The Rebel Wife Page 2

  “I am sorry, Gus,” he said again. “But I do not know this illness, and I do not know how to help him.” Then he fell quiet, with only the jagged rhythm of Eli’s breathing between us. When Greer looked at me, I didn’t turn away. I looked at him more closely than I have in years. His sagging, weary eyes. The heavy cheeks covered with grizzled, rust-colored beard. The scar that cuts from eye to jaw, the slash of a shell wound from Chickamauga, grapeshot that had been blasted into the field where he was working on the dying soldiers. He tells the story so often. The scar is a smooth pink ribbon. It seemed to pulse red, as if inflamed by his memory. He turned away from me.

  “We can try to ease his pain,” he said. There was shame in his voice. “Put blankets on him and close these windows near twilight. And this. It’s a tincture of opium. You know how to apply it.”

  He held out the small bottle of curiously shaped dark blue glass, but I would not take it. I know how to apply it. I have handled it before. It is a familiar remedy to me. He knew that.

  He placed the bottle on the marble-topped table by Eli’s bedside and departed. The skin on my arms tingles when I look at it. I cannot help but look at it. The opalescent liquid flared in the glass like a nymph swirling in milky veils. Simon poured it into Eli’s mouth, drops dribbling down his chin onto the sheets. I could have kissed him there, just for a taste of it. But Rachel was apoplectic about the blood. She insists we keep from touching it. Simon was relieved when Eli’s breathing eased into a shallow wheeze. He slept and seemed less troubled. I was relieved, too.

  Emma sat on a chair in the corner, sighing a hymn. The refrain had something soothing to it. What were the words? I think I heard it in the African church west of the square when I was a girl. Mama had taken me there to hear their preacher, who had a reputation. The entire congregation sang, wailing and ecstatic. Their voices were like waves of grief and joy combined.

  There is a balm in Gilead

  That makes the wounded whole.

  There is a balm in Gilead

  To heal the sin-sick soul.

  Eli coughs and rustles in his bedclothes. Was I sleeping? I want to sleep. I want to cross the hall and lock the door behind me and crawl in between the clean dry sheets and sleep.

  Eli’s eyes are open. The whites are red-riddled. He stares at me and shakes his head. “No,” he says again and again. Is it no? I cannot understand him. His arms wrestle with the blankets. He wants to reach out to me again. He wants some last embrace. I can feel each vertebra of my back against the chair. My hands grip the carved wood arms. His mouth opens and closes. A shudder takes hold of me and my breath will not come. He gasps and the air makes a wet sucking sound as it enters his lungs. He groans. I want to scream but cannot. I want to run from him. The blankets lift with an incredible effort. He is scratching at them, his hands prisoner under their weight. He lets out another shuddering groan. His arms collapse against the bed. He exhales with a click.

  And all is quiet. The blankets lie still against the bed. A soft wisp of breath slips from his mouth. His eyes fade. The frenzy and desire in them vanish. They are opaque and bleary. He is dead. My God, he is dead.

  I cannot cry. I do not want to cry, though I should weep for him. And for myself. And for these past ten years we spent together. For this thing that was our marriage. Whatever it was. And now my husband has died and left me a widow.

  The first pale hints of sunrise creep into the sky to color it a hard gray like gunmetal. Simon’s lamp still burns in his bedroom window. He has waited up all night. But I want to linger with Eli. I do not want to move. I do not want to leave this room. Why do I wait? The word widow vibrates in my head. It rolls on my tongue. Widow. My mouth shapes the word silently. I have counted so many days until I could call myself by that name. Widow.

  Two

  HE SAYS “COME IN” before I knock. He must have heard my steps on the creaking stairs. I push the door open. He is fully dressed, sitting on a chair by his bed. He knows before I say a word. He weeps as I tell him. He slumps in his chair in the inappropriate intimacy of his room and cries into one dark hand as the other rests on his knee. I turn away from him, embarrassed. His tears for Eli come so easily.

