not for this position.”
With a notice of eviction burning a hole in her purse, Emma gritted her teeth and succumbed to the very thing she was trying to avoid. “I’ll take whatever job you’ve got for Negroes, then.”
“We don’t have anything here, but I do know a few people who are looking for good help.”
* * *
That first day, Emma wept with shame all over those rich white people’s floors, silverware, and bed linen. And if you had seen what the washboard and Borax did to her lovely hands, you would have cried too.
Emma returned home that evening, dead on her feet and filled with lament. She stripped out of her uniform, climbed into bed, and sobbed into her husband’s chest.
“Look at me, Sam,” she sniffled, “raised in silk and now living in burlap.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam muttered tearfully.
“Aww, it ain’t your fault. I’m the one who dragged us all over creation chasing a stupid dream. You just went along for the ride.”
“So you ready to go back to Macon now?”
“No.”
Meanwhile, Emma’s eldest brother Seth was a well-respected teacher. The middle boys, John Edward and James Henry, had followed in Tenant’s footsteps and were successful ministers in their own right. And Lucille had made a record called Crazy Blues that sold a million copies in under a year. She wouldn’t go down in history as the first blues singer to record, but she would hold second place.
At this point in 1920, Emma wasn’t second place in anything, and she refused to return to Macon until she had accomplished something more spectacular than basic survival.
As it turned out, her return to Macon, two years later, would be spawned from tragedy, not triumph.
Chapter 15
1922
Wednesday, the day Tenant had put aside to visit the sick and shut-ins, he arrived home in a jovial mood. He removed his favorite pair of brown shoes, put on his slippers, washed his hands, and sat down to a supper of roasted lamb, new potatoes, sweet corn, and blueberry pie for dessert. Afterward, he and Harlan went into the study and shut the door.
It had become a custom of theirs, not unlike Saturday-morning pancakes.
“What y’all in there talking about?” Louisa would tease.
“Man stuff,” Tenant always replied.
After the dishes were washed and put away, the family gathered in the sitting room to listen to the Amos ’n’ Andy radio show and laughed themselves to tears.
Later, Harlan kissed his grandparents goodnight, and headed up to bed—leaving Louisa darning socks and Tenant reading his Bible.
At eight o’clock Tenant’s eyelids drooped. When Louisa heard him snoring, she patted his knee. “Reverend, you sawing wood.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
He set his Bible and reading glasses on the nesting table beside his chair and clapped his hands against his legs to get the blood flowing. When he was able to stand, he walked over to Louisa and touched her shoulder. “Will you be much longer?”
“No, I’ll be up soon.”
He kissed her and headed up to bed.
When Louisa finally entered the bedroom, Tenant was snoring like a freight train. Smiling to herself, she changed into her nightgown and slipped in beside him. Soon, she was fast asleep as well.
* * *
You don’t spend decades of your life with a man and not become so familiar with his behaviors and sounds that when something changes, you fail to notice.
It was closing in on three in the morning when Tenant’s body went silent. The silence was as loud as a church bell, as earsplitting as a siren; it tore Louisa from her sleep. She turned onto her side, floated her palm over Tenant’s open mouth, and felt the worst thing of all.
Nothing.
Chapter 16
It had been a couple of years since Harlan last saw his parents, so when they showed up at the front door, he treated them as he had the last forty strangers who had come to give their condolences to the widow Robinson.
“Hello, I’m Harlan. Please come in.”
Truth was, Emma didn’t know he was her child until he said his name. After all, the last time she’d seen him, he was still small enough to fit on her hip. The boy standing before her was all limbs—clad in gray knickers, a white dress shirt, and a navy-blue bow tie.
Emma gasped in surprise. “Harlan?”
“Yes ma’am. My grandmother is receiving guests in the parlor,” he said, sweeping his hand through the air.
Emma and Sam exchanged looks. Even though it was one of the saddest days of her life, Emma couldn’t help but giggle at Harlan’s gallantry. “Well, aren’t you the little man!” Stooping down before him, she added, “I know it’s been awhile, but you really don’t know who we are?”
Harlan glanced at Sam’s smiling face and then back to Emma. “No ma’am.”
Her heart cracked. “I’m your mother, and this is your father.”
Sam extended his hand. “Hello, son.”
“Oh,” Harlan muttered skeptically, “nice to meet you.”
They followed Harlan into the parlor where Louisa was seated on the sofa, surrounded by her sons.
Louisa smiled out through a fog of grief. “Oh, babies,” she whispered, wringing her hands, “he’s gone . . . he’s gone.”
* * *
The Atlanta Constitution published an editorial dubbing Reverend T.M. Robinson’s funeral the largest and most imposing colored funeral ever held in Macon.
After Louisa had read the words a dozen times, she climbed back into bed and remained there for five days.
Emma’s brothers Seth, James Henry, John Edward, and their wives, along with Emma and Sam, did all they could to comfort the grieving Louisa, but she waved them away, keeping her gaze fixed on the sky outside her bedroom window.
Grappling with his own grief and despair over the loss of his grandfather, and terrified that God was coming to take Louisa from him too, Harlan made a pallet on the floor beside Louisa’s bed, refusing to leave her side.
Since Emma and Sam returned, Harlan had paid them little mind—treating them like the strangers they were.
“He
