One More River (29 page)

Mama, it’s alright. We’ll take care of you. You don’t need Eudora Jean anymore. You’ve got a good new daughter who understands what you’ve been through. Don’t you, honey?

Laura Anne quickly assented. You’ll never be alone again, she said, kissing Beadie’s cheek.

Beadie drank in her son’s affection as a desert flower does rain. The few days she’d spent in despair over the flight of Eudora Jean with Sara Kate had terrified her. Mickey Moe now came with an encumbrance named Laura Anne. She realized she’d have to like it or lump it if she wanted to live out her days with her blood taking care of her. The alternative, living alone for all the world to think no one she’d borne and raised cared two figs what happened to her, inspired her to accept Laura Anne’s kiss and decide there was something admirable in her. She’d brought Mickey Moe back, hadn’t she? And she looked ready to face the clamorous music her adventurous nature had struck up with her own folk. Another girl these days might have set up house with her lover in Jackson and avoided the families the rest of her life, wallowed in scandal, and dragged Beadie’s son down in the dirt with her. But not this one. How could she be the mad slattern she’d first assumed and bring Mickey Moe back home? Maybe she’d been wrong. The conclusion that Laura Anne wanted very much to win her affection hit her next. Well, she thought, if she’s eager to have my approval, then I might retrain her some. Why I could mold her more to my own design. The idea that here was another chance at having some kind of a daughter live with her until she died was the most encouraging thought yet. She even smiled.

Mickey Moe complained to Laura Anne one night soon after. Look at all we went through, he said, and still I don’t know everything about my daddy. There’s some very important leftover information to be had. I haven’t a clue how to get at it.

Maybe you don’t need to know everything, honey.

Huh?

You know enough. Let it go. We have a life of our own to live.

Mickey Moe went back to work directly after his first night home. By 8:00 a.m., he was out and about on his sales route, catching up with his roll of ’croppers and gentlemen farmers. He left the women alone together and was much relieved when he returned at the end of the day that no blood had been drawn. The women cooked a meal together. Laura Anne insisted on serving. You’ve had a long few days, she told Beadie. You need your rest.

The next day, Mickey Moe told them he needed to go on an overnight trip to continue collecting premiums from all over. Collections had lapsed to near ruin for policyholders since he’d gone off on his quest. When he drove up to the house thirty-six hours later, he found his women sitting on the porch rocking, relaxing together. Laura Anne served another meal and at Mickey Moe’s quiet suggestion, poured Mama wine in such amounts that she slept early and soundly enough for the lovers to enjoy some time together uninterrupted and unobserved.

They drew the window shades in the living room and curled up together on the couch. Just before their fond embrace and sweet kisses got more serious, Mickey Moe pulled away.

I have something important to tell you, he said. But first, let me ask you this. Don’t you think you need to get in touch with your people? They must be worried sick about you.

Laura Anne winced. You know what? I did call them. From the road when we were in Memphis and you were out, you know, retrieving Daddy’s gun.

He sat up. What happened? What’d they say?

She looked away from him, embarrassed. She shifted her weight around as if she was trying to get away. Mama just cried and cried. I tried to soothe her, but Daddy grabbed the phone. He had a few choice words for me and hung up. I had a good cry myself after that. Then you got back to the room and said we were leavin’ fast, so I put it out of my mind. Your mama asked me about them this mornin’. It preys upon her that I’m here without their knowledge. I confided in her how sore it all made my heart. She thinks they’ll forgive us if we go to them hat in hand and humble. I’m not so sure.

Mickey pulled a folded-up paper from his back pocket. And what if we go to them hat in hand and humble with this?

She sat up and unfolded the thing carefully as though it was an artifact of some kind that might crumble to dust. Then her brow wrinkled. That other Bernard Levy’s birth certificate, I assume? I mean, the address is in the city at a hospital and your daddy was born outside town, poor as a church mouse, probably at home.

Oh, my love is so clever, thought Mickey Moe with pride, can’t put a thing past her.

