May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (37 page)

The trip back to Brooklyn is a cavalcade of arguments on each side of the notion, piecing together ferries and horsecars for almost two hours and thinking of how remarkable she was to have done this a few times a week for more than a year now. But then there are the regiments preparing to go off and pick up the fight where he’d left off, several of them at Fort Schuyler drilling and marching left-right, left-right, and another at the Brooklyn Navy Yards ready to embark for points south. And it’s that last reminder that clinches the decision once and for all, knowing he’s got something more to lend to the cause, the way Mr. Prendergast put it, and how could he sit home and take portraits for the duration instead?

That night there’s the packing of the camera and all the supplies, and
civilian
clothes this time around. And then the letter to write, wondering how he’ll ever do it justice and not risk losing her altogether. Aunt Emily was the one who’d been the first to ask him about her, suspicious when he suddenly took a turn for the better right after the gallery opening and in the days following when she’d catch him whistling or kissing her and Mam for no reason at all every time he left the house.
Yer about as in love as an Irishman’s ever let on t’bein’
, she’d said a week earlier, and he wasn’t able to camouflage his expression enough to hide it from her. Now she’s the one to ask him the what for in the quiet of a late-night hour when all the others have gone to sleep.

You sure you wanta go an’ do this, Ethan? she asks. Yer leg’s still not right, and now you’ve got this girl who
sounds
lovely enough, though you’ve never brought her ’round here … outta shame fer us I suppose—

Aunt Em, that’s not—

I know, I know … sure I was only kiddin’ with ya. And then she gets more serious again. Are you
sure
, love?

And Ethan nods his head, his mouth pulled slightly to one side as if declaring that the matter’s been considered enough.

I
have
to, he says.

She had never felt this way about a man. How could she, with the parade of Wall Street buffoons her father had exposed her to from her seventeenth to twenty-first birthdays like cattle barons at auction? Living with Mrs. Carlisle had liberated her from that, since the Ladies Abolition Society teas and Sunday afternoon recitals were hardly overflowing with men of any sort. But that had never been of any importance to her. She had reviled Pilar’s drooling over Papa’s parade of eligible bachelors, and even expressed disappointment in Catherine’s lament for never having married. But now she was just as silly as any of them, counting the hours between chances to see him as if she were a giggly debutante.

After the sleepless shift from the night before, Mrs. Carlisle had sent her carriage to come get her that morning. She’d spent the rest of the day sleeping as much as she could to get caught up again, but this was to be Violet Smythe’s first Friday tea with the Ladies Abolition Society and as her sponsoring member, Marcella had to be present for it, of course. She’d had the idea to invite Violet to join almost from the moment she had met her at Ethan’s gallery opening. Violet was witty and unafraid to express her mind. And since all of the ladies were at least ten years older than Marcella in age—and often considerably more than that in demeanor—the fact that Violet was separated from her by only two months was a most ringing endorsement indeed.

The usual civilities were tortuously slow as Violet arrived at the same time as Mrs. Wentworth and Mrs. Bianci, and they all had to discuss the weather and each other’s new hats or other such triviality. It wasn’t until those ladies were settled with their tea that Marcella could
sit down next to Violet. A few more ladies arrived, and the conversation shifted to that side of the room, and Marcella finally turned to her new friend and smiled.

“I have a note from Ethan,” Violet said before Marcella could even speak, reaching inside her dress sleeve and handing it to her.

They had shared two luncheons since the gallery opening, and whenever the subject of Ethan came up, Violet always bore a sort of knowing grin that made Marcella naturally defensive. She was well aware of the silliness that had overtaken her amidst her affection for Ethan, but she wasn’t ready to relent so completely with anyone but him—not Catherine, not Violet, not even Abuela. So she did her best to contain her surprise at Violet’s statement, accepting the envelope with as much nonchalance as she could muster.

“Perhaps you might like to read it outside the room,” Violet suggested, nothing of a knowing grin anywhere to be found on her face now.

Oh, that’s quite unnecessary, but if you insist
, Marcella thought, hoping it would find its way to her expression despite the concerns that now filled her. She calmly walked past the recently arrived ladies engaged in their pleasantries at the doorway, turning back to signal to Violet to follow her into the library. But Mrs. Carlisle intercepted Violet before she could slip past the ladies, and the introductions and pleasantries to follow would surely take longer than Marcella could stand. So she opened the envelope, unfolded the notepaper, and read:

The look on Violet’s face was the most difficult element of the moments that followed, as if conveying an empathetic sense of loss, perhaps even feeling a measure of sisterhood with Marcella after having gone through the experience of seeing Smitty off on two separate occasions. And Marcella could tell immediately that Ethan must have shared some of his feelings with Smitty, or perhaps Violet even. There would be abundant tears when the fullness of these words hit her, when she’d had the chance to read them again. But for now she put on the bravest of fronts, immediately seizing upon the opportunity to introduce Violet to all the ladies present and bury her wounded heart in the busy chatter of a Friday tea.

