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Consent in October

Abir Wood

    For years, I have watched her hunched over the old sewing machine, with her lips pressed tight, almost pouting, and her eyes intensely focused, as she grew ancient under layers of time, fate, and circumstance. I have repeatedly been swept by waves of guilt as I watched her, the beauty of Angel Creek, wither behind her silence. I remember Lily the cheerful young woman with the broad smile and the twinkly eyes that lit up her round amiable face. Like the spring creeks dry up in the summer, her gushing smile dried up one day and her long season of hushed existence started.
    My cousin Lily is the oldest of eight children. All her brothers and sisters fared well in life. The youngest three brothers were the first in our family to graduate from college, thanks to her hard work and generous hands. Over the years, her siblings have dribbled out of our small town and moved on to better and bigger things. Yes, they still visit, like the rain visits the desert! They have changed you know. The adoration in their eyes has faded. The defiance in their manners glares shamelessly, especially at Lily. The three college boys are the worst. Now each one drives a shiny car, totes a fancy city wife, and flashes a movie-star smile. Our ways are not good enough for them anymore. The sight of children with no shoes on scares them to death as if they were never without shoes, that is before Lily started working and pumping the money in. Now, they screw up their faces at the sight of her chili and cornbread, that same stuff they gobbled up in the yesteryears. They’d rather drive twenty miles to eat Chinese food. Gosh, nobody seems to remember all the hard work and the sacrifices. Glued to the sewing machine for years, she fed, dressed, and paid for schools. Now it’s all forgotten, not even a thank you or a card on her birthday. Lately, whenever the family affairs are discussed, she sighs and says, “The rosary is broken and the beads are scattered all over the place.” Lily deserved much better than that, but it all never happened.
    Lily has been the only tailor in Angel Creek for over twenty seven years, and a darn good one too. Her store, located a quarter mile south of the town’s main square, was a convenient meeting place. Women flocked to it in the late mornings, bringing in loads of worries and joys that come with life and the latest gossip, along with the pans of half-peeled potatoes and the trays of to-be-inspected beans. Little girls, fascinated and attracted by the seemingly endless supply of colorful scraps of cloth, flocked to her shop after school or all day long in the summer. They busily worked on making rag dolls or sewing clothes for a favorite store-bought doll if they had one. As a child, I spent many happy hours in her store, working on one sewing project or another. As a grown up, I have been working for Lily six afternoons a week for the last fifteen years. This job helps me boost my husband’s skimpy earnings, keep up with the latest gossip, and, perhaps, keep an eye on her.
    Tall and curvy, Lily stood in the women’s choir to the right of the altar. Mark stood to the left of the altar in the last row of the men’s choir. His dark complexion and high cheek bones gave him an air of mysterious majesty. Their gazes locked in long embraces as they sang. After church they strolled down Main Street, two love birds in perfect harmony. They kept their relationship low key to curb any nasty gossip.
    Mark grew up in the house across the street from the house where Lily grew up and later opened her shop. Her sewing machine was strategically located to overlook his mother’s front porch. Mark visited his mother almost every afternoon and on his way out dropped by to chat with Lily and her customers. Often times he brought flowers from his mother’s garden to beautify the shop. He one time surprised her with a bench he had made. She placed it along the south wall of the shop and draped it with green velvet. I was the first one to try the new bench. It was soft and cushy. At that time when I was thirteen and she was twenty-two, everything was going very well for her, a booming business and a sweet romance.
    That unusually cold day in early October is still so vivid in my memory. I was at Grandma’s house doing homework on the dining room table. It was so cold that I kept my coat on. My mother and Aunt Darlene were helping Grandma can the last of the green bean crop. They were talking about all sorts of things and I kind of tuned it all out.

    My eyes widened with curiosity and my heart jumped with joy. They were finally getting married.
    “Are you crazy? What’s so wonderful about blessing a disaster?” snapped Grandma, to my great surprise and dismay.
    “I don’t understand,” said Aunt Darlene hesitantly. “He’s a good man and a reputable carpenter. They love each other. Where’s the disaster?”
