The Summer We Got Free (4 page)

George glared at
her. "Why you always—"

"So, what's in New York?" Sarah asked
Helena, loudly.

George frowned and stabbed his fork into is eggs.

"Work," Helena replied. “A friend of mine
got me an interview in a couple of weeks at a school in Harlem,” Helena said.
“Teaching art.”

"You an
artist?" Regina asked.

“I’m not that
much of one. But I know enough to teach children.”

"I love art," Sarah said. She was sitting so
far out on the edge of her
chair,
she looked ready to
tip over.

"Since
when?” George asked.

"I always
have."

"Ava the
one used to paint," Regina said.

Sarah frowned. "That
was years ago.”

Helena looked at
Ava. “You paint?”

Ava shook her
head. "I just did it a little when I was a child, I guess.”

Sarah raised her
voice just a notch higher than Ava’s. "Was you and Paul close growing
up?"

Helena nodded. “We
were best friends.”

"Like Ava
and Geo," Regina said.

Helena looked at
Ava again.

"My
brother," Ava explained.

Sarah folded her
arms across her chest. "He was my brother, too.”

George got up
from the table, taking his only-half-empty orange juice glass with him to the
refrigerator, where he got out the jug and very slowly poured himself some
more. Watching the dark yellow liquid as it streamed heavily into the glass, he
wondered how long Paul’s sister would be visiting and hoped it would not be
long. He didn’t like the disruption, the uncomfortable conversation, or the
curiosity in that woman’s eyes.

"Does your
brother live here, too?" Helena asked Sarah.

“Yeah, he do,”
Regina
said. She looked from Ava to Sarah. “Where’s your
brother? I know he aint still sleep at this time of day.”

Ava and Sarah
did not have a brother anymore, but neither of them said a word and hoped the
moment would pass without incident. It didn’t.

“I better go
wake him up,” Regina said, standing.

Sarah and Ava both stood at the same time. Ava moved
quickly to the kitchen door and stood in front of it.

"Where you going, Mama?" Sarah asked,
standing directly in front of Regina. “Why don’t you sit back down and finish
your breakfast?”

“No. I just said I’m gone go wake Geo up. Is you deaf,
girl?” Regina grabbed her daughter’s shoulders and tried to move her aside. She
was bigger than Sarah, but the younger woman held her ground.

“You want to go
back outside and see about your tomatoes?” Ava asked.

Regina ignored
Ava, her face growing strained and lined with the effort of trying to move Sarah,
and Ava knew that any second her mother was going to snap and get angry and
start screaming, or worse.

“How about some peppermint tea, Mama?” Sarah asked.

Regina stopped
suddenly. She blinked. “Oh, yeah,” she said, releasing Sarah’s shoulders. “
That sound
good.”

They were relieved to have figured out the One Thing.
There was always something, one
thing, that
Regina
really wanted at any given time. Ever since their mother had gone Saturday
Morning Crazy, identifying that one thing was the only way they could get her
to stop doing something they didn’t want her to be doing and get her to do
something else.

Sarah hurried to the stove and put on just enough
water for one cup of tea, so it would boil faster. Ava helped Regina back into
her chair.

Still at the refrigerator with his orange juice,
George, though he tried not to, could not help remembering how often he
had
gone into his son’s room on mornings
like this, before school or church, to sometimes physically pull him from his
bed, because the boy, from the time he was ten, refused to get up on time. “How
you gone hold down a job if you can’t get your ass out of bed in the morning?”
George had often asked him. “
Lemme
tell you something,
boy. It’s always gone be somebody trying to lock you up, or kill you, and aint
nobody ever gone give you nothing, so you better get ready to do for yourself,
and that means getting up when it’s time to get up. You hear me?” But the boy
had never learned. He had overslept, and been late for school, on the last
morning he ever saw.

