The Fallen Fruit, page 21
Reba’s blood ran cold—she hadn’t told him yet that his sibling had gone to God. But right then, she felt a stirring in her lower belly. No, it wasn’t her stomach but movement in her womb. The child flexed again, its life assured and strong.
She released a long breath and motioned for Georgie to sit in her lap. “Yes, come kiss your mother like you did the baby.”
Georgie rained kisses on her cheeks. They were blessings for the baby and her too. She closed her eyes and said a new prayer. A request for forgiveness. Then a prayer for Jimmy—for if Luke’s words were true, Jimmy had landed somewhere out there. He was still home. That was her only solace. Her boy lived on somewhere.
And she hoped someone had opened their arms to welcome him.
Part Four
Cecily
Cecily Bridge-Davis
December 1924
While conversing with Amelia—no, I was certain she was the Emily Bridge—I knew I had to tell her my tale. She had to understand how I came to sit before her in her aunt’s parlor and why she had to make the brave, though difficult, choice to alter the timeline to help women like Rebecca, like me, and herself too. Rebecca’s meticulous notes had started my journey. Without her entries in the family Bible, I couldn’t have retraced my family’s steps. I was thirty-nine now—an unimaginable age after living thirteen years in the past. My wrists were arthritic from years of writing, and a few strands of gray wove into the hair at my temples. My journey to reach this seat had been long. I could’ve despaired over what I’d lost, but the twenty-one-year-old woman peering at me had an opportunity no other Bridge who fell through time would ever receive. She had a chance to live a normal life.
Amelia crossed her legs and the fabric of her navy-blue dress rustled. “You still haven’t told me why I should violate the most important Bridge family rule and interfere with the past.”
“Yes, it’s the reason I’m here.” My tea had long lost its heat, but I sipped the drink. “I can’t prevent the family curse, but I can change your role in it.”
My stomach twisted, as it always did when I recalled the revelation I had discovered during that early summer of ’64. “Every profound event in world history has a tipping point. A series of decisions can send thousands of soldiers to their deaths. An infection in a small town might bring the world to its knees. Little things can become significant. I’ve always sought the tipping point for the Bridge family. And at that place of convergence, I discovered my fate and my purpose. It was to find you.”
Chapter 22
Cecily Bridge-Davis
May 1964
For the past month, the letter with Aunt Hilda’s last will and testament had added an unbearable weight to Ceci’s purse. The handbag glared at her from her desk drawer at work. The weathered envelope’s three pages—which she’d committed to memory—poked at her when she ate lunch in the quad between the buildings. On her drive home, after her students’ final exams, the bag practically mocked her from its spot on the front seat of her Chevy. To her family, it was a boon, but to her, it symbolized closing a door on kin she’d never known.
The twenty-six-year-old professor knocked her bag off the seat to the floor. After the Chevy’s engine roared, she turned on the radio.
There. Much better.
She bobbed her head to the beat of Sam Cooke’s latest R&B hit, “Another Saturday Night.” The singer always reminded her of her husband, Winston—though her husband couldn’t sing worth a damn.
Before she left town for Charlottesville, she had groceries to buy, and her husband had forgotten, yet again, to pay the electric bill. She couldn’t resist laughing as she pulled out of the staff parking lot.
“I got it,” Winston always said.
For years, her husband had taught electrical engineering at nearby Fisk University. He could recall some obscure, albeit boring, formula at will. Due dates, not so much.
The radio belted out more butter-smooth R&B hits, propelling her from one errand to another. Little Anthony serenaded her through a quick stop at Piggly Wiggly for groceries while Ike and Tina Turner ushered her home up Torbett Street. Her family’s quiet street in northwest Nashville was just over a mile from her work at Tennessee State University and the first major purchase she’d ever made with her husband.