    I heard Grandma snap her fingers three times, something she did when she was annoyed. “In love, eh,” she said. “Damn all that love nonsense the youngsters are seeing in movies. Wake up, Darlene. Do you know what’ll happen when Lily gets married? Do you think she’ll keep giving you all she makes? I bet you’ll not see a red cent. Edna is already married, but you still have six children. They need food, shoes, clothes, school supplies, and all kinds of crap. You think your husband is going to pay for all that? He’s a bum. All he does is sit in the sun and tell tall tales.”
    Aunt Darlene whimpered a little, then said something in sort of a shaky voice that I did not catch. I moved to the end of the table closest to the kitchen.
    “Ma is right,” I heard Mama say. “Remember how many times you all went hungry. Rodger was never able to keep a job. Darlene, you need to deal with things as they are. Once she’s married, she’ll have children and everything she makes will go to her new family. Mark may not even want her to work.”
    “But he’s a dream husband,” said Aunt Darlene tearfully. “How are we going to explain not blessing such a marriage to her and the town’s folks?”
    “Oh, he’s too old for her,” replied Grandma casually.
    “He’s eight years older than her,” replied Aunt Darlene. “Pa was thirteen years older than you.”
    “Darlene, in this day and age every year counts,” said Grandma thoughtfully. “The age difference should not be more than two years.”
    “Will she buy that?” asked Aunt Darlene doubtfully. “Suppose she insists on marrying him. She’s old enough to marry him with or without our blessings.”
    “Then it’s either us or him. Make it clear,” said Grandma adamantly. “She’ll never give up her family, her flesh and blood for a man. Trust me.”
    “What about Lily? How can I threaten her like that? It’ll break her heart,” said Aunt Darlene, her voice trembling.
    “She’s too young for real heartbreak,” said Grandma, softening her tone. “She’ll be upset for a little while, but soon enough she’ll forget all about him. In a few years she’ll find a much better man. By that time all your children will be grown. Think about it, Darlene. It’s the future of six children. Let your brain lead you at least once in your life. You married sweet-talking handsome Rodger and what did you get? A bunch of good-looking children and lots of heartaches and growling stomachs.”
    I heard my aunt whimper again. Maybe she was crying.
    “Enough of that. Look at those black clouds creeping from the north. You two better go back to your homes,” said Grandma firmly.
    I felt very antsy, yet I couldn’t move as if I were paralyzed. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t see Mama walk into the room.
    “You heard everything,” she said.
    I nodded. She quickly pinched my ear. “Don’t you dare breathe a word to anybody,” she said.
    She then hurriedly stuffed all my books in my sack and we left through the back door like thieves.
    That evening while helping Mama fold the laundry, I gathered enough courage to ask, “Do you think Lily will elope with Mark?”
    “No, eloping is for wild girls,” said Mama. “She wouldn’t want to lose all her family for a man. Besides, your grandma has this soul-reading ability and she knows all about what folks will or will not do.”
    “Suppose she’ll marry him no matter what?” I said with great defiance. “Well, you know these are the sixties and things are changing. Even the colored folks want to be and will get to be equal to us. That’s what Mr. Arnolds said in English class, just last week.”
    She mulled over my words for a moment, meticulously folding the towel in her hand. Cold sweat ran down my back as the gravity of what I had just blurted out gradually sank in. I shrank in place and waited for one of Mama’s juicy slaps.
    “Settle down, child,” she said with embellished patience as she fussed over another towel. “Lily and the colored folks are none of your beeswax. Let the grown- ups take care of them. You go now to sleep and forget all about grown-up stuff.”
    As I stood up to leave the room, she added in a soft but firm voice, “Georgiana, don’t let that Yankee fill your head with his nonsense.”
    It wasn’t nonsense. Mama wasn’t there. Mama didn’t look into his eyes. She didn’t see that gleam. She didn’t see that genuine deep yearning for what is to inevitably come. Anyway, I was glad to escape without a whipping, but from Mama’s excessive patience and polite words I knew not to ever restart this conversation.
    Following Mama’s advice, I went to bed early that night. Settling was what I could not do. Unable to bear the motion of tossing and turning, I sneaked to the living room, paced around for a while, but could not settle down. I stepped outside onto the back porch and stared into the darkness. A fierce blustery wind blew from the north.