  His room is simple. Sparsely furnished. A narrow bed. A table with a lamp. Newspapers are neatly folded on it, papers from Mobile and Montgomery and Nashville. There is a bureau with a mirror and a large color engraving in a simple wood frame. The drawing commemorates Robert Elliott’s speech in Congress. Elliott the Negro man elected from South Carolina because the Republicans kept white men from voting. Equality and freedom, the picture says: “The Shackles Broken by the Genius of Freedom.” Elliott spoke on the floor of Congress in favor of the Civil Rights Act. A Negro man speaking to Congress. Eli talked about it at length, certain it would mean real equality for colored men. Real equality with what? For what? All this talk about freedom and equality never made sense. You take from one and you give to another. That is what has happened. That is what happened to me, and it has nothing to do with equality.

  Simon takes his hand from his face and watches me read the engraving. I turn away from it as if I have no interest. He looks at me gravely, his eyes still wet, but with the sadness wiped away. His hands are large, dark-skinned on the back like oak bark, pale on the palm like the raw flesh of wood. Simon the snake killer.

  “Did he?” he says, pausing. He glances down at his hand and then looks at me. He sighs through his nose. The nostrils flare. It may be discomfort, as if he doubts what he is about to say. “Did he say anything to you, ma’am, before he died?”

  Simon’s loyalty to Eli must make him want to believe Eli was thinking of him as he passed. Should I tell him a lie? Something to comfort him? He doesn’t turn his eyes away from me. His stare is penetrating.

  “No, not a word.” The newspapers on his desk are squared one against the other. They will put something in the paper about Eli. Not too much. People cannot know too much about how he died. “He tried to speak. It seemed like he would. But he never said anything.” I have to turn away from him.

  “Could you make it out—what he was trying to say? Did he indicate anything at all to you?”

  His eyes narrow. I want to go back to the house.

  “No, nothing, Simon. Nothing at all. He didn’t mention any money, either, but I’m sure he has thought of you in his will.”

  His face is grim. He does not appreciate my response, but that is my answer. There is no more to say. He should be happy I answered at all. Maybe I should have made something up.

  “Was there something you wanted to know?”

  “No, ma’am,” he answers quickly. “I just wondered. If there is anything that occurs to you, please let me know. I’m very sorry for the loss. I’m very sorry.”

  “I know you were close to him. And loyal. You will always have a place here with us.”

  He nods and rises abruptly. “May I see him?”

  Perhaps I should not have said that. They are free people now. They are not like before, when it was understood we would care for them. When Pa died, Mama assured all the house servants they would stay with us. They could become so excited from fear of being sold or separated from us. But Simon must worry if he will have a place here. Where else could he possibly go?

  We walk back to the house, and I leave him alone with Eli’s body. He closes the door behind him. He is too familiar, of course, but now is not the time to scold him. As if I have the courage to scold Simon.

  And Emma must be told. She cared for Eli, too, I think, although she has been with me from time beyond my remembrance. In my earliest days, she fed me from her own breast.

  I knock timidly at her bedroom door. It feels odd to seek her out here at the top of the stairs. She answers already dressed and has a look of understanding on her face. She embraces me. We hold each other for a moment. There is no need for me to explain or for her to condole. She feels some private grief over Eli’s passing, but she does not express it to me.

  She
says she will come with me to tell Henry. She follows me down the stairs and back through the pink bedroom to where the nursery is tucked into a corner of the house. Henry is still sleeping in his short bed. He rubs his eyes in confusion to see Emma and me with him so early. I kneel on the floor beside him, my skirts padded under my knees. He sits up, tugging at his nightshirt and pulling it down toward his feet.

  He is my child. Only mine now, although he will grow up to look so much like Eli. And I tried so hard not to have him. Not to have a child at all. Emma’s little devices, the cotton cloths coated in sheep fat. Making Eli believe he was inside me while he bore at me between my legs, slick with his sweat. So much vigilance. Some night I was drunk with wine or my medicines, and I stumbled but could not face the horrors of those bottles and pills again. So I bore Eli a son.

