April’s Child

They only let Irene hold her daughter twice before they whisked the baby away. When she insisted on seeing it again, they sent Sissy in.

"Now, you know you couldn't keep that baby, child," Sissy said, embracing Irene and rocking her back and forth. "We alls got to make sacrifices on that. I seed to it that it had a good home, though. What you gots to do is to get better so that you can go home. You have other babies who need you. Annie's gone, and your mother has found two good women to watch over the babies and take care of the summer cottage. Mr. Wilton, he be beside himself with confusion and dealing with tellin' folks why you tain't be at home. He have no time for the babies. You need to get well and go be the mamma to the babies you can keep."

But Irene was still in the sanitarium, although slowly recovering her wits and being weaned off the drugs her father had been giving her, when Jonathan keeled over and died of a heart attack in his New Bern office in the middle of a staff meeting. He had been working furiously to deal with the grasping for every-expanding businesses and with his own demons and had worn his heart out. It wasn't all that unexpected. He wasn't a young man and he'd been working too hard.

Irene's father came to the sanitarium to drive her down to New Bern to the funeral, which was to be on April First, 1913. "A fitting day for the old fool to be buried," an unforgiving Sissy had muttered from across the room when Irene was told her husband was dead.

"The orderlies have packed up all of my things, Papa," Irene said, when he arrived. "Are you moving me to another sanitarium?"

"No, honey, I think it's time for you to go home now. Maybe the summer cottage rather than right back into the bustle of New Bern. You are well enough for that now."

Irene looked searching at him. Was that both sadness and guilt she saw in him? Sissy had been musing enough about her being sold off to a man trying to baby her to death. Had Sissy gotten to her father too? Sissy had ruled the household of Irene's family home even more than she'd managed to do in the Wilton household. Had Sissy put some of the blame for Irene's breakdown on her own family? Was the doctor at least tacitly accepting that blame?

"Where's Sissy," she said, having been thinking of the woman who had been rock her entire life. "Isn't she going with us?"

"Sissy has gone on ahead. She'll meet us at the cemetery," he answered.

And there Sissy was, at the cemetery, standing off to the side, as any person of color would be expected to do at a white man's funeral in the South in 1913.

Before Irene caught sight of Sissy, though, she saw that her boys weren't there. She asked her father where they were.

"They're still in Oriental, at the summer cottage," he answered. "We thought them to be too young to be here. And we figured that was where you'd go after the funeral."

It was then that she caught sight of Sissy. But the woman wasn't standing alone. There was a young man standing on one side of her—Toby. And a young woman on the other side—Annie. Both Toby and Annie were holding bundles, one of which was fussy.

Irene could hardly contain herself through the burial service, her copious tears not really being for Jonathan, something that most of those in attendance never needed to know. At last, though, she stood alone at the covered grave, with her parent standing off a bit toward the road and Sissy and her brood standing on the other side of the grave.

With wobbly legs, Irene started walking toward Sissy's group. Toby met her half way, putting his arm around her and leaning down and kissing her on the lips. A baby was cuddled between them—Irene's baby. And Toby's baby. Unmistakingly Irene and Toby's baby.

"We named her April," Toby said in a shaky voice. "I hope you don't mind."

Irene started to cry, and Toby held her close. When she could control herself, she gestured toward Annie. "Annie has a baby too?" Did Toby have a baby by another woman as well?

"Yes. It's a boy. Spittin' image of Jonathan, it is. Red hair and temper and all. When Mr. Wilton found out she was with child he railed and ranted and threw her out of the house. I think he only acted that way because Annie told him the baby would be mine. Guess that surprised Annie too. Mr. Wilton's anger is part of why Sissy brought your father in and we spirited you away to Ashville. Your father would never tell Mr. Wilton where you went. You can bet that didn't set right. He puffed right up and turned redder than a beet. Wouldn't be surprised if that helped kill him. Sissy's kept Annie with her. And me and our baby, of course. She says it's time for us all to go home—to Oriental."

"Yes, it's time for you all to go to the summer cottage now, honey." The voice was that of Irene's father. He and her mother had come up to the grouping of black father and daughter and white mother.

"You're a rich woman now, with businesses owned," her father said. "But maybe, under the circumstances, you best just cash checks on the business from the house at the river. Good men have been put in place to grow your businesses in New Bern. Your mother and I'll go home now. We'll visit you one of these days soon. Toby has your Buick. He'll drive you all to the river and to your new lives together."

"Papa, Mama?" Irene said, with a choked voice. "You mean that you don't—?"

"We want you to be happy," Irene's mother interjected. "That's all we ever wanted. We messed that up for you, but all we want now is for you to have what you want and to be happy. We don't want you out of our lives. We will visit soon—after you all are settled."

Irene watched her parents walk off toward the Model T parked on the road before, still holding her tight as if she might evaporate into thin air if he didn't, Toby turned her, and walked her back to her new family.