The Sweetest Thing (24 page)

As soon as I heard her heading downstairs, I went to her bedroom and took the photo albums from her closet. I was looking for something I had seen before, something that all of the sudden seemed important. Lying on my bed, my bags only half packed, I leafed through the second album, the one I had perused months ago, turning page after page without my father in the photos. His wild years, Aunt Josie had called them. But as I turned the final pages in the second album, I stopped short at one photo. The Chandler house was decorated with candles in every window. The whole family was out in the front yard along with dozens of guests. My grandparents were in the middle, Aunt Josie was with Uncle Robert, and Father was there, too, with a young woman. Her head was turned, almost as if she didn't want to be photographed, so I could only see her profile partially. But as I peered carefully at the photo, I recognized her, and my heart skipped a beat.

Irene Brown. Jackie's mother.

Suddenly, I knew. It all made sense—our charity to Jackie, her mother coming and going, leaving the child, my mother caring, and Father adoring her.

Jackie Brown was my half sister.

I closed my eyes, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the album in my lap. . . .

We were at the beach. Jackie, Frances, and I were building a sand castle. Baby Coobie kept crawling over and messing it up. At length, Frances picked up her sandy sister and began tickling her as she waded out into the ocean. Jackie and I repaired the castle, giggling and whispering as we worked. I grabbed her hand and said, “You're just like a sister to me, Jackie. Better than any sister.”

She looked at me in a funny way and started to say something. But just then Frances had come running back over to us with Coobie.

Now I knew what Jackie had wanted to tell me that day—
I
am
your sister, Mary Dobbs. I am.

CHAPTER

21

Dobbs

The next morning Hosea took me to the train station, parked the Pierce Arrow, and retrieved my bags. Then he motioned to the back seat. “You got some mail that came for you yesterday. I guess ya didn't see it.” I picked up a letter and a small box wrapped in beautiful paper and put them in my handbag. We made our way to the train, and Hosea got me settled in the right car.

“You have a good Christmas, Miz Mary Dobbs.”

“Thank you, Hosea. I'm sorry Anna won't be with you.”

“We'll be all right.”

I rested my head against the window and watched the steam billow up as the train left the station. My mind felt as foggy as the air outside, clouded with images of both wonderful and horrible scenes of the past months in Atlanta.

I had hardly slept at all the night before. Faces kept parading through my thoughts—Becca's, with her revelation about my father's past, Parthenia's little black face seized with true fear, and Perri's, with her see-through green eyes narrowing. “
Leave me alone! I'm tired of hearing the truth.”

Oh, so am I!
I thought to myself. Truth might just destroy all of us. How ironic when Father always said the truth would set us free.

I carried my newest hurt inside without a way to find solace. Jackie was my sister. I had loved her like one, had accepted her. But Jackie remained the crack in my spiritual armor. Now I wondered if her death was Father's punishment for his past sins.

Did God punish that way? I suddenly did not know.

I only knew that I felt flattened out and wiped clean, like the photos. I was heading home with a broken heart. My best friend distrusted me, I alone held strong evidence about thefts, and now I felt betrayed by my parents.

Hank.
Thank goodness for Hank.

And yet, even that was fuzzy. I fingered my short hair and wondered what he would say. I thought of the dances with Andrew Morrison and the way he looked at me. I only pretended not to see how much he cared.

I wanted to have both lives, and suddenly it seemed as if I had neither.

From down inside I felt it surging up, threatening to surface, that vile poison of doubt. I tried to calm the voices that whispered fearful things in my head.
Your God didn't provide. He let Jackie die. He let your sister die.

I fought to erase those thoughts and remembered the beautifully wrapped present in my handbag. I took it out, carefully removed the bright paper, and found a small box with an envelope on top.
Mary Dobbs
was written on the envelope in handwriting I didn't recognize. Intrigued, I opened the flap and retrieved a single piece of stationery.

Merry Christmas, dear Mary Dobbs,

I hope you have a fine time with your family. I want you to know I have enjoyed our dates this fall. I thought this would look lovely with your new hairstyle.

Yours affectionately,

Andrew

I lifted the lid of the box. Sitting on folds of tissue paper was a beautiful red-and-violet porcelain clip for my hair. The newest rage in Atlanta fashion.

I felt my face burning as I held the clip in my hands. The red matched perfectly with the day dress I had chosen for my trip home. I reached up, brushed it through my hair, and clipped it in place. I was smiling. Then quickly I removed it. What if Hank asked me where I had gotten such a thing?