  “Henry, you must be very strong for Mama.” What is my purpose? Those soft blue eyes are Eli’s eyes. I do not know what to say to him. How do I put it into words that he will understand? How can I explain that his father’s death means marvelous new changes for him and for me, that it is not all a loss but something that has changed our lives in a way that has so much of the better. I was ten when Pa died. Henry is not yet five, old enough to understand. Old enough to be afraid. Emma sits close by in an old rocker, looking out on the garden.

  “Your papa has died, honey, and we must say goodbye to him. He has left us and gone to a better place.” My words sound silly. How can they provide any comfort to my boy? He shakes his head and rubs his eyes and asks where his papa has gone.

  He starts to cry and pull away from me, but he must listen. I grab his hands and hold them. I squeeze them hard. He jerks at them in pain. The more I say to him, the more he struggles to get away. He rushes to Emma, who sits quietly in her chair. She scoops him up and rocks him, rubbing his head and murmuring to him about the angels taking his papa on a long ride up to heaven, where he will watch over Henry and all of us and make sure we are safe like he always has before.

  When did I stop believing the things Emma told me? It was late in my youth before I gave them up. Back then I ran to Emma with a hurt or a fear. I preferred her to my own mother. I guess I did not expect that my son would do the same. Perhaps I am too clumsy as a mother, or too harsh, as Mama was. Or perhaps Emma provides a comfort I cannot. All the same, it has happened. The feeling is cold in my heart. I sit here on the floor watching Emma care for my boy. I wish she could comfort me. I am jealous of Henry for his childhood. I wish I could behave much as a child myself.

  This is the Emma I have always known. Her life’s work has been children, although she never had any of her own. But she did, yes, two small ones who died just before I was born. Mama said once that losing those babies made Emma love us all the more. She has always seemed quiet and sad to me. We never talked about it, but she must still think about them. The pain weakens over time. It fades away. But I am sure she still thinks about them. You turn your head and suddenly the thought is there. A baby that was not. How could she not think about it? I think about that baby every day. What would he have been like? What would have happened to us? I cannot think about it. Not now.

  I will leave them together. Henry will fall asleep with his thumb in his mouth as Emma rocks him. That comfort. What a barb, but what a relief, to know that he can find that comfort, even though it is not with me.

  Simon and Rachel are in Eli’s bedroom, taking up the soiled linens. I can hear them well enough. The door isn’t pulled quite to. I’m surprised Simon agreed to help her, even after she insisted. She is afraid, although she won’t act like it. Rachel would never let her fear show.

  “Stop poking through Mr. Eli’s things and listen to me, Simon. I said he didn’t die the right way.”

  What is she saying? Is there a right way to die? Rachel and her superstitions. And they’re in there with Eli’s body. John and Simon must have already moved him to the cooling board.

  “He seems to have accomplished it well enough, however he did it,” Simon answers drily.

  “You know what I mean, Simon. I told you those rattlesnakes were a bad sign. There’s already been death in this house.”

  They fall silent. The sheets make a soft hush of a sound as they pull them up. I gripped my fists when Rachel asked me what I wanted them to do with the sheets. She should mind her tone. She didn’t even nod when I told her to burn them on the fire John is making for the boiling pot. There should be black dye powder from Mama’s funeral in the attic. I won’t dye very many dresses, just two or three to wear until I can have dresses made from black cloth. After Mama passed, the dyed dresses turned my arms and shoulders and breasts black. The dye ran in gray-tinted rivulets of sweat down my sides. Anything that my corset did not cover was tainted black like deep bruises.

  “It’s those snakes.” Rachel again. “You need to get me those snakes. What did you do with them?”

  “They’re in the ashpit. Does John know what you’re planning?”

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Simon. You know I know my way. You get me those snakes. You keep the skin if you want. All I need are the bones.”

  “I’ll let John know you’re looking for them.”

  Rachel is up to something. More conjuring. I don’t like to criticize her, but that tone. And her temper. I don’t know how she got along at the Cobb house. Emma said she disappeared after the Yankees came, like so many servants, but found her way back when she realized freedom was not so grand, Yankees or not. Eli hired her on Emma’s recommendation. The fights we had over her. Now her tempers have become commonplace. And who wouldn’t balk at pulling up those bloody sheets, even without the superstitions her mother gave her.

