“Very well, Peek,” I said. “I shall write to this lady today, and you will deliver the letter.” She nodded her head a few times and went out, folding her handkerchief and smoothing her skirt, without so much as a word of thanks.
IN THE EVENING it was so cool I had a fire in the parlor. I sat at Mother’s desk with the intention of examining Father’s diary. For the first time I felt myself in possession of the house, an agreeable sensation, unlike any I have ever known. I took out the leather book and opened it to the page on which Father had written the date and his name, printed in large square letters, G. PERCY GRAY. A shiver of pleasure ran along my spine, as if Father were there in the room, though he has been gone these fifteen years.
I turned to the first entry and read an account of the weather, work done in the fields, bills paid; and a brief mention of a visit from a neighbor. This entry covered half the page. The next was similar in style and content. I looked ahead and saw that the entries were all much the same length and addressed the same topics—the weather, the crops, hunting or fishing, infirmities of animals and slaves, money spent, provisions bought—day after day. I was disappointed by the dullness of this record. Father was so full of energy it seemed impossible that he would make no more distinguished account of his life than this list of business and domestic preoccupations. And why had Mother preserved the book, if there was nothing of interest in it? I flipped through the pages, reading at random. News of a fire at a neighbor’s gin. Hands picking poorly, cotton trashy. Three days hard rain, spoiling the bolls. A visit from the doctor, another from the factor. No mention of Mother or me, as if we didn’t exist. A coal sputtered and shot a spark onto the tile. I looked up at the fire, letting the pages fall where they might, and when I looked back again I read this sentence: Have apologized to my dear wife for my failing, but she says she cannot forgive me now nor ever will.
For my failing. I read the entry carefully: May 23. weather fine, unusually chilly in the morning. Scraping cotton this side little creek. Replanting corn. Lice have ruined part of crop, all corn above much eaten. Stopped growing. Dr. White here to see my sick ones, seven in number. Old Burns will not recover I fear. Have apologized to my dear wife for my failing, but she says she cannot forgive me now nor ever will.
The next entry and the next were all concerned with the crops, the weather, a fishing expedition, a trip to the town for jury duty. Another mentioned a dog I scarcely remembered: my old dog Rattler so crippled, forced to put him down. Where is the God who will put us out of our misery. I looked ahead, skimming the pages, but found no further mention of this failing. Toward the end there was an entry that concluded, my dear wife, much vexed, will not forgive me. This was six months later. The diary filled only half the book. The last entry, made a few days before his death, read: Cold, damp, sowing oats, numberwild geese, burning logs, three with pleurisy, misery in the cabins and the house, rain at dark.
I closed the book. When Father died, Mother had not forgiven him for something, for some failing, and now I would never know what it was.
After his death, Mother was inconsolable. It was a month before she would speak to anyone but her sister or me. She insisted that the fire was no accident, that Father had been murdered. I slept in her room and heard her every night, calling his name in her sleep. Once I woke to find her standing over my bed, struggling to loosen the high neck of her gown and whispering harshly, “Percy, Percy,” as if she thought he was strangling her.
I returned the book to the drawer and moved to a chair nearer the fire. There was Father’s portrait on the table next to me, a handsome young American, his thick golden hair curling over his smooth brow, a tentative smile on his lips. He had just married a beautiful Creole, much against the wishes of her family, and removed with her to the small farm he had purchased in West Feliciana Parish. He had little money, but he had ambition; he was fearless, godless, principled, and kind. He made a success of his enterprise, not a fortune, but a solid concern, free of debt. What precious little failing was he guilty of that my mother could not find it in her heart to forgive? Did he fail to consult her wishes in every matter that concerned her comfort? Did he fail to tolerate her dependence on a religion that struck him as cruel superstition? Did he fail, perhaps, to bring her some present when he went to the town? How often had I seen him get up from the table to cut her a slice of bread or bring her a cup of coffee, dismissing the servant because, he said, it gave him pleasure to serve her? Did any day go by when he did not compliment her, defer to her, inquire as to her preference or opinion? How was it possible that she should have let him live one hour with the certainty that she held some grievance against him?