Читать книгу Through a Glass, Darkly - Charlotte Miller - Страница 9

“Imagine him bringin’ her here.”

“Two more mouths t’ feed, ’stead ’a just one.”

“An’ look at her, with her bobbed-off hair an’ her skirt right up t’ her knees—ain’t nothin’ but trash, I tell you.”

Elise Sanders fled into the small bedroom that opened off the kitchen in the little sharecropped house, but the voices of the two old women followed her into the room, as she knew they had intended.

“Trash, I tell you—an’ for us t’ be throwed out ’a our room for them two, t’ give ’em ‘privacy,’ I bet she’s done with child, married only a few days or not; she’s just th’ type—”

Elise’s face burned with embarrassment as she leaned her cheek against the cool wood of the door. She did not know how she would ever face the two old women again, even though she knew she would have to, for they were Janson’s aunts, her new husband’s aunts, and they lived here in the same house where she was now forced to live. It made it only worse that they were right—she was with child, a child Janson did not yet know that she carried. She could only imagine the smug looks the two old women would wear when her condition became obvious.

She made herself turn away from the door, her eyes moving around this room she and Janson had been given here in his grandparents’ house, finding herself suddenly filled with a sense of homesickness she had not expected, but that had stayed with her from the moment she had left her home in Endicott County, Georgia. She moved further into the room, looking first at the hand-pieced quilts drawn up over the narrow bed, then at the whitewashed walls and the sagging cane-bottomed straight chairs, and at the washstand topped by its chipped pitcher and basin. This room was nothing like the one she had known through the sixteen years of her life, that room with its papered walls and the drapes and counterpane that had been a gift from her mother on her last birthday, its lovely mahogany furniture, its colors of pink and rose and white. She knew she would never see that room again, just as she would never see her family, or the home that had sheltered Whitleys for generations, even long before the war with the North that had ended six decades before. She had given up that room, just as she had given up her home and so much else in her life, so that she could be with Janson—he was all that she needed, she kept telling herself.

She hugged her arms for warmth as she moved about the room, the fire burning in the fireplace set into the far wall doing little to alleviate the chill in the air. There seemed to be dark shadows everywhere she looked, cast by the light of the fireplace and the single kerosene lamp sitting on the table beside the bed, moving against the far wall near the chifforobe, and even reflecting in the fading mirror over the dresser. She felt for a moment as if she had gone back in time as she stared around this room, back to a time and a place before electricity and running water, for the little sharecropped house had neither, to a time of superstitions and old-fashioned folk ways, a time and a lifestyle made worse by the knowledge that Janson’s family was Holiness and did not believe even in jewelry or makeup. She felt as if her very presence here in this house was offensive to these people, for her hair was bobbed short in the style most girls were wearing now in the 1920s; her dress, though the most conservative she owned, low-waisted and coming well to her knees, was far shorter than those worn by any of Janson’s female relatives she had met today. She even felt that more than one of those relatives had stared at her simple wedding ring—none of these people seemed to belong here in the last months of 1927, for they all seemed part of that other time, and, worse still, Janson seemed a part of it as well. He fit in here, as he never had during the months he had worked as a farmhand for her father.

She made herself move toward the bed to take up the white cotton nightgown she had left there earlier when she unpacked their things and put them away in the chifforobe, not wanting to change for bed, even though she knew Janson would be in shortly. Changing from her traveling clothes seemed too easy an acceptance of this new life.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror over the dresser and she stopped for a moment to stare at herself, somehow surprised to see that she looked no different, though she was a married woman now and a mother-to-be. She was not Elise Whitley anymore—she was Elise Sanders now. She lifted her hand and stared at her wedding ring, then forced herself to turn away and begin to change for bed.

She quickly removed her dress and slipped into the nightgown, rushing more than she needed to, but she could not stop herself. She felt exposed, vulnerable here in this house that belonged to someone else, fearing that someone might take the notion to check on her before she was fully dressed. She lifted the quilts and got into bed, then moved to the far side, pulling the covers up over her breasts and hugging them tightly to herself as she stared at the dark shadows moving over the whitewashed ceiling. She felt so very alone and homesick, even as she told herself that she now had what she had wanted most in the world. She was Janson’s wife; no one could hurt him anymore or try to keep them apart. She was Janson’s wife—but she wanted her mother now. She wanted to be home, in a place that would be familiar to her. She wanted to feel safe—but she should feel safe, she kept telling herself. Janson would take care of her.

