CHAPTER ELEVEN HOMECOMING
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Homecoming
Lee sat propped up in his hospital bed reading the The Florida Times-Union as he waited for Cora.
The front page ran an article about Florida’s senator, Claude Pepper, announcing his bid for the presidency, but Lee doubted he could beat President Truman in the primaries.
His mind wandered as he scanned the article, too preoccupied with news closer to home.
Cora had told him about the FHA’s threats. He had a lot of faith in Uncle Drew, but not much in Florida justice. And then there was his own news, delivered by a somber-faced Dr George, who told him he might never walk again.
Lee took a deep breath, tipping his head back and closing his eyes, letting the wave of emotions roll through him and out. He cycled through them several times a day: anger, fear, frustration, despair. Today there was also joy, because he was going home.
Cora showed up breathless and beaming, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. ‘Lee Peters, your ride has arrived,’ she said, with a flourish.
He lifted one leaden leg and then the other over the edge of the bed to dangle at its side. He wanted to get up and go to her, hated that he had to wait for her to come to him.
When she reached him, he pulled her closer for a kiss.
He closed his eyes, feeling her lips against his, and he could almost believe things were the way they used to be.
He nibbled his way down her neck to the spot that made her melt, and she gasped.
He felt powerful and whole. But then she pulled away and stepped back.
‘Save that for when we get home. The doctor’s going to be coming in here any minute. ’
She was right, but still, it gutted him, the stepping back where he couldn’t follow.
‘Let’s check that you have everything,’ she said.
He only had some clothes and a small collection of boredom-busters people had brought him. A novel, a deck of cards, a book of crossword puzzles, all piled at the foot of his bed. She tucked everything into a bag.
‘Did you want to keep this paper?’ Her eyes flicked over the front page and her mouth flattened into a sour expression. ‘Senator Pepper Running for President.’
‘No, thanks,’ Lee said. ‘I’ve seen all I need.’
She dumped it in the trash. ‘Where’s that doctor? I want to get you home.’
There was something off about her. A restless energy that made her speak too fast, smile too much.
‘You okay?’
‘Of course. I just can’t wait for you to see it.’
She’d finished the first ten houses, and wave one, as she called them, had moved in, Cora included. The other twenty were progressing nicely, right on schedule.
‘Well, Mr Peters, it looks like today’s the big day,’ Dr George said, striding in with a brisk efficiency.
A sturdy-looking nurse followed him and went straight to the wheelchair, positioning it next to the bed.
‘No offense, Doc, but I can’t wait to get out of here.’
They went over his medication, discussed warning signs to look out for, confirmed a check-up appointment.
The doctor lectured him on not overstraining himself and joked with Cora that it was her job to make sure he didn’t.
Cora nodded with a face so serious, he wondered if she really thought it was her responsibility.
He felt like a burden instead of a partner.
With everything else explained, there was nothing left to do but get in the chair.
He had practiced positioning himself, then holding firm and swinging into the seat with a little momentum.
His arms weren’t strong enough to do it without something above to hold on to, so the heavy-set nurse helped guide his rear into the seat.
Embarrassed and exhausted, Lee didn’t make eye contact as he said his goodbyes.
He told Cora he wanted to wheel the chair out himself, but had to stop three times to catch his breath on the way to the car.
He could tell she was getting impatient, but he needed her to see that he could do for himself, even now.
In the parking lot, she opened the door of her sky-blue Plymouth and pointed to a rope tied to circle the roof of the car. ‘You can hold on to that, to pull yourself in,’ she said. ‘It was Patsy’s idea. I’ll find something better later.’
He smiled, relieved. ‘That’s pretty clever.’ Taking a minute to gather his strength, he gripped the rope and hoisted himself into the car, pulling his legs in behind him. She put the chair into the back and got in.
‘Okay,’ she said, with an intense perkiness and a smile that seemed too bright to be real. ‘Let’s go.’
