Page 59 of Under the Tulip Tree
“Well, lookee who finally come to see me.”
He went over to her, bent low, and kissed her cheek. “I came as soon as I could.”
A happy smile replaced the previous sadness in her eyes.It warmed my heart when Alden knelt beside her and told her about his possible job. I left the two of them conversing and went to the kitchen. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but we’d all somehow become friends. The thought pleasedme.
I was chopping carrots and potatoes to go with our fried pork chops when he came to help a short time later.
“Frankie’s gone to lie down for a bit,” he said as he washed his hands at the sink. He took a towel from a hook and met my gaze. “She told me about Sam. She said she’d finish the story after lunch.”
“It’s so sad. I don’t understand things like that.”
“Like what?” He removed the paper wrapping from the meat and seasoned the chops with salt and pepper. I still found it amazing that he knew his way around the kitchen. As far as I knew, my father hadn’t ever cooked a meal in his entire life.
“Frankie had already suffered so much. Why couldn’t she enjoy some happiness with Sam?”
We worked in silence for long moments. Finally Alden said, “I suppose you mean God should have allowed her some happiness.”
I met his gaze. “Yes, I do. God is all about love and goodness. Why did he let slavery exist in the first place?”
He chuckled. “You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m not sure I believe in God.”
I recalled him saying something similar to Frankie several days ago. “I think there is too much evidence around us to rule out a Creator. Look at us, how complicated our bodiesare. And all the different animals, and plants and flowers, and fruits and vegetables.” I held up a long carrot. “How did all this come to be without God?”
He leaned against the counter, one corner of his mouth tipped up. “Again, you’re asking the wrong guy. Your argument makes sense, but it still doesn’t answer your questions. If God does exist, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? Why doesn’t he just wave his hand and make everyone’s lives full of happiness?”
I’d wondered the same thing many times. When the stock market crashed and my life imploded, I’d asked God why. But after meeting Frankie and hearing her stories, I realized my family and I hadn’t truly suffered. We still had a beautiful home, food on the table, help when it was needed from Grandma Lorena. My father’s failures were responsible for any losses we endured. They were not God’s fault.
“I don’t suppose we’re going to solve life’s mysteries before lunch,” I said, pleased at finding him so easy to talk to, no matter the subject. Unlike Dad, Alden didn’t argue to make his point.
Our conversation drifted to other subjects while Alden got a fire going in the stove furnace. He fried the pork chops, and I boiled the carrots and potatoes. It’s funny how comfortable I felt in Frankie’s kitchen, cooking on her outdated stove. Almost as though I were a member of the family rather than a stranger who’d arrived on her doorstep a little more than a week ago.
When she entered the kitchen an hour later, lunch wasready. “My, look what you young’uns have done. It sure smells good.”
The three of us sat at the table. Frankie bowed her head and we followed suit.
“Thank you, Lord, for the bounty from your hand. Bless these two fine folks who cooked a meal for an old woman. Amen.”
As we ate, Alden regaled us with stories of his life in Chicago. He told about the strange man who’d come to stay at his parents’ boardinghouse when Alden was just a boy. The man turned out to be a bootleg whiskey runner and was using the boardinghouse as his hideout. One day when the man was out, Alden poked around his room and found a stash of liquor. When he carried a bottle downstairs to ask his mother if he could have some, she nearly fainted.
“Father didn’t want to call the authorities. He was afraid it would cause trouble for him, so he told the man to leave and never come back. We heard later the fellow opened a distillery in Kentucky as soon as Prohibition was over and is doing quite well. He even sent Father a case of whiskey as thanks for not turning him in.”
We laughed in unison.
“I’ve never been one to partake in strong drink,” Frankie said, “but we used plenty while I was working in the hospital after the fighting was done. There wasn’t enough medicine to go around to relieve the men of their pain. All we had to ease the suffering was whiskey.” She sighed. “Let’s clean up and then I’ll tell you about Sam.”
Alden and I insisted on washing the dishes while Frankie put the leftovers in the icebox. Jael, she said, usually went to a friend’s home after church, but she would enjoy the meal for supper.
We settled in the living room, me with my pencil and notebook ready, and Alden with his long legs stretched out in front of him as he sat on the sagging sofa.
“When Miz Illa told me Sam was dying,” Frankie began, her voice subdued, “I wanted to curl up on the floor and have a good cry. It didn’t seem fair, him not even a soldier. But she wouldn’t let me fall apart. ‘He needs thee, Frankie,’ Illa said. ‘And thee needs to tell him how thee feels before it’s too late. Otherwise, thee will live with regret the rest of thy life.’”
I climbed down from Miz Illa’s wagon in front of a large building on College Street. I couldn’t recall what it had been before the war, but now it housed Hospital Number16. Many black men had joined the army, willing to fight for their own freedom. Sadly, over two hundred lost their lives in a peach orchard south of the city in the fighting. Many others were brought here.
We walked down hallways, turning this way, then that, before we came to a partially shut door. She held me by the shoulders, as though trying to impart strength upon me.
“Be as encouraging as thee possibly can. He needs to see thy smile, hear thy laughter. Thee does not want him facing death amid gloom and doom.”
I stared at her. What she asked was impossible. “I can’t do it, Miz Illa. My heart hurts too much.” Tears welled in my eyes, blurring my vision.