The door opened and he entered the room, then turned to close the door quietly behind himself. He was still dressed in the dungarees and work shirt he had been wearing when they had arrived in Eason County earlier in the day, but the clothes were wrinkled now even worse than from the long train ride, the dungarees and shirt both stained heavily in places from the work he had been doing with his grandfather. His green eyes came to rest on her where she lay under the quilts on the bed, and he smiled—but she could not bring herself to do anything more than stare at him, watching as the shadows played over his features, across the high cheekbones and the complexion darker than her own, the features that showed so clearly the mixed blood of his heritage. He began to talk as he undressed for bed, his words moving over her, but she could not listen to him. She could only stare as he removed his shirt and dungarees, and then hurriedly stripped off his long-johns in the chill room as he prepared to get into bed with her.

He lifted the quilts as Elise stared at him, and she burst into tears, turning her face from him toward the whitewashed wall.

Elise awoke slowly the next morning, her head hurting from having cried herself to sleep. She sat up on the straw tick of the bed, bunching the quilts in her hands as she stared around the room. She was alone, alone in the room, and alone with her thoughts.

She was embarrassed, feeling guilty over the bout of crying the night before. Janson had left their bed unsatisfied this morning as he never had in the times they had been able to be together in the months before their marriage. She could not understand her reasons for crying so when he had only wanted to do what they had done so many times before. He had been so kind even as she cried, holding her, seeming to understand as she cried herself to sleep on his shoulder—he must think he’s married a child, she told herself, drawing her knees up to her chest to rest her crossed arms on top of them. She felt as if she’d driven him out of bed this morning, even for all his kindness the night before. He had a right to expect more than that from his wife, and he could probably not look at her now in the light of day without remembering the whimpering child who had spent the night crying her eyes out on his shoulder.

She lay back on the straw tick and looked around the room, realizing that it did not seem so frightening now, with the sunlight streaming in the window near the foot of the bed. The room was neat and clean except for their discarded clothes that were now folded over the back of one of the straight chairs. The whitewashed walls, fire burning in the fireplace across the room, and the colorful patchwork quilts beneath which she lay, now brightened the room up in the light of day.

She wished Janson had awakened her before he had left to do whatever work his grandfather might have for him this morning. She needed to apologize for her behavior the night before. She was not about to allow a moment’s self-pity to ruin what she had worked so hard to have. Her father’s words when he had ordered them from his land rose all too easily to haunt her—he had told her she would grow to hate Janson for her decision to marry him, and that Janson would grow to hate her as well. They had both risked so much, even Janson’s very life, just to be together. She was dead to her family now, for she had chosen to marry Janson even though her father had forbidden it. William Whitley and Elise’s oldest brother, Bill, had both been willing to kill Janson to keep them apart. They would have found murder preferable to seeing Elise marry a man who was part Cherokee, a man who was only half white, no matter how much she might love him.

Now she had what she had wanted, what they had risked so much for, what they had given up so much to have, and she had cried herself to sleep, pitying herself for having gotten the very thing she had wanted so badly. She felt herself a fool this morning, a silly, empty-headed fool who would see devils in friendly faces and cry at dreams she thought were nightmares.

She got up quickly, washed her face and bathed with water from the basin sitting on the washstand near the foot of the bed, brushed her hair, and dressed in a low-waisted frock that she hoped Janson’s grandmother would not find too offensive. She wanted the old woman to like her, or at least to tolerate her; she already knew there was little hope that either Janson’s Aunt Belle or Aunt Maggie would ever feel more for her than an absolute dislike. To have Janson’s grandmother feel the same would be more than she could bear.

She sat down before the dresser and did her makeup and hair almost without thought, then she stopped for a moment and stared at her reflection in the fading mirror, smoothing a spit-curl of hair down against her cheek and thinking that she looked younger than she should. The memory of having cried herself to sleep the night before was all too fresh, and the knowledge of what Janson must think of her this morning spurred her to movement. She would have to find him, apologize, and show him that she was not a child. She had only gotten what she had wanted—she was not about to lose it now over a silly bout of homesickness.

The kitchen was warm and filled with the smell of baking bread when Elise entered it a moment later. Deborah Sanders looked up from the bread dough she had been kneading and asked how she had slept.

“Fine,” Elise answered, then asked, “Where’s Janson? He was gone when I woke up.”

