Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(78)

“You think they got a baseball team in Pittsburgh?” he asked.

Benjamin nodded. “Pittsburgh Pirates. They’re pretty good, according to Marty.”

“You figure we can go see a game?”

“In the spring, maybe. They don’t play in the wintertime.”

“What’s kids in Pittsburgh do in the winter?”

Benjamin shrugged. “Build snowmen maybe.”





On that first day they traveled almost two hundred miles. They went north through Virginia then crossed over the eastern edge of West Virginia and stopped before they got to Morgantown. Benjamin had anticipated he’d be further down the road, but with no sleep the night before and a day crammed full of shopping, doing, and packing, his eyelids were too heavy to continue.

Thinking back on his promise to Carmella, he pulled off the road and into the parking lot of the Mountain Way Motel. The sign blinked “Vacancy”, but there was no other sign indicating whether colored people were welcome.

“Wait here,” Benjamin told Isaac as he climbed out of the truck. He walked around the building looking for a back door or a sign; there was nothing. He returned to the front of the building, pushed open the door, and peeked in. Behind the desk was an elderly woman with a topknot of cotton white hair. Her skin was the pale color of Delia’s.

“You looking for a room?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Benjamin answered.

“Eight dollars ’n you get free breakfast.”

Benjamin smiled. “I got my boy with me, that okay?”

“The room just got one bed,” she answered. “But it’s a big one.”

Perhaps it was force of habit. Perhaps the cautionary fear of overstepping the boundaries he’d known all the years of his life. It’s impossible to say what prompted him to do it, but Benjamin suddenly blurted out, “I’m colored.”

The desk clerk chuckled. “I’m old, but I ain’t blind. Now if you want that room, get over here and sign the register.”

Benjamin moved to the desk and signed his name. The old woman fished a key from the cubby behind her and handed it to him. “Cabin six.”

As he walked out the front door, he felt a strange new sense of pride. It was a first in this new life.





That night Benjamin slept soundly. There were no more decisions to be made. He had a job and a home for Isaac. As long as he had Isaac, he’d have a piece of Delia.

When sleep descended on him Delia was there. She was no longer the broken woman he lifted from the muddy roadside and carried into the hospital. She was young again, as she’d been in the early years of their marriage. She laughed that same lighthearted laugh he remembered from the day of the barbeque. In the sweetest moment of the dream she leaned close and pressed her cheek to his. This is good, she whispered, but when he turned to answer she was gone and he felt himself coming awake. For several minutes he remained there in the bed, trying to sleep, trying to reach back and catch Delia one more time, but it was no longer possible.





During the night the temperature plummeted to a chilly forty-two degrees, so Isaac pulled on one of his wool sweaters from the Saint Vincent DePaul shop. It was bright red with a sprinkling of snowflakes decorating the front.

“Ain’t it a bit early for that?” Benjamin asked.

Isaac stepped back from looking at himself in the mirror and shook his head. “I’s getting in the mood for snowman building.”

Benjamin laughed. “Snowman building, huh? Well, first we’d better go get that free breakfast.”





Breakfast was served in a small room next to where Benjamin had signed the register. Bunched fairly close together were eight small tables, and at the far end he saw a kitchen counter. The woman he’d spoken with last night stood behind the counter.

“Whatcha in the mood for?” she asked.

When Benjamin hesitated she added, “We got eggs, bacon, sausage, grits ’n pancakes.”

Isaac gave a grin and said he’d have pancakes, bacon, and sausage. Benjamin ordered eggs. Eggs were something he had a fondness for. On the farm they’d always had eggs, even when there was little else. Still clinging to the memory of his dream, he wanted to once again breathe in the sweetness of eggs sizzling in a pan.

When the woman handed the two platters across the counter Benjamin eyed the room searching for a table set apart from the others, a colored section perhaps. When he saw none, he learned over the counter and asked, “Are we supposed to sit in here?”

“Ain’t no place else to go,” the woman answered.

He took the plates and carried them to a table near the back of the room. At the next table a bearded white man flipped through the pages of a newspaper. Seemingly unaware of anyone else, the man sipped his coffee and read. After several minutes he folded the paper and set it aside.

“Where you headed?” he asked.

It was something Benjamin hadn’t expected, and it took a moment before he answered, “Pittsburgh.”

The man looked at Isaac. “Looks like you’re ready for some snow,” he laughed. He drained the last of his coffee and stood to leave. “Have a good trip,” he said then started out.

Benjamin hesitated a second and called after him, “You too.”