She frowned at the formality but sat down. “I thought you might be tired of talking about it.”
“I’m tired, but in a good way.”
“So it went well? No more trouble?”
“No more trouble. No sign of Conrad Ellis or any of his band. We managed to butcher several head before the front loaders showed up to bury them. The rest of the time was spent distributing the meat so it could be cooked before it spoiled. The man who owns the ice company?”
“Mr. Miller.”
“He was generous enough to donate several blocks of ice to pack some of the meat in until we could get it distributed.”
“Dr. Kincaid said these times would bring out the best in people.”
“When did you see him?”
She told him about the doctor’s visit and the article on the study that he’d left with her. His eyes shone with interest. “When you’re finished, I’d like to read it if I may.”
“I’ll welcome your opinion.”
He finished his meal and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
He was out of the kitchen before she could ask where he was going. She washed his dishes and upturned them on the counter to dry. She was just about to turn out the lights when he reappeared, bringing with him a book.
He grinned as he extended it to her. “Seems everyone is bringing you reading material today.”
Ella took the book from him and read the title. A Farewell to Arms. “You finished it?”
“This morning. That’s why I didn’t come down for breakfast. I didn’t want to stop until I’d read it through. I was going to give it to you immediately, but then the day got away from us.”
She ran her fingertips over the lettering spelling out the title. “I’ll read it as quickly as I can and get it back to you. In the meantime, I’ll take excellent care of it.”
“It’s a gift, Ella.”
Quickly she looked up at him. “I can’t accept it.”
“Please do. Please. I want you to have it.”
She held his gaze for as long as she could stand the intensity of it, then lowered her head and stared at the book cover. “Is the ending sad?”
“Very.”
Ella felt the heat of his gaze on the crown of her head. She felt the pressure of the walls, which seemed to be closing in, and the weight of air against her skin where it was exposed. Her throat became painfully tight.
In a low voice he said, “Even knowing the ending was sad, I wouldn’t have deprived myself the beauty of the story. Would you?”
She glanced up, but looking into his face caused her heart to swell, so she dropped her gaze back to the book. She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know her answer. She sought it in the words on the book cover, but they began to blur.
She was looking at them through tears.
SIXTEEN
The following day, she avoided him.
He came down for breakfast and chatted cheerfully with the Dunne sisters, who pestered him with questions about his rare evening out. They were curious to know how he’d spent it and with whom. As Ella moved in and out of the dining room, she didn’t hear all his replies, but he soon had steered the conversation to the ladies’ favorite radio programs.
Each time he tried to catch Ella’s eye, she avoided looking at him. Two nights in a row, he’d been the last person to whom she’d said good night, and that was unsettling. Although their conversations had touched on personal subjects, nothing improper had happened between them.
But she would be less than honest with herself if she didn’t admit that their relationship had shifted to something beyond that of landlady and boarder. There had been an air of intimacy during those moments. She wouldn’t have been the least troubled had she had a one-on-one conversation with Mr. Hastings. In fact, there had been times when he returned from a trip too late to have dinner in the dining room, so she had served him a cold supper in the kitchen. She hadn’t felt any self-consciousness last night sitting alone with Dr. Kincaid in the parlor.
But being alone with Mr. Rainwater was different.
With him she felt uncertain and flustered. It was nothing he said or did that made her feel this way. He never touched her. Well, only her hand, and only once. There were no salacious overtones in his conversation, even in his remark about her being a beautiful woman. She couldn’t fault his comportment.
It was his mere presence that caused an unaccountable tension in her chest. Last night, being close enough to feel his breath on her face, and hearing the bittersweet sadness in his voice, had provoked tears. When they spilled from her eyes onto her cheeks, she had wished him a good night and fled, just as she had the night before. But last night she’d feared she hadn’t made her getaway fast enough. He had seen her tears and would have wondered what had caused them. She had wondered.
Something about his insisting that she accept the sentimental novel as a gift had caused an outpouring of emotions, when ordinarily she held them firmly intact. Having had years of practice, she was skilled at containing fear, anger, heartache, even joy. She was certainly adept at holding back tears. But in the quiet of her kitchen, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock and the thrum of her own heartbeat, her rigid control had deserted her.
