We sat on the back porch of the farmhouse, on a warm spring morning, the five of us. Mom and Shavonda were chatting about a little of everything, as I rubbed Shavonda's bare back. She was wearing a leopard print halter dress, and the open back was a temptation I could not resist. Grandma and Edie were also relaxing on the porch. The baby had been fed and changed, and was sleeping peacefully in her carrier at our feet. Looking out over the backyard, with the mountain towering above, it occurred to me that this would have been a perfect place to live if not for the backward attitudes here towards couples like us.
While racism wasn't an everyday thing Shavonda and I experienced, it was always there, lurking just beneath the surface, ready to rear its ugly head. Just that morning, I had been attacked by a former high school classmate who'd taken offense to my wife. As dumb luck would have it, I didn't have to defend myself. When he took a swing at me, I'd ducked and he hit a metal door frame instead. I was sure he had broken some fingers. It was fortunate in that it saved me the trouble of defending my wife and myself. Not knowing where we stood in the small Virginia town, we'd fled the scene in our car, driving across the West Virginia border to my parent's farm.
It was the day before Mother's Day, and our intention all along was to spend the day with her. We'd dragged Edie along with us, not telling her where we were going until she figured it out on her own. Shavonda and I had hatched the plan in order to get Edie together with Kenny, who we expected to show up at any time. Hopefully, they'd be able to patch things up. But I knew something that none of the others knew. Kenny had taken the buyout, and was prepared to move north to be with Edie.
Around lunchtime, Kenny did show up. Being in the back of the house, we hadn't heard him pull up. We didn't know he was there until he walked onto the back porch.
"Edie," he said, "I have something for you." He held out a small box. Edie took it and opened it. Inside was a beautiful diamond ring that had to set him back a couple of thousand. Edie looked at the ring, then at Kenny, tears in her eyes. "Will you marry me?" he asked.
Edie almost said yes, then her jaw clenched. "Not unless there's a moving van parked out front," she said. Kenny grabbed her by the hand. "I have something to show you," he said softly. We followed as he led her by the hand to the front porch. There, parked in front of the house, was a U-Haul truck. He'd done it. He'd given up all he had for Edie.
"Yes," Edie said softly. "The answer is yes." Kenny held her tight as she sobbed into his chest. The separation was over. Now they could start to rebuild their relationship.
Sitting on the front porch, Shavonda and I discussed the future with the newly engaged couple. Kenny was expecting two years' salary in the buyout, but had sacrificed his pension. As of yet, he had applications pending in Pittsburgh, but no one had offered an interview yet. "You can start tomorrow," Shavonda said. "We are losing one of our employees, and you can fill her spot if you want. I can't pay much, $10 an hour, but at least you will have steady work until you can find something in your field."
We also offered the use of one of our spare bedrooms, if Edie wasn't ready to live together just yet. That was something only they could decide. After two weeks where Edie had not talked to Kenny, letting others tell her what Kenny's intentions were, I suspected she'd need a little time to get back to normal.
After lunch, Kenny and Edie took off for his parent's house down the valley. The newly engaged couple would spend the day with his mother, then return here for the night. Kenny had already turned in his apartment key to the landlord, and had nowhere else to go. We let him borrow the Jeep so he wouldn't have to drive the moving van around. And tomorrow, when we left for home, Shavonda and I would take the van. Since I was used to driving larger vehicles. Kenny would drive my Jeep. I made sure to get the two-way radios out of the glove box, and plug them into their chargers. We'd need them for the trip north.
Shavonda and I sat on the porch with Mom and Grandma, and the conversation turned to the baby playing at our feet. "Has she started teething yet?" Mom asked. "She should be about due."
"Not yet," Shavonda replied. "And I'm not looking forward to it. I don't want her biting me every time I feed her. So we've started her on cereal. I figure if I can get her eating solid food I can cut down on the pain she inflicts on me."
"She takes bottles now," Mom said. "You have been pumping your milk all along, so you can still feed her your milk without getting bit."
"It won't be the same," Shavonda said. "Breastfeeding is a special time for me. I feel so close to her when I do it. It's something I never thought I'd be able to do."
"I can understand that. Jason was breastfed, and you see the bond we have." Mom was right. Even though I'd moved away, we had kept in close contact over the years. And sometimes it was like Mom knew what I was going to do before I did it. Take Shavonda for example. The first time we'd come here Mom had let us sleep together, but insisted we keep the door to the bedroom open "Because you're not married yet." She knew I'd found the love of my life even then. She was also the first one to know Shavonda was pregnant, when everybody else thought she was incapable of childbearing.
"I'm looking forward to when Miracle can walk and talk," I said. "There is so much I want to teach her." Miracle sat on the floor making cooing sounds, happily trying to chew on her chubby little hands.
"See, she's starting to teethe already," Mom said. "When you see babies start to chew on things, it's a sign their teeth are coming in." She changed the subject. "So, Von, have you been a good girl lately?"
"How is Jason going to flood the world with my babies if I am a good girl?" Shavonda laughed. "Truth is, we are trying to make a little boy. I don't know if I can have another baby, but I'd like a boy to name after Jason. Honestly, just being around that man drives me crazy. I've never been so attracted to anybody in my life. And I know he feels the same way. So even if I wanted to, I couldn't be a good girl around him. He brings out my naughty side."
"Y'all make me laugh every time you come here," Mom replied. "Your love is a beautiful thing. I've never seen a bond like you two have."
I have," Shavonda told her. "My Grandma and Grandpa were this close. When he died, she never got over his death. She wasted away, and a year later she was gone too. I know, I took care of her that final year. It was a sad thing to see. When he died, part of her died with him. Like us, they'd been through hell together. But theirs was worse. They were originally from Alabama, and they were right in the middle of the civil rights fight. That church bombing in Birmingham killed one of their cousins, she was only a child. That's when they decided to leave the south and moved to Pittsburgh. Grandpa chose it because he had been a laborer in the steel mill in Birmingham, and he knew he could get a job in the mills in Pittsburgh. Yeah, we've had it rough, but not like they did. And like us, it made them closer rather than driving them apart."
"Sounds like they were wonderful people," Grandma said. She'd been quiet all along, as she usually was. "I would have loved to have met them and heard their stories. I had a hard time, being Seneca, but nothing like what they went through. I remember the trains, with the coaches divided down the middle, colored on one end, whites in the other. I'm glad that isn't happening now."