    “Yes, times are changing,” I whispered to myself. “She surely must rebel and marry Mark. Maybe they’ll never speak to her again. Grandma is so willful and pigheaded; she’ll make everybody stay away from her. Well, then she won’t give them any of her money. No, Lily is too tenderhearted to abandon her family. Mark is so wonderful. She’ll marry. No she won’t. What about the colored folks? The grown-up folks in this town are not like Mr. Arnolds. Are they? Oh, shit. They are still crying over a plantation they never owned.”
    The northerly wind froze my face, but failed to freeze what raged inside my head. I saw the first rays of light penetrate the cloudy sky. I sneaked back to my bed, hid under the covers and pretended to be asleep.

    In the days that followed, I spent all my spare time in Lily’s shop. She was very pale and silent. Often times she would go to the bathroom and return red around the nose and the eyes. I was sure she made those trips to cry. Mark stopped visiting the shop. I wanted to say something, but I never did. I waited for the subject to come up so I could drop a hint or two, but it never did. I was burning on the inside. I came up with many schemes to save their wonderful love, but the only thing I ever did was ask, “So, Lily, do you think Mark will make another bench?”
    “I’m not sure,” she replied faintly.
    In church the following Sunday, Lily kept her eyes fixed on the music as Mark frantically tried to catch her eye. She left church in a hurry, leaving the rest of the family behind. He followed her and so did I, but I made sure to keep some distance. They walked down Main Street. From behind they looked stiff like walking statues. I wasn’t sure whether they were talking or not. When they reached the hardware store, he led her onto the dirt road in the direction of the creek. They walked about half a mile before stopping in the shade of a big oak tree. I hid behind another oak tree. Some kind of a heated discussion went on, but I couldn’t hear much. He held her hands with both his as if pleading until she abruptly pulled them away and ran in the direction of Main Street, one hand covering her mouth in an attempt to muffle her cries. He sat under the tree, his head buried between his hands.
    Before October was over, Mark left the town and Miss Bethany Huff returned from retirement to replace Mr. Arnolds, whom we were told had to go back to New York for health reasons. A few weeks later, we heard through many grapevines that Mark was working for a big construction company in St. Louis. No grapevine ever mentioned Mr. Arnolds again. Margie, Mark’s baby sister, brought Big Melvin to Lily’s shop to take back the bench. Grandma happened to be there and chased them away with a stick. She swore she’d call the sheriff if they ever attempted another broad-daylight robbery again. Leaning on her stick, Grandma stood in front of the shop panting, narrowing her eyes and sucking her toothless gums in a theatrical display of anger.
    “She thinks she can scare us with a hired hand. Some big Melvin!” Grandma bellowed. “The mother hides and sends her wild girl.”
    “Grandma, please calm down,” said an aggravated Lily as she walked out of the shop and stood next to her. “These are Margie’s ideas. Her mother is way too dignified to do such things. You know that, don’t you?”
    “He gave you a few pieces of cheap wood nailed together,” said Grandma, totally disregarding Lily’s question. “It’s a piece of junk. The value is in the upholstery. You bought the fancy velvet and did the hard work. It’s yours.”
    “Grandma, it doesn’t matter. Let her have it.”
    “She wants revenge because we dumped her spinster brother.”
    “Grandma, you don’t call men spinsters.”
    “Yes we do!”
    Lily sighed deeply and shook her head in despair before returning to her sewing machine, where she sat looking limp and defeated. Grandma remained perched in front of the shop for over an hour, refusing to leave until Lily promised not to give Margie the bench.
    Margie went around complaining about not being able to retrieve her brother’s bench. Grandma went around explaining why the bench was a piece of junk without Lily’s upholstery. Between Margie and Grandma, the town was entertained for weeks. In the midst of it all, Lily withdrew and threw herself into her work. She expanded into the wedding gown business. Boy, was she busy.
    Mark did not return to town for over two years. When he returned it was around Christmas. To the town’s great surprise, he was accompanied by a wife. According to Melba, the town’s chatter-box, his mother knew as much about this July bride as anyone else in town. His woman was short and stocky with piercing blue eyes. A mass of short blond curls framed her expressionless pale face. Her name was Susan and she was nothing to look at. At the time I felt he betrayed Lily by choosing somebody so drab. He deviated from everything Lily was. He moved away from the long auburn hair draped over narrow delicate shoulders, the rosy cheeks, and large curious green eyes. Lily came in Technicolor and this Susan came in white on white. It was all so wrong. On that dark day when Susan showed up in town, Lily looked pastier than a corpse. Her vividly colored hair augmented her pallor.
