The Fallen Fruit, page 3
Millie never forgot the stories or the rules. But even as she stayed on the farm, resigned to her fate, she found bright moments, especially every summer when Uncle Oswald paid a visit from Washington, DC. He brought gifts, including shoes and clothes for the other kids living in the houses scattered across Bridge land. While the smaller children wanted toys, Millie received books, paper, and pencils. She hungered to learn more, maybe even attend college if she ever saved up enough money. Perhaps that was also why she had made the decision to leave and find work.
The thought of money elicited a sigh. There’d never be enough.
“You’re always sighing like Ma.” Her brother stooped to stroke Felix’s side.
“I’m sighing ’cause you’re a pest.”
“Liar.” He flashed a smile again.
She couldn’t help but grin in return. Her brother’s easygoing nature made it hard to stay angry with him.
“C’mon, let’s get out of this cold.” She pulled his arm to get him moving. “I need to get a lot done if I plan to be in town come Monday.”
He stopped, and she couldn’t pull him any farther. “What are you talking about, Millie?”
Damn her mouth again. She’d planned to sneak away. After taking in the swaying barn door near her uncle’s house, she sucked in a breath and admitted to Isaiah that she planned to earn money.
“No.” He spoke before she’d finished her last syllable. “You ain’t going.”
She cocked her head, then shook it. Was her brother in any position to tell her what to do? Wasn’t he the same man who went out traipsing in the middle of the night to see girls? With a shake of her head, she tried to walk away. Her brother shifted to stand in her path.
“When the time is right,” he said, “you’ll go.”
“Let’s go home,” she murmured. “Don’t say another word.”
“I’m praying I’ll be the one to go so you can move on with your life.” He’d said that casually, but underneath every word, she knew he was serious.
“Oh no!” She’d had enough and advanced on him. “I told you to stop saying that.”
“I can say what I goddamn want.”
Millie opened her mouth to chastise him for taking the Lord’s name in vain, but she stood her ground instead and glared at him. This fight had been festering between them for years. Only one child born from each Bridge man would fall. If Isaiah fell, she’d be safe.
“You can’t tell me I’m not the one.” His tall form blocked the sun, and she could see every pockmark from when he’d had chicken pox. “I can see it. Feel it. I never told you I had a dream about you a year ago. You were sitting in a nice house.”
“Don’t do this to me—”
“You were smiling and happy ’cause you got accepted into one of them nice Negro colleges—”
She plowed into him, briefly forgetting how fragile he could be, but her brother didn’t budge. They’d both had dreams, but none of hers included him leaving.
“You don’t get to do that to me.” She reached for him again, but instead of colliding with him, she collapsed to the ground, her knees throbbing from the impact as her hands sank into the damp dirt.
Felix sniffed in frenzied circles and searched the ground around her feet before throwing back his head in a pained howl. The dog sprinted off into the woods, but he’d never find his master.
“Isaiah . . .”
Millie’s voice quivered. Her brother had fallen. By God, right in front of her, he had fallen in time. He’d gotten what he’d always wanted: a hero’s victory. There’d be no formal goodbyes or regrets to carry into the next world. That burden was hers now.
Chapter 3
Amelia Bridge
May 1920
From March to May, the mornings became a time of stillness in Millie’s house. Her kin dropped by now and then, but she rarely noticed them. Instead, she took the time to stoop in the doorway to the bedroom she’d shared with her brother, hoping the ghost of his presence would brush against her shoulder. May had brought warmer weather, so she waited patiently for a wandering spirit’s chill to pass through her.
Isaiah’s dog refused to step into the house, preferring to watch for his master from the porch. It was just Millie and her mother, and Ma had surrendered to loss long ago. Years of losing kin had chipped away at the woman until there was nothing left. Most of the time, she kept to her room.
Now Millie wandered through the house, her footfalls heavy and her hands never ceasing in their labors to seemingly entice her brother to return home. She’d washed his bedding, scrubbed the muddy prints he’d left near the front door, and sorted his collection of rocks and metalworking tools. With painstaking care, she arranged his mallet and tweezers. Over the years, he’d scoured the mountains with Sam and pocketed shiny, crystal-like goethite and white chunks of limestone.
“Don’t know why Sam loves the shiny ones,” her brother had said. “He told me he’s looking for a diamond for a pretty lady, and I reckon there’s nothing wrong with searching.”
The rocks were tiny, insignificant things, but that was all she had left of her brother.
Among his metalworking tools, she brushed her fingertips against the rough surface of forceps and the needles for stitches. She’d never touched them, feeling unworthy.
“Can’t practice what you learned in those medical books without the right tools,” he’d said offhand.
Isaiah had dreams far more vivid than hers—almost as if he could glimpse beyond the horizon to conjure a brighter future for his sister. Yes, she wanted to become a physician. Yes, she yearned to leave the farm someday. But not like this. Not without her brother.
So she waited.
