A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [105]
She saw some tiny drops of blood on the baby’s snowy pillow. Again she saw the baby; the thin trickle of blood on its face; the way it held out its arms to be taken up. A wave of hurt broke over Francie and left her weak when it passed. Another wave came, broke and receded. She found her way down to the cellar of her house and sat in the darkest corner on a heap of burlap sacks and waited while the hurt waves swept over her. As each wave spent itself and a new one gathered, she trembled. Tensely she sat there waiting for them to stop. If they didn’t stop, she’d have to die—she’d have to die.
After a while they came fainter and there was a longer time between each one. She began to think. She was now getting her lesson from Joanna but it was not the kind of lesson her mother meant.
She remembered Joanna. Often at night on her way home from the library, she had passed Joanna’s house and seen her and the boy standing close together in the narrow vestibule. She had seen the boy stroke Joanna’s pretty hair tenderly; had seen how Joanna put up her hand to touch his cheek. And Joanna’s face looked peaceful and dreamy in the light from the street lamp. Out of that beginning, then, had come the shame and the baby. Why? Why? The beginning had seemed so tender and so right. Why?
She knew that one of the women stone-throwers had had a baby only three months after her marriage. Francie had been one of the children standing at the curb watching the party leave for the church. She saw the bulge of pregnancy under the virginal veil of the bride as she stepped into the hired carriage. She saw the hand of the father closed tight on the bridegroom’s arm. The groom had black shadows under his eyes and looked very sad.
Joanna had no father, no men kin. There was no one to hold her boy’s arm tight on the way to the altar. That was Joanna’s crime, decided Francie—not that she had been bad, but that she had not been smart enough to get the boy to the church.
Francie had no way of knowing the whole story. As a matter of fact, the boy loved Joanna and was willing to marry her after—as the saying goes—he had gotten her into trouble. The boy had a family—a mother and three sisters. He told them he wanted to marry Joanna and they talked him out of it.
Don’t be a fool, they told him. She’s no good. Her whole family’s no good. Besides, how do you know you’re the one? If she had you she had others. Oh, women are tricky. We know. We are women. You are good and tender-hearted. You take her word for it that you are the man. She lies. Don’t be tricked, my son, don’t be tricked, our brother. If you must marry, marry a good girl, one who won’t sleep with you without the priest saying the words that make it right. If you marry this girl, you are no longer my son; you are no longer our brother. You’ll never be sure whether the child is yours. You will worry while you are at your work. You’ll wonder who slips into your bed beside her after you have left in the morning. Oh yes, my son, our brother, that is how women do. We know. We are women. We know how they do.
The boy had let himself be persuaded. His women folk gave him money and he got a room and a new job over in Jersey. They wouldn’t tell Joanna where he was. He never saw her again. Joanna wasn’t married. Joanna had the baby.
The waves had almost stopped passing over Francie when she discovered to her fright that something was wrong with her. She pressed her hand over her heart trying to feel a jagged edge under the flesh. She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart; the heart that was breaking—was aching—was dancing—was heavy laden—that leaped for joy—that was heavy in sorrow—that turned over—that stood still. She really believed that the heart actually did those things. She was terrified thinking her heart had broken inside her over Joanna’s baby and that the blood was now leaving her heart and flowing from her body.
She went upstairs to the flat and looked into the mirror. Her eyes had dark shadows beneath them and her head was aching. She lay on the old leather couch in the kitchen