1950

W
hen the
Delaneys
came to Radnor Street, on a Saturday in early fall
of 1950, on a cloudy morning, several of their new neighbors stood at their
front windows and watched them with a kind of interest that most of them could
not quite understand. It was an interest that kept them rooted in place behind
windowscreens
, almost unable to look away from the young
family, but which, at the same time, made them hesitate to go out and say hello.

Maddy
Duggard
peered through
her front window from across the street as they unloaded a car full of their
belongings and through the steam coming up from her morning coffee she assessed
them. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, though the coat she was
wearing, a pretty purple dress coat with beige cuffs and a high, stylish
collar, gave her an air of some maturity and sophistication, as did the way she
walked and the way she held her shoulders. The man was thin and sandy, and he
grasped their moving boxes with hands that were almost too large for his thin
frame. A little girl sat on the front steps of the house, and two smaller
children, a boy and girl, ran around on the porch. It was mostly the smallest
girl who Maddy watched. Each time the child’s mother took a box from the back
of the old pickup they had parked out front of the house, and carried it
inside, the little girl followed her. Each time the child disappeared into the
house, Maddy found herself staring at the doorway in anticipation, until she appeared
again. There was something about that little girl that intrigued Maddy, though
she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. She did not know that a
dozen of her neighbors were standing at the windows of their own houses, also
watching this child, and trying to put their fingers on just that same thing.
She also did not know the reason she remained at the window, and did not
immediately go out and introduce herself to the family, as any good Christian,
and any good neighbor for that matter, would. Standing there, she told herself
that she
would
go over, in just a
minute. She told herself that for half an hour.

Through the
window, she saw Malcolm Hansberry, her two-doors-down neighbor, climb over the
banister of the house that separated theirs and knock on her front door. “Come
on in,
Malc
,” she hollered.

“
You been
watching them, too?” Malcolm asked when he saw
Maddy at the window. “That explains why you aint ready.”

She looked at
him,
then
remembered. “Oh shit! The leadership meeting.”

Malcolm took her place at the window while she went to
throw something on and pin up her hair. He had spent several minutes staring
out of his own window at the new family moving in and it was only because he
had to get ready for the meeting at the church that he hadn’t gone over and introduced
himself and offered to help with the boxes. At least that’s why he figured he
hadn’t gone over. Pastor Goode always asked that they be on time for the
meeting and Malcolm didn’t like to keep people waiting when they were expecting
him. It was bad manners. So, he had watched the young family while dressing, so
as not to lose any time. There was something about that littlest girl, he had
thought, standing at his window, and now thought again, standing at
Maddy’s
window, that made him feel happy as he watched her
running around, something that reminded him of the very tops of very green
trees, something that recalled for him the yellow taffy his favorite aunt used
to make. That something made him want to go over and say hello to the family,
made him eager to do so, but still he stood there.

Maddy came back a
couple of minutes later and soon she and Malcolm left the house and walked down
the front steps to the sidewalk, headed for the church. Looking over at the small
girl running around in circles, her arms outstretched as though she were
pretending to fly, both Malcolm and Maddy felt a strange, almost physical tug,
like the feeling of being moved by the wind at your back, only this wind seemed
not to push but to pull, and without either of them suggesting it to the other,
each altered their course mid-step and crossed the narrow street.

“Well, hi
there,” Maddy called as she approached the pick-up truck.

The children’s mother,
who was pulling a box from the bed of the truck, smiled and said, “Good
morning.” She was a little bit taller than Maddy and built like a country girl,
with broad hips and thick calves. Her hands were elegant, long and thin. She
had a wonderful face, with cheekbones cut like a
cliffside
,
and her dark skin was the most flawless Maddy had ever seen.

“I heard
somebody bought this house. I’m Maddy
Duggard
. I live
right here.” She pointed over her shoulder to the white house she and Malcolm had
just exited. “This here’s Malcolm Hansberry.”

“I live in the
green one,” he said, pointing to his own house.

“Nice to meet
you both,” said the woman, smiling, revealing a little space between her two
front teeth. “I’m Regina Delaney.”

