Cassie got up and went over to her. “We didn’t mean any disrespect, Mama,” she said.
I kept my silence.
My mama looked at me. “No matter.” She turned slightly as Cassie put her arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad you come home, Cassie. I’m glad I’ve got both my children here together. There’s things I wanna tell you case anything happen to me.”
“What do you mean?” Cassie asked. “Something the matter, Mama?”
Now I got up. “Are you sick?”
My mama shook her head. “Just want you to know some things. Y’all all I got, and what little I got belongs to you.”
I remember my mama left us then and went off to her room, and when she returned, she was carrying a blue wooden box decorated with bright paintings of all kinds of flowers. She sat down with that box in her hands in the rocker my daddy had given her. She placed the box on her lap and held it close, but she didn’t open it. “Old Josh made this box for me,” she said softly. “You know, he was like a daddy to me.”
Cassie and I both nodded, even though we had never known Old Josh, for he had died before either of us was born.
“All these years I been putting my treasures in it, and that includes whatever little money I could save. You know, ever since I was a girl and first had you, Cassie, I was earning me a little money of my own, not much, but a few pennies here and there, doing extra work. Then that war came and there wasn’t much money for anybody, but after that, when things started settling down again, I began receiving wages for keeping your daddy’s house and cooking. I also had my garden and a crop of my own. Had some hens and guineas and such, and I sold their eggs in town. Your daddy was always taking care of you, but I done my share as well. It wasn’t just your daddy buying all your things. It’s not much, but mostly I been saving what pennies I could so there would be something for us, case we need it. Your daddy, he’s been good to us, but I never figured to depend on any man. I figured it best I have something of my own.
“Now, that little money I saved, it’s right in here.” My mama patted the lid of the box. “Another thing in here is a big old watch and chain your daddy gave me long time ago, before the war. He taught me to tell time on it, same while he was teaching me to read and write and figure. Paul, I want that for you. There’s a gold locket he gave me, and that’s for you, Cassie. Got some other bits and ends in here, things my sweet mama, Emmaline, made me, things not worth anything ’cept to me—little straw bag, a handkerchief she sewed me, a seed bracelet Old Josh made for me when I was little—that sort of thing.”
She rubbed her hand across the box. “You know, I never knew my own daddy, ’cause he wasn’t bound to nobody like my mama was. He was from the Nation, and he went off with his people. But anyway, Old Josh was pretty much my daddy, and, like I said, he made this box for me. He painted the flowers on it, even put the lock on. He made it for me soon after I came into my womanhood and your daddy started coming around. He told me not to cry about it and to lock my thoughts and my tears and my treasures inside this box. I’ve done that ever since.”
My mama looked at us then, and her voice was soft. “You know I’ve always wanted both of you to have something of your own. Cassie, you’ve got your husband, and soon there’ll be babies on the way. You’ve got the beginnings of a good life with Howard and your store and all. I don’t worry about you. Paul, you still got your deciding what you want. There’s time enough. But whatever you decide on, I want you to have something of your own. That’s important. You gotta have something of your own.” She rubbed her hand across the box once more, then rose and took it away without ever opening it.
Betrayal
When the fall came, my daddy, true to his word, sent both Robert and me off to school. He sent Robert to the boys’ school in Savannah and me to Macon, where I could go to a colored school and study furniture making. He took me himself. On the journey my daddy said to me, “This man I’m taking you to, he’s a decent man, but don’t expect him to treat you the same as I do. He’s already told me he’ll keep you as long as you do the work and don’t cause any trouble. He said too he doesn’t want you around his family. He’s got three girls, and I know that’s what’s on his mind, so you stay clear of them. Worst thing you could ever do is to go eyeing a white girl.”
I looked at my daddy, thinking he had done just the opposite to my mama.
“You understand me, Paul?” he asked.