Page 61 of Under the Tulip Tree
Tears choked me, but I kept going. “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’”
I slammed the book shut.
I didn’t want Sam to walk through that valley. Why must he? He was a good man. He loved his neighbor better than anyone I’d ever seen. Be they white or black, it didn’t matter. Sam deserved to live. I was the one who should die. I was selfish and mean-spirited. The world wouldn’t miss me the way it would miss Sam and all his goodness.
“Take me,” I breathed. With my eyes squeezed tight, I started rocking where I sat. “Take me, take me, take me.” Over and over, I whispered the words until my body and my mind were exhausted.
I fell in a heap on the floor beside Sam’s bed and clutched his cold, lifeless hand. If the Almighty was going to take Sam tonight, I was determined to go too.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
“Frankie.”
I heard Mammy calling. “I’m coming, Mammy.”
“Frankie.”
I opened my eyes, expecting to see Mammy’s face above me. I found Illa instead. She helped me sit up, my body unusually stiff and sore, and it all came rushing back. Panic surged through my heart.
“Is he...?” I couldn’t look at the body in the cot next to me.
A soft smile touched her lips. “No, he’s not. In fact, he’s a bit improved.”
I scrambled to my feet, not believing her. But she hadn’t lied. Sam’s breath wasn’t shallow as it had been last night, inching ever closer to the death rattle. His face had lost its grayish hue, although his coloring wasn’t back to normal either.
“The doctor wants Sam’s bandages changed and the wounds cleaned.” At my hopeful look, she cautioned, “We still don’t know if he’ll live, but we mustn’t let infection set in.”
Together, we cleaned Sam’s wounds. I didn’t know how he’d survived such a brutal attack. He’d lost so much blood, it was a wonder he had any running through his veins. Throughout our ministrations, Sam remained unconscious, which was a blessing. After we had him tucked back under the covers, Illa departed, promising to check on us later that afternoon.
I found a straight-backed chair in another part of the hospital and set it beside Sam’s bed. I spooned thin broth between his parched lips, bathed his face, and read from his Bible. Some hours later, with a weary body and mind, I closed the book and rested my eyes.
“Ma’am, would you keep reading?”
I turned to find the man in the bed across from Sam’s looking at me. A blood-soaked bandage covered half his face.
“I ain’t never heard a black woman read before,” he said. “It does my heart good to listen to the Book read by you.”
The awe in his voice humbled me. “Miz Illa taught me after the army took Nashville.”
“I’d never knowed it. You read real good for such a short time.”
I glanced at the book in my lap. Sleep beckoned, but I couldn’t bring myself to deny his request. “Any particular story you want to hear?”
“A preacher man came to the plantation once and talked’bout what heaven gonna look like. It seemed too good to be true.”
I knew those verses. Sam and I had discussed them on many occasions, wondering at the beautiful images they conjured in our minds. It seemed fitting in a hospital with death all around, the men’s thoughts would turn toward heaven. Perhaps we all needed a reminder of what awaited on the other side of this life.
I turned pages until I found the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. “‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth,’” I began, “‘for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.’”
I read for another hour. When I finished with one passage, someone else in the room asked to hear such and such story. After I closed the book and said I needed to take a break, most every one of those men thanked me, a measure of peace on their faces that hadn’t been there earlier. I realized, too, the fear that had held me captive since coming to Sam’s bedside left while I was reading.
With one last look at Sam’s closed eyes, I made my way outside for a breath of fresh air. The sun hung low on the horizon. I longed for my cot, yet I didn’t want to leave Sam. What if he woke up?
A young woman I’d seen working in the hospital stood on the step, looking at the sky. When she turned to me, her eyes weary, she nodded a greeting.
“I’s just listening for the guns.”
Her words took me by surprise. In my worry over Sam, I’d near forgotten the fighting might continue. But as I strained my ears, all I heard were wagons, voices, and normal sounds of the city settling in for the night.