  “You don’t need to tell John. And stop being smart. Just get me those bones like I asked you.”

  I should go. Move up the stairs to the attic.

  “Wait,” Rachel says. “Shhh.”

  She knows I’m out here listening to them.

  She swings open the door and comes into the hall, but I am already halfway up the stairs. She looks at me hard.

  “Rattlesnakes, Rachel?” I ask. I roll my eyes. “Is Little John ready? I’m just getting the ribbon.”

  Rachel puts her hands on her hips. “Yes, ma’am. He’s in Henry’s suit. It’s a little short on him.”

  “Does it not look right?” My hand squeezes the railing in front of me.

  “No, ma’am. It will do.”

  “Thank you for letting him do this, Rachel.”

  “It’s all right, ma’am. He’ll get paid for it, I guess, won’t he?” She looks at me evenly, with impudence.

  “Yes, Rachel, I will give him something for his trouble. For both your trouble.” I will offer the boy a few pennies and see how her expression changes. My hand relaxes on the railing. Rachel’s eyes seem to bore into me so that I have to look away. “Big John doesn’t mind, does he?” I ask, looking at her again.

  Rachel narrows her eyes at me and smiles. “No, ma’am. He doesn’t mind at all. No secrets in this house.”

  She watches me round the stairs, her hands on her hips. The undertaker will be here soon, and I have to get out Little John with the bell. I don’t have time for her tantrums anyway.

  Dr. Greer was good to take word to Weems. Greer is so easy about the old times—he does not hold a grudge against Eli or Mr. Weems, Republicans or not. Greer was sad at Eli’s bedside. He eyed the blue bottle and looked at me in his funny way. I was almost afraid he would take the bottle away. But he didn’t, thank God. I couldn’t help but look at the bottle, too. A last look before I closed Eli’s bedroom door.

  I will be quiet and mournful, like Greer’s face. Impassive as a sphinx. They must not know what goes on behind my mask. They will all know soon enough that Eli is dead. After Little John goes through town with the bell, then it will all begin.

  The attic room is so hot. The heat is early this year. There are cobwebs everywhere and footprints in the dust. The servants coming and going up here.

&nbs
p; The old trunk is still filled with Mama’s memento mori, the black ribbon and black gloves, a few onyx and mother-of-pearl rings, armbands, black-edged cards and black-bordered handkerchiefs. Black cockades and dyed black feather fans. Mama’s funeral was an affair that brought together the society of Albion and the county, family from as far as Huntsville and Tullahoma and even Nashville and Murfreesboro. All of them avoided staying at my home, out of respect, they said. Is it already two years since Mama died? It seems like much longer that she’s been gone. Her funeral had been an event. I had made it an event.

  Eli’s funeral will be a different sight. Who will come—and for whom will they come, him or me? The dusty heat of the attic makes me clumsy, fumbling all these loose mementos. The ribbon and dye are here. The other things can stay in the trunk. New favors can be acquired, if they are even needed. Who will wear a ring to remember Eli? When Mama died, some people in town wore their armbands for weeks, and others wore them through the end of my deep mourning for her.

  It was a cool day—autumn—and I opened the house on Allen Street in a way it had not been opened in years. I honored Mama’s name in the proper way. To let everyone know that I at least had not forgotten her name, or my own. Judge was proud of it. He is not one to forget our name, either. He did not smile, of course, but I could see the pride in his eyes, in the way he looked at every detail and nodded. He approved. He didn’t need to tell me I had done right by Mama. I could tell.

  She was embalmed by Mr. Weems and laid out in a mahogany coffin with bright silver handles. Mama was in the south parlor, the largest and the one that faced the river. Pa and Mama had spent their time together in that room. She looked peaceful, resigned, her hands crossed over her waist, a black lace cap framing her tight gray curls, pomaded and dressed by Weems himself. He had given her a touch of color in her cheeks, and I approved while knowing full well Mama would have been scandalized by the thought of wearing rouge, in spite of her vanity. I had practically moved into the house on Allen Street during those last weeks. Mama was confined to her bed, racked with paroxysms of agony from the cancer that ate her. Her passing was a relief to her—to us all.