Iron Lace (39 page)

He thought of Aurore Gerritsen, who had lost her daughter because of her own prejudice and fears. He thought of Rafe Cantrelle, the man he supposedly resembled, who had nearly lost his daughter because he had been too afraid to love her.

He had not been raised at the knees of his grandparents. They had not been childhood heroes or role models. He had never known them, but still they had bequeathed him a legacy of uncertainty. Like them, he was afraid to love, to hold Belinda safely beside him and make a home despite the mess the world was in. He had never found a place where a black man could truly live free, and so he had never lived anywhere. He had existed on the sidelines, moving, noting, reporting, then moving again. Like his grandparents, he had never taken the largest risks or reaped the largest gains.

Like his grandparents, he had been afraid.

But there was more to Aurore’s story than cowardice, revenge and betrayal. Now, at the end of her life, she was struggling to set things right, no matter how agonizing that
was. And Rafe had died fighting for his daughter, for Nicky’s future and, at the very end, for her life.

His grandparents had bequeathed him uncertainty, but they had bequeathed him more, as well. For the first time, Phillip realized what their story meant, and why Aurore’s revelations had been so painful to hear—and so powerful.

Aurore and Rafe had been doomed by their love.

But they had bequeathed their grandson a second chance.

F
inding men to clear the trash and debris from the abandoned house and yard in Belinda’s old neighborhood had been the least of Phillip’s worries. There was serious termite damage to the upper gallery, and vandals had destroyed more than half the windows. The iron lace that defined both galleries—and had so enchanted Belinda—was rusted, but not destroyed. Phillip cleaned it himself, gently sanding off the rust with fine steel wool until it was ready for multiple coats of black paint.

The day after he closed on the house, painters came to sand and prime the old barge board siding, and carpenters tore holes as wide as Lake Pontchartrain in the gallery floors before nailing new boards in place. Replacing the windows took most of a week, because the sashes, sills and ancient louvered shutters had to be carefully repaired, as well.

The inside of the house had fared slightly better. The cypress floors and most of the woodwork were still intact, and a thorough cleaning and waxing restored them to their original luster. Plasterers patched walls and ceilings, and elec
tricians came along behind them to wreak havoc with the fresh plaster. There was no hope for the kitchen, and Phillip had it gutted, replumbed and rewired. But he bought no appliances. That could wait. The yard, even after its liberation from years of trash, was an eyesore. On his darkest days he was tempted to hack the tangled jungle to the ground with a machete and start all over again. But there was a magnolia tree as tall as the house on one side, and a centuries-old live oak dripping Spanish moss in the back. There was jasmine spilling over the fence, and a row of gardenias that, despite years of neglect, were loaded with buds. He brought in Jake—who could hardly contain his delight—for a lesson in landscaping. Together they tamed the worst of the wilderness, and even Nicky, who had shown great talent as a window washer, agreed that the two men had made a good start.

He chose a warm spring evening after most of the work was done to park in front of the white stucco house on Claiborne. He had carefully timed his visit. It was too late for dinner, too early for Belinda to be immersed in lesson plans. A brief call to Debby had assured him that Belinda was home.

She was sitting alone on the front gallery when he walked up the steps, almost as if she had been waiting for him. But she hadn’t been waiting, because in the instant when she first realized who was there, her eyes grew wary and her back stiffened.

“Hi.” He moved closer slowly, leaving a carefully calculated distance between them. He leaned against the gallery and rested his fingertips on the railing. “How have you been?”

“I’m not complaining.”

“Of course not. That’s not your way.”

She got up, as if she were going inside. He gripped the railing to keep himself from lunging at her. “Don’t go.”

“I don’t see any point in staying.”

“I’d like it very much if you would.”

She lowered herself back to the chair. His gaze darted down, just low enough to see if his son or daughter was making its presence known. Belinda was still slender, but, to his educated eye, her shape had grown lusher and more womanly. For a moment he imagined a better look. He had missed everything about Belinda, but the sweet glide of his hands over her warm flesh had been somewhere near the top of his list.

“I heard you were back in town,” she said.

He riveted his gaze back on her face. “Did you?”

“I heard you got knocked around pretty bad in Selma.”

He had gotten a chestful of tear gas and a crack on the skull that would have been deadly if one of the white marchers hadn’t thrown himself in the policeman’s path just before the club made contact. “Not as bad as some.”