It frightened her, this loss of restraint. She didn’t want to feel any emotion that keenly, believing that if she ever allowed any slippage in the wall of protection she’d built around her heart, she wouldn’t be able to prevent its total collapse. And then where would she be?
Exactly where she was now. Her circumstances wouldn’t have changed. She would still be living as a widow without benefit of the official status. Her child would still be locked inside a realm she couldn’t trespass. Day would follow day, each exactly the same, all with their endless, thankless chores, without any relief or respite or even a sense of accomplishment after having done them.
But if she ever gave way to self-pity, she would be reduced by it, made weaker by it, and left even more susceptible to disappointment and despair.
That’s what she’d tried to explain to Mr. Rainwater when she stopped him from weeding the vegetable garden. She had her life in careful but precarious balance, and she couldn’t allow anything or anyone to upset it.
But what she feared most, what had kept her tossing and turning sleeplessly last night, was the fear that the scales already had been tipped, and that it was too late to set them aright.
Today, her fear manifested itself in a cross mood that Margaret remarked upon as she prepared the string beans to simmer. After Ella admonished her for the second time to go easy on the bacon grease, she muttered, “Somebody’s got they’s jaw out of joint this mornin’.”
Ignoring her, Ella went about doing her routine tasks, even invented extra ones, to more easily avoid Mr. Rainwater. Which she did successfully until after dinner, when he came out onto the porch, where she was sitting in a rocking chair, watching Solly as he lined up the dominoes along the rail.
Mr. Rainwater let the screened door close gently behind him as he joined them. “He’s at it again?”
“Of his own accord. I brought the dominoes out. He took the box from me and went to work.” Even her determination to keep her distance from Mr. Rainwater couldn’t dampen her pride in this small achievement or her optimism for Solly’s future.
“Thank you for leaving the medical report in my room. I read it this afternoon. I understand why you’re excited about this study.”
“I wish there were a way for that specialist to see Solly. There isn’t, of course, but I’m thinking of asking Dr. Kincaid to write to him, describing Solly’s characteristics and behavior. Since his paper was published, I’m sure he’s been overwhelmed with inquiries from parents as desperate as I am. But he may be more inclined to reply to another physician than to an anxious mother.”
“I’m sure Murdy would do that for you.”
In silence they watched until Solly had lined up all the dominoes, then Mr. Rainwater said, “Good job, Solly.”
Ella said, “Yes, Solly. Good job.”
“We were stopped from celebrating yesterday.” Mr. Rainwater took out his pocket watch and checked the time. “The drugstore is open until nine-thirty. Let’s go to town and get an ice cream cone.”
“It’s too late.”
“It’s a celebration.”
“The last time I tried feeding Solly an ice cream cone, he got upset when it began to melt over his hand. He didn’t like the mess.”
“Then we’ll get his in a cup.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rainwater, but it’s time I put him to bed.”
“Miss Ella?”
“Out here, Margaret.”
Margaret came onto the porch, wearing her hat, her handbag on her arm. “I’s leavin’ ’less you need me to do something else before I go.”
“Thank you, no. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Mr. Rainwater said, “I’m trying to talk Mrs. Barron into letting me take her and Solly to the drugstore for some ice cream. Maybe she’ll agree to it if you come with us. I’ll drive you home after.”
“I can’t sit at the soda fountain, Mr. Rainwater. You know that.”
“I don’t want to sit at the soda fountain,” he said. “I was thinking of taking a stroll around the square while I was eating my cone.”
“It’s too late to go downtown,” Ella said, but neither of them paid her attention.
Margaret was beaming a smile at Mr. Rainwater. “I’m partial to plain ol’ vanilla.”
“My favorite is strawberry. How about you, Mrs. Barron?”
“Chocolate. But it’s too late—”
“Come on, Miss Ella,” Margaret wheedled. “It’s just now twenty minutes past dark, and it’s pleasant out. How come you won’t let Mr. Rainwater buy Solly an ice cream?”