“Folks’re usually up an’ workin’ around here about sunrise.” She glanced up from her work again, leaving Elise feeling properly chastised for having slept so late. “Th’ men had work t’ do out back ’a th’ barn. I ’spect Janson’s out there with th’ rest of ’em—now, you set down an’ eat you some breakfast; we’re gonna have t’ put some meat on them bones ’a yours.” She wiped her floury hands on the apron tied around her waist, then brushed a strand of gray hair away from her forehead with one hand and toward the heavy bun at the back of her neck. She put her hands on her hips and leveled a look at Elise, making Elise feel as if there was nothing the woman saw within her in that moment that she liked in the least.

Elise looked toward the pots boiling on the back of the woodstove, then away quickly. She was feeling queasy this morning, and the thought of food was almost more than she could bear. “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll just go find Janson. I wanted to—”

“Now, we’ll have none of that,” the old woman said, taking her by the arm and ushering her to one of the benches beside the kitchen table, making her sit down, then going to take a plate down from the warming oven over the stove, a plate piled high with biscuits, sausage, eggs, and grits. She set it down before Elise. “Now, you eat,” she said. “Cain’t go skippin’ breakfast. It ain’t good for a body t’ start th’ day without somethin’ in their stomach.” She turned back to her bread dough, glancing back up at Elise one last time.

Elise looked at the mountain of food before her, her stomach churning. She obediently picked up the fork the old woman had placed beside her plate and tried to do what she could with it. “You said Janson’s working out behind the barn?”

“Yeah, but you don’t want t’ be goin’ out there. Th’ men’re workin’, my Tom, Wayne, an’ Janson—”

“I won’t bother them. I just wanted to talk to him for a second.”

“Not out there. You leave him alone until he comes in for dinner, an’ you can talk t’ him then.”

Elise looked up at her, thinking that the woman might make her eat, but she could not stop her from going to see her own husband.

“Olive an’ her husban’, Cyrus, an’ their Daniel and ’Nita’ll be here for dinner t’ meet you,” Janson’s grandmother said, and Elise had an awful, sinking feeling at the idea of meeting any more relatives. She had had her fill of them already, but it could not be avoided. They all came along with marrying Janson, even though Elise could not quite make herself happy about any she had met thus far. Within an hour of their having arrived the evening before, she had already been introduced not only to Janson’s grandparents, his cousin, Sissy, who lived with them and who was only a few years younger than Elise, but also the two old biddies who had gone out of their way to make her feel unwelcome, and Janson’s Uncle Wayne, his wife, Rachel, and their brood of sons. Now it would be the snooty Aunt Olive that Janson had told her about, and her family. She could only imagine who might show up next, her mind going over all the people Janson had told her about.

She was making some headway on the breakfast that had been set before her. She had only picked at her supper the night before, and the morning sickness was easing off. At least the woman made good biscuits, Elise told herself, even if she did think she could tell everyone what to do.

“Janson’s done got you with child, ain’t he?” Deborah Sanders asked and Elise choked, her fork stopping midway between the plate and her mouth. She looked up at the woman, feeling her face grow hot with the blushes that answered the question as well as any words ever could. Elise looked away, certain at any moment that this woman—this extremely religious woman—would damn her to hell in a sermon within a few moments. Her face, down to her neckline, felt hot, her hands clammy, as she set her fork down, preparing herself for what she knew was to come.

After a moment she felt a gentle hand come to rest on her own, a kind, understanding pat, and she looked up into Deborah Sanders’s eyes. “Don’t be afraid, child. What’s done is done, an’ cain’t nobody change what is. I’m your gran’ma too, now—you’re with child, ain’t you?”

Elise nodded, feeling the blushes still cover her face, and she cleared her throat. “Yes, but—but, how—”

“Child, there’s many a baby in this county that I midwifed int’ this world, an’ I had enough ’a my own as well. I can pretty much tell when a woman’s with child.”

Elise nodded and looked away again. It did not help her embarrassment that this woman seemed so understanding. She was proud that she carried Janson’s child, but she could not help but be embarrassed that this woman—Janson’s grandmother of all people—knew that she had been pregnant when Janson had married her.

