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  To Irene and Freeman, my profound and exquisite parents, in deep gratitude for their blueprint.

  Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; for they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

  —I Corinthians, 14:34

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank with great emphasis my editor and friend, Malaika Adero, whose meticulous brilliance greatly increased the joys of this labor. I could not budge without my sister Olivia, who reads whatever I ask whenever I ask, and who is there unfailingly when solitude overwhelms. I write for her, for my brothers Freeman and Stephen, the two pillars of Rome, and for each of their sons, my nine nephews. Sharon Bowie and Natalia Kanem were early readers. Adrienne Ingrum encouraged me to write fiction years ago; I finally heard her. My poet cadre, Mervyn Taylor, Dawad Philip, Peggy Tartt, Gary Johnston, Sekou Sundiata, and Jacqueline Johnson, are indispensable to my mojo. Susan Christine Mullen and Crystal King have guided me through much opacity and always let me whine. Thanks to my extended tribe, the Garnett, Honesty, Kinchelow, and Thomas clans. You are the best people I know.

  Prologue

  LYDIA WRINKLED HER small nose, her black oval-shaped sunglasses shifting upward, then down again, uncomfortable against her flattish cheeks. She knew the glasses would leave reddish half-circles under her eyes after she took them off, an annoying temporary scarification on her easily irritated skin, but she always felt more confident wearing them. She realized also just then that she had rubbed a blister on her right foot. The new leather of her moccasin started fighting the skin of her instep as she walked up the long driveway leading to the Cates mansion. She felt this was not a good sign, and that maybe she shouldn’t have come. Now, standing in front of the oak double doors framed in beveled glass, she shivered slightly. Her body felt cold, though she sweated, and her jet black hair, curly and parted in the middle, was moist from the scalp to the ends that rested teasingly against her neck.

  “I can’t,” she said aloud, as if making an apology to herself. “Today, I can’t.”

  No one seemed to be home, she reasoned, but then reason gave way to a feeling that she should not be where she was, that there was no way she would be welcome here. The huge house, the groomed yard, the long driveway were aloof, unaware of her presence, and she felt totally out of place. Lydia hated that feeling, familiar to her for much of her life, that no warmth awaited her, no hope, no possibility. The feeling that she was not privy, didn’t belong, enveloped her. She thought she heard footsteps approaching in the hallway beyond the door.

  “I can’t do this,” she repeated.

  Turning away, she started the trek back down the driveway to her car parked on the street in front. She halted, thinking she needed to do something, not just run away. Her whole life she had had to fight. When she was afraid, she fought harder.

  Lydia turned herself around and began to walk toward the back of the house. She wasn’t yet ready to leave, but she didn’t want to be seen by anyone. As she walked to the rear of the estate, looking at the tailored hedges that ran all the way up the drive like an endless beard, she almost forgot how scared she was and how badly her foot hurt. A third of the way down the backyard, she saw a greenhouse. She knew Rebecca Cates grew orchids, that she had great success crossbreeding varieties from all over the world. She knew that Rebecca, her sisters, and their spouses lived together in the mansion. That was all she knew about Rebecca. She thought these were probably the least important things to know about the woman whose help she so needed.

  Lydia, limping, approached the greenhouse, her chaos resolving itself gradually into curiosity, then amazement, once she looked inside. The order and stillness of the long space soothed her, and she forgot her discomfort of a few minutes earlier. She gazed at the rows of plants mounted on long tables, tools hanging from wall racks, beneath them some watering cans, and shelves full of beakers of various sizes, flawlessly arranged. The flowers, incredibly vibrant pink, yellow, orange, purplish, and stark white, dazzled her.

  “So beautiful in here,” she spoke to herself softly. “This is a good person.”

