Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(19)

“No, no,” she’d say with a laugh. “That’s a tomato.” Pointing to the far end of the row, she’d explain, “That’s a cucumber.”

In the height of growing season Delia worked alongside Benjamin and Otis in the fields. When she went she allowed Isaac to tag along. Whatever she did, he mimicked. When he was only half the size of a full-grown stalk, he could tell the difference between a weed and a young corn sprout.

“Dat a weed,” he’d say and start tugging away at a piece of fern or skunk-vine.

Although it took twice as long to work a row, Delia liked having the boy beside her. They would work for three or four hours then she’d bring him back to the house, tired and happy.

After a bowl of warm soup or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she and Isaac would sit together on the porch swing, and as they swayed back and forth she’d tell stories. Sometimes it would be a made-up tale of when his daddy was his age, but many times it was her foretelling of the future.

On one particular occasion Delia told Isaac what it would be like when he grew up.

“When you’re old enough,” she said, “you can go off to college and get a fine education. Then you can be a doctor, or maybe write stories for a newspaper. You might even get to live in New York City.”

“Is Noo York got farms?” he asked.

“Afraid not,” Delia laughed.

“Me not wanna go dere,” Isaac said. “Me gonna be farmer like Daddy.”

Delia gave a sad shake of her head. “You don’t ever want to be an Alabama farmer. It’s a hard life.”

“Daddy ain’t got no hard life.”

“Yes, he does,” Delia laughed. “He just don’t let it show.” She gave the swing a push and said, “In New York City colored folks got it way better than they do in Alabama.”

Isaac’s world was small. He’d never been outside of Grinder’s Corner and didn’t understand the meaning of her words.

“Is Daddy colored?” he asked.

She looked down at him and laughed. “Yes, Daddy’s colored, I’m colored, you’re colored. We’re all colored.”

“If you ain’t colored, what is you?”

“White,” Delia answered sadly.





Isaac started school when he was five. On the first day Delia took a picture of him wearing the new checked shirt she’d made, then she walked with him the whole two miles to the First Baptist Church where colored kids went to school.

She went inside expecting to see classrooms like the one she’d sat in, but such was not the case. There was a single room with a cluster of chairs bunched around a long wooden table. The smaller kids gathered at one end and the older ones at the other. Delia’s heart fell when she saw the room and plummeted even further when she caught sight of the stack of ragged looking books piled on the window sill.

“Lord God,” she murmured. With a heavy heart she kissed Isaac on the cheek and promised to come for him at three o’clock.

On the walk home Delia’s eyes overflowed with tears, and they rolled down her cheek. The sound of her daddy saying “You made your bed, now lie in it” still echoed in her ears. How long, she wondered. How long did she have to pay for a single mistake? Although she was content with her choice, it saddened her to believe that choice had determined the pathway for Isaac’s life.

“Please Lord,” she prayed, “stay beside my baby.”

After seeing the Grinder’s Corner school, Delia knew whatever Isaac learned he was going to have to learn at home. From that day forward, every afternoon she’d sit beside him at the table and they’d practice numbers, letters, and words. Before a month had gone by he knew the alphabet and could count to fifty.





In early October Isaac’s first-day-of-school picture was developed and Delia wrote to her mama.

“I’m so proud of my little man,” she wrote. “I’d give anything in the world if you could see him.” She told how Isaac already knew his letters and numbers but said nothing about the makeshift school he attended.

“If you could slip away from Daddy and meet me in town,” she suggested, “we could have lunch and you could get to know this fine little grandson of yours.” She went on to say Benjamin would drive them to Twin Pines and then do errands while they were having lunch. At the end of the letter she wrote, “Please say yes, Mama.” Delia slid the school picture into the envelope and sealed it.

It wasn’t unusual for a week or two to go by before a letter was answered, but when it became a whole month Delia started to worry.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked Mama to come for lunch,” she said. “Maybe I should’ve left well enough alone.”

“Inviting your mama to lunch ain’t a bad thing,” Benjamin said. “Could be she’s just been busy. Give it time.”

Another week passed and there was still no answer, so Delia sat down and wrote a second letter.

“I’m sorry if my asking you to lunch put you in a bad spot,” she wrote. “I’d be willing to just forget about that. Please write me back soon.”

The days dragged as Delia watched and waited for an answer. After two weeks she began to believe none was coming. Trying to make amends for whatever wrong she’d done, she started sending a new letter almost every day. In one she begged for forgiveness, in another she promised to never again suggest meeting, and in one she even apologized for her sloppy handwriting. Still there was no response.