She heard a soft chuckle from the older woman, and she looked up, surprised to find Deborah Sanders smiling at her, even more surprised when the woman reached to pat her cheek before lowering her large frame to sit on the bench beside Elise. “My boy’s gonna be a father,” the old woman smiled and shook her head almost incredulously. “It don’t seem like Janson ought t’ be old enough, but I know he is. I must be gettin’ old; seems like it was only yesterday that Nell told me that she was in th’ family way. Her an’ Henry’d wanted a baby for s’ long that it was just like a miracle that they was finally ’spectin’. I’d been prayin’ for them for s’ long, an’ then I prayed even harder that it would be a boy, for Henry’s sake. Janson was all there was in th’ world t’ them two, ’cause he was th’ onliest one they had; an’ oh, but how they loved each other—can it be three years now that Henry’s been gone?” the old woman said, almost to herself, her tone becoming quieter. “An’ more’n two years since Nell—”

Elise moved to put her hand on top of the older woman’s, and Deborah Sanders’s eyes came back to rest on her, a smile returning to her face. “Listen t’ me, talkin’ about th’ past; I am gettin’ old. Well, I guess I got a right t’ be old, don’t I, child, since I’m about t’ become a great-gran’ma again in a few months time—” Elise found herself smiling as well at the genuine pleasure on the woman’s face—maybe living here would not be so bad after all. Maybe—

“I bet my boy’s wantin’ a son, ain’t he?” Deborah said, moving to push herself up from where she had been sitting on the bench beside Elise, her eyes moving toward the wooden dough bowl on the table, and the bread dough waiting inside.

“He doesn’t know yet. I haven’t told—”

“Haven’t told!” the woman’s words interrupted her, her steps halting where she was as she turned back to look at Elise. “Why, you’d better be tellin’ him! Child, you should’a done told him. That’s somethin’ a man’s got a right t’ know right off.”

“I know, it’s just—”

“There ain’t no excuses t’ be had about it; you best be tellin’ him. My boy’s gonna know, an’ he’s gonna know t’day—you hear me?” The woman leveled a look at her that allowed no argument.

“Yes, ma’am—” Dear God, she could not let him find out from his grandmother. Elise would have to find him and tell him first.

“I mean it—you best be tellin’ him t’day,” Deborah Sanders said as she returned to kneading her bread dough. “Now, you finish that food; you’re way too skinny t’ be havin’ babies every year or two. We’ll have t’ get some meat on your bones.” She looked back up at Elise again, giving her a stern look when she did not immediately pick up her fork and obey her words. “You heard me, eat—”

Elise tried to choke down a mouthful of food, any appetite that she may have had now completely ruined. She wanted to tell this woman that Janson was a man now and her husband, and no longer Deborah’s “boy” as she kept referring to him. She wanted to tell her that she did not need fattening up, and whether she had babies every year or two was her own business, and Janson’s, and none of the old woman’s concern. She wanted to tell her that she did not want to eat, even as she tried to force herself to choke down another mouthful of food. She wanted to leave this hot room with all its cooking smells and go and find Janson, to tell him that she was carrying his child before this woman could—she would not let the old woman rob her of that, of being the one to tell him, of being the one to see the look on his face, a look she hoped would be of happiness. She wanted to do anything but sit here obediently and choke down food she did not want—but she stayed and ate, unable to make herself leave, no matter how badly she wanted to.

As soon as she had eaten enough to satisfy the old woman—and had washed the dishes for the first time in her life, just to prove to herself that she did belong here—she got her coat and left the house, hearing Deborah Sanders’s admonition once again to stay away from where the men were working. Elise told herself silently, as she stood in the chill air on the small rear porch, the door now closed between them, that she had already had enough of the old woman’s interference, enough of her meddling, and that she would go wherever she pleased to go, and that she pleased to go see her own husband.

She made her way down the slanting board steps and across the bare-swept yard, along the edge of the now-cleared winter garden, and toward the barn where it stood at a distance from the house with the cotton fields stretching away from it, feeling the wind pick up and begin to whip her skirt about her legs as she walked. She could hear the voices of the men as she neared the side of the structure, and she realized with a flush of embarrassment that Janson was enduring some good-natured jesting from his uncle and his grandfather at his supposed lack of sleep due to their being newly married. She blushed with embarrassment and stopped where she was, glad she had heard them before she had walked into the conversation.

“That’s my business, an’ Elise’s—ain’t nobody else’s,” she heard Janson say, a stern tone in his voice, and she felt a stab of guilt go through her. There was no reason he should not have gotten plenty of sleep the night before, that is, unless her crying had kept him awake.