“Did you make it all the way to Montgomery?”

It had been the longest walk of Phillip’s life. “I made it. But I didn’t come here to talk about that. I have something I’d like you to see.”

“I have to do plans for tomorrow. You know my evenings are busy.”

“I know lots of things about you, Belinda. More than almost anyone, wouldn’t you say?”

She had never been a woman who spent time on verbal games. “Debby told me that you know about the baby.”

He nodded slowly. “I do.”

“I don’t want anything from you. You didn’t want this to happen, and you don’t have to do anything now that it has. I’ll manage just fine.”

“I have no doubt you will. You’re resilient to a fault.”

She stood again. He pushed himself away from the rail. “I think, under the circumstances, you can spare me a few minutes. Don’t you?”

“What for?”

“I told you. I’ve got something to show you.”

Her back was still straight, but she seemed less sure of herself. “Did you come here with some idea that you could buy me off?”

He frowned. “What?”

“I don’t want your money, Phillip. I don’t want it for myself, and I don’t want it for my child. I take care of what’s mine. I don’t need your help, and I don’t want you messing with us.”

“Don’t you?” He moved closer, cutting her off so that she would have to push past him to get to the front door. “What exactly is it that you don’t want me messing with? You don’t want me to be a father to my own kid?”

“Do you think that any father is better than none?”

Anger flared. “I’m not just any father. Who do you think I am? Some no-account bastard who doesn’t live up to his responsibilities?”

“No!” She folded her arms. “You’ll live up to them, all right, if I let you. But there won’t be any joy in it. Don’t you think this baby will know that? I was raised like that. My mama was so tired and so poor that every kid she had was just one more burden. She fed us what she could and made sure we had a place to sleep, but she never once looked at any of us with love! Most of us didn’t come out of that family in one solid piece. And I won’t have that for my baby. I won’t!”

“Belinda…” He took a deep breath. He had understood the depth of her pride. He just hadn’t understood the depth of her sorrow. “Sweet girl, come with me. Let me just show
you something. Just this. Then you decide. I won’t crowd you. But you have to come with me.”

“I don’t have to do anything!”

“Yes. You have to do this.” He towered over her. She was not a woman to feel menaced by anyone, but she seemed to wilt. Not from his words or his proximity, but, he suspected, from her own revealing display of emotion.

“Then will you leave me alone?”

“There is no way I’m going to desert you or this baby. No matter what you do or say. But I’ll help you work out a way to make my presence less painful, if that’s what you want.”

She considered. He thought she would refuse again, but she nodded at last. “What do you want to show me?”

“Come with me. It’s a short drive. My car’s out front.”

They made the trip in silence. She gazed out her window, and he couldn’t even see her profile. The drive was a chance to castigate himself over and over again for all the mistakes he had made—and to wonder if he was making another by bringing her here.

He parked in front of her old shotgun. “Let’s take a walk.”

“What for?”

“Because we’re here, and that’s what we came for.” He got out and rounded the car to open her door. He held out his hand to help her from the car. She took it reluctantly and dropped it as soon as she was standing.

“Have you been back here since you moved?” he asked.

“No.”

He took her arm and steered her to the sidewalk. “I’ve missed living in the neighborhood with you.”

She didn’t respond.

“I wake up in the mornings sometimes, and I hear the
mockingbirds singing outside my window. I turn over, and I put out my arms to find you, but you’re somewhere else.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m just telling you what I’m thinking.”

“Where are we going?”

He might have done a million things wrong in this life. He had certainly done a million things wrong with this woman. But he had done one thing right. He had picked exactly the right moment to show her the house. The sun was just setting, and the remaining light was saturated with color, a brash Mardi Gras display of violet and bronze. The house was painted white now, waiting for its final coat of color, but the light had transformed it into a shifting rainbow. The iron lace, black and glistening, stood out in sharp relief.

He faced Belinda and put his hands on her shoulders; then he turned her to face the house. “This is my house.” He dropped his hands and waited.

She stared at the house, taking all of it in. It would never be one of the city’s finest architectural gems. It wasn’t a large house, or even an unusual one in a city where whimsy and artistic vision had constructed entire blocks worthy of their own fairy tales. It sat on a street that tourists would never visit, on a lot that was surrounded by plainer, shabbier homes. But tonight, it was a masterpiece of hope restored.

She turned back to him. “Your house?”

“Yes. Do you like what I’ve done with it so far?”