    Melba came to the shop the day after Christmas.
    “Susan,” she tittle-tattled. “The Ashton’s new daughter, bless her heart, she didn’t enjoy a single bite of that Christmas dinner. Darn that morning sickness.”
    Lily was too pale to turn paler, but she made frequent trips to the bathroom and came back red around the nose and eyes for a few days afterwards. Perhaps Melba’s news cut the last thread of hope Lily ever had or threw her into a deep pit of regret.
    Margie went around bragging about her sophisticated sister-in-law. Grandma went around poking fun at Margie’s bragging.
    “Her sister is nothing but a milkmaid,” she’d say.
    I did not understand at the time Grandma’s fervor and her relentless campaign against Margie. Any reunion between Mark and Lily was impossible. She got what she wanted. Why could she not let it all go? In hindsight, I reckon bashing was her way to make Lily despise Mark and ultimately forget him. Lily fought Grandma back with intensified silence. She worked longer and harder. Her shop remained a crowded hub, but she hid behind transparent walls. She was in the middle of many people, yet she floated in her own world. She was supposed to be the money-making machine and she did it to the point of perfection. Droopy eyed and gaunt faced, she continued to plow along. She was a crucified Madonna withering from within. I was the silent waiting witness. Waiting for what? I did not know.
    The past week had been quite hectic. The mayor’s daughter was getting married in late September. We’d been working until dark almost every day to customize and hand embroider ten dresses for the bridesmaids and flower girls. Lily was still single at forty-four despite a fair number of interested men over the years. None of them caught her attention or heart. Margie was now on her third marriage and had been living across the street from the shop since her mother passed away eight or nine years ago, that same summer Elvis died. Grandma had passed over eleven years ago, ending an era of back-and-forth bickering through grapevines with Margie.
    Since Mark lost his wife to cancer a couple of years ago, he had visited Margie seven times. I’d been counting. Before that he visited town only once a year, mostly around Easter. His wife found the nine-hour drive exhausting. Melba had a feeling that Susan wanted to spend the vacations with her folks up in Illinois because Angel Creek was too backward for her. Every time he visited, he parked his station wagon in the same spot, across the street from Lily’s shop. His hair always seemed thinner and his face more strained with every visit as Susan got heavier and bulkier. All her weight went into her rear. At one point, it seemed as though she could use two chairs to accommodate her behind. Mark and Susan usually unloaded the car while their three exuberant boys dashed out of the car. All three boys had their father’s complexion and their mother’s build.
    During his years with Susan, I don’t recollect ever seeing him look in the direction of the shop. I don’t even think Mark and Lily ever crossed paths for all those years, not even in church on Easter Sunday. Somehow they managed to melt into the crowds. Anyway, by the time his second son was born, Lily had stopped showing even the subtlest reaction to his presence in town. Surely she saw his wagon across from the shop. The last two or three visits he seemed to linger a little bit longer around his car. I even caught him a few times peeking into the shop. Actually, during his last visit, he looked into the store for a while. He seemed to be mulling over something. I was too busy spying on him to tell if Lily noticed him or not.
    Yesterday was another late day in the shop. The dresses were due the next morning. By the late afternoon, both Lily and I were exhausted, but we had to continue working into the evening. We kept the shop’s glass door open, allowing the evening breezes to cool down the shop. I saw a figure with the corner of my eyes. I barely managed to lift my head to examine it. Lily did not flinch. It was Mark strolling into the shop, the same way he had years ago. My heart jumped. Mark did not seem to notice me as he moved towards the sewing machine where Lily was working.
    “Good evening,” he said as he elegantly lifted his baseball cap, revealing disheveled stands of thin gray hair. “How are you, Lily?”
    Color crept into her face as she looked up. “Fine, and you?” she answered softly, almost bashfully.
    “I’m enjoying the cool evening breeze. Didn’t mean to distract you. Just wanted to say hi.” A boyish grin filled his face. “Now, ladies, have a good evening.”
    He turned around and walked out as easily as he had walked in. Lily followed him with her eyes until he disappeared into the darkness.
    Last night, I saw a new gleam in her eyes, a gleam reminiscent of what I’d seen in the eyes of a young English teacher from long ago-that genuine deep yearning for what is to inevitably come.

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