Thirty-Three, Belonging

Thirty-Three

Belonging

4 June 1824

Father was well enough to come down for lunch today.  I was caught unprepared for his entrance, as I was outside on the stoop.  Mother called me inside, and there he was.

Susie brought by some fish, lately caught in the Coosa, and pan-fried with some spices that I cannot name, as they are an African blend that Susie had gotten from another slave.  As usual, she brought it in, set it down along with some bread, and left.  Mother got the plates and silver from the sideboard, along with some linen napkins.  This was the first time in a long while that our lunch took on a formal air.

Mostly, we looked at our plates.  No one really said anything, although Mother tried, once, and it was to ask if I wanted some more bread.   Mother reached over and patted my hand, and then held onto it, then reaching to Father who sat on the other side of the table, grasping his left hand with her right, free hand.  She looked at each of us in turn, imploring with her eyes that we should somehow manage to get along.  I did not know how I felt about this.

I do not hate Father, not any longer.  For some time, years probably, the anger has been dissipating, but I do not have what one would think of as affection for him, either.  And truthfully, I have not been particularly enamored of Mother as of late, either.  I suppose it came from the sense of a betrayal that she would so easily take up with Father again.  Or has she?   I was not entirely certain what I mean by of "take up", but she is sleeping in the same room, and that certainly is a change.

I have been remembering about what the solicitor had told me a long time ago.  That Uncle had probably had some influence with the judge in my parents' divorce case.  I thought about what I remembered, that Uncle had taken the lead in seeing to it that Father would "be made to pay".   I do not remember Mother's role in all of this.  The quarrel seemed to be more between the two men as time went on.  Mother certainly had good reason to be angry with Father, and to fear him as well.  I remember the fights the two of them had, and I now am beginning to understand that Mother had some role in them, too.  She was not always just a victim, but at times seemed to be the aggressor.  I had forgotten this over the years.

Uncle had been very friendly with me and my sisters.  We adored him, and still do.  He is an important man, and has been since as long as I remember.  But he takes on a dark mood when it comes to dealing with Father.  Ever since our removal from South Carolina to Alabama, the two men have come to some understanding that they would just avoid each other where possible.

Father seemed to stay away from the girls and me, except for awkward intervals when he attempted to say something important or meaningful, such as the time he tried to do so with me on the trip to Alabama.  Mother was becoming more complex to me.  She was always quite close to us girls, even more so after Father left.  But in the last few years, I have felt that I do not understand her very well.  Perhaps I never have.

These are such confusing times for me.  Father has drawn me in with the confidence given me, and has kept me in an impossible circumstance.  The information bestowed on me was quite powerful, and of a nature that I have had to think on it again and again.  And yet, not to be able to share this with anyone... 

Of course, there is no one to share it with.  I have no friends here in Alabama, only a few acquaintances.  Nan is as close to me as anyone, but being six years my junior, she is hardly my confidante. 

Our Wednesday night group, though, is another thing.  We are to bring to the group anything that may be troubling us.  Perhaps not as mundane as not wanting to build a fire, or fetch some eggs from the hen, or being perturbed because someone else ate the last piece of bread.  But things that trouble our very souls.  What I have been harboring is certainly within the bounds.

Our group seems to be aware that I am struggling with something, as more than one of them has kindly asked about how I am doing, with true concern.  None of them presses me, except, perhaps, Mrs. Alexander, she being something of a gossip.  I have just asked them all to think of me, for now I believe that perhaps that can help.  Maybe.  I do feel better, knowing that others are thinking of me kindly.  If they wish to think of me through the means of prayer, I do not see the harm.

Our meeting the other night let out whilst it was not yet dark, now that we are approaching the summer solstice. I was therefore able to walk home without accompaniment, Nan being at Uncles as of late and not availed to being at the Wednesday evening meetings. 

I was reflecting upon the meeting when I came upon a very large oak tree that I had not before noticed.  It was almost as broad as it was tall, and I thought it to be quite old, certainly older than Mother or Father, perhaps older than Methuselah.  Its branches were long and sturdy, and I found a sense of peace as I walked past it, a sense of being a part of something larger than myself.   I have not felt such as this before, and I wonder at what it means.