Good Fortune (9781416998631) (50 page)

Anita's house was very large and sat in solitude amid an expanse of wheatgrass that was hard to make out in the dark. I imagined that the old man hired workers to tend to the fields.

Once inside the home, we climbed the staircase to Anita's room and sat near the window. Mrs. Rosa tucked her baby under the quilt that was spread over Anita's bed. Anita herself sat anxiously in a rocking chair, and Mrs. Rosa sat on the bed with me, very still. The flames in her eyes had died down, and she sat looking out the window with a regal calmness as if she were gazing at her past.

She must be listening for his whispers in the wind, waiting for him to tell her that he's safe
.

I sat by Anita, who had dozed off, and tried to figure out what I could say to Mrs. Rosa. I soon arranged words of
sympathy and opened my mouth to speak, but Mrs. Rosa's soft voice broke through the air before I could.

“He didn't come home, Anna, until earlier tonight. Came and left before I could really understand …”

“I know, Mrs. Rosa. Anita explained it all.”

“Not many folks in Dayton know who he is—that he's a black man striving for some social change. That's why we live like we do. That's why he can do so many things in the town, while acting as if he were white. That's why I stay away from making myself known to everyone. But he told you all of that already,” she said, looking at me for the first time. Her eyes were strangely clear.

“This happened before, Anna. When we first came here to live in the North, we shared the dream of helping our people. I built false dreams around him, believing that the story of broken black lives and families being torn apart was something outside my own life and experience. It wouldn't happen to me. We were educated folks, and we thought we knew what we were doing.” She wiped away a tear.

“But they took him then, and I was jolted back into the reality of life. It scared me, Anna, seeing him beaten like he was, hearing the disbelief in his voice that he had come so close to being sold down south. So, I built new dreams, especially when Little Sue came along, and found my freedom in something else. But Anna”—she turned to me—“Caldwell is my heart. He's foolish but brilliant. I don't know—” Desperate knocking rang out, interrupting Mrs. Rosa. Anita woke without hesitation and swept downstairs to answer the door. A few minutes later, she
rushed back in, her face drowning in anxiety. Following her was a middle-aged man who labored under the weight of Mr. Caldwell's unconscious body, which he held in his arms. Mr. Caldwell's left shoulder was wrapped in a bloody rag, and a large gash ran from the top of what remained of his right ear, down his neck. My body shook, but I lifted Little Sue's sleeping body and took her out of the room, catching a glimpse of Mrs. Rosa's face before I left. She was already at Mr. Caldwell's side, her lips trembling and her eyes frantically examining his bruises and wounds.

I stayed with Little Sue, attempting to soothe her back to sleep when she awoke from her nightmarish dreams every now and then. When Anita came in to rock the child, I hurried to see whether Mr. Caldwell's condition had improved.

I watched silently as Hadson's doctor worked at Mr. Caldwell's side. A few of the young men who had searched stayed for a little while, then left, slipping back into the night. My brother was one of the young men who stayed.

Soon Florence arrived. She offered to sit with Little Sue until the child fell asleep so that Anita and I could be with Mrs. Rosa. She sat quietly, all of her attention focused fully on the still figure lying on the bed.

Life seemed to hold its breath in the room as the doctor operated on Mr. Caldwell. The doctor occasionally asked us to dispose of bloody rags he dropped in a bucket by his feet, and we did so anxiously, trying to replace our fear with hope. Hours passed, but they felt like minutes slowly trickling by.

As the first light of dawn came through the window, Mr. Caldwell opened his eyes.

“Rose,” he called out weakly. Mrs. Rosa grabbed his hand in hers. The doctor respectfully left the room.

“I'm here, Caldwell. You're awake again. Stay with me this time. Stay here, please. Stay with me.”

“Rose, Rosa, I made a mistake. I wasn't as careful as you told me”—he coughed, then continued—“as you told me to be. Why is it that we don't listen to the best advice a soul could give?” He tried to muster a smile as he brought his right hand up to her face and stroked her cheek with his finger.

“Caldwell, don't you worry about that now. The doctor—” She paused, and sniffed. “You're still with us. You're awake!”

His attempted smile fell away. “What did the doctor say, Rose?”

Mrs. Rosa only looked at him, her mouth slightly open. A few tears slipped out, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Mr. Caldwell coughed again and brought a finger to his lips.

“Don't do that, Rose. We all come here and we all go at some point.”

“No, no, Caldwell, it doesn't matter at all what the doctor says.”

“Rose, please, it's all right.”

She nodded, wiping her eyes.

“Tell Anna to … to be careful, to think carefully about what she … what she chooses to do. This work can be dangerous,” he managed to say through his coughs.

“She's right here, Caldwell. You tell her yourself.”

I walked over and stood next to where Mrs. Rosa knelt.

“Anna!” He paused, and I saw his swollen eyes creep up to Mrs. Rosa's face. He was trying so hard to be his own, funny self. “Anna, we deserve justice and peace. Don't give up the fight for those things.”

