Little Sacrifices (8 page)

It felt good, more secure, to have friends, plural. We settled into an easy routine, meeting at lunchtime to share gossip and bologna sandwiches. Jim and Fie were two ends of the same rope. He never stopped talking where she was quiet. She was lighthearted where he was intensely purposeful. Their common ground was the fact that they were both good people and I appreciated that. But even though a few good friends might be worth more than lots of not–so–good ones, I still wanted the chance to make that decision based on first hand experience.

My parents eventually got tired of being asked to commute my sentence, so they did. Had I learned my lesson, they wanted to know? I had. Before disobeying them again I’d make sure I had an airtight plan to avoid getting caught.

Once I was free, Jim no longer had to risk his neck to visit. ‘Ma, we’re going upstairs. To study.’ I shouted above the birds at Ma’s stooped silhouette. Since Dora Lee staked her claim on the house, Ma had settled herself outdoors, taking up gardening with the enthusiasm of a recent convert. She glanced up from her flowers and waved. Had Jim been a regular boy, our disappearance would have evoked an impromptu speech. My parents were ever watchful for potential infringements upon my virtue. But Jim wasn’t a regular boy, not in that sense.

I raced up the stairs after him and wham! I fell knees first on the landing. I was more surprised than hurt but I bellowed anyway, rubbing my stinging joints. I should have remembered the awkward stair, having made its painfully sudden acquaintance on more than one occasion. Jim smirked down at me. Just how did he know to jump the step, I wanted to know?

He paused. ‘It’s a burglar stair. All these old houses are built with them.’

‘All of them?’

‘Yep.’

‘Well then, presumably the burglars have them in their houses, too, so they’d know to step high on the top stair.’

‘May, they don’t always build them on the top stair. That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?’

Yes, I suppose it would.

Because I didn’t tell him beforehand that studying was merely a ruse, I couldn’t blame him for staring at me when I flaunted my letter collection. I was disappointed nevertheless by his lack of enthusiasm.

‘I found them in the attic. In an old trunk.’ He blinked at me through the fingerprints on his lenses. ‘They’re old, really old. Like from thirty years ago. They’re love letters, Jim.’ Still he gave me no enthusiasm. ‘Aren’t you even interested?’

‘Why don’t you just leave dead people’s things alone? How would you like it if someone went through all your stuff when you were dead? Reading all your letters from Lottie? It’s disrespectful is what it is.’

That wasn’t the point. How he could fail to be captivated by such a find? ‘First of all, Jim, I wouldn’t care if someone went through my things because I’d be dead, wouldn’t I? And second, why are you being so funny about it? It’s just the old lady who lived here. She left it all when she died. She didn’t get rid of them beforehand so she obviously wasn’t too concerned about who’d see them after she was gone. Why should you care?’

‘It’s just not right, that’s all. You should let sleeping dogs lie.’ That was the last word he had to say on the subject. He settled back into his book. He was welcome to his homework. I was determined to enjoy my treasure.

Jim wouldn’t be drawn into the details of Mirabelle’s life. The only concession he’d make was to come with me to see her old house. The temptation to look at history was one he couldn’t resist. We stood for a long time on York Street gawking at the old place. Most of the windows were busted and there were patches on the roof. No one who loved the place had lived there in a long time. In Mirabelle’s day it must have been something to see. That night I tucked into her story with visions of her house to stoke my imagination.

Chapter 11

1917 Savannah

Mirabelle was head over heels in love, as anyone could see. She fretted over the miles separating Savannah and Atlanta and would have given her eye teeth for the chance to pull the two together like chairs on a sun porch. Henry was a good egg and came as often as convention allowed, but short of moving in next door, nothing satisfied Mirabelle’s appetite for him.

She was twenty–eight when she met the love of her life, barreling headlong towards spinster–hood if you asked her father, which she never did. Though she was certainly old enough to look after herself, her parents were raised under the strict tenets of the Victorian era. No good family would think to let their single daughter spend time alone with a man. Mirabelle knew it was all hooey. Even good girls found ways to sneak off with their beaus. She was no exception. But she and Henry spent most of their days together with Mister and Missus Reynolds, picnicking, riding in the countryside or pursuing other chaste endeavors, like meandering around Savannah’s final resting places. Nothing quashed lusty thoughts like ancestors.