It was as if she expected him to appear at the front door—just like the old stories about Luke Bridge’s journey home. Perhaps Isaiah had gone back in time only a year or two, and soon enough he’d waltz into the house hungry and weary from his wanderings. But the door never opened with his arrival, and the only sounds in the house were the wind winding down the chimney, the persistent bubbling of the kettle on the stove, and, underneath those sounds, the tiny voice that whispered he wouldn’t come back. That she wouldn’t have a chance to ask him where he went.
Millie poured herself a cup of hot water for chamomile tea and abandoned the kitchen to sink onto the bed across from his. They’d always shared this room, but her brother had left few traces of himself in here. She’d swallowed the empty space with books and a chest of clothes. Isaiah had always been the less sentimental one, having no need to cling to trivial belongings. She thought him stronger for that. After all, he carried his world on his back.
For many hours, she sat there, until her tea cooled and visitors appeared. Aunt Betty slipped into the house. Her mother’s sister said nothing while she added coal to the empty stove, washed the dishes, and warmed porridge to ease their hungry bellies. After Betty left, more Bridge women arrived. A parade of saintly women fed the neglected chickens, collected the eggs, and swept the dusty porch. Most of Millie’s family moved silently through the rooms, but her birdlike aunt Ursula burst into the bedroom, smelling of lavender and the cornbread muffins she left at the house every morning.
“Time to get on up now,” the woman said in her no-nonsense, high-pitched voice, “or you’ll be mourning for the rest of your life like your mama.”
Millie gave her a spiteful stare, but Ursula ignored it.
“Your cousin Lucy fell two years ago today, God protect her soul,” her aunt said. “Before that, my great-uncle and then my uncle and sister. On and on. The Bridges endure, and you must do the same, child.”
Millie didn’t want to endure. She only wanted to exist in a numb place where she herself could fall away, drifting from the world and time, but her aunt wouldn’t allow for self-pity. Every morning, Ursula arrived and forced Millie to wash her face, change her clothes. Attempts to also rouse Ma only resulted in cursing and the familiar murmurs of a lost mind.
“I told you to leave me alone,” Ma would spit from her filthy bed. “I was up too late searching for your uncle Bertie.”
During the day, Ma slept, while at night, she escaped the house to search for a man who’d flitted in and out of their lives. Unlike Pa, who’d worked at chopping down timber from what few trees remained in the northern woods, his brother Bert had lived here for a while, then wandered from state to state. He’d come home once in a while but then leave again. From what Millie had heard, her uncle had seen—and lain with—loose women from here to California. That man probably had left one of his unsuspecting offspring unaware of their horrific fate.
Now that Isaiah was gone, after her pa had died years ago and Ma hid away in her room, Millie had only herself for company—which made visits from her aunt less bearable. If she had her way, she’d surrender and live in the past like Ma.
In late May, Ursula said brightly, “I can’t have you looking this way when your uncle comes.”
“Uncle Oswald’s on his way?” Millie hadn’t expected him to return, and yet he did from time to time. After Aunt Jane had fallen, Millie’s aunts and uncles had moved on with their lives.
“His letter said he’ll be here by Monday.” The woman winked. “I’m sure he’d like to see you, if you want.”
Millie smiled, and this time it wasn’t forced.
“I’d like that very much,” she whispered.
* * *
Uncle Oswald arrived before the summer heat. Millie waited on the bottom porch step. The moment her uncle’s head popped up on the horizon, she sat up and smoothed her checkered skirt’s fabric.
“Amelia” was all he said.
She shifted to get out of the way. Her uncle strode up the steps and eased onto a worn chair. He pulled off his black hat and rested it on the rocking chair’s armrest. An early morning train ride had added wrinkles to his tailored day suit, but Millie couldn’t find a single hole or scuff on his shoes. He even used a fancy handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his brow.
“Mornin’.” She’d tried to add strength to her voice, but to her ears she’d sounded frail. “Want me to go get Aunt Ursula? She’s inside.”
“No need. I’m not here for her.”
“You need some rest then?”
He leaned forward. “I came for you because of your brother.”
“Why?”
“You remember that summer when your mama twisted her ankle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were about eight years old. All of us were sitting on this porch.” Her uncle pulled a cigarette from the inner pocket of his suit. Before he lit the smoke, he stared at the glen beyond the house. “Your mama was in this seat.” He tapped the one next to his. “And your brother was where you are right now.”
“Where did I sit?” Nobody had wanted to bake in the stuffy house.
“You were right in front of me, listening to me go on and on about Howard.”
She smiled. “I remember that day. You made that place sound like another world.”
“It is in a way.” He retrieved a match and lit the cigarette. “You were grinning and laughing, and your eyes lit up.”
“I’ve always wanted to go.”
“We saw that. Ever since you were twelve or so, your brother started sending me a letter every season. He told me how you were doing, what you needed. I’d expected the boy to come up to DC after his schooling.” Sweat had formed under his chin, so he wiped himself again. “Course things didn’t work out that way.”
Millie picked at her memories, searching for a time when Isaiah might’ve dropped a letter in the post or hid away in a corner to write, but she couldn’t think of any.
Her uncle continued. “He told me, if his letters ever stopped coming, he’d fallen and I should take you to the capital.”