His heart sank. Cora was acting, hiding her true emotions and her disappointment behind a shield of jolliness.
He should have realized everything had changed.
And what right did he have, anyways, to pile his burdens on top of her own?
If he hadn’t been good enough for her before the war, what would everyone say now?
He gripped his dead thighs and squeezed out his frustration and wondered if he could still bruise even if he felt nothing.
‘Listen, Cora,’ he said when she’d settled herself behind the wheel.
He felt like he was slipping backwards toward the edge of a cliff.
‘I know this isn’t what you signed up for.
I mean, we made a lot of plans, but we didn’t know I’d be stuck like this, and I want you to know that I understand this changes things.
I can stay with Uncle Drew if you want to think it over now that … ’ He motioned toward his legs.
All that perkiness crystallized to stone, and she sat perfectly still, her hands clutching the steering wheel, her breathing growing deeper.
‘Don’t you dare do that,’ she said. She turned to face him with fire raging in her eyes.
‘You are not going to give up on us. Not now. We’ve made it, Lee.
Don’t you get that? You’re alive and we’re together. ’
‘I just don’t want to hold you back. I have to deal with my legs, but you don’t. There’s no commitment here.’
‘No commitment?’ she yelled. For a second, he thought she might hit him. ‘We’re not talking about this in a parking lot.’ She cranked the car on and peeled onto the road.
‘Cora.’
‘And not while I’m driving,’ she snapped.
They spent a tense, silent half-hour making their way through Mangrove Bay to Liberty Heights.
Lee was amazed to see the transformation.
The dirt path had become a paved road, the barn and the lean-to and some of the trees had been cleared away, and the old field had been flattened.
An entire neighborhood now stood in place of all that.
Houses ranged from finished to almost-finished to getting-there.
Cora pulled the car up to a finished one.
She got the wheelchair out of the back and placed it beside the passenger door.
Lee hoisted himself out of the car and into the wheelchair and followed her to the house.
Instead of a front stoop, she’d built a ramp leading to the wide front door.
He rolled himself inside and saw the house was all on one level.
The living room had one lounge chair and one space for a chair around a coffee table.
The kitchen had a counter low enough to use when sitting down.
He rolled into the bathroom and saw handrails along the walls.
In the bedroom, a pull-rope hung above one side of the bed.
A lump swelled in his throat.
‘Cora,’ he said. But he couldn’t get anything else out. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘You did all this for me?’
‘For us. Because we do have a commitment, Lee. It’s called being in love.’
He rolled over to her and pulled her onto his lap. She dipped her head to his and whispered, ‘Don’t you dare leave me.’
‘Okay,’ he said. And by that he meant to say that she meant everything to him and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, even if it meant leaving, but he wanted to stay because if he lost her again, he might not survive it.
‘Okay,’ she said, relaxing into him. And he understood that she forgave him for frightening her with his talk about leaving, and that she knew his injury would change things, but it wouldn’t change what mattered, and that she didn’t care what other people thought about them or had to say about it: she was his, and he was hers, and that was that.
Cora sat up with a jerk. ‘There’s one more thing.’ She had that look back on her face, the manic smile and the too-gay voice. She had been hiding something. He hadn’t imagined it, and whatever it was, she was still hiding it.
She led him to the back door and let him swing it open, pushing through to the ramp on the other side.
‘Surprise,’ a chorus of voices shouted from the garden when he rolled out of the back door.
Cora had gathered his old friends from the Negro League and the music clubs, and new friends from his Green’s Whiskey connection.
Uncle Drew was there, and Benny, and Momma North, and Patsy, and Aunt Teen, and Momma Mae, and even Pastor Glen and grouchy old Mrs Hammond.
Above their heads Cora had strung cardboard cut-out letters spelling Welcome Home.
‘I wanted to do something special,’ she said, with that big goofy smile and that perky, excited voice, which now made so much sense.
He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her as his friends cheered and whooped. ‘Thank you,’ he said. And by that he meant to say, I love you.