They strolled among the gravestones in Colonial Cemetery one glorious summer afternoon. Sidewalks crisscrossed the grass and great oaks shaded the city’s dead. The cemetery was a little dilapidated except where conscientious families went to the trouble of weeding their relatives, but it was better maintained than the squares around it, so Mirabelle always enjoyed being there. In the distance, she spied her mother shaking out the picnic blanket.

‘Henry, look here. Do you know the story of Button Gwinnett?’

‘I don’t, but I know you’re going to tell me.’ He gave her a sly squeeze.

‘Yes, I am. This is his grave marker, and right over there lay his mortal enemy. Mister Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence incidentally. After the Revolution the two men had a duel and Gwinnett lost. Then, to add insult to injury, when his killer died his family buried him right there next door. Isn’t that poetic justice? I suppose it isn’t any different from spouses who can’t abide each other in life and then have to spend the forever after buried together. Though I certainly won’t have to worry about that. I’m going to spend this life, and the next, with the person I love.’ She paused. ‘What about you?’ She murmured, tipping her head to look at him, coquettishly she hoped, from under her hat.

‘Oh, I expect so. So long as she keeps her passion for me.’ He glanced to where her parents were spreading their lunch, then kissed her quick. ‘This sure is a pretty place, don’t you think? Our cemeteries aren’t as nice, that’s for certain.’

‘Henry?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Nothing. I guess Mama must have lunch almost ready by now. We’d best get back.’

Henry took Mirabelle’s hand. ‘Belle, just a minute.’

She stopped, her heart fluttering.

‘You look awfully pretty.’

She blushed. He was right of course, at least when it came to her ensemble. Those were heady days in the fashion world, despite wartime shortages. For the first time in history, ladies dared to show some leg, all the way up to their shins. Her dress was layered in filmy silk the color of whipped egg yolk, her arms daringly evident through transparent sleeves. She’d designed the frock herself. Her mother thought it too bold for her daughter, but Mirabelle didn’t give a hoot. Just wearing it put a bounce in her step. She made a show of inspecting the skirt’s fine silk until Henry started to look a little sorry he brought it up. 

‘Em, I have something for you.’ From his coat pocket he drew a little box. Not
the
little box, she noted, but she was excited just the same. ‘I thought, um, well, darnit Belle, I just wanted to give you something, as a token of my heartfelt affection.’ He blushed. ‘Aw, it’s not much.’

She picked up the delicate comb. Little bits of shell the shape of birds and flowers winked at her.

‘I thought you could wear it, in your hair, next month at the Simpsons’ party. You have such pretty hair. I saw it and thought it was perfect for you. Do you like it?’

She avoided his eyes so he wouldn’t see her tears. She was overwhelmed by the little gift. ‘Henry, I love it!’ And she did, as much as she did him. She held it, felt its warmth, and already missed him.

In between his visits she was hopelessly dreamy. She wandered through the squares, replaying every second of their time together and ticking away the hours before she could decently write to him again. She started a growing pile of unsent letters, censored by a just–in–time sense of decency, a decency that certainly didn’t extend to her writing. Her letters captured all of her feelings, some chaste, most otherwise. For his part Henry fell madly for Mirabelle, though no hints about lifelong aspirations peppered his missives as they did hers.

Mister Reynolds wasn’t blind to his daughter’s infatuation. After a few visits from the young man, the time came to have a chat with his daughter. He called her into the study after dinner one night and over several neat scotches told her of his plans to marry her off.

Mirabelle sensibly pointed out that Henry hadn’t asked her yet.

‘Well surely he hasn’t darkened our doorstep this often just to discuss the weather?’

There was no way she was going to tell her father the exciting things they did discuss together. He’d have fallen over dead to know he’d raised a woman of such prurient character. They talked about their lives, their ambitions and dreams, she said. It was technically if not completely true.

‘Well now, daughter, do his ambitions and dreams include a wife?’ Mister Reynolds suspected he recognized the sort of man that Henry was.

‘Not yet, Papa.’

