Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(58)

Once they were beyond earshot, she turned to Sidney. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said angrily. “Such talk in front of children!”

“Me?” he replied. “I’m not the one.” He looked toward Benjamin. “He’s the one who made a big deal about—”

Paul, not usually one to find fault with anybody, cut in. “Uncle Sid, you jumped the gun on this one. You didn’t even wait to hear what Benjamin said.”

“I heard what he said,” Sid replied. “I heard as much as I needed to hear.”

“No, you didn’t,” Paul argued. “Can’t you let go of your anger long enough to ask Benjamin why he feels as he does?”

“Okay, you want me to ask, I’ll ask.” He turned to Benjamin. “So what’s your excuse?”

“Sidney!” Carmella snapped. She said nothing else. There was no need for additional words. Sid had seen the look often enough to know exactly what it meant.

He turned back to Benjamin, his voice more condescending than apologetic. “Maybe I was a bit harsh in speaking—”

“A bit harsh?” Carmella grumbled.

“Okay, I was wrong,” he corrected. With words that had a more genuine ring to them he said, “Sometimes I’m too quick to judge a person and end up doing the very thing I detest. It’s possible I was wrong about your reasoning…” He let the thought hang there, waiting for Benjamin to pick up the thread.

Benjamin sat silently, his eyes fixed on the sausages still on his plate. When he finally spoke his voice was soft, almost like that of a child.

“I ain’t never known a man like you, Mister Sidney. You’re not big in size, but you is sure big in heart.”

Sid, a bit sensitive about his height, started to speak. “I don’t know that I’d say—”

Carmella gave a warning glare, and he stopped mid-sentence.

Still looking down at those two cold greasy sausages, Benjamin continued. “Where I come from we learn from the time we come into this world we got to do what the white man says. White people got their place, and we got ours. It ain’t something—”

“And where is it you’re from?” Sid asked.

“Grinder’s Corner, Alabama.”

Sidney shook his head, a sorrowful slow movement meant to show a measure of disgust. “Alabama, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harrumph,” Sidney grumped. “I guess that’s explanation enough.”

Carmella let go a sigh of relief. “Well, now that you better understand one another, maybe you gentlemen can come to an agreement.” With that she stood and left the table.

For several minutes the three men sat there in silence. Sidney picked up a biscuit and slathered butter on it. Benjamin cut the tip end off a cold sausage and stuffed it in in his mouth. It was a bite so small he could have swallowed it whole, yet he sat there chewing and chewing. Paul pushed a pile of eggs from one side of his plate to the other but didn’t bother to eat.

Eating was little more than a cover-up for the silence. Paul’s eyes went from Benjamin to Sid, then back again to Benjamin. Both were strong, stubborn men, set in their ways and proud; too proud to bend, too proud to be the one to swallow back their words.

In a situation such as this, someone had to step in. Someone had to offer the olive branch. Plucking a cold biscuit from the basket, Paul asked, “Uncle Sid, can you pass that jam down here?” As he casually spooned the jam onto the biscuit, he said, “It may be that we’ve come at this the wrong way.”

Benjamin and Sid waited.

“We all have our wants and don’t wants,” Paul said. “But before we can get to what we want, we’ve got to listen to what the other person doesn’t want.”

“I’m not opposed to doing that,” Sid said.

Benjamin nodded. “Me neither.”

Paul looked over at Sid. “Uncle Sid, I think you and I feel much the same. We’re grateful to Benjamin for pulling me out of that car and bringing me home, so we’re looking for a way to repay his kindness.”

“I done said you don’t owe me nothing,” Benjamin cut in.

Paul turned to Benjamin. “I know, but you’re not hearing what we want. Just as you felt a sense of pride in doing a kindness, we want to feel that same pride by repaying it. You can’t ask us to accept your kindness if you’re not willing to accept ours. That’s the same as a smack in the face.”

Benjamin’s jaw dropped. “I ain’t intending no—”

“I know.” Paul nodded. “But it’s how Uncle Sid sees it.” He turned to Sid. “You on the other hand are trying to repay Benjamin by giving him something he doesn’t want, something he’s uncomfortable taking.”

“Uncomfortable?” Sid grumbled. “What’s so uncomfortable about living—”

“Uncle Sid, I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but you’re not listening to Benjamin any more than he’s listening to you.”

Sid gave a slight grimace and quietly leaned back in his chair.

“Those things,” Paul said, “are what’s at the heart of this matter. But the actual problems are that we need somebody to help out in the store until my arm heals, and Benjamin needs to earn some traveling money.”