Millie swallowed past a lump in her throat. God help her, Isaiah had kept that secret all these years. The wind shifted, sending the trail of cigarette smoke her way. She blinked and waited for the world to shift back on its axis.
“And the last letter said you’d passed your . . . Amelia, are you listening?” her uncle asked.
At the sound of her name, she turned to him. “Yes, sir.”
His lips twisted with disapproval. “Get in the house and fetch your belongings. We got a noon train to catch.”
He hadn’t asked if she wanted to go or if now was a good time. Questions rested on her closed lips. Did he expect her to abandon her home that easily? What would happen to Ma? What about the farm? She took in her uncle, expecting him to say more, but he leaned back in the rocking chair and set the seat in motion.
She sat there for a moment. Shouldn’t he try to convince her to go? Why convince someone to do something when they already know the answer?
She scrambled to her feet, then she slowed down to walk inside.
Millie found Aunt Ursula in her room. The woman had already taken out Ma’s suitcase and stacked Millie’s clothes on her bed. Her aunt expected her to go too.
Ursula handed Millie one of the few housedresses she had. “Go put that one in.”
The woman eyed a plaid dress with a frayed hem and loose stitches. She set it off to the side.
“How long have you known about Isaiah’s letters?”
“For a while now. He’d give me the letters and I’d mail them. In each one, he wrote about how much you’d grown and how much you loved Ozzie’s gifts.”
Millie reached over and touched her brother’s things. Tomorrow morning, she’d wake up somewhere else. She might never see them again.
Aunt Ursula drew one of the dresses—a faded blue garment Ma had worn—up in the air.
Ursula sighed. “Dinah was absolutely beautiful in this. Mmm-hmmm. Your daddy couldn’t take his eyes off her when she wore it.”
The brief light in Ursula’s eyes raised Millie’s spirits. She loved to hear that Pa had once been so in love with Ma. She’d never seen that.
“This is a rag, Millie girl.” Her aunt tossed the dress onto the bed. “You’re going to the city, and you should be at your best.”
Millie’s gaze swept over what she considered her best: four housedresses, two petticoats, a faded chemise and camisole, a single corset with worn straps, and two pairs of stockings. She’d inherited a lot more than many of her kin, who’d had only a threadbare housedress or two to their name.
“There’s something else you should take with you,” Ursula said softly. From the kitchen cupboard, on the very top shelf, she retrieved a cerulean tin box. Ma kept valuables inside. A bit of dust covered the embossed bouquet on the top, but the metal glinted after Ursula wiped off the lid. From inside, she retrieved a single antique pearl hair comb.
“But that’s Ma’s.” Millie had never touched such a precious thing.
“Dinah got this as a wedding gift from Granny Claire. And now it’s yours.” Her aunt ran her fingers along the small shiny pearls adhered to the comb.
“What should I do with it?”
Ursula’s thin lips pursed together, revealing the sharp lines of her face. “Wear it?”
“But—”
“You’re going to Washington.” She pushed Millie to hide it in the suitcase. “Your mama never wore it. A shame, I say. She was always scared she’d lose it or somebody’d steal it.”
Millie took the gift and folded it in a handkerchief. Then she tucked it into the suitcase. It amazed her how quickly she’d packed her life away. How little she owned.
With a sigh, Aunt Ursula patted her shoulder. “C’mon now. If you keep standing there, you might grow roots, girl.”
When she thought about it, perhaps she should sprout roots and stay. Who’d take care of Ma? What about the many tasks around the cabin? “Maybe I shouldn’t go. What about my mother?”
Ursula placed the suitcase in her hands. “I’ll take care of her. She’ll be fine. Young folks like you should move on.” She added, “Don’t let anyone or anything keep you from enjoying what life has to offer.”
* * *
By midday that Tuesday morning, Millie and her uncle boarded a train in Charlottesville for Washington. It was a whirlwind of goodbyes, and as she perched on the train seat next to Uncle, she didn’t feel nervous until the train pulled away from the station. She’d waited for this moment for a long time—this all didn’t feel real. That perhaps her brother hadn’t left and given her such a beautiful gift. Would she wake up tomorrow back at home?
The four-hour train ride from Charlottesville to Fredericksburg and then finally Washington was shorter than she’d expected. This was her first train ride, and she couldn’t help but watch through the window as the scenery passed and listen to the conversations bubbling up around her.
A different world existed outside the long country roads and fields she’d seen. While the Blue Ridge Mountains rose to the west, their train weaved through towns no bigger than a speck, but they had names like Gordonsville and Lorton. The passengers who boarded and disembarked didn’t openly stare like she did. They had far more interesting lives.
Conversations in the colored section bounded up and down the aisles. Much of the chatter related to the upcoming election. Whether they supported Cox or Harding, they all wanted change. Especially those who hated the nation’s current leader. Two Negro men discussed Woodrow Wilson’s failure as president.
“If that man had his way, we’d be in chains again,” one gentleman said. “Last I heard, he’s still segregating the capital.”
“My uncle lost his job at the post office,” the other said. “All them so-called promises of fairness during the election in 1912 was nothing but fruit rotting in the sun.”
