Bitter and Sweet

Chapter 30 Tabitha

Charleston, South Carolina

September 1920

When Tabitha returned to the YWCA on Saturday, she learned the woman’s name was Miss Ada C. Baytop. She showed Tabitha to the kitchen and dining area where thirty teenagers were waiting for her. Most of them were scrawny and dark like she’d been at their ages, except the wideness in their eyes was a combination of excitement and fear. It was that look that said, “I don’t know what’s next.” She knew it well. She’d seen it in the mirror many times after Joseph died. It was a wild-eyed and desperate look with a halo of hope dead center.

Tabitha introduced herself and then had them follow her to the pantry and let groups take turns inside while she showed them what they had to work with. “Tell me what you want to learn,” she said, putting on an apron.

The responses were a variety of things from fried chicken to cakes and pies. Tabitha decided she’d start with basics—what she deemed were foods every woman should know how to prepare for herself and her children no matter how much money they had.

“In lean times, we need to know how to make things from flour and meal. Let’s start there, and if Miss Baytop has me back, we can learn some meats and eventually some cakes.

“Being able to cook in one pot is how we cook. This is the way our ancestors have cooked for generations.”

One of the girls raised her hand. “What iffen you have two pots?”

“If a kitchen has more than one pot, they can cook in them, but many don’t have more than one, and when you cook on the fire or cookstove, there’s only one space.”

They made biscuits and hoecakes and a tomato and corn stew. Miss Baytop was appreciative of her time and said so. She wanted her back the next week.

Tabitha arrived at her building and went directly to Miss Libby’s apartment to pick up her sons. She found things in disarray. It looked like she was packing.

“What’s going on here, ma’am?” Tabitha asked.

Miss Libby handed Tabitha a piece of paper. “They say I have to go by Monday.”

Tabitha looked around the room and then looked at the paper. “They must give you notice of some kind.”

“I had that paper before. I didn’t know what it mean.” Miss Libby reached into a drawer and pulled out two other notices. She’d been warned about being late and not having her full rent. Miss Libby’s eyes filled to the brims with tears. “I learn to talk as good as I can, but mi nebbuah laa’n mi letters.”

Tabitha took in a deep breath. She didn’t understand. During the week, there were always five or six other children in her care. Tabitha paid her two dollars a week herself. Surely with the other mothers, there was enough for rent and food. “Maybe I can settle the account for you. Do you have money?”

Miss Libby shook her head. “I have nothing. Some moddas nebbuah pay.”

“What you mean they don’t pay? If they work, they have to pay you.”

“I know. They no’count.” She shook her head again. She normally talked to Tabitha in the best English she had, but her emotions had her slipping into Gullah. “Tem is not like oona, but I still uh he’p dem with tem chillin.”

“They are using you. I wish I had known this. I would have helped.” Tabitha hated to talk about what should have been, but in this case, it was necessary. “You should have been paid before you did the work.”

“I na tink of that.”

“I understand. You expect people to be decent.” Tabitha’s eyes roamed the room again. She looked at her own children. They were aware of the tense situation. She could see it in their little eyes. She stepped closer to Miss Libby and lowered her voice. “Where is your family?”

“No family.”

“No one?”

She shook her head.

Tabitha considered asking the landlord for more time for her, but the answer would be no. The woman who ran this house was firm on being paid, and based on these due notes, she had been generous with Miss Libby.

“I still need you. I have a business and no one I can trust with my children.” Tabitha walked around the room and looked at the few things the woman owned. “Margaret, get your brothers.” She looked at Miss Libby. “I will not see you on the street. You come with us.”

The tears hanging on the edges of Miss Libby’s lower eyelids fell. It was as if Tabitha was offering her a grand house in Charleston proper. She took Tabitha’s hands in hers and kissed them. “God bless oona.”

“He has,” Tabitha said. “Let’s go. I should prepare us dinner.”

They moved Miss Libby’s belongings into the apartment, and she settled into a room that was not really a room. It was tiny, nearly a closet with no window. Tabitha stored food there.

“We’ll find you a bed of some kind as soon as we can. Until then, the children will sleep with me.”

Miss Libby’s hands trembled. Tabitha could see her busting with gratitude. “Oona a good Christian woman.”

Tabitha grunted. “I suppose. No matter what anyone says about me, I try.”

“I have lived more than twice oona years, and I know people talk what they no live.”

