside as it needed. Mrs. Befoe had seen it once and it had frightened her greatly, but she could never find it again. She asked Minna to look for it. “I don’t want to see no black widow spider!” The spider still watched Carlene through curled legs.

Sally never came to see her, but sometimes left fresh vegetables that grew profusely in the garden that she, Russell, Ann and now William tended. She left them on the back steps of the huge, almost empty house.

Lettie was usually silent when she came to visit Hosanna and Lovey. She seldom smiled. She would sit holding her smallest baby, listening to Hosanna tell a helper, “No, don’t rub that, just squeeze, see? Squeeze. These are delicate things!” Hosanna would ask Lettie how she was doing, Lettie would usually answer, “Just holdin a baby, holdin a baby! All my life just a holdin a baby, mine or my mama’s! Cookin and washin clothes! From Luke to Lovey to my own! Never nothin in my life! Just holdin a baby, holdin a baby! No! I ain’t gonna help you wash no clothes! Ain’t never nothin in my life but work!”

• • •

s
o the days went. So the years went. Two or three more.

One day Lovey raised her head up over the washtub from squeezing some lingerie, looked at Hosanna and asked, “This all we ever goin to do all our life? You ain’t married and I ain’t never goin to be married!” Lovey broke into crying and ran on her knees into the house, not even using the ramp. Pap, the dog, quite old now, followed Lovey into the house.

Hosanna stood there a minute, arms covered with soap suds, staring after Lovey. Then she sighed and turned her face to the horizon. “Everybody wants somebody. I still got Homer. None of the women I send him off to can get him to marry them. I’m kinda half satisfied because I don’t want no problems. But … I am twenty-four years old now. I must be the oldest virgin in the world, God.

“And God, Lovey, Lovey is a virgin, too. I’m sure of it. God, you have given us all these tools on our bodies to work with. Why can’t you send somebody to use these tools? With love, I mean. Lovey is a young lady. A young woman now. God, who is she going to have? She got to have somebody. A life! Legs or not!” Hosanna dried her hands and went in to find Lovey crying, sprawled across her bed with the lovely chenille bedspread on it and all the little love pillows strewn across the head. Pap lay on the floor beside the bed, looking up at Hosanna as if he were imploring her to please help Lovey.

Hosanna looked at the stack of magazines on the table next to the bed. Love stories, romance, all the same kind. Hosanna pointed at the magazines and looked up to God meaningfully. “Help,” she thought to herself. She patted Pap’s head as she sat on the side of the bed.

She put her hand gently on Lovey’s shoulder and asked, “Want to go out and buy a new dress? Let’s go get Homer to take us to Mythville and get us some new clothes. We deserve it! I’ll pay. You keep your money.

Lovey’s voice was muffled in the spread, “I don’t have no money noway.”