“Caldwell!” Mrs. Rosa scolded his fickleness, though a tender smile softened her face.

He coughed again, and Mrs. Rosa laid a hand on his chest. After a minute, he continued.

“We all fight in different ways. I heard you are educating youth, Anna. That's … that's a fight. Not so dangerous as my work, but …” He paused to catch his breath. I saw the veins in Mrs. Rosa's neck thicken.

“Caldwell, rest now, she understands.”

“But,” he continued, “important nonetheless. That's a wonderful thing, Anna. But be careful if you choose to do other things with … with your education. I don't want you to end up …” His words trailed off and he turned to Mrs. Rosa.

“Rose, you keep this one here nurtured with strong support. And Anna.” He slowly raised his hand toward me. He was too exhausted to turn again and look my way.

“Yes, sir?” I asked loudly enough for him to hear me. My mouth was dry.

Hearing me, he dropped his hand and said, “You take care of my Rose and Sue, you and Miss Anita, there. I … I heard she's good with the little one. And for my little girl—Rose,
Rose please let her grow up like we talked about. Whisper in her small ear each night how much I love her. Let her know her father—its through her that I'll stay alive.”

Mrs. Rosa whimpered, her free hand quickly rising to her mouth. “Caldwell, please! You're a strong person. Stay here, please, I know you can. I know it!”

“Strong … ah, well.” Though he struggled to speak, he still tried to keep his tone light and good-humored. He closed his eyes for a moment. I saw Mrs. Rosa's hand tighten around his.

“Sometimes strength is letting go. They're … they're angered by the truths that I put out there, but at least I put them out, and that's … that's strength, Rose,” Mr. Caldwell mumbled with his eyes still closed.

“Who's angry, Caldwell?” Mrs. Rosa asked, wiping away the blood that had trickled past his lips.

“No matter. They try to strike fear within us, but it doesn't work that way. We cannot fall into the hands of fear that easily.”

“They're good for nothing, all of them!” Mrs. Rosa said angrily as she ran her hand across his forehead. Silence drifted in and sat for a while before Mrs. Rosa chased it away.

“You're wrong for this, you know, Caldwell, for writing the book, and putting yourself in this position. But in all your wrongness, there's nothing you could've done that would've been more right. I'd never sit here and condemn you for what you have done. But Caldwell”—she was crying now—“Caldwell we need you here….”

“Rose.” He struggled even with this simple word.
She touched her lips to his and told him to hush. His eyes opened once more, and he drew on his last stores of strength and spoke.

“Rose, they don't know about you or Little Sue. You will be … just fine.”

“Caldwell … Caldwell, don't, please don't leave us.”

He brought his finger slowly to her lips. “Shh. You've always been so strong, Rose. Stay that way.”

“Caldwell …”

“Let me … let me rest, Rose. My work won't die with me, I promise you. My love for you won't … won't …”

Mrs. Rosa's breathing was rough and quick. She grasped his hand with both of hers and brought her face close to his as his eyes fell shut. She kneeled, leaned her head against his, and whispered to her husband through her sobs.

“Caldwell, do you remember the fields of flowers? The starry nights? Do you remember …” She climbed up to lie next to him and kissed his check.

“Caldwell.” Her tears soaked into the blood on his shirt as her whimpers grew louder, and her whispers softer.

Anita took me by the arm, and we left the room.

Mrs. Rosa didn't tutor for the first few weeks after Mr. Caldwell died. Not many people knew Mr. Caldwell—or Mrs. Rosa, for that matter—but word passed quickly through the town, and the incident, however vaguely understood, sat heavily in the hearts of many people.
It was another injustice done—another injustice to talk about, to sweat over in midnight meetings, and to tempt the impulse to strike back.

A week after Mr. Caldwell passed, I made my way to Mrs. Rosa's house. I found her trying very hard to hold on to her reserved, strong nature. Even through her tears that she told me were always necessary in times of grief, she maintained her focus. There was food to cook and a baby to care for, and she had books to read if the loss weighed too heavily on her soul. Anita and I agreed to tend Little Sue when we could as a way of helping Mrs. Rosa. She opposed strongly at first, holding tight to her child as if she had nothing else left in the world, but Anita knew just how to pluck the child away. And, on her own, Little Sue began calling me Auntie Anna.

This assistance gave Mrs. Rosa the time she needed to gather herself. She started speaking of work, although she and Mr. Caldwell had saved a good amount of money. She'd speak of working as a nanny, or as a housekeeper in the city, but she pursued neither.

Without the structured schedule of tutoring at Mrs. Rosa's, I was not always certain how to proceed with my day. But my lessons continued informally. When Mrs. Rosa felt up to it, on the days I went to see her, she'd greet me at the door and would pull me over to the table. During those visits, we'd pour through lessons like we had before Mr. Caldwell's death. I also continued to run my own school in the yard, or in Mama Bessie's kitchen on cold or rainy days.

In this manner, three trying months slid by.

CHAPTER
 
46