She didn’t answer.

“Come see the inside.”

“No.”

“You said you’d come with me. You’re not a woman who goes back on her word.”

“Damn you.”

The words were whispered. He felt them all the way to the bone, but he steeled himself. “Are you coming or not?”

She was coming. He saw it in her eyes. He turned and walked to the gate, and she followed. He pointed out everything he had done in a voice that didn’t even sound like his. At the front door, he inserted his key and stepped inside. She stepped in behind him.

“Where’s your furniture?”

“I don’t have much yet.” He took her through rooms, turning on floor lamps that he’d borrowed from Nicky and Jake for the nights when he worked late.

“There are three bedrooms up here,” he said, when they were standing in the second floor hallway. He opened the closest door. “This is the smallest.” He ushered her inside, but he leaned against the doorjamb to block an immediate retreat.

It was the only room where he’d had the painters do more than prime the walls. It was painted a soft buttercup-yellow, and yellow-and-green curtains hung in the windows. A crib sat between them.

“I come here every night before I leave the house, and I imagine our baby in this crib. Light streams in through these windows in the morning. I can see the baby standing here, trying to catch sunbeams in a tiny little hand.”

She crossed the room and stood by the crib; then she stroked one finger along the top railing. “What did you do this for, Phillip? Did you think it would change anything? That I’d think you had a change of heart?”

“You’ll have to decide what to believe.”

She came to stand in front of him. He didn’t move. “I told you I didn’t want anything. I don’t want this house.”

“I’m not offering it.”

She lifted one regal brow in question.

“It’s my house,” he said. “I’m not giving it away. Not even to you. This is my home, and now that I’ve finally got a home, I plan to enjoy it for a lot of years.”

She gave a humorless laugh. “Not your home, and not your city. Remember?”

“Not when I said that, maybe. But it’s both now.”

“Why? Guilt? You made a baby with me, and now you’re trapped?”

“I made a baby with you, and now I’m a father. And it’s not guilt I feel.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. She turned her head, but his hand followed right along. “I love you, Belinda. I was just way too big a fool to understand what I was feeling. But I’ve loved you for a long, long time. I won’t give you this house, but if you’ll come and live here with me, I’ll gladly share it.”

She made a sound low in her throat.

He pulled her slowly forward. She resisted, and he gently urged. “Belinda…” He turned her head slowly toward his. “My clothes are hanging in that closet across the hall. I’d like to hang your clothes right next to mine. If you don’t say yes, I’m going over to Claiborne and steal them, hangers and all.”

“What makes you think I love you? What makes you think I want to live here and raise our child together?”

“Some things a man’s just got to take on faith.” He lowered his lips to hers and pulled her closer. It took her forever to yield. She came to him one inch at a time, proud and determined and everything he had ever needed in a woman.

She was as warm as he remembered, as generous with her body as she had always been with her heart. In all the weeks
he had spent preparing for this moment, all the weeks when he had wondered if they still had a chance, he hadn’t dared to recall exactly what it was like to hold her in his arms. Now he knew he had never forgotten.

He pulled her against him and backed into the hall. He reached behind him to turn a doorknob and pull her into their bedroom.

“Welcome home,” he murmured against her lips. “You can furnish the rest of the house. But I furnished this.”

She spared the room one quick look. The bed was wide and soft, and there was nothing else to see.

She turned back to him. A slow smile lit her face. “It’ll do.”

It was dark before they spoke again. She lay across his chest, her head perfectly molded to the hollow under his shoulder. The faint mound of her belly pressed against his hip. “I’ve got a story to tell you,” he said.

“About Selma?”

“I’ll tell you about the march later. All about it. This is something else.”

“I’m listening,” she said sleepily.

“It’s about me. About who I am.”

Much later, she stirred. Phillip had been silent for a while. She lifted her head so that he could see her face in the moonlight. Her eyes told him that she understood much more than he’d been able to put into words. “Are you going to tell your mother?”

“I think so. When the time is right.”

“How are you going to know?”

“I won’t know by myself. I thought maybe you’d help me decide.”

She continued to stare at him. “Okay,” she said at last. She
nestled her head against his shoulder again and splayed her fingers over his chest. “You know I’ll help if I can.”

He thought that this was what marriage was going to be like. Bodies entwined and secrets shared. And a whole wide world to be part of together.

He stroked her hair until both of them fell asleep.