Yes, yes, it is! he said. I got it yesterday from the town hall in Memphis. Can you believe our luck? It survived the flood! Look here’s what we’ll do. We’ll present this to your parents and say that my daddy was who he said he was after all. We’ll tell them that everything mysterious about my daddy had been a colossal misunderstanding. His Memphian people were estranged from him over his choice of a bride out of their sect, just as everyone believed before the war. Then after his death, they were pitiless, unrelenting, and refused to accept Beadie Sassaport Levy out of spite. It was not the quality of his blood that was questionable only that his blood had been cruel.

She took his face in her hands to study him. There was a matter of seminal importance to discuss about the foundation of her love for him.

But darlin’, it’ll be a story we’re tellin’, that’s all. You told me the day we met that truth was important to you, that you needed to atone for your daddy’s lies. What happened to all that? I fell in love with you because you were an honest man.

Sweetheart. You’re the one who shut the door on your daddy’s love with your deceptions. Can you really be asking me this?

She blushed. He continued.

Now that I know about my daddy’s life, it’s affected my judgment. Look at the lies he had to tell to find love and then protect it. Was he wrong? Should he have confessed to the authorities and left that gold to gather dust in Ghost Tree’s attic? Should he have turned in Bald Horace for murder? Should he have announced to the world of Sassaports that their prize daughter was not his first, abiding love? Besides there aren’t any Memphian Levys left to argue another side. It’s a good plan, and it’s foolproof.

She grimaced and shrugged, unsure. He kissed her again in a way that blotted out care. Alright, she thought. I’ve made my bed here. This is a good, brave man I have in my arms. We sealed our fates early on in that old sedan of his by the river. I love him whether he’s completely honest or only mostly.

When they got ready to depart for Greenville to confront her parents the following morning, she went shaky. She embraced Beadie farewell and clung to her in a way that both pleased and confounded the other. What’s the matter, child? Beadie whispered into the girl’s ear.

Oh Mama, she said, addressing her as she’d been requested to do, I’m afraid a little of what’s going to be.

If she’d had the courage, she might have confessed that she was more frightened on that day at that moment than she’d been the whole time she was up in Memphis and Littlefield with Mickey Moe facing the threat of arrest or death together. It was one thing to love her man from the security of her bedroom at her parent’s house and dream of liberation, another to experience crisis at his side in parts unknown, wild and violent, and yet a third to embark on a life of day-to-day living with perhaps—if her parents continued to reject her choice—only this woman she clung to for stability outside her man’s arms.

Beadie understood all this without requiring an explanation. Everyone’s scared at first, she said. Don’t worry. It’ll pass.

It was a Sunday. Laura Anne and Mickey Moe drove past Needleman’s Furniture to make sure her daddy wasn’t there, doing accounts. Satisfied both her parents would likely be home, they went directly to the house on Elton Street, parked, and gathered courage to walk up to the front door. You know, honey, she said, I always thought of this as a big house, but it looks so small to me now. Is that a good sign?

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Yes, darlin’, I think it is.

Rose and Lot Needleman caught wind of their arrival before they reached the house. The front door opened when they were halfway to it. Laura Anne kept her eyes down while Mickey Moe, holding her hand as they advanced, gave the pair a bright, bold as brass smile. Rose shrunk behind her husband as if requiring a shield against all that light. Lot, dark and immobile, glared.

So, he said through the screen door. You’ve come back.

The sight of her mother cringing behind her father jolted Laura Anne. The pose distressed her immensely, broke her heart with guilt and another emotion hard to name. Maybe it was a new fear that beset her, fear that she’d turn into her mother one day, unable to help herself, cringing behind a man. It was a breathtaking thought. One that renewed her courage. She dropped Mickey Moe’s hand just as he was about to speak up and spoke for herself.

Yes, Daddy, I have, she said. Mama, please don’t be afraid. We’re not here to argue with you, we’re here to reconcile.

Reconcile? Lot snorted. Reconcile? Next you’ll be expectin’ a fatted calf.

Oh com’on, Daddy. Just let us in. The neighbors have had enough speculation to chew on, don’t you think? Want to give them more?

Rose Needleman sprang into action. She pulled backward on Lot’s belt. She’s right, she said. Let them in, Lot. Please.

