The Land(24)

“Talking about me?” Howard Milhouse had come in the back door. He had a broken bridle in his hands. Howard was a good-looking young man of medium height and yellow-hued skin. He was quiet-spoken, yet a perfect match to Cassie’s outspokenness. Cassie said that in any dispute Howard would sit back quietly while she ranted her views, and once she was tired of talking to herself, he would settle the argument with just a few words spoken. The two of them smiled at each other as only lovers do, and I was happy for my sister.

“Just looking for some leather to tie this together,” he said, holding out the bridle. “Figured maybe I could mend it.”

Howard liked to keep busy when he came, and was always looking for something to do. He couldn’t sit idle. Maybe that’s what made him such a good businessman.

“I was just telling Paul about when I first went to Atlanta,” said Cassie. “About how folks treated me up there.”

Howard nodded as he looked through an open tin of odds and ends my mama kept on a shelf. “You tell him that’s how we come to meet?”

“Told him where we met. At that church social.”

Howard glanced back at Cassie. “But you didn’t tell him why I got my courage up and came over to talk to you?”

“Well, no. I didn’t go into all that.”

“Well, Paul,” said Howard, still looking through the tin, “there were some ladies who were saying some unkind things about our Cassie—mean little jealous kinds of things. They weren’t saying them to Cassie, but within her hearing. I took one look at Cassie, and I knew she was about to explode. So, before hair got to flying and clothes got to ripping right there in the Lord’s house, I went over and started talking to her. I calmed her down and got her out of there.”

“He did that, all right,” confirmed Cassie, “and just in time too. I was about to let those girls have it, Lord’s house or not, ’cause of what they were saying about our mama and our daddy and how I came to be.”

“Lucky for me you did come to be,” said Howard with a grin, then held up a piece of leather string he’d found in the tin as if it were a prize, and went back out.

“I like him,” I said.

Cassie smiled. “So do I.”

“Things are better for you now in Atlanta, right?”

“Oh, yes. Not perfect, but better. Folks who don’t know about me still shy away if they’re colored, and if they’re white, I don’t try to pass. It’s always awkward with them, but they’re the ones who have to live with it. Now I’ve got Howard and his family, and they love me and I love them. Folks are getting to know who I am, and I’ve made friends.”

I nodded. “Still, what you had to go through, the way I’m being treated now, if our mama and daddy hadn’t been together, things would be different.”

“Yeah, a whole lot different,” Cassie agreed with a laugh. “We wouldn’t be here!”

I didn’t laugh. I frowned at her. “You know what I mean.”

Cassie studied me. “When you were a little boy, you never thought this way.”

“When I was a little boy, I still had a lot to learn.”

“And you still do. You’ve got a lot to learn about a man and a woman and what goes on between them. You’ve got a lot to learn about love and and how folks show it. Kisses and hugs aren’t all there is when folks are raising their younguns. Spankings and scoldings are about it too. Just because you’ve had to go up against a few fists over the years doesn’t give you the right to blame all your troubles on our mama and our daddy and to go judging them. Didn’t give me the right either. I figure they’ve done what they could, and I’m not faulting them for anything anymore. I’ve gotten past that.”

“I thought you would have understood.”

“I understand, all right. I understand you’re angry right now because the world doesn’t seem to be treating you right. I understand too that anger you’ve got will pass one day, and maybe then you can see what I see.”

“Well, Cassie, I’ll tell you this true,” I said, meeting my sister’s eyes.

“And what’s that, Paul?”

“I ever have a daughter, I’ll never let her take up with a white man. I never will.” I said that, and I’ve kept that opinion.

“Could be that’s the best thing,” said my mama. Cassie and I both turned; neither of us had heard her come in. “Long as you talking about me and your daddy, I’m going to tell you a couple of things. First off, I’m not going to apologize to you or nobody else ’bout my life. There’s folks who talk about me behind my back, but then grin in my face when they see me coming. I might’ve been too young to know much of anything what I really wanted when I came into my womanhood but what happened; still, though, I been with one man ever since, and that man has been good to me and to my children. All those folks talking behind my back can’t say the same.”