I reached in my handbag for the letter, immediately recognized Frances's handwriting on the envelope, opened it, and began to read.

. . . I miss Atlanta! We're all excited about having you with us for Christmas in just a few more days.

Coobie is always up to her mischief. Last week she got called to the principal's office for slugging a boy on the playground. She told the principal that she wasn't one bit sad because the boy deserved it. He was calling her names.

Right now she is acting a little calmer because she's been under the weather. It's the bronchitis, as always, and now Coobie has a deep cough, and Mother is making her take some wretched cough syrup. I hope I don't catch it. . . .

I set the letter beside me and felt the faith in me dying.

It's amazing how five ordinary words can change you, strike fear in your heart, remind you of the darkest days of your life, and fill you with dread.

Frances wrote,
“Coobie has a deep cough.”

If she'd written
a cough
without the adjective
deep
added in, I might have passed over it without another thought. But Jackie had struggled for years with weak lungs and bronchitis, and the last time, the bronchitis progressed quickly into a deep cough that eventually killed her. Mother had said it was due to a congenital defect. It ran in families, the doctor had told us. My new bit of information, that Jackie was my sister, sent chills down my spine.

Did Coobie have the same congenital defect?

I could picture it perfectly: Coobie and Frances and Jackie and me playing on the beach of Lake Michigan and the sun streaming down on us, hundreds of people mingling in the unusually warm weather of May. Jackie had on her bathing suit. Mother disapproved of it, saying that even with eighty-five-degree weather, May was not the month to put on bathing breeches. The lake water was so cold it made us scream, goose bumps breaking out on our arms as we dipped our toes in the water.

Then we were headed home from the beach, laughing, and Mother and Father were all filled up with love and plans for the summer revivals. And that's when we heard it again. The deep cough.

Nothing to worry about. She'd had it before, and the doctors had gotten rid of it. But four months later my precious friend, my Jackie, was dead.

Somewhere in the middle of Frances's paragraph about Coobie's illness, somewhere in between her pretty slanted cursive, those perfectly spaced words
Coobie has a deep cough
and
I hope I don't catch it
, I stopped believing.

I felt the fury pulsing in my temples, and I rushed out of the train compartment and wobbled down the narrow hallway. I opened the doors between the cars and stood out on the platform in the freezing air, balancing on the moving grated steps. I almost wished I could plunge myself off the train into nothingness. Instead, I gripped the railing until my knuckles turned white, and I yelled over the racket of the squealing wheels, “I hate you, God! It's a sham! It's not true! You aren't good.”

“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away . . .”

“You may
not
take her away!” I screamed, watching the countryside fly past in a blur of speed and tears. “I won't allow it! You may not kill us again. Haven't we suffered enough for you? Haven't we?”

In my mind, I heard Perri, my lost friend, yelling at me.
“Why do you have to keep making up stories . . . ? I don't have time to wait on your God to somehow miraculously provide for me and my family. . . .”

On and on the voices taunted me, and I held myself there, daring God to save me if I let go. I closed my eyes and pictured myself tumbling under the wheels. I loosened my hold on the rails, imagining it again.

“Ma'am!” A rough hand grabbed me around the waist, pulling me away from the railing and steps, pulling me back into the safety of the compartment. The controller, his face red, scolded me. “You could get yourself killed like that, young lady!”

I felt dizzy and nauseated, and my face was chapped from where I had cried and the whipping wind had dried the tears. My hands, too, looked split and chapped. I barely mumbled, “I'm sorry. I needed some fresh air.”

He led me back to my compartment, and I fell into my seat. Several other passengers stared at me warily.

I closed my eyes, and my whole body began to shake, yet I felt completely numb. I drifted off to sleep with only one thought in my mind.
Life is a bottomless pit of sorrow, and I don't know why almighty God made it this way.

———

In Chicago, I found myself playing a role I had never practiced in my eighteen years—a pretender. I pretended to be happy to be home. I hugged my parents and Coobie and Frances, and on the ride home from the train station I told them stories of the Alms Houses and the sorority Bible study. But something had died inside of me.

In a fog, I joined my family in our little apartment, which looked pitiful and dingy to me. Coobie proudly announced that Hank had cut down an evergreen tree in the forest and set it up for them in the den. It was leaning to the right, adorned with paper snowflakes and a string of popcorn and berries. Several presents, wrapped in the funny pages, were under the tree.

I unpacked the beautifully wrapped gifts from Aunt Josie, and they seemed incongruous with the apartment and the little tree and the cheaply wrapped presents.

Coobie gave a yelp of delight and gathered the packages in her arms. “I knew Aunt Josie would get us presents! I knew it!”