The four of them settled down in the front parlor. The young people sat side by side on the settee, the elders in two winged armchairs opposite. There was a heavy wood coffee table in between. Amid a silence as thick as gumbo mud, Mickey Moe reached inside his jacket’s breast pocket and pulled out a bundle wrapped in a white linen handkerchief. He laid it on the table. It made a little clunk, louder than it needed to be in all that quiet. With the delicacy of a man defusing a bomb, he undraped the object within, corner-by-white-linen-corner, exposing at last in all its majesty Lot Needleman’s handgun. There was a deeper silence, and Lot said, Where’d you get that.

Laura Anne’s daddy was confused. Turned out, he never even missed his pistol. Hadn’t had call for the thing. So Laura Anne started to laugh. Here they were so concerned about his reaction, and there really wasn’t much of one, was there? Then she told them everything about their time in the backwoods. About Mickey Moe’s quest to find Aurora Mae and about J. Henry and Walter Cohen and poor Jeffrey Harris and poor Jeffrey Harris’s severed foot. She told them about losing the gun and Mickey Moe gambling his life to find it again, the shots that were fired, and the interview with Aurora Mae. Well, she only told part of that last. Whatever parts fit with the next revelation they had to spill.

Rose Needleman listened with a hand on her heart and her eyes wide, so enthralled by her daughter’s courage her twitch ceased for the time being. Lot Needleman’s eyes welled up with tears, his hands clenched and unclenched with frustration as he imagined his baby girl in mortal peril. Somewhere in there, gratitude to the man who’d protected her headstrong self from harm was born.

When it came time for the final disclosure, Mickey Moe reached again into this breast pocket and pulled out Bernard the handsome’s birth certificate. He laid it out on the surface of the coffee table, smoothing out its wrinkles with two hands before giving it to his future in-laws to view. And that’s all there is to tell, he said, after they’d absorbed the paper’s contents and his story of the Memphian Levys’ hardness of heart. Accept that I love your daughter and she loves me, and we’re getting married with your approval or without it. But we dearly hope and pray that with both explanation and evidence, you will see your way to remove your objections to my bloodlines and accept us.

Rose Needleman, who’d had just about enough of suffering, looked over her shoulder twice in rapid succession. It was out of habit, for her nerves were now calmed for the first time since that Sunday supper when they’d insulted Mickey Moe on purpose. Then she opened up her arms and said, Oh my sweet girl! How I’ve missed you!

That nearly shocked the pants off Lot Needleman or so it seemed as he grabbed onto his belt at the sound of her words and hitched his pants up twice, roughly, as if about to undertake heavy lifting. Rose! he said. Rose! He wasn’t sure they should let the young people get away with their rebellious and wounding deeds so easily.

It was too late. The women were in each other’s arms, weeping the kind of happy feminine tears women reserve for such full moments.

Lot fumbled and hmm’d and looked to the only other man in the room for a witness to such unseemly behavior, shaking his head and hands as if to say, You see that? You see that?

And the only other man in the room smiled back at him with great delight, his shoulders shrugged, his palms uplifted in that age-old posture of his people that said, Yes I do, but so what? Really, so what?

Six months later, they married under a chuppah in the Needlemans’ backyard.

They lived with Beadie at the old house at the beginning of their marriage, but after Aunt Lucille passed on, Mickey Moe took over her farm, and they lived there with Beadie in her own suite of rooms off the second drawing room. They raised some livestock, enough to keep them in eggs and milk, and Mickey Moe bought a horse to drive a Sunday cart purchased from a farmer on his insurance route. They hoed a few rows of vegetables and a couple of acres of cotton. They let out the rest of the property to sharecroppers. They were generous to their tenants and didn’t overcharge. Once they convinced Mama Jo Baylin it was a good idea, they moved her and Bald Horace to a spare house among the ’croppers and bought them a couple of goats to cheer Bald Horace up. It was a fine life, a happy life. Then all of a sudden, Mickey Moe was drafted due to the chicanery of the Guilford draft board, under pressure in that time to draft more white men rather than so many blacks. They started with the whites they knew couldn’t complain. They started with the Jews. Which meant that Mickey Moe was off to Vietnam.

Laura Anne would never forget the day they said good-bye before he went overseas. She tried as hard as she could to be brave, but nightmares tormented her. Perhaps because she was pregnant, she went weak and told Mickey Moe about the dreams.