Take My Hand(35)

“Here you are, sir.”

The doctor opened the door wider to take the money. Then he turned to India and softened his voice. “Hello, young lady. What’s your name?”

India just looked at him. I had to give it to the girl. She had a certain stillness to her around strangers. It communicated to them to keep their distance.

“She doesn’t speak, sir. I told you that over the telephone.”

He scowled at me. “I remember that. Let me do my job, ma’am.”

I took India into the room and put her in the chair. “I’m going to be right through that window while you take this test. It shouldn’t take that long, hear?”

She touched my hair, and I stopped her by grabbing her hand. “This is just a test to get you into school.” I repeated the same words I’d used in the elevator. “You’ll be fine.”

I realized I should have brought Erica with me. She could have helped to decipher some of India’s responses for the doctor. He entered the room carrying an open box containing plastic toys and sheets of paper. He spoke softly to India, and she responded immediately by making eye contact with him and taking the first offered toy. I got the impression that he was a man who connected more with children than he did with adults. No excuse. He still needed to learn some manners.

In the other room, Ty sat down and started thumbing through Outdoor Life magazine. “Don’t just stand there staring at her through the window. Let them work,” he said, not looking up.

I sat down beside him and watched him for a moment. “You’ve certainly been Mr. Big Bucks lately. You didn’t tell me you were going to pay.”

“Since you didn’t let me pay for your little Opelika visit, I figured you thought I was broke or something.”

“Ty, that’s not fair,” I said quietly. He turned the page of the magazine, and it ripped. I touched his arm. I had underestimated this hurt between us. Ty may not have been physically in that room with me that day, but his heart had lain right alongside me. “Thank you for helping, Ty. I mean that. But I still don’t know why you’re doing all this. I hope it’s not to impress me.”

“Pshaw, girl. I couldn’t win you back if I tried. Could I?”

I changed the subject. “Did Alicia tell you that we stopped giving our patients Depo shots?”

He breathed out audibly, as if resigning himself to my stubbornness. “Mama is still trying to find out more information. She’s contacted some friends of hers in Washington.”

“I gave shots to two patients since you first told me about the studies. What the hell is wrong with me?” I wiped at my eye.

“Come here, girl.” He pulled me to him, and I placed my cheek against his chest. “Don’t blame yourself, Civil. You were just trying to do your job.”

“I don’t know what my job is anymore.”

“Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe it’s just overblown and the study doesn’t apply to humans, after all.”

“Come on, Ty. You were a biology major. You know that we have to take those nonhuman studies seriously until more clinical trials can be done. And we’re talking little Black girls here. They set different rules for us.” I straightened back up in my chair and peered through the window at India. The doctor was holding up cardboard signs, but I couldn’t make out the images. India just stared at him, her affect blank.

Ty took my hand in his. “I know. We’ll find out more soon enough, okay? I promise.”

“I hope so. Let me know as soon as your mama hears back?”

“I promise, Civil. You’ll be the first to know.”





NINETEEN




Birmingham

2016


He is grayer around the edges and a glint of silver lines his cheeks. His chin is softer, sideburns shorter. There are lines in his forehead, but his cheeks are still smooth. Right before this trip I found his picture on the internet, but it is different seeing him in person. I feel off-kilter. When he hugs me, he pats me on the back. A friend hug. I pull him closer, and he doesn’t resist. It’s bold of me, but I just do what feels right in the moment.

The office is traditional—a dark wood desk, bookshelves, a round conference table in the corner covered in stacks of paper. There’s a ficus in the corner and a fern on the edge of the desk. The tops of the bookshelves are lined with rhododendrons. It smells a little earthy.

“Tyrell Ralsey. President of a college. Who would have thought?”

“Funny you say that. I never had any problem picturing you as a surgeon.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No offense taken.” Rather than retreat to the other side of his desk, he sits in the chair beside me.

His suite of offices sits above the main student center. So different from my days at Tuskegee. The center downstairs houses fast-food restaurants and a coffee shop. The semester has ended, so there’s not the usual sea of students. This small Baptist college in Birmingham became coeducational in the early 1970s, and now its student body is nearly 70 percent women. I have read all about it online. I find myself wishing the students were here so that we could have some distraction and Ty’s focus on me would not be so absolute.

His assistant brings in two cups of coffee. I’m wearing a tunic over my jeans, an attempt to appear effortlessly casual. Now I fear it makes my body look shapeless. At least my hair is done nice. Last night I braided my locks and now they are falling in soft waves around my shoulders. Ty is wearing slacks and an open-collar shirt. Gray chest hair peeks over the buttons. He crosses one leg over the other, toward me. I set my cup on his desk and pick up a picture frame.