She had a heavy southern accent that sounded Alabama-
esque
to Malcolm and Georgia-
ish
to Maddy. “Where you from?” Maddy asked.

“Georgia.”

“Thought so.”

“But we been up here about five years now,” Regina
told them. “We
was
living over on Highland Avenue. And
y’all?”

“I’m from here,” Malcolm said. “
Maddy’s
from Chicago.”

“I moved up here two years ago with my husband and our
children. My husband moved back a year and a half ago,” Maddy said, smiling.

“Was that a good thing?” Regina asked.

“If that’s my only choice, I’ll say good, but really
it was a
wonderful
thing,” Maddy
said, and all three of them laughed.

The children came down off the porch to investigate
their new neighbors and Regina told Maddy and Malcolm their names and ages.
Sarah was six, long-limbed and pretty, and she smiled politely at them. Ava and
George Jr. were four year-old twins. George Jr., who was nicknamed Geo, was chubby-cheeked
and had a quiet curiosity in his eyes as he looked up at Maddy. “How are you?”
he asked her, not in the way children usually asked that, not as if he was
simply saying words he had learned to say when greeting someone, but with a
kind of attention and concern that Maddy had never felt coming from a child.
The question felt so genuine that Maddy could not give a standard answer such
as
just fine
or
good, thank you, baby
, without feeling as if she were lying, so she
said the truth, which was, “I think I’m mostly okay.”

Ava had large, heavy-lashed eyes and her knees were
covered with scabs, some of them freshly picked-at. Up close, she was even more
transfixing. There was a hum about her, almost a glow, almost a whisper, but
neither of those things entirely; something
unnameable
that seemed to radiate from her. It warmed them up in the chilly autumn air and
caused a little laugh to come up out of Maddy, unexpected.

“Oh,” Maddy said. “I felt so happy all of a sudden.”

Ava grinned at them, revealing the same small space
between her two front teeth as her mother, and said, “Y’all got cookies?”

“Ava, go somewhere, please,” Regina said.

Ava frowned up at her, then skipped away, back up onto
the porch, and both Maddy and Malcolm watched her as she went. Neither found it
easy to look away from her. When Regina leaned down into the truck bed to retrieve
another box, Maddy and Malcolm each grabbed one, too, and followed her up the
steps.

The layout of the house was the same as every other
house on the block. They entered into a small foyer that led to a short hallway,
off of which there was a living room, a dining room, and, at the back of the
house, a good-sized kitchen. Stairs led from the foyer up to the second floor. Neither
Malcolm nor Maddy knew who had owned the house before, because no one had lived
in it since either of them had been on the block, but whoever they were, they
sure seemed to like red.

“I never seen so many red walls,” Malcolm said.

“It’s one of the reasons we settled on the house,” said
Regina. “Ava loves color. The more of it she can get, the happier she is. If it
aint no color on the walls, she’ll put some on them, with crayons, or my
lipstick, or whatever she can think of. This way saves us a lot of headaches.”

The kitchen door swung open and the sandy man with the
large hands waved at them as he came into the foyer. “Morning.”

From her window, Maddy had judged him to be four or
five years older than his wife and up close that estimate seemed right. He was
tall and narrow-shouldered, nice-looking in spite of having big, almost bulgy
eyes, and he had a smile that was friendly and seemed to hold back at the same
time. He said his name was George Delaney, and Maddy and Malcolm introduced
themselves.

“What brought y’all up here from Georgia?” Malcolm
asked them.

“Oh, you know,”
George
said.
“It’s more opportunity up here. White folks down there do everything they can
to keep us from having anything.”

Maddy shrugged. “White folks up here aint much
better.”

 
“They aint
much
better nowhere,” George said, and they all laughed and nodded agreement on
that.

“What y’all do for work?” Maddy asked.

“I’m in the streets department,” George said.

“Working for the city?” Malcolm said. “That’s a good
deal.”

“Regina works for some white folks out in Springfield,
but it’s a little far from here. Y’all know anybody closer to this area looking
for help?”