  Lydia walked through the long building warmed by the sunlight streaming through the glass panels, which were its ceiling and the upper half of its walls. She stopped to look at a square thermostat in the middle of the large room. It was numbered in both Fahrenheit and centigrade measures. On the back wall of the greenhouse, a half dozen of what looked like butchers’ aprons hung on a row of hooks. The stiff shapes of the canvas fabric looked to Lydia like a group of uncles watching protectively over the plants and implements underneath them. The flower smell grew stronger as Lydia walked the length of the room. Mingled with this fragrance was another, more delicate smell, that of freshly dug soil. Her senses overwhelmed, Lydia began to cry, and now with mascara melting, reddened cheeks, and blistered foot, she knew she would have to come back when she was composed and presentable, and wearing different shoes.

  Exiting slowly from the greenhouse and crossing the brief distance from the yard, Lydia walked the length of the driveway once again, feeling somewhat lighter than when she approached the house and grounds the first time.

  A few minutes into her five-mile drive to the highway, down a neighborhood street, pleasant, but with smaller homes than the one she had just visited, she saw three women walking in her direction. Instinctively, Lydia knew they were the Cates sisters. She watched them until her car, heading down the opposite side of the road, outstripped them. Before the gathering distance shrunk them, she formed a quick impression of the trio. They seemed lighthearted and suitably elegant to be the inhabitants of their mansion. That was all Lydia could tell about them from her brief inspection. But inside her she knew the spirits of the flowers and the charmed glass place would bless her when she returned.

  I

  IT WAS TECHNICALLY still spring, the end of May, and the residents of Peoria, Illinois, were experiencing the first hint of what was usually a stiflingly hot summer. The three Cates sisters walked the mile and back to Sunday church services for as long as the weather was mild and the spring flowers remained in bloom. This morning, as usual, they did not walk exactly abreast. Rebecca, the eldest, led by a few paces. A large, light-skinned woman, she strode vigorously enough for her legs to make a swishing sound against the stiff fabric of her skirt, strands of gray-streaked hair escaping from the bun wound loosely under her wide-brimmed hat. Her fitted jacket outlined her large bosom, defined a surprising waist and the fertility-goddess dimensions of her hips.

  Claudia, the middle sister, walked crisply but without the advantage of Rebecca’s low-heeled pumps. She artfully placed one yellow-heeled foot in front of the other, in the manner of catwalk models. Her shoes matched precisely the color of her shantung suit. Slender, erect, and regal with an amazing instinct for style, she followed slightly behind Rebecca, her veiled cloche not quite concealing her strong, interesting features. Her veil, falling over her wide-set black eyes under thick arched brows and just beneath her slightly hooked nose, provided her with intended mystery. Sensing beads of moisture on her nose, Claudia removed a jewel-encrusted compact from her purse, powdered precisely, and returned it.

  Rebecca, observing from the corner of her eye, smiled, then shift
ed her glance to Gracelyn, the youngest Cates sister. Round and sensual, Gracelyn at fifty had an ebony cherub’s face with smooth bark-colored skin. Sauntering unevenly in a loose-fitting royal blue jersey dress, a matching sweater tied at her neck, she took in the landscape and good-naturedly stopped to hail a non-churchgoing neighbor bending over her garden.

  Their community knew them as Reuben and Mattie Cates’s daughters, female scions of the utterly respectable and monied Cates patriarch. Reuben had held his own with the nearby white businesses, putting in innumerable hours poring over catalogues and stocking his small department store with high quality, yet affordable brands. Mattie Cates had had an eye for what ladies wanted: thread, lampshades, a variety of colored stockings. The couple’s astute synergy had resulted in stable profit margins year after year.

  That morning, the women sat in their usual place, the sixth pew back at the First Baptist Church in Peoria, the church they had grown up in. As children, they had filed in in front of their parents, who sat together next to the aisle. The seating arrangement never varied. It was always Rebecca, then Claudia, then Gracelyn, the intractable birth order they preserved in their various rituals as adult women.