She looked back toward the little sharecropped house, the sky low and gray beyond it, not wanting to return there, but knowing she could not walk into the discussion that had been going on, even as she heard the men fall silent for a moment. She sighed and tugged her coat closer about her shoulders, deciding she would have to return to the house, whether she wanted to or not, but then curiosity got the better of her as she listened for a moment, hearing the sounds of the men’s breathing, and occasional words and phrases.

“He sure was a big ’un.”

“Hope that gamblin’ stick’s good ’n stout.”

“You got them pans ready?” she heard Janson ask.

Curiosity overcame embarrassment, and she moved around the side of the barn to see what they were doing, what she had been warned away from intruding on. At first she could not see, for Janson’s grandfather and his uncle blocked her view of Janson and of what it was he was doing. She moved closer at the same moment the two men moved aside, and she saw—

Janson knelt on the ground before a hog strung up for slaughtering. There was a quick swipe of a butcher knife, and then Janson was turning, standing up, the creature’s decapitated head in his hands—

Elise covered her mouth, vomit rising to her throat. The glassy eyes in the head seemed to look right at her, and she forced her eyes away—to the carcass that hung headless over a waiting pan. She did not want to look, but could not stop herself. She had known that animals had to be slaughtered for food, but she had never seen, she had never known—it was so barbaric, and the men could do it with seemingly no feeling, no emotion at all.

She finally forced her eyes away, and to Janson, who stood looking at her, a bloody apron tied around his waist. Her Janson—who had cut the creature’s head off.

She felt the vomit rise into her mouth, and she turned and ran a few steps away, then fell to her knees, the breakfast she had just eaten coming back up. She hated this place, this barbaric, bloody, superstitious place. She hated these people, and everything about them.

She continued to retch long after there was nothing left to come up. Janson was kneeling beside her, saying gentle words she could not understand—but he did not touch her; he kept his hands away. She looked at his hands again, and thought of what he had done, and she began to retch anew, wishing he would just shut up, wishing he would just go away, wishing he would just leave her alone and never come near her again. The man who had rushed to her, the man kneeling at her side, the man she had married, seemed a stranger now.

The late afternoon sunlight slanted across the yard beyond the window, throwing it into stages of light and shadow. It seemed a familiar sight to Janson, familiar from all the times of visiting his grandparents’ home over his years of growing up in this county. So little had changed in the months he had been away, so little—except for his own life. When he had left Eason County in those early January days of 1927, he had been responsible for no one but himself.

He had left, swearing never to return to the county until he could return as a man, until he could return to buy back the land that his parents had fought and died to give him, the land he had lost to the auction block so soon after they had died. Now, less than a year later, he was back, responsible for Elise, as well as himself—and he had not returned as a man should have returned. He had come back to live off his grandparents’ charity, bringing Elise to a life he had known she could never understand, for it was a life so far different from the one she had always known in the white-columned great house the Whitleys had lived in for generations. All her life she’d had anything she could ever have wanted—and there was nothing he could give her now to compare to the things she had given up in order to marry him. They had no home, nothing they could really call their own—only each other. He had tried so hard to make her understand—but he knew now that he had failed miserably at getting her to see the kind of life she was choosing in deciding to marry him. He had failed miserably, and at more than making her understand.

He could hear the old floorboards creak behind him as he stared out the window, the sound of the rocking chair moving slowly back and forth where Elise sat in it, but he did not turn to look at her. The room had been chill, and he had built a fire for her, pulling the rocking chair closer to its warmth so that she would not be so cold, but she had said nothing. She had said so very little of anything all day. He stared out the window, feeling more helpless than he ever had before. He knew now that he had made a mistake, perhaps the greatest mistake of his life, to have brought her here.

This was no way of life for Elise Whitley; she was a lady, accustomed to grand and fine things, and he knew he had been a fool to have offered her any less. She could not live in this little house crowded in with so many of his relatives, with his aunts making her feel unwelcome, with Gran’ma’s healings, and the country life and ways she could never understand—but he did not know what to do. There seemed nothing he could do now to set things right again. She was his wife, and because of that her father had disowned her. She could never return to her home in Georgia. Janson loved her, but knew already that he had failed miserably at being her husband. He only wanted for her to be happy, only wanted for her to love him.