It was hard to tell exactly when sorrow gave way to anger, but it most certainly did not take long after dispensing with the formalities of initiating Violet to the Ladies Abolition Society. For Marcella, the meeting was more frustrating than any in recent memory, and she
became particularly vexed at the passive nature of the women present and of women in general. Writing letters, holding fund-raisers, knitting quilts, even changing bandages at the hospital—it seemed the women were always left to such trivialities while the men went off to make their
real
mark upon the world and advance the great causes of the day. And it was only the respect she had for Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine, and the desire to not scare off Violet after a single afternoon, that kept Marcella from expressing her opinions aloud while all the ladies were still present.

But that evening, several hours and several readings of Ethan’s note later, the softness returned to her ailing heart, and she took out her notebook to do some writing of her own:

His runnin’-off plan is as tight and solid as everything he builds. He’s decided on Christmas Eve, the one day of the year when neither one of them will be missed right off. The other slaves and the white folks, even the Home Guardsmen, will all be asleep or too drunk to notice by the time they are gone. And he knows just how easy it’ll be for them to slip away without a living soul gettin’ wise of it ’til they’re
long
gone. And no place anyone ’round here will ever think of lookin’.

Christmas Eve jubilatin’ at Longleys’ will be the same as last year no doubt, even with the war carrying on like this. Won’t be the same trimmin’s as last year, but there’ll be plenty to go around. Micah knows something about what kind of money Mista Longley’s made offa just him alone since the war started. And he’s figured out some of the things that Mista Longley does to keep his other slaves happy to stay just where, and who, they are. Decent cabins are a start. And seein’ how it’s a lumber mill he runs, it’s not hard to make it so. And clothes too. All Mista Longley’s slaves get a new set of’m every five six months. Get to use the old ones for rags or for patchin’ up the new ones or for whatever they want t’do with them, it seems. But then, most important of all in Mista Longley keepin’ all the slaves he’s got happy as any colored man or woman’s ever been, is the jubilatin’.

Three times a year, it comes. And it’s almost perfect how it gets
fixed up about four months apart all the time. There’s the jubilatin’ for when Jesus got born on Christmas. Then there’s the one where Jesus got raised up from the dead on Easter. And then there’s the
most jubilatin’est
day of all—every year on August the twenty-third. Which is the day Mista Longley
himself
got born, Glory Hallelujah!

And even though Micah’s only been here long enough to see a little more than a year’s worth of those jubilatin’ days, he knows just how important they are. So come time for the next one to get under way. The day before Christmas, or so. He knows Mista Longley’ll come through with the necessaries for some fine jubilatin’, war or not. Sure there won’t be a half side of beef like there was last year. But there’ll be two pigs at least to make up for it. Maybe no ginger beer neither, but
plenty
of potato-mash whiskey. And that’s not countin’ what folks’ve been brewin’ for themselves these last few weeks. There won’t be any sugar, but enough molasses to make the cornbread and sweet tater pie. And anywhere else there might be something missin’, Mista Longley’ll have something to make up for it. So the jubilatin’ll go on late into the night Christmas Eve and all the next day. Same as always.

They’ll save at least one of the pigs for Christmas Day, but the first’ll never make that long. And the potato mash’ll get sampled somethin’ fierce that first night. Enough
to take the chill off
, at first, then to wash down some of that fine meat straight off the spit. Then the fiddle playing’ll start, and there’ll be dancin’ ’round the bonfire. And more potato mash to
cool down
from the fire and all the dancing. ’Til then comes the toasting.

Someone’ll get up and toast the Baby Jesus and talk about seeing the Bet-lee-hem star this year or that. Then someone else’ll jump up and say they remember that year, too. And the lyin’ll grow so deep that even the one that started it will believe it in the end. Then someone else’ll get up and offer a toast to Massa Longley. Another one’ll jump up and do the same. Only louder, hoping that the Massa’s listnin’. There’ll be six, eight, ten toasts to the Massa. More than there was to the Baby Jesus even, and each one louder’n the one before it. ’Til the Massa steps out onto the porch of the Main House, long across the sawmill field from the slave quarters. And he’ll shout
Happy Christmas
. And send them all into a frenzy tryin’ to figure out which toast it was
that brought the Massa out. There’ll be some more fiddle playin’ and dancin’. And some more potato mash to cool off again. ’Til someone’ll say they gotta save
some
of it for tomorrow. Then they’ll eat most of the cornbread to keep their stomachs from turnin’ sour during the night.