Black children darted back and forth between the long bungalows. All summer long, they’d play kickball and baseball, just like Winston used to do in Charlottesville. Back in late ’54, he’d been the new kid in town. He was the tall, broad-shouldered boy who graced Burley High School’s halls with his slow smile and quiet intelligence. Ceci and Winston had crossed paths at a fall carnival, and they’d been together ever since. Attending college in another state should’ve separated them, but she never thought they’d come to Fisk together, let alone end up as parents. Didn’t life always work that way? Unexpected moments peppered between the menial ones?
She pulled into the driveway and her boys, Jason and Lloyd, slipped out of the house, the screen door banging behind them. Not long after her giggling six- and four-year-old children escaped, Mama Davis appeared, holding her housecoat closed over her thick body.
“I told y’all about slamming that door,” she snapped.
The boys paid her no mind. Jason shouted, “C’mon, Barney! Yabba dabba doo!”
“I don’t wanna be Barney this time!” Lloyd moaned. “I’m Fred.”
As Ceci shut off the engine, she called out the rolled-down window, “Get these groceries now.” Their prehistoric play would have to wait a few more minutes.
A chorus of Yes-ma’ams followed her as she grabbed her briefcase and entered the house.
The mouthwatering aroma of a slow-cooked pot roast seeped out of the kitchen right off the living room. Her mother-in-law’s favorite soap opera, As the World Turns, blared from the television, but Ceci ignored it to trudge over to the desk next to the door. She caught Mama Davis’s quick footsteps approaching. It never took long for her small but stout mother-in-law to fuss over her. “Why you got all that food? We’ll be fine.” She sternly looked Ceci up and down from the opening connecting the rooms.
“Winston and the boys will be all right, but you shouldn’t be carrying heavy things.” Ceci surrendered her high heels and rubbed the back of her neck. Another day done.
Her mother-in-law gave her a glassy stare. “When you gonna start packing? You about to grow roots at this rate.”
“I know,” Ceci whispered.
The screen door swung open as her mother-in-law was about to speak again. Winston had a way of arriving at the perfect moment. He strode into the room, his pressed dark-brown suit still wrinkled, and glanced at his mama. “What did I miss?”
“Your wife ain’t packed a thing.” Mama Davis grinned. Mother and son exchanged a knowing expression and Ceci frowned.
Guess her husband’s timing wasn’t that good.
“You’ve had that letter for weeks now,” Winston said. “Did you give your exams to the department head like you said you would? I thought you planned to leave right after class.” His bushy eyebrows rose in amusement. Even after a long day teaching, he could lighten a mood with that mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “You could be halfway to Knoxville by now.”
“Oh, hush! My department head has the exams, and that land ain’t going nowhere.” Ceci eased onto the family sofa across from Mama Davis’s mustard-and-orange floral-print chair while the boys put away the groceries.
“You should go so you can see what’s out there. Maybe it’ll even be something that can help us.” Her mother-in-law gave her a reassuring smile. “That land is your boys’ legacy now.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” All these years, she’d assumed her father’s family had left nothing behind. After Ceci graduated high school, her aunt had sold the Ross farm and hauled their belongings over to Nashville. Apparently, Aunt Hilda hadn’t sold everything. “I just won’t be there for long. I go in, put up a for sale sign, then I come home.”
Mama Davis chuffed. “Life don’t work that way. Especially with kin you ain’t seen for the longest time. How come you ain’t seen anyone with they hand out?”
“Good question.” Ceci folded her arms and rested her head against the sofa’s cushion. She’d shared many things with her mother-in-law, but the moment she’d escaped Virginia to go to college, she’d left the Bridges where they belonged—buried with their secrets.
* * *
After packing four pairs of pants, five summer dresses, four blouses, and one Green Book, Ceci wasn’t finished. She had yet to put together a bag of her toiletries and the two wigs she preferred to wear when her hair wouldn’t behave. With care, she added some old family photos, in case she ran into any relatives, as well as her aunt’s pearl earrings. Might as well have Aunt Hilda come with her in spirit.
A silhouette crossed the open doorway to her bedroom.
“No, you don’t have to come with me.” She crammed another lightweight pair of slacks into the bag as her husband’s arms slipped around her waist. His lips brushed against the sensitive spot at the crook of her neck. She tried to hide her smile. “I don’t have time for that either.”