Malcolm didn’t, but Maddy thought she might know
somebody. Jobs were hard to come by, though, and she thought a favor like that
might be better saved for someone she knew longer than a few minutes. Just as
that thought was occurring to her, Ava ran by at full speed towards the kitchen
and Maddy felt warmed up again. “I know a lady over in
Bala
Cynwyd
looking for kitchen help,” she said. “I’ll
introduce you to her.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Regina, looking thrilled.

There was a
tap-tapping
on
the screen door behind them and they all turned to see what looked like a
little white girl standing with her face to the screen, her hand cupped over
her eyes, trying to see inside. “Hello!” she called. “Is Maddy and
Malc
in there?”

Regina went and opened the screen door. The grown
woman standing there was not white, but light-skinned with dyed red hair, and she
was so short that she barely reached past the doorknob.

“Oh. Hi. I’m Doris
Liddy
.
How you?”

She had seen Malcolm and Maddy making their way over
to their new neighbors and had come over to remind them that they were due at
the church. “Pastor hold a meeting every second
Saddy
morning with the leaders of the church groups,” she explained to Regina, once
she had been invited in. “Maddy and
Malc
is
co-secretaries of the events board. I’m vice president of the women’s group.
Y’all been
over to the church yet?”

“We planning on attending service tomorrow,” George
told her.

“Oh, good. It’s always good to know God-fearing folks.
In the city, you never know how people is, and I don’t trust nobody that don’t
go to church.”

“Doris, you don’t hardly trust nobody that do,” Maddy
said.

Doris shrugged. “Well, like I say, in the city you
just never know.” Doris really never knew about people in the city, the
country, or anywhere else. She was a naturally suspicious person and she
expected that wherever people were gathered
wrong-doing
was taking place in some form or another. Her mother always used to say that
the only thing more suspicious than a whole bunch of
coloredfolks
together in one place that wasn’t a church was one white man by himself,
anywhere. She never said how suspicious a whole bunch of white men were together,
because she didn’t have to.

Ava ran in from the kitchen, sounding all by herself like
a herd of cattle on the wood floor, and Doris feared the little girl would run
right into her and knock her down, before she stopped abruptly beside her
mother. She looked up at Doris and didn’t say anything.

Doris had also been among the dozen or so residents of
Radnor Street watching from windows as the
Delaneys
moved in. She, too, had been unsure about going over to say hello, but unlike
Maddy and Malcolm, she knew exactly why. It was this child. There was something
about this child, something about the way she played, that Doris didn’t like.
It was in the way she ran, so fast and uncontrolled. It was in the reach of her
arms as she spun herself around, unconcerned with bumping into things. It was
in the spring of her knees as she jumped up and down on the sidewalk, not caring
that if she fell it would be a hard landing. In all her movements, there was no
restraint. She played as though she had no fear of falling. Doris had known that
quality in younger children, babies just walking. But by this child’s age, fear
was supposed to have taught itself to her, and should have been present in her
play. But it wasn’t. That seemed to Doris to be disrespectful. To whom, she had
not decided.
God, maybe.
Or her
parents,
whose job it was
to keep her safe. How could you keep safe a child who
played without fear? Doris didn’t like it. She didn’t like it from the start.

She had been raised, though, not to insult people, or
their children, in their own house. So, when Maddy smiled down at the child and
said, “Aint she something?” Doris nodded, without saying just what she thought
that something was.

“Well, I’ll be sure to let Pastor Goode know we got
another nice, God-fearing family on the block. Matter fact,” Doris told them, “I’ll
ask him to make some time to meet y’all before service tomorrow.”

“That’s nice of you,” Regina said.

George nodded. “We happy to have such friendly
neighbors.”

A strange thing happened when George said the word
we
. He did not look directly at his
wife, but only glanced emptily in her general direction, almost as if the word
and the reality were not really connected in his mind, and Doris would have
almost been confused as to what “we” he was even talking about if Regina hadn’t
nodded in agreement and smiled when he said it.