  Rebecca Cates, the spitting image of Reuben in her coloring and girth, listened carefully to what was coming from the pulpit. Reverend Wilson and his wife, Julia, had come to Peoria four years back when the previous pastor, Reverend Simmons, died from a massive heart attack. The girls had grown up with the elegant, erudite Reverend Simmons. His sermons were metaphysical, uplifting, and not overlong. However, Reverend Wilson was long-winded and a relentless purveyor of moralistic instruction. His bent these days was to remind women of their submissive role in the church and in the home. Rebecca surmised that this effort followed a scandal involving the leader of the national church organization. The man was discovered to have a mistress, upon whom he lavished considerable church money, including bestowing upon this woman a waterfront cottage. The situation was kept hush-hush until the man’s wife discovered the infidelity, traveled to the resort cottage on Lake Michigan, and set it afire. Both the black press and the white press went wild, following the case. Congregations could not look the other way; women condemned this and other ubiquitous male behavior in a louder voice than at any time before in the history of the church.

  To move things back to normal, Wilson offered a steady procession of wicked and wily women chronicled in the Bible. The preacher intoned: “. . . Job remained faithful to God against all odds. Even his wife encouraged him to curse God. But Job said to her, ‘Are you crazy?’ ”

  In previous weeks it had been Jezebel, Delilah, the deceitful Tamar, and Timothy’s railings against women whose sole purpose was to corrupt as many men as possible.

  Rebecca wondered if she was the only one in the congregation observing the pastor’s wife, Julia, while all this was happening. Julia piqued her curiosity, because more than once Rebecca had found the small woman staring at her. The first time this happened, Reverend Wilson had praised his wife from the pulpit, calling her soft-spoken. Julia’s eyes darted to where Rebecca was sitting, searching her face confusedly. The second time Julia’s gaze fell on Rebecca, Wilson spoke fervently about keeping the marriage vows in sickness and in health, and until the parting imposed by death. Rebecca wasn’t sure at first whether Julia was friend or foe, but her overriding instinct told her the somewhat nervous woman was seeking her approval. She was in any case non-threatening, not that there was any way she could have threatened Rebecca. Julia was never present at the male-dominated meetings of the trustees and financial committees of the church to which Rebecca was customarily invited, along with her large checkbook. But Rebecca did encounter Julia at church dinners, socials, and concerts often enough to assess her. When Rebecca and her sisters attended these functions, Julia went out of her way to speak to them. Rebecca observed that when this happened, Wilson, whose eyes were frequently upon his wife, frowned noticeably. The Cates sisters thought Julia friendly and naturally pretty, though they described her in their chat as regrettably unadorned, with lifeless hair, scant makeup, and the most minimal pedestrian jewelry. She seemed a part of the background, much like the obsolete piano kept in the church basement’s dining hall. Julia, Rebecca concluded, acquiesced to her husband in every way, was loyal to him, and content to be the wife of the pastor. Other than that, there did not seem to be too much bubbling underneath her surface.

  After the scandal in the national church organization subsided, for the most part the women of the church were again sanguine, playing their roles as cooks, choir members, and ushers and doing most of the busywork of the church. None protested when Reverend Wilson urged his women parishioners to triple their fund-raising efforts by increasing their bake sales, flea markets, choir concerts, and special-occasion teas. When he announced he would table a proposal for a church day-care center until the following fiscal year, the women complied with his stated priorities. They deferred to and fussed over a succession of young male seminary students assigned to First Baptist at Wilson’s request. They accepted the authority of these men half their age whose tenure at the church would be only temporary, and they paraded their unmarried daughters before them. A young woman seminarian was assigned to the church shortly after Reverend Wilson became pastor, but she left without explanation after only a few months into her appointment. From the pulpit, Wilson decried what he called a lack of tenacity in some young people.

  Rebecca listened halfheartedly to Wilson’s Sunday morning tirades, footnoting what might be done to rid the church of his leadership. But for now, the Cates women had more pressing matters to address and they had to be pragmatic. Wilson would have to be neutralized in their current scenario.