Tabitha took her hands. “No matter what has happened between you and your family or whomever”—Tabitha thought to say a man but decided it might not be best—“God is always God. He always cares.”

Miss Libby nodded. She looked around Tabitha’s apartment. “I’m standing in His care.”

Tabitha smiled, turned the woman’s hands loose, and went to make a meal for her family.

Later that night, she lay in bed with the boys at her back and Margaret under her breast. She thought about the warnings she’d received about staying. Retha would have a fit to know this woman was in her house. She would certainly delay telling her. But now she understood what people meant when they said it was hard for a woman to survive in this city without family. Miss Libby had no one, so being put out at her age left her to beg on the street.

She recalled Mr. Flynn telling her that single women were prey for troubling situations. Between her trouble with Sam and other things she had seen, she couldn’t deny that was true. Taking in Miss Libby was the right thing to do, and Tabitha decided she liked doing what was right. She always met Jesus there.

***

Charleston, South Carolina

February 1922

In the same way Tabitha knew something bad was going to happen, she sensed when something good was going to happen.

The bell rang over the restaurant door, bringing the good she’d been expecting. Mama, Retha, and Clifford stood in the door, and a rush of warmth flooded her body. She had not seen Mama in years. The first press of the hug had an awkwardness about it, but then Mama wrapped her arm around her shoulder and pulled her tighter for a long moment before letting go. “You look well, Bitta.”

Every space inside Tabitha filled up with love for her. “So do you.” Tabitha hadn’t seen her dressed this nicely since her graduation, but then she realized she hadn’t seen Mama at all. She’d let years get between them. Retha filled the gap, carrying greetings and stories from each side to the other.

They talked a little first, and then Tabitha showed them around her place and seated them at her nicest table, one by the large window with the view of the water through the slip of street that led to the pier.

Brady popped in, and Tabitha introduced him. He sat with them through an early lunch before her crowd came. Her family lingered at their table, observing as she ran her business. Afterward Tabitha served chicory coffee and lemon cake and rejoined them at the table.

“You have a young man.”

At first Tabitha didn’t know who Mama was speaking of, but then she realized it had to be Brady. “I don’t. We’re friends. He helps me here as a neighbor.”

Mama reached for the scarf at her neck. “I have eyes. He is not just a friend.”

“But he is,” Tabitha said with meaning, but unconvincingly. “I know what you must think of me after the way I left with Joseph.”

“I think nothing of you other than you were a teenage girl influenced by a man many years older than you. A man who lacked good intention and character.” Mama leaned forward in her seat. “I’m not here to rehash the past, Bitta. I have some hard news.”

Tabitha pushed her back farther against her chair and waited for whatever was to be said.

Mama didn’t speak, didn’t seem able to, so Clifford took the lead. “Papa Cooper passed.”

A knife sliced through Tabitha. She raised her hand to her mouth. “My goodness,” she sputtered. “When?”

“More than a month ago,” Clifford said.

“A month.” She felt as if she hadn’t heard correctly. Her eyes fell on Retha. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“He died while traveling. He was in Chicago.” Mama’s eyes filled more with each of those words. She reached into her purse for a handkerchief. “He became sick and...” She covered her mouth with the handkerchief for brief seconds before continuing like nausea stalled her. “I received word, and it was too late to travel. He was already buried.”

“Buried how?”

“George and Robert took care of him,” Retha said.

Tabitha didn’t know how to process this. George and Robert were in Chicago, obviously. She’d always thought her brothers had passed, but if Papa went to see them, they could not have. But this wasn’t the time to dwell on her brothers. She took Mama’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for all of us.” Mama dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “He was your father too. The only one you had.”

“Of course,” Tabitha said, her chest tightening with her mixed emotions on the subject.

Minutes passed with them sitting there quietly, and then Clifford seemed to stir the air in the room with a cough before speaking. “You’ve done fine for yourself, Bitta. I’m impressed, but not surprised. You always had what it takes to build something.”

Although her words could not come out above a whisper, Tabitha thanked him. She was grateful for his assessment.

“You’ve done exceptionally well.” Mama looked around again. “Your own restaurant in Charleston. Simply amazing.”

“You have managed to survive without starving, even after the children’s father died, which is admirable,” Retha added. Tabitha could hear a “but” in her sister’s tone. She didn’t talk this formal-like with her.