He was surprised to find her eyes on him when he turned to look at her. There was such a look of sadness on her face, such a look of loneliness, that a stab of pain went through him. He wanted to go to her, but he could not. There seemed a distance between them now that he had never felt before, a distance much greater than that of the room between them, a distance of promises he had made to her that he was afraid now he would never be able to keep. He told her they would have a home of their own, that small, white house on those red acres he had been born to, a life that would have been something in exchange for all she had given up. Now he was afraid that would never be, afraid in a way he had never allowed himself to feel before.

There seemed a sadness in her eyes now as he stared at her, a sadness that broke his heart, and a longing that he was afraid he would never be able to fulfill.

“I’m sorry,” he said, simply, staring at her. For a long moment, he could think of nothing more to say. He crossed the room slowly and knelt on the floor at her feet, reaching to take both her hands in his and lifting them to hold them against either side of his face as he stared up at her. “Forgive me for what I’ve done t’ you, for bein’ s’ blind as t’ bring you here—”

“There’s nothing to forgive you for,” she said, very quietly.

He released her hands and moved to wrap his arms about her legs, laying his head in her lap for a moment. “Don’t hate me, please—”

“I could never hate you. You know I could never hate you. It’s just that—” For a moment, she fell silent. “Everything’s so different, so—” Again, the words seemed to fail her.

Janson squeezed his eyes tightly shut, feeling in that moment that she was slipping away from him, even though he held her, even though his cheek rested against her thigh. She had given up so much to marry him, so much. How could he ever expect—

For a long moment there was silence between them. He could think of nothing to say, even though there were a thousand thoughts and feelings moving through him. Words were so little compared to the things he felt, the things he needed, from her. “I love you,” he said at last. “I just want you t’ be happy. I just want—”

When he lifted his eyes to her face, he found that she was crying, and that vision tore completely through him.

“Please—oh, God, Elise, I would do anything t’ make you happy. I’ll work as hard as any man can; you know I will. I’ll give you th’ home I promised you; I’ll give you th’ life I promised you, no matter how long it takes me—oh, please, I would do anything. Anything—” For a long moment he stared at her, suddenly knowing, understanding. “Even if that means I have t’ take you back home, back t’ your folks. Even if it means that I have t’ beg your pa t’ understand this was all my fault, an’ that you need t’ be back with your people. Even if that means—”

“No,” she said, quietly, shaking her head. “No, I’m not going back home. That’s not my home anymore, and it never will be again. My home is here, with you, wherever we have to be to be together.”

“But, you’ll never be happy here. I know that now—”

She shook her head again. “I’ll be happy because I’m with you; that’s all that’s important. That and—” She fell silent again, her blue eyes searching his own. “Janson,” she said quietly, after a time, “we’re going to have a baby.”

He stared. “A baby?” he said at last, surprised to hear himself say the words, even after he had heard her say them.

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head, her eyes never leaving his.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

His hands reached out, his fingers to touch her flat stomach through the fabric of her dress—Elise, his Elise, with a baby inside of her. His baby—he could only stare at his hands for a moment. Elise was going to have a baby. They were going to have a—

He looked up at her, finding her watching him closely. For a moment he was too dumbstruck to speak. “We’re havin’ a baby?” he heard himself say.

“Yes,” she said, and he felt himself begin to smile a moment before he realized—

“You’re happy about it, ain’t you?” he asked, searching her eyes, needing to know.

But suddenly she was smiling, almost with what seemed to be a mixture of relief and worry, as well as with happiness. “You know I am.”

“That’s not th’ reason you’re willin’ t’ stay here, is it? Just because—”

“You know it’s not. After everything we’ve been through to be together—” For a moment she fell silent. “There are a lot of things we both will have to get accustomed to. Everything is so different here, it will just take time for me to get used to it. You have things to get used to as well, you know—” She was suddenly smiling again, looking genuinely happy for the first time since they’d arrived in Alabama. “At least I’ve had a little time to get accustomed to the idea of becoming a mother—”

“A mother,” he said, smiling, the worry leaving him for now in the face of concepts he had not considered coming to them so soon. “You’re going to be a mother.”

“And, you’re going to be a father—the two things go together, you know.”

He was grinning helplessly, and he knew it. He just kept touching her stomach, amazed that inside of her was a new little person. “We’re havin’ a baby.”

“You’re happy about it, aren’t you?”

He looked up, surprised that she had even asked. “You know I am.”

