It felt as if each declarative phrase was a nail driven into my coffin. I wanted to tell him to stop talking, but I had asked the question.
“Mr. Rawlins?”
Easter Dawn was my savior. She wore a plaid skirt that Feather had outgrown years before and a white silk T- shirt. Her black hair was tied back with a yellow ribbon, also of silk. Her shoes were black, her socks white, and there was a pink Cracker Jack plastic ring on the forefinger of her right hand. On her shoulder was hung the fancy briefcase-like satchel.
“Aren’t we dressed up,” I said, lifting the tiny eight-year-old and putting her on my lap.
“Feather said I could wear her old clothes,” Easter confessed, the hint of guilt in her voice.
“And you look beautiful in them.”
The child smiled at me and clasped her hands.
“I want to go to school,” she said.
“You do? Don’t you like being on vacation?”
“No. And I want to be in school. My daddy says that school is bad, that it makes people bad, but Feather and Juice are nice and they went to school. And anyway, Feather has to stay home every day to take care of me and she’s missing her tests.”
“Hm. Yeah. I guess you’re right. Okay. Go get your sister, and I’ll take you off to school at about eight.”
As E.D. ran toward the back of the house, I thought about calling Feather her sister. I suppose I was preparing for the worst. I had been training for disaster as far back as I could remember.
I DROVE the girls to school. Feather went off to the library to study, and I brought E.D. to the office. There I encountered Mrs. Canfield.
She had a decade on me, all of it traveled on a rutted, hardscrabble road. She was a white woman, but her coloring had some liver to it. Her mouth hadn’t known mirth, maybe ever, and her eyes gave you the impression that you were the most worthless person in the world.
After I told her my name and she told me hers, I said, “I’m Feather’s father.”
“Oh,” she said haughtily. “Feather called in days ago. She said that there was a family emergency and that you would call. But my records show no such call.”
“I was dealing with the emergency,” I said.
“Education is the most important part of a child’s life, Mr. Rawlins. If you cannot take that seriously, how can your children hope to make it in this world?”
It was the wrong morning for us to meet. I was an American Negro. And while not being a Rochester stereotype or a white-lipped minstrel clown, I was quite aware of how to deal with people like Mrs. Canfield. Don’t get me wrong: she wasn’t looking down on me because of race. She was in her seat of power and would have lectured Lyndon Baines Johnson had he wandered into her court. And Lyndon could have learned something from my long experience. I could have told him that the way to deal with Canfield was to say,
That’s what I should have said, but it wasn’t the day for it.
“Really?” I replied. “It seems to me that health, food on the table, love, and shelter would come before a child could ever think about reading a book. I mean, how could you expect an ailing, hungry child to come in here and take your tests? Do you serve free lunches here, Mrs. Canfield?”
The edge on her gaze could have cut diamonds.
“What is it that you want of me, Mr. Rawlins?”
“I want to enroll this child in school.”
“She doesn’t look like your child.”
After speaking, the school administrator sat back a little. Her sharp eyes had caught a hint of the violence in my posture.
Before I could come up with the appropriate lie, Mrs. Canfield added, “In order to enroll a child in this school, you will need her birth certificate, inoculation history, and proof of guardianship.”
“I can have all that by next week.”
“Bring her back then.”
Easter Dawn pulled on the sleeve of my dark gray jacket.
“I thought you wanted all kids in school all the time?” I said.
“This is not your child.”
Easter pulled on my sleeve again.
“We’re talking, honey,” I said.
“Look in here, Mr. Rawlins.” She was handing me the ornate satchel.
I took the crocheted case and flipped it open. In there was a paper file, among other things. The manila folder held the information that Canfield had asked for. Christmas had made me Easter’s legal guardian and he had the Riverside Board of Education’s homeschooling certification of her first- and second-grade evaluation exams. She’d had her smallpox, polio, and tetanus vaccines.
I handed the papers over to Mrs. Canfield, and she studied them like a poker player in the biggest game of her life. Three minutes went by while Easter and I sat silently.