Mister Reynolds dismissed his daughter and she retired to her room for a good cry, scribbling away in her journal. She loved Henry. That was that. She knew he’d eventually ask her to marry him. In the meantime she planned to do everything in her power to convince him to hurry up.

Chapter 12

I caught Ma crying into the clean clothes. She didn’t see me see her so I went back into the kitchen to mind my own business. I knew what the problem was. She was lonesome.

My parents were the kind of couple that people today mistakenly cite as evidence of the blind convention that bound married people so tightly together in the forties. But they spent all their time together out of love, not compulsion. Ma won Duncan’s heart during history class in nineteen thirty–one. The professor’s offhand remark awakened in Ma a discourse so passionate, so well reasoned that my father could do nothing but watch her with his mouth open. This woman, he told his bored but charitable friends, had ideas and ideals, something sorely lacking or at least unexpressed by the delicate flowers that had decorated his arm to date. In my mother, Duncan glimpsed his equal and he loved her for it. She had exactly the opposite effect on my grandparents. In her they saw the end of their dreams and worse, and never forgave her. So, like lightening cleaves a tree, marrying Ma cleanly separated Duncan from his family.

The fact was, they had to marry, since more than their intellects had excited their passions. Within the year they were expecting me. Neither believed so much in matrimony but being a good thirty years before the sexual revolution, Harvard insisted on a marriage certificate before we were allowed to nest in its student housing. So one afternoon in a registry office just off Harvard Square, they shrugged off their pasts like winter coats in warm weather, and looked forward to their future.

In Williamstown they had their long time friends, men and women who came in pairs to be shared out, one for Duncan and one for Ma. Mostly, though, they had each other. Now, my father was sculpting a new social life through Georgia’s college system, spilling his stories of camaraderie and conquest over the dinner table each night. As I listened to him I realized I was naïve to think Savannah didn’t have its own share of liberals lurking in the bushes. They were there, and they were drawn to Duncan. Sadly for Ma his new friends didn’t come with spouses, and alone she wasn’t enjoying the same social successes. Where he and I had a reservoir of potential friends to choose from, Ma’s universe began and ended with the streets that bordered our neighborhood. It was a small world to live in.

She did her best to work with what little material she had, starting with Jim’s Nan. She was nervous when Missus Rumer settled herself politely on our sofa. She had a way of twisting the little hairs at her temples when she was uncomfortable. I knew it well enough. Our last few years in Williamstown saw a lot of hair–twirling.

As she poured their tea, she said, ‘Well, Missus Rumer, thank you for coming by. I really just wanted to introduce myself and say how much I’m enjoying the neighborhood. Folks have been so nice.’

‘We are known for our hospitality, Missus Powell–’

‘Please, call me Sarah.’

‘Thank you, Sarah,’ she said, not returning the favor. ‘It’s nice to have young families moving in. And Yank– Northerners, well, we don’t get many of you all. Tell me my dear,’ she asked, smiling tightly. ‘Who are your people?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Your family.’

‘Oh. Uh, we come from Boston.’

‘Boston. There are some fine old families up there. But no, I don’t believe I’ve heard of the Powells. Are they a very old family?’

‘I don’t think so. Not very old anyway, but I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about them.’

‘I see. Well.’ Our guest’s lips pursed together like Ma’d filled her teacup with lemons. ‘My Jim seems to be getting along fine with your daughter.’

Ma chortled. ‘They’ve been joined at the hip since we arrived. I think they’re best friends in the making. They’ve become awfully close.’

‘Well, I trust not too close.’

‘Oh no, nothing like that. They’re just pals, I’m sure.’

‘Because it wouldn’t be appropriate.’

‘No, not to worry. They’re only friends.’

‘I have plans for Jim, you see. He’s going to be something some day.’

Ma was quiet. ‘In fact, Missus Rumer, May is going to be pretty great too. She already is.’

‘I didn’t mean–’

‘Of course not.’

‘It’s only that I’ve raised my Jim to understand that he needs to work hard, get the best grades, so he can go to college and study finance. My late husband was very successful you know, in banking. Jim’s going to follow in his footsteps. If it means he doesn’t have a lot of time for friends, well, I’m sure you understand.’