“So you’re saying”—he kissed her shoulder—“that I’d keep you up all night long?” His warm exhale set her at ease.
She abandoned her packing and twisted into his embrace. She wished she could bottle this moment—the pleasant tingle of the stubble on his cheek when she rested her face against his, the splay of his fingers spread across the small of her back. She’d remembered these tiny things over the years. She wouldn’t take her marriage for granted like her colleagues. They gossiped in the faculty lounge, fawned over the newest hires from the East Coast. She didn’t have time for foolishness.
Ceci had a good man at home.
“We could make a weekend of it,” he suggested. “Eat lunch at The Midway. Maybe walk down Main Street and see if the Ivory family still owns that bakery with those cakes you like.”
To quiet him, she tilted her head up, and their lips met. They were right next to the bed, but she didn’t like the way long goodbyes trailed after her. It was much easier to live in the moment. Each cry and each laugh over the years could whisk her away into the past, just like H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. She had thousands of bottles and she couldn’t wait to grow old with Winston to fill many more. She kissed his nose. Breathed in his Old Spice aftershave. He perched on the edge of the bed and settled her on his lap.
After spending many a season rocking toddlers on her hip and chasing after rambunctious boys, a break would be welcome. In a couple of weeks, she’d return to spend a summer of early mornings at the local Negro pool, library visits, and endless episodes of The Flintstones.
She had all the time in the world.
Chapter 23
Cecily Bridge-Davis
May 1964
Traveling alone always had a way of dredging up the past. Especially in the middle of the night. The mind drifted, constantly seeking an anchor to pass the time and poke holes in the monotony.
Ceci trained her gaze on the endless stretch of Highway 40, her fingers flexing on the steering wheel. Stretching her neck repeatedly didn’t keep her thoughts from wandering. For the first two hours she sang—whether she liked the song or not. She counted advertisement signs. When the radio stations disappeared up in the Appalachian Mountains, she recited funny lines from last week’s The Ed Sullivan Show.
This wasn’t the first time Ceci had talked to herself, growing up an only child in her uncle and aunt’s home. She had a full tank of gas, some spare gas in a canister, and for her safety, she wouldn’t stop until she reached Charlottesville in the morning. One of her co-workers had made this trip last summer and warned her to be wary of sundown towns marking the path there.
“There’s not a single Black soul for miles in Cookeville,” her colleague had said of the small Tennessee town. “Keep your head down and don’t stop unless you have to. Those eight hours will be over in no time.”
The rain began in the third hour. Ceci had eaten one of the meatloaf sandwiches Mama Davis had packed for her and downed a bottle of lukewarm lemonade. With her stomach full, she only had the shadows cast across the highway from her headlights to keep her company. With the pitter-patter of water hitting the roof and the soft sounds of the Ronettes flowing out of the radio, the Chevy worked its way up and down the narrow mountain passes. The tall pines extended their arms toward the road, their branched fingers seemingly reaching for her.
The forest was a special place—Ceci had fond memories of exploring it with her best friend Winnie as an adolescent. But the part near Bridge land had always been off-limits. Folks gossiped about it from one corner of Charlottesville to another. They whispered over afternoon sweet tea about hauntings and mysterious figures in tattered clothing that would slip out of sight on heavy fog days. Granddaddy Ross, Ceci’s maternal grandfather, said they were the souls of Bridges seeking solace from generations of torment. Her mother’s sister, Aunt Hilda, was decidedly less empathetic, telling Ceci they were mournful creatures.
When Ceci was fifteen, she overheard from her nosy tenth grade teacher that the widower at the local Negro grocery had married a Bridge, but he never visited his wife’s grave nor spoke of her.
Ceci didn’t know what to believe, only that she wondered what lay beyond the hidden path her family passed on the way to church in town. Week after week, Granddaddy’s rusty Ford sedan tumbled down the road, and she could swear he always slowed at that spot.