He had outfoxed her. There was no way she could refuse without denying Margaret a treat, because he couldn’t be seen strolling around the square alone with a colored lady without inviting censure from both whites and Negroes.
Defeated and, actually, not all that unhappy about it, Ella said, “I’ll get my hat.”
Ella had resolved not to be seen riding with him again. If people saw them often together in his car, they would begin to talk. But there weren’t too many people on the streets of town this evening. The square was deserted when he parked in front of the drugstore.
The only person she had to worry about gossiping was Doralee, Mr. Gerald’s plain and thus far unmarried daughter, who was tending the fountain tonight. She was terribly bucktoothed and compensated for it with a sour disposition, being ugly to people before they had a chance to be ugly to her, Ella supposed.
Doralee was squinting at them curiously through the store’s windows as they climbed out of Mr. Rainwater’s car and approached the door. Ella said, “Solly and I will wait out here with Margaret.”
“What flavor will Solly want?”
Remembering the screeching fit he’d pitched when the melting ice cream had dripped over his hands, she said, “Vanilla.” Any mess made with vanilla would be easier to clean up.
“Chocolate for you?”
“Please.”
“Looks like Brother Calvin is working late,” Margaret remarked as she sat down beside Ella on the bench outside the store.
Ella followed her gaze toward the AME church. It was two blocks off the town square, on Elm Street, which was the racial demarcation of town. Because the lights were on inside, the church was visible through the trees even at this distance.
“I guess he’s fixin’ that broke window,” Margaret mused. “We took up a love offering for it on Sunday.”
Mr. Rainwater paused on his way into the drugstore. “Go and invite him to join us.”
Margaret smiled at him. “That’s very kindly of you, Mr. Rainwater.”
Margaret left the bench and stepped into the street. She crossed it, then walked along the sidewalk to the nearest corner, where she turned out of sight.
Ella could hear Mr. Rainwater ordering their ice creams, adding one for the minister. “And put one of those vanillas in a cup, please. We’re going to walk around the square, but I’ll bring your cup back, I promise.”
“I trust you, Mr. Rainwater.”
Absently Ella wondered how he’d managed to disarm even the prickly Doralee Gerald, who had addressed him by name in a simpering tone reminiscent of that of Miss Pearl, whom Ella had asked to latch the screened door behind them as they left the house.
Miss Pearl seemed perturbed that they were leaving her and her sister alone in the house and had asked how long they planned on being gone. Ella had told her not long, resenting having to account for her time to someone who paid her rent.
Beside her on the bench, Solly was staring straight ahead, rocking back and forth, tapping the toes of his shoes together, unmindful of the mosquito that lighted on his knee. Ella brushed it away. Solly continued to rock.
A lean and hungry-looking dog trotted down the center of the street, and Ella, not recognizing it, tensed, but it went past without giving them a glance.
In the next block, she noticed a light going off in an office building. Moments later the town’s only lawyer and his secretary came out of the office. He locked the door behind them, then together they got into his car and drove away. His wife had been an invalid for ten years. Rumors had circulated about the nature of his relationship with the young, pretty secretary.
“Here we are.” Mr. Rainwater pushed his way through the door, carrying a clear glass dish of ice cream for Solly and a chocolate cone for her. “Miss Doralee is dishing up—”
He was interrupted by a scream so piercing that even Solly reacted. He stopped rocking, stopped tapping his toes together.
Ella shot to her feet.
Mr. Rainwater dropped the dish and the cone he was carrying onto the sidewalk and bolted across the street, running in the direction of the AME church, from where the scream seemed to have come. He didn’t go to the corner but plunged into the alley between the grocery store and the post office.
Another scream rent the night air.
Ella grabbed Solly’s hand and followed Mr. Rainwater. When she and Solly reached the other side of the street, she was practically dragging her son as she ran into the shadows of the alley into which Mr. Rainwater had disappeared. It opened into a wider alley, which ran the length of the block behind the commercial buildings.