Take My Hand(11)

“How many people are in the family, dear?”

“Four.”

“So you’re looking for a two-bedroom?”

“Actually, no, I need a three-bedroom. The grandmother lives with them.”

She frowned at me. “We don’t have a lot of apartments that size. They’re in high demand, and some of the families are a lot bigger than yours.”

“Yes, ma’am, of course.”

“Honey, we got families of five in two-bedroom apartments. That’s how stretched we are. Now, there will be some more apartment units built in the next few years. Maybe if we put your family on a wait list—”

“No,” I said. The clicking of the typewriter at the back of the room ceased, and I lowered my voice. “I mean . . . You see . . . These people are living in squalor, Mrs.”—I read the nameplate on her desk—“Livingston. They living in a shanty out on the back of a farm.” My gumption surprised my own self. I was being pushy like Diahann Carroll in that episode of Julia when she convinces Dr. Chegley to allow this family to work off their son’s medical bill.

“I understand. But we even got some homeless families, Miss—”

“Townsend.” I shifted one leg over the other. “These folks might as well be homeless. That house ain’t barely shelter. It’s riddled with holes. You ought to see it. And the grandmother, I don’t even know how she can stand it, what with the weather coming all through the walls.”

Yes, I could have been an actress except it was all true. Everything except the part about meeting up with the social worker. The lady reached over to her cabinet again.

“Take this and have the social worker fill it out and get the family to sign it.”

I took it from her. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you. I will do that. Thank you very much.”

As I walked back out to my car, I held the papers out in front of me so that I wouldn’t wrinkle them. I’d taken the first step to helping the family, and it felt good. Maybe getting them this new apartment would erase the wrong I’d done by injecting that little girl with birth control. This was why I’d taken the job at the clinic. I wanted to be like Alicia: doing right by people, proving God was real.





SEVEN





Getting the social worker’s name turned out to be harder than I’d thought. When I searched the Williamses’ medical file, there was no mention of one. Aside from outright asking the agency to give me a name, there seemed to be only one way to find out: ask the grandmother, Pat Williams. If I did that, she might ask what I was up to, and I didn’t want to mention my plan until I was sure it would happen. I needed to figure something out.

That week, while we were cleaning the clinic, I asked Val if she had any ideas on how to find the social worker. She suggested I try St. Jude, a hospital that ran some social service programs in Montgomery.

“I got another question for you.” I stopped sweeping. We were standing in examination room number two. Val sprayed the bed with a bleach solution and ran a rag over the vinyl while I talked. “Why you think Mrs. Seager hired all Black nurses? Ain’t no white nurses in Alabama?”

“Hush, child. You saying you don’t want this job?”

Val had gone to nursing school after her children grew up and moved out. When her husband died and left her some insurance money, she used it to go back to school. She actually believed her late husband’s spirit had guided her on this path. As far as I could tell, Val hated when anybody criticized anything. The woman was beyond grateful.

“Just asking,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Civil. I don’t aim to sound mean. I just think they figure it’s easier for us to deal with these families. But it ain’t so easy, huh? This one patient I saw yesterday fought me like a wildcat right there on her living room couch. The girl ain’t but twenty-two and got three kids.”

“Fought you? Why?”

“Didn’t want the shot, but her mama was making her.”

I stared at her for a moment, then opened the drawers to make sure they were organized properly. On the left: syringes, glass vials, bandages, alcohol wipes, latex gloves. On the right: condoms, speculum, retractor, curette, plastic pill wheels.

“My two home patients are so young,” I said. “Just eleven and thirteen years old. I knew I would be visiting people out in the country, but I’m telling you, they living in terrible conditions. Nobody should live like that.”

“Yeah, a lot of these folks live out back on the white man’s land. Now, baby, tell me you knew about that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I lied. Daddy had done me such a disservice by sheltering me on Centennial Hill, telling me we were never better than our people while at the same time keeping those people away from me.

“Oh, alright. I thought you might not have known that still happened around here. The man probably don’t pay them hardly nothing. Just like sharecropping, if you ask me.”

“I can’t stand the thought of them living like that. You should have smelled them. It was a crying shame. I got to get them out of there.” I waited to see how she would respond.

She did not visibly react, but I was pretty sure she’d heard me. She stooped over and wrung the mop out. “Tell me something. How that man going to keep his job if he move off the land?”