Margaret Sexton: A Kind of Freedom

“How was your treat?”

“Delicious,” Evelyn said, so eager to engage with him the word shot out. She actually hadn’t gone inside the Sweet Tooth before, though she’d stood on that street for years because it tempted Ruby to see someone eating something she wanted but couldn’t have. He nodded at her answer and put his head back down.

“How was yours?” Evelyn asked as sweet as her double chocolate malt ball shake.

“The best I ever had. Andrew’s mama makes shakes all the time. Don’t tell Andrew, but I think this one was better.”

The rest of their conversation seemed to pour out — first about their studies, then about what time they would head to the parades, and finally about the disparate versions of the stories Andrew and Ruby had relayed about their first date.

“I heard they didn’t have the best time. Don’t tell him I told you, but I guess they ran into another woman, and my sister felt like he talked to her too long.”

Renard chuckled. “Yeah, that’s my friend for you. He knows just about everybody in the city. Man or woman. And he doesn’t just leave it at a simple hello, he wants to know how their mama is, how their mama’s mama is, their brothers and sisters. He gets a full report on each one. That girl was probably from a big family, that’s all.”

“That’s what I told her, that he didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“No, he’s the kindest man I know. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. All his people are like that. When my mama passed, they didn’t have to take me in. They certainly didn’t have to pay my way. Andrew’s mama lost two of her sons; she has her own grief to tend to.”

“To the war?”

“No, tuberculosis; there aren’t too many Negroes fighting in the war.”

“But Miss Georgia’s son is there.”

“He may be there, but odds are he’s not holding a gun.”

Evelyn lowered her eyes. “Oh.” She wanted to change the subject; the war was tragic in the way slavery was; it hadn’t affected her, and she thought talking about it might invite it in. “Well, at least Andrew’s mama still has him,” she said.

He nodded, then went on. “My mama was just as sweet as Andrew’s, you know. I never met her, but they tell me that. They tell me she was beautiful. She was a twin.” He looked up in the sky, talking out of the side of his mouth. “Jet-black hair down her back, they say. Beautiful woman.” Then he jerked back into the conversation as if he were coming to. “What about yours?”

“My—?” Evelyn asked, confused.

“Your mama?”

She shrugged. “She’s stunning,” she said. “She’s the classiest woman I ever met.”

“What’s it like, having her? That probably sounds crazy, but I always wondered. .”

Evelyn didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful. She knew her mother loved her — there had been the time Ruby convinced Evelyn to swallow a dollar piece to make it multiply, and Evelyn had been rushed to Flint-Goodrich for the night. Her mother couldn’t be comforted, sobbing beside her bedside. Evelyn had heard her as she came to, and in those seconds she thought maybe there was a blessing inside that dollar, some voodoo magic that might open her mother’s heart, bind her to her, but after Evelyn was discharged, it was more of the same. Nothing Evelyn said came out right; nothing she did could warrant the woman’s approval.

“We’re not so close,” she said. “I guess I’m more of a daddy’s girl.”

“That’s too bad,” Renard said.

“It’s not so bad,” Evelyn said. “I shouldn’t complain about it. You lost your mama, and I’m complaining about one who corrects me too much,” she tried to laugh.

“Naw.” Renard shook his head. “Don’t say that. There’s all different types of ways to leave somebody. Maybe it’s sadder that she’s there, and she just feels far away.”

From then on, Evelyn woke up each day with a renewed tolerance for the world; the feeling she’d been searching for her whole life had been missing because she hadn’t met Renard, and now that he was here, she could grasp the higher octave of joy her solitude precluded.

Still, she made him say good-bye to her two blocks from their house and bribed Brother, who had caught them snuggling, with all the hog head cheese he could stomach.

One morning Daddy walked into the kitchen while she whistled.

“You’ve been in a mighty good mood lately, Evie.”

She turned to him, startled into silence. “I have?” she asked finally. “I didn’t mean to be.”

“No? What’s causing you to be so happy beyond your control?” He sat down, perched one leg atop the other, and smiled.

Brother walked in just then, and she hurried to dish his snack before he could answer Daddy for her.

“Extra mayonnaise,” Brother grinned.

Her daddy glanced from Brother to her, his eyes narrowing. “I’ll take a sandwich too,” Daddy said.

“Yes, sir.” Evelyn spread twice as much meat on the Wonder Bread as normal and added an extra teaspoon of mayonnaise too. She served her daddy first and shot Brother a pleading look to compensate for it. Mother had made lemonade, and she poured each of them a tall cool glass.

“You don’t want one?” Daddy asked, a dollop of the soft meat on his lip.

She shook her head, standing at the edge of the counter, waiting.

When Daddy finished, he let out a huge belch he would have never delivered if Mother were there and finished off his lemonade. He pulled a toothpick from a jar in the center of the table and plucked the fat from between his teeth.

“Why don’t you bring the boy by then, since you don’t want to talk about him?” he asked finally.

Evelyn gasped, jerked her head toward Brother.

“I didn’t say nothing. I swear I didn’t.”

“I didn’t need a little bird to tell me. You think I don’t know when a gal is in love?” Her daddy let out a bellow of a laugh.

Evelyn could feel her face heating on the inside. Renard had told her on one of their dates that he had never seen a Negro woman blush before. Then she had blushed again and smiled.

Now, Daddy got up from where he was seated, shuffled to the parlor and out the door, and Brother followed him. Before Brother left the room, he turned back, “Do that mean no more sandwiches?”

Now that Daddy knew about Renard, Evelyn let him walk her all the way to her porch before he kissed her hand each evening. Renard had settled matters between Ruby and Andrew, and since then, Andrew would walk Ruby to the porch too, only later, and Ruby would allow him more than a kiss on the hand. Ruby had tried to discuss the details with Evelyn, but Evelyn had yawned one night just a few moments in, and Ruby took the hint and began whispering with Mother instead. Evelyn heard them sometimes.

“First of all, you’ve got to see his car, a black 1937 Chevrolet. Just sitting inside it would have been plenty to me, but then he took me up to his house and introduced me to all his family, and friends too, called me his lady out there in front of everyone. Then we drove around, you know; finally we parked somewhere and just talked. I would have stayed out there all night, but it was his idea to come on back. He said he didn’t want to leave a bad taste in my daddy’s mouth. And look at this—” Evelyn didn’t need to be present to know Ruby was referencing the silver-toned rhinestone brooch she’d seen on her sister’s lapel that morning.

“Be careful,” her mother would interrupt. “You’re old enough to know what can happen when you’re not.”

“Oh, it’s not all that serious, Mother,” Ruby would giggle, and after a few seconds Evelyn would hear her mother giggling too.

Daddy sulked around the house, only partly feigning sadness.