Tabitha’s eyes rested on each of them. Their measured words sounded like practiced parts of a speech. This visit had a purpose. Retha and Clifford’s eyes darted away and then back to Mama. Tabitha supposed her part of the speech was next.

Through a smile that was merely a lifting of the corners of her lips, Mama said, “I would like for you to come home.”

Tabitha pitched an eyebrow and squeezed the fabric of her skirt under the table.

Clifford added, “It’s not safe for a woman to be in this city by herself.”

Were they not aware that she had lived in this city for years? “This city is my home.”

Mama shook her head. “It’s not.”

“I own a business.” Now it was Tabitha who looked around her space. “One that I enjoy.”

“It is crowded and filthy. It’s not safe,” Mama said.

“It is not filthy, and I’m not by myself. I have people.”

Retha spoke next. “They are not your family. We’re concerned for not only your safety but that of the children. All the changes in people have reached Charleston... the music and dancing.”

“How can you talk of the renaissance like that? Negroes expressing themselves through literature, art, and music is not a bad thing.”

“I’ve seen the dancing. It’s not Christian, and it’s overtaken this city. We read the papers,” Mama said.

“Everybody is not Christian. Judging them for it won’t get them to be.”

“I would say you learned to sass me while being away, but your mouth had been smart before you left home.” Mama’s chest heaved up and down heavily.

Tabitha regretted talking back as she remembered one of their last conversations. When she told Mama she was going to take up with Joseph. Her words had haunted her over the years. “I apologize for my tone, ma’am.”

No one said anything. Everyone seemed to be recovering from the tense moment. Then Retha broke the silence. “Mama has started a sewing business—needlework. She could use your help. Your creativity and ideas.”

This time when she spoke, Tabitha was slow and deliberate enough not to sound contentious. “You are sitting in my creativity and ideas.” Tabitha cut her eyes from Retha’s to Mama’s. “I’ve never been good at sewing.”

“I lost Hank and now Charles. I cannot lose my daughter. I know you’ve made your own way...” Mama let her words trail off. Tabitha wondered if she thought her own statement unfair.

Tabitha sucked in a deep breath and released it on a long, hard wind. “Catherine is in Savannah. George and Robert are obviously in Chicago, although no one hears from them.”

Mama snapped, “Don’t talk against your brothers.”

“They left you, and unless something has changed, they don’t write or call. You’re grieving, and they’re still not here.” Words about her brothers seemed to injure Mama even more.

“I am not here to talk about your brothers,” she said, standing. She circled her chair. “I was not happy about them going north or even about Catherine going to Savannah, but they weren’t tethered to children. You’ve got to do all this and manage three babies with nobody but paid help.”

Tabitha didn’t remove her eyes from her mother’s pale hands. Her fingers were red from their tight clutch on the wooden chair back.

“My help is not paid. Miss Libby is a dear friend,” Tabitha said. “Can’t you all see I’m managing very well?”

Mama banged her fist on the top of the chair, asserting her authority. “No more. No more. This doesn’t make sense.”

She was ordering her. Did Mama think that would work when she’d left home at eighteen without her blessing? Retha swallowed loud enough for everyone to hear. “What I think Mama means is—”

“I hear our mother just fine,” Tabitha said, cutting Retha off. “I will not leave.”

Retha looked at Mama, waiting for some signal of some kind. Were they going to tie her up and take her back? Was that part of Clifford’s role, to provide the muscle?

“Your mother has another solution that will ease her nerves,” Clifford interjected. The tension in the room was heavy.

Tabitha waited a beat. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any solution. She’d made up her mind the minute it was suggested she leave, but she looked up at him, nodding to encourage him to have his say.

“If you won’t come”—Clifford paused and then continued—“let the children come.”

Tabitha’s gasp was audible. “What?”

Clifford raised a hand to halt her protest. “Just listen. You let the children come where they’ll be cared for, safe, and you won’t have to have them underfoot and using strangers to take care of them. You can work and do what you need to do without—”

Tabitha was on her feet now, cutting Clifford’s words off. “Without my children. Why ever would I want to do that? I’m working for them.”

“You’re working for yourself,” Retha said, shaking her head. “I think we’ve established that.”

There was disappointment in Mama’s eyes. She was proud but not proud at the same time. Whatever that quandary of emotions was called, it made Tabitha feel bad enough for tears to prick at the back of her eyes. “I am building this for them.”