  Each of the Cates sisters had felt for a time that her husband should be put away where others could take care of him. The sisters had married men only slightly older than themselves, but these men, who had been no match for their wives in their unusual vigor, strong constitutions, and mental energy, were all in decline. Rebecca’s husband, Jake, suffering from brain damage and forgetting the tasks appropriate to daylight, burned toast in the middle of the night. Claudia’s intemperate husband, Timothy, stopped work on a modest pension, was awake for half days only, and when not drinking, shaking. Gracelyn’s Bernard was bedridden with a sinister bone cancer and moaning constantly.

  Lucy Sims, a nurse attendant, was on hand every weekend from Saturday morning to dusk Sunday to tend to the sisters’ ailing spouses. She made rounds at intervals, opening the door to each bedroom, bathing and feeding Bernard and checking Jake’s elimination, then locking the doors behind her. She made certain Timothy ate something when sober, and when not sober, removed his clothes, cleaned up any vomit, and sponged him down with a wet cloth. She left copies of the Peoria Call, Jet Magazine, and National Geographic in the men’s rooms. Afterward, she locked each one’s door again and headed downstairs for the next meal preparation.

  Lucy was a good nurse—kind, efficient, and able to control each of her charges. When Timothy was not shaking too badly, Lucy steered him and Jake down the back stairs, holding each man’s arms carefully, and took them out into the backyard to sit for an hour in the sun. She read short stories to poor Bernard when his moaning lessened and allowed him to concentrate.

  After Lucy exited the Cates mansion Monday morning of each week, Rebecca, Claudia, and Gracelyn threw themselves into the care of their men. Following Rebecca’s lead, Claudia and Gracelyn gritted their teeth and did their allotted tasks superlatively, one sister taking over for another when burnout resulted from the grueling round-the-clock duties. Visitors to their home were impressed with their work ethic, how busy they were during daylight hours. On a typical day, Gracelyn prepared meals for the invalids, Rebecca scheduled doctors’ appointments and computed insurance deductibles, and Claudia went to the pharmacy for medications and ran other errands. Visitors who were themselves caretakers knew especially what the sisters faced daily. They understood the endless p
lanning and work required in a situation that would mean life or death at any moment a mistake was made. They understood the discipline and dedication that must underlie a commitment to sick persons, maintained despite the sameness and unpleasantness of the work from day to day. They understood the danger to the well of exhaustion, frustration, and despair should they sense their utmost efforts were unable to thwart the persistent deterioration of their charges. They knew what it took to cherish the sanctity of life enough to wrestle with the gravity of life eroding.

  As their husbands’ health worsened, the Cates women vacated the second-story bedrooms they had shared with them. Rebecca and Claudia dispersed themselves to the third story of the large house and Gracelyn occupied the attic, which she had begun to imagine vividly as her writer’s garret. Throughout the day, the ministering of multiple medications kept the women rotating their trips up and down the stairs to Jake’s and Timothy’s rooms. Timothy was invariably hung over and frequently passed out. Only in the evening did he summon enough sobriety and strength to exit the house. At any hour of the night also, the sisters might hear Jake wandering downstairs, or Bernard’s moans. Though usually awakened, they did not always bestir themselves. Only the smell of something left burning on the stove or a draft from the front door hastily closed and now swept open in a gust of wind would bring Rebecca or Claudia to her feet to investigate. Gracelyn would answer Bernard’s muffled moaning and go downstairs from her attic space to adjust his pillows or see that he had enough blankets. Though the disruptions were frequent, the sisters decided against Lucy’s method of locking the men in to prevent them from harming themselves.

  “Jake knows this house like the palm of his hand,” Rebecca told her sisters. “If he wants to wander around, he’ll be safe enough. And if he lights the stove, the smell will hit me. I don’t think we should lose a good night’s sleep over it. Dr. Turner can’t give Bernard any more morphine than that drip allows, so we just have to let him holler. Gracelyn, I wouldn’t even disturb him; just try and rest your mind until that pain passes.”