I glanced at Father. His smile never wavered. He gave his belly laugh and grabbed Coobie and said, “Goodness gracious, what in the world do we have here?”

Both Coobie and Frances were down on their knees, scrambling with their fingers to open the tags on each box. “There are three here for me!” Coobie announced triumphantly.

“Same for me,” Frances said, and gave Coobie a slight shove.

Mother wrapped her arms around Father. The warmth in the apartment was palpable, and yet I felt cold, chilled to the bone.

Hank came by later in the evening and grabbed me in a big hug, swinging me around in his arms. “Boy, have I missed you!” he said, and Mother and Father and my sisters watched us with affectionate approval. I closed my eyes, and for one brief moment I was swinging around with Andrew Morrison at the SAE house, laughing in a carefree way. I thought of his Christmas gift and blushed, and I was thankful Hank did not notice.

He was dressed in those dirty, worn-out overalls, and his hands were rough and his knuckles scabbed over. I ran my hands over them.

“I picked up a job unloading heavy boxes on some big trucks—kinda menial work, but I'm mighty thankful to have had it. It wasn't much, but it was good for three days of pay.”

“You've torn up your hands,” I said.

“Oh, Dobbs, it's nothing worse than at the steel mill. Hands heal.” He gave me his lopsided grin, but I turned my head so that he wouldn't see the way my heart plummeted with the knowledge that he hadn't found another steady job.

Ever since the World's Fair closed in November, Hank had spent his mornings waiting in long lines with hundreds of other men for jobs that rarely materialized. He still worked at the church in the afternoons and evenings for no pay. I imagined us always struggling, just as Mother and Father had, and that ugly feeling of doubt crept through me into every corner of my being: doubt of my faith, of my parents, of Hank.

I could not bear for Hank to see my turmoil, so I pressed my face into his chest and let him hold me there until I could quiet my heart. Quiet the voices.

Eventually, my parents shooed my sisters back to our bedroom to get dressed for the Christmas Eve service. Mother busied herself in the kitchen and Father went back to their bedroom where he had his desk so that Hank and I were alone in the den.

“I'm heading up to Ma's house tonight after the service,” Hank said. “I'll spend Christmas Day with her and my sibs. I'll be back the day after that, but I wanted you to have your gift tonight.” His face got beet red when he took a small rectangular box out of his pocket and placed it in my hands. “I want you to wear it and know how much I care. It's not valuable—took more time than money—but I put all my heart into it. Merry Christmas.” He kissed me softly on my cheek.

I took off the top of the box, and inside was a finely braided necklace of different metals—nickel and copper and bronze. The metals caught the lamplight and gleamed brightly. “Hank, it's lovely!” I said, but it was a calculated statement, not my usual enthusiasm, and I was thinking of Andrew's beautiful and expensive hair clip.

“I made it from the scraps at the steel yard. My superintendent let me take some when I was laid off. I hope you'll wear it and know how much I think of you, even if I'm just a hillbilly city boy.” He gave me a squeeze and then fastened it around my neck. I swallowed hard as his fingers brushed my skin. “Your hair looks real swell like that, Dobbs.”

My heart was hammering so hard I thought I was going to burst into tears. Part of me wanted him to take me in his arms and part of me wanted to run as fast as I could back to Atlanta.

“Thank you,” I managed. I recovered enough to get my gift for him from beneath the tree. He opened it and his face wore a perplexed expression. With Aunt Josie's prodding, I had chosen an expensive Waterman pen-and-pencil set that I had paid for with some of the money I'd made helping Perri with photography. I blushed, realizing how very inappropriate it probably seemed to him. “I thought you'd enjoy using them when you wrote your letters to me,” I said feebly.

“I'll use them, Dobbs. I promise.” He peered at me in the way that usually made my heart skip a beat, but all I felt was confused. “I think we need to take a walk,” he announced, and the awkward strain was broken.

Once outside, he said, “What on earth is the matter, sweet Dobbs?”

I shook my head. “I can't even begin to tell you, Hank. It's so complicated and horrible. I feel like I'm completely losing my mind. It would take hours to explain it all, and we don't have time. You've still got to get ready for the service.”

He took both of my hands and said, “Whatever it is, it can wait two days. We'll have time after Christmas. It'll be okay, Dobbs. You know that, don't you?”

I could not even meet his eyes to nod yes. He took me in his arms and held me there—strong, gentle Hank. I rested my head on his shoulders, but on the inside I felt weighed down by that one heavy word: doubt.