Mama shook his head. “This is not your land, Bitta. You are never building anything on someone else’s land. I don’t have much, but I own the property my house sits on.” Mama sat again. She placed both her palms down on the table’s surface.

“What do you mean you own the property?” As far as Tabitha knew, they rented. They’d always rented.

“I’ve moved.” Pride carried Mama’s words. “I purchased a house and have bedrooms ready for them and you. Let the children come with me. I could use their comfort.”

“They’d be too much for you.”

“You don’t know her, because you haven’t been home, but Miss Fran’s nieces came to live with her shortly after you left. They are ’bout grown. They live with me now. They cook and clean. They’re a big help.”

“Where’s Miss Fran?” Tabitha waited but knew the answer. She could see it on Mama’s face.

“She passed too. A few months ago.”

The word oh stuck in Tabitha’s throat. She was still wrestling with her feelings about Papa’s death. That he could be gone so suddenly. But she pulled her thoughts from him to Miss Francine. She’d been good to her, allowing her and her brothers and sisters to sit with her during the times when Papa was too drunk to be around.

Mama continued. “My new house is down a piece from the new school at the church. Margaret wouldn’t have to walk far.”

How Mama could afford to live near that area was a question that needed an answer, but it wasn’t the time. Tabitha was still in shock, and Mama was noticeably struggling with her grief.

“Think of them, Bitta,” Mama said. “What kind of life do they have being couped up in a flat all day with a stranger?”

Tabitha left them at the table. Going into the kitchen, she took a moment away from them while she stirred a pot that didn’t need stirring. Papa was dead. She felt so much and so little at the same time. He had never fully been a father, and she had never fully been his daughter. She’d never gotten over that conversation she’d overheard as a child.

“We can leave her with Fran.”

“I won’t leave my child, Charles.”

“I’m not going to last much longer,” Papa said.

There were muffled words she didn’t hear and then more of Papa’s insistence.

“I’m right.” Papa sounded defeated by his words. “And you can’t make us all pay for a mistake.”

“Charles...”

He cut Mama off. “Think about it. But know this, I’ve decided about the boys.”

He was willing to leave her with Miss Fran. To go where she had no idea. Mama had stood up for her. So now how could Tabitha send her own children away?

“What kind of life do they have?”Those wordssat heavily in her chest. Miss Libby was too old to even take the boys to the park down the street, and on days when she considered it, she changed her mind because she was afraid she’d lose them, so they were cooped up.

Life outside of the city had been beautiful and free for Tabitha and her sisters and brothers—most of the time.

She gathered herself and walked out of the kitchen. The decision was made between the first and the second step closer to her family. She would let them go, but she would not give up Margaret. She had to have someone here with her. “Margaret is already in school. She’s involved with charity work with me.”

Mama released a long breath. “Fine.”

Tabitha closed the restaurant early. She didn’t want her family to travel back to Georgetown in the dark. Packing up her sons was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. They didn’t have much, but she was planning to keep a few things rather than send it all.

“We’ll pack everything,” Retha stated, helping her. “This isn’t temporary.”

“You understand this is hard for me,” Tabitha said. The boys were in the front room with Clifford and Mama, giggling and running and enjoying them, accepting their new station in life before they even knew they had one.

“I can only imagine,” Retha said. “I would not want to be without my children.”

Tabitha struggled with the ache that cut her from the center of her chest on down into her gut. It did not stop the dryness in her throat or the wetness fighting to surface in her eyes. It did not stop the question swirling around in her mind—was this the right thing to do? She didn’t know, but she kept packing and praying, hoping God would give her peace about it. And there was Papa’s death. Would Mama really be okay to care for them? She could hardly imagine her mother’s world without him.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Papa?” she whispered.

“When I mentioned calling you to Mama, she asked me to wait so we could tell you together... in person.”

“But a whole month, Retha?”

“He’d been away for almost half a year. You know that. I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt like the last time I saw him was going to be the last time.”

Tabitha grunted. She did understand. Every time he left, it felt like he might not come back. It was a weird kind of coming and going over the years because it never made sense. The story about why he stayed so long never sat right in her mind.

“How did she buy a house?”

Retha shrugged. “There was money after he died. I don’t know the details. She will not discuss it.”

Tabitha frowned. “How could there be enough for a house?”

“I don’t know,” Retha said firmly. “All I know is she has no note. She has money. She is quite comfortable.”