“I’ve just been worried, with everything else—”

He shook his head. “None of that’s important. Don’t even think about it; I’ll take care of everythin’. All you have t’ worry about is takin’ care ’a yourself, an’ our baby.” He grinned, returning to touching her stomach, amazed at what they had done. “How long have you known?”

“Since just before Daddy found out about us—”

“Since—Elise, that’s been—” For a moment he could only stare up at her. “Why ain’t you done told me?”

“With everything that’s been happening, having to worry about getting away, and Daddy hurting you like he did, you almost dying—I couldn’t add even more to the burdens you were already carrying—”

“Burdens? Elise, this ain’t no burden. A baby is the farthest thing from a burden.”

“You won’t mind there being an extra mouth to feed? Three of us to support, instead of just two?”

“Lord, woman, what kind ’a man do you think you married? A man’s got t’ know children’ll come along if he loves his wife th’ way he’s supposed t’. I knowed there’d be more ’n two of us sooner or later. I guess I never thought about it happenin’ s’ soon, since it took my folks s’ long t’ have me after they got married.”

She smiled at him. “It must have happened one of the first times we were together.”

He grinned to himself, then stretched up to draw her lips to his. After a moment, he stood and pulled her up into his arms, to hold her close to him, more content in that moment than he had ever been. “I love you, Elise Whitley,” he said quietly against her hair.

“Sanders,” she reminded him, bringing her eyes to his.

“Mrs. Sanders,” he said, looking at her for a long moment, knowing in that instant what it was to be truly happy.

Janson lay awake before dawn that next morning, having slept very little through the hours of the night. Elise’s body lay warm against him, her head on his shoulder, as he stared at the dark shadows that played across the whitewashed ceiling. Daylight would not be long in coming, but there were decisions he still had to make, choices he had never thought to consider. There were three people he was responsible for now—three—and yet he had no job, no roof of his own to put over their heads, no future he could offer his wife or their child. In bringing Elise here to this life he had offered her, in bringing her to his grandparents’ home to live off what amounted to little more than their charity for a time, he had been doing all that he had known to do in the circumstances in which they had found themselves. There had been no way they could have stayed in Endicott County, Georgia, and lived as man and wife. William Whitley would never have allowed his daughter to live openly as the wife of a dirt-poor, half-Indian farmer—they had both known that, even before her father had tried to kill him, even before her elder brother had thrown him, unconscious, down a well to die, even before that same brother had stolen the money he had worked so hard for and saved, money that would have brought them a much better life than any he could see for them now. Janson had not even known about the baby then—but he could never have left Elise behind in Georgia, could never have left her behind in her beautiful house and gone on to any kind of life of his own.

Now she was his responsibility, she, and the baby she carried—he was a husband now, and in a number of months would be a father. For the first time he understood how his own father must have felt, in struggling so long, and in finally dying, to try to give his son something that would have been his own. Now that son would have a son or daughter of his own—what could he give his child? And, what could he give Elise? In bringing her here, he had not allowed himself to think beyond the very fact of their being together, trusting that he would find a way for them to build a life—but he had to think beyond that fact now. He had to put a roof of their own over their heads, had to put his own food on their table, had to be the husband and father and man that his parents had raised him to be.

Elise moved slightly in her sleep, curling closer to him as she lay on her side, her soft hair brushing his neck as she settled again, sighing softly in her sleep before becoming quiet. He pulled the patchwork quilts closer about her, for the room was cold still in spite of the fire he had gotten up to put wood on twice already in the night. He moved to press a cheek to her hair, closing his eyes, and losing himself for a moment in the warm feel of her against him—but the thoughts would not go away. He owed her so much more than he was giving her now, so much, in light of all she had given up to become his wife. Elise Whitley’s children were meant to be born to wealth and luxury, to a fine home, to a world of electricity and running water, of motor cars and radio and more money than you could ever need—not the things he could give them.

But she had chosen him, and now he had a choice to make, a choice he had never thought to be brought to, but a choice he could no longer see a way around.

He woke her gently in the hour before dawn, and loved her with his body for a time before they rose from the bed to go into this world he had brought her to. He could not help but to watch her as she helped his Gran’ma prepare breakfast that morning, realizing that she had probably never before cooked anything in her life—there were a great many firsts ahead for both of them, he realized.

He was not surprised when, as that day wore on, he found his steps leading him toward a path through the winter-quiet woods, and toward the land that he had been born to, toward the home he had known for the first nineteen years of his life, and the dream that both his parents had given their lives to have. The sky to the west was low and gray as he broke free of the woods at the edge of the winter-dead cotton fields, the air heavy with moisture. It would rain before this day was over, a hard, cold rain that would sit on the red land for days before seeping in.