Aunt Hilda kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, but Ceci always had to look. She had to see if she could glimpse one of those ghosts her friends mentioned. Maybe they would appear half alive, half dead, just like the creatures in the fantasy tales she read in those Amazing Stories magazines. The very thought brought a shiver of anticipation down her back. Yet to her disappointment, every trip from their farmhouse off State Highway 29 to their Baptist church was as boring as any other Sunday. They left the farmhouse as a family twice per week. Ceci loved to escape the countryside for the neat rows of brick buildings downtown. The movie theater, the ice cream parlor—that’s where all the fun stuff was. At least attending church meant she could sit next to Winifred, just like she did in class.
When the Ross family arrived at church, Granddaddy would amble in first, followed by her aunt. Many were eager to greet her grandfather. As a veteran from the First World War, the old man didn’t say much, but folks listened when Samuel Ross spoke.
At one Sunday service in particular, sweat beaded parishioners’ necks, and ladies fanned themselves to drive away the late-summer heat. The choir’s pianist, an older blind woman, caressed the keys to the opening notes of “He Is King of Kings.” The melody floated sweetly up to the rafters as parishioners found their seats.
At the far back, a set of pews usually sat empty. Winifred had told her the Bridges used to sit there. Now only unfamiliar faces eased in and out of them.
Questions weighed heavy in her chest, but she never spoke the words out loud anymore.
“Aunt Hilda, what happened to Mama and Daddy?” Ceci had asked the previous year.
That question got her the look. Whenever she annoyed her aunt, the woman blew out a long breath and her brow furrowed, the wrinkles creasing tighter until the only thing that remained in the room was the unspoken truth. Her schoolteacher had admitted her mama died during childbirth, but her daddy was another matter. No one ever mentioned her parents in passing. No one shared memories of better times or reminded her to pay her respects at the local Negro cemetery. It was as if they had never existed in the first place. She was a Ross now and that was that.
Ceci and Winnie sat in their usual spot in front of the empty Bridge family pew. Granddaddy Ross worshipped near the front. Three rows ahead of the girls, Aunt Hilda gossiped while the reverend and his deacons conversed at the pulpit. Sometimes they had Sunday school, but since their teacher’d had her baby boy recently, the children fidgeted and squirmed beside their mothers and their siblings. One toddler even made a break for it down the main aisle before his big brother shooed him back with a light swat on his bottom.
Her friend leaned over to whisper in Ceci’s ear. “Wanna sneak out again today?”
“Can’t.” Ceci fanned herself, anxious to escape the heat but locked under her aunt’s keen eye. Any moment now, Reverend Williams’s wispy voice would replace the piano. The man could never hold her attention. “My aunt said I’d taste that switch if I was out playing in the dirt. Said a young lady shouldn’t be getting dirty.”
Winnie shrugged, her wide eyes blinking behind her thick eyeglasses. Both wore their Sunday best, and Aunt Hilda would have her hands on her hips and a growing frown the moment Ceci returned with dirty shoes, a wrinkled pleated skirt, or dark smudges on her face. No matter how hard the girls tried to avoid the puddles or mud, the outside stuck to them like those prickly burdocks.
The reverend and his army of deacons stood. The piano’s pleasant music ended and, along with it, any hope of escaping the sweltering heat. To Ceci’s left, Winnie clicked her tongue in displeasure. At the far end of their pew, Mr. Pruitt’s slippery gaze swept up her bare legs.
“Nasty old man.” Winnie slowly shook her head.
There were other Mr. Pruitts in the room, many of them smiling and shaking the girls’ hands for too long—just like the reverend.
Before Reverend Williams had married his current wife, he was another Mr. Pruitt. The single women filled the seats to listen to his honeyed words, but the church leader preferred to compliment the younger sheep in his flock. As the reverend made his way to the pulpit that day, Mr. Pruitt grinned. Winnie tugged down her plaid pencil skirt and crossed her legs at the ankle.
That didn’t stop that filthy, filthy man from leering.