Tabitha placed a hand on Retha’s forearm. Their eyes locked. “There’s a secret here.”

“There’s always been a secret, Bitta.”

“Don’t you want to know what it is?”

Retha pulled her arm free. “Of course. Now that Papa’s gone, I’m sure she’ll tell us... in her own time.” Retha seemed sure of that.

Tabitha had no choice but to accept it as well. She reached across the bed for the rag dolls the boys slept with. She pressed them to her chest and then looked down at them before looking back up at Retha. “I’m sorry you lost your father.”

Retha wrapped her arms around Tabitha and squeezed. The emotions of the day melted into a pool around her feet. Hugs healed. “He was your father too.”

They pulled apart, and Tabitha swiped her wet eyes. Charles Cooper was gone now. There was no point pondering who he had been to her. He clothed her and fed her. That was what fathers did, but still, she ached for a connection she’d never have. “I’ve always had you.”

Retha smiled and squeezed her hand. “And you always will.”

***

Shortly after, Margaret was in from school.

They all sat down for a meal while Tabitha told the children what was happening. Amos was four. He understood. Little Tom simply clapped his pudgy hands.

Margaret stood and rushed to her side. “I want to stay with you, Mama.” Tears filled her eyes.

“You are staying with me,” Tabitha said, stooping and rubbing her arms. “We girls are going to stick together.”

Margaret grabbed on to her and squeezed.

An hour later, Clifford’s automobile rolled away from the front of her building. They’d taken most of Tabitha’s heart with them. Tabitha and Margaret sat by the window, with Tabitha praying without ceasing that her children were not crying for her.

Miss Libby came out of her room. She sat on the sofa. “’Iffen oona no mind, I wantuh say something.”

Tabitha was tired of people talking, but she sent Margaret to the bedroom to do her math tables, giving Miss Libby the courtesy of her attention.

“I love you, Miss Tabitha, oona knows I do, but you being foolish.”

“Foolish?” Tabitha never expected that.

“Oona have a home. People who love oona and wan’ be with oona. Instead of gwan der’, you stay here all dese years. Raisin’ your chil’ ’round low-class men and women like me...’bout po’.”

“My family is not rich.”

“The car cost a lot of money. Mi ’no how your family shows up in de world—”

“I—”

Miss Libby raised her hand to stop her. “I’ma have de whole of mi say if you let me.”

Tabitha nodded. “Go on.”

“It’s a good ting you sent your sons, but oona and Margaret could have a better life too.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my life. There’s nothing wrong with you, and some of the men here have saved my life.”

“A life that needed savin’ from the men they work side. Ain’t no life in danger where dat fancy car be goin’.”

“You don’t understand. Being here is important to me.”

“Oona sure you not lettin’ shame keep ya?” Miss Libby asked. “Ya modda lose her husband, and she beggin’ you to come back. She not tinkin’ on what happened before.” She paused. “I know ’bout shame. I come from people on Craig Island. Tem’ use shame heavy. We had a whole ceremony fa’ see make you feel like nobody. They say it was in the name of savin’ a soul.” Miss Libby grunted. “But I watched my sister be shamed so, she walk into the ocean and never come out.”

Tabitha’s heart sank. Today was filled with grief. “I’m so sorry.”

“Tis be the reason I leave de island. Tis why I has no family,” she said. “De devil use shame to hurt us. He like to get us alone with our tinkin’. He like to make us tink we don’t have choices. Your modda gave you a choice, and her heart was pure when she did. Oona should go home before you too old to find you a new man.” Miss Libby stood. “Don’t end up alone like me.”

Tabitha cleared her throat. She appreciated Miss Libby’s impassioned plea, but “What would you do if I left?”

“Get work in a house caring for chillin. White folks like old round women like me with dey young ones.”

Tabitha shook her head. “I don’t want you thinking the boys leaving changes anything here.”

“It’s okay if it do. Oona been good to me. On the scariest day of my life, you gave me the gif’of time. I would neva want oona not to have God’s best ’cause oona was tinkin’ on me.”

Tabitha touched the woman’s forearm. “I appreciate that, but I still need you for Margaret. I’d like to keep things the way they are.”

Miss Libby smiled. “You a good woman. I’ll leave you ta ya own mind.”

She did leave Tabitha thinking, pondering really. What was God’s best for her? Brady slipped into her thoughts. She tried to push him out, but he would not leave, and that scared her. That scared her a powerful lot.