His steps finally stopped as he reached a rise, where he could see the small, white house where it sat beyond the apple orchard and the clay road. He stood beneath the barren branches of the old oak tree that he had played in as a child, staring at the house where his mother had given him life, and where his father had given him a dream. He was unmindful of the threatening sky or the cold wind that whipped about him as his eyes moved over the yard and toward the Model T car that now sat pulled up before the front steps, his eyes coming to rest on the wide porch and the door to what had been his home. For a moment, he could almost hear the sound of an old, foot-treadle sewing machine, the sound of a woman’s voice singing, the creak of a rocking chair, and feel the warmth of a fireplace and a time he knew would never be again. For a moment he could almost feel the presence of the tall, strong man, and the small, dark woman who had once been his world, and the little boy who had lived in their hearts and had somehow carried on their dreams. He stared toward the house, remembering all his father had told him about the struggle and saving, of all the hard work and worry, to have this land and to hold onto it—land that Janson had lost to the auction block.

He stared toward the fields, now barren, the dry cotton plants waiting to be turned under for the new year’s cotton crop—fields that had once been burned black in a gasoline-ignited fire that had ended a part of Janson’s life forever. He stared toward the edge of the field to the place where his father had died in his mother’s arms in the midst of that hellish night, and he could almost smell the smoke, could almost feel the heat, could almost still choke on the smell of the burning lint and the taste of his own hatred as he remembered.

He stared toward the front of the house to the place where Walter Eason had stood little more than a year later, after those months of Janson struggling to try to hold onto the land, after Janson having seen his mother die the winter after his father, after the notice of foreclosure had finally been received—Walter Eason had offered him a job in the cotton mill in town, had told him there would always be a place for him there, for a “good, hardworking boy” like him.

Janson could remember that day so well, could feel the lowered, darkened sky, so like this day, and the hatred as he had stared at the man he knew was responsible for both his parents’ deaths, and for his loss of the land. Henry Sanders had refused to sell his cotton crop in the county at the Easons’ prices, for he had known that to do so would have meant the loss of the land—but they had lost the land anyway, and Janson had lost both his parents as well. He had thrown Walter Eason off the land that day, and had left Eason County shortly thereafter, knowing he could never work for the Easons, for Henry Sanders had worked and slaved and sworn never to see his son within the walls of that cotton mill, never to see him owned and sweated into old age for someone like the Easons.

Henry Sanders had worked in that cotton mill; he and his wife had saved and dreamed and done without until they could guarantee their son a better life. Janson had grown up with the red land beneath his feet, the first in his family ever born to his own land in a line of Irish tenant farmers, Southern sharecroppers, and dispossessed Cherokee. Janson had never once worked indoors, had never thought to work where he could not see the sun or sky, for he was a farmer, and that was all he had ever wanted to be.

But now there was something he wanted more. Now there was something that meant more to him than the red earth, more even than the dream of owning something that was his own—Elise. Elise and their baby. Now he had a reason to want the land more than for himself alone. Now he had a reason to want it more than as a home he could give Elise—it would one day belong to his son, to grandsons he would someday know. Now there was a reason to accept a roof and walls to work within, as his own father had done. He could not take Elise to a sharecropped farm, for that would be a life far worse than any in town, losing half a crop each year for use of mules and plow and earth, watching their own half eaten up by a store charge they would be forced to run, taking her to live in a drafty shack, for most sharecropped farms were far worse than the one his grandparents cropped on halves—no, that was no life for Elise, or for their children. The choice was made, a choice he would have to live with, a choice he had no alternative to.

He knelt and picked up a winter-brown leaf that had fallen from the branches of the oak tree, then straightened to stare toward the house again—this would be theirs again, one day, no matter how long it took him; one day he would give this to Elise, and to their sons and daughters. Until then he would work, he would slave, he would be sweated into old age if he had to—but this would be theirs.

He crushed the leaf in his hand as he took one last look at the land he had dreamed of through the last year, the way of life he had always known—at the red earth, the tall pines, the all-seeing sky. It was a way of life he would not know again for a very long time, locked within the walls and ceiling of a cotton mill, owned and worked by men he would forever hate. He looked, and he remembered. Then he turned his back and walked away.