Alva was not very surprised when she failed to return home from work that Friday. The woman in the next room kept coming in at fifteen-minute intervals after five-thirty inquiring: “Hasn’t your wife come in yet?” She wanted to get rid of the child which was left in her care daily. She had her own work to do, her own husband and child’s dinner to prepare; and, furthermore, she wasn’t being paid to keep the child both day and night. People shouldn’t have children unless they intended taking care of them. Finally Alva told her to bring the baby back to his room … his wife would be in soon. But he knew full well that Geraldine was not coming back. Hell of a mess. He was unable to work, would probably have to remain in bed another week, perhaps two. His money was about gone, and now Geraldine was not there to pay the rent out of her earnings. Damn. What to do … what to do? He couldn’t keep the child. If he put it in a home they would expect him to contribute to its support. It was too bad that he didn’t know someone to leave this child of his with as his mother had done in his case. He began to wish for a drink.
Hours passed. Finally the lady came into the room again to see if he or the baby wanted anything. She knew Geraldine had not come in yet. The partition between the two rooms was so thin that the people in one were privy to everything the people in the other did or said. Alva told her his wife must have gone to see her sick mother in Long Island. He asked her to take care of the baby for him. He would pay her for her extra trouble. The whole situation offered her much pleasure. She went away radiant, eager to tell the other lodgers in the house her version of what had happened.
Alva got up and paced the room. He felt that he could no longer remain flat on his back. His stomach ached, but it also craved for alcoholic stimulant. So did his brain and nervous system in general. Inadvertently, in one of his trips across the room, he looked into the dresser mirror. What he saw there halted his pacing. Surely that wan, dissipated, bloated face did not belong to him. Perhaps he needed a shave. He set about ridding himself of a week’s growth of beard, but being shaved only made his face look more like the face of a corpse. It was liquor he needed. He wished to hell someone would come along and get him some. But no one came. He went back to bed, his eyes fixed on the clock, watching its hands approach midnight. Five minutes to go. … There was a knock on the door. Eagerly he sat up in the bed and shouted, “Come in.”
But he was by no means expecting or prepared to see Emma Lou.
Emma Lou’s room in the Y.W.C.A. at three o’clock that same morning. Emma Lou busy packing her clothes. Gwendolyn in negligee, hair disarrayed, eyes sleepy, yet angry:
“You mean you’re going over there to live with that man?”
“Why not? I love him.”
Gwendolyn stared hard at Emma Lou. “But don’t you understand he’s just tryin’ to find someone to take care of that brat of his? Don’t be silly, Emma Lou. He doesn’t really care for you. If he did, he never would have deserted you as you once told me he did, or have subjected you to all those insults. And … he isn’t your type of man. Why, he’s nothing but a …”
“Will you mind tending to your own business, Gwendolyn,” her purple powdered skin was streaked with tears.
“But what about your appointment?”
“I shall take it.”
“What!” She forgot her weariness. “You mean to say you’re going to teach school and live with that man, too? Ain’t you got no regard for your reputation? I wouldn’t ruin myself for no yaller nigger. Here you’re doing just what folks say a black gal always does. Where is your intelligence and pride? I’m through with you, Emma Lou. There’s probably something in this stuff about black people being different and more low than other colored people. You’re just a common ordinary nigger! God, how I despise you!” And she had rushed out of the room, leaving Emma Lou dazed by the suddenness and wrath of her tirade.
Emma Lou was busier than she had ever been before in her life. She had finally received her appointment and was teaching in one of the public schools in Harlem. Doing this in addition to nursing Alva and Alva Junior, and keeping house for them in Alva’s same old room. Within six months she had managed to make little Alva Junior, take on some of the physical aspects of a normal child. His little legs were in braces, being straightened. Twice a week she took him to the clinic where he had violet ray sun baths and oil massages. His little body had begun to fill out and simultaneously it seemed as if his head was decreasing in size. There was only one feature which remained unchanged; his abnormally large eyes still retained their insane stare. They appeared frozen and terrified as if their owner was gazing upon some horrible, yet fascinating object or occurrence. The doctor said that this would disappear in time.
During those six months there had been a steady change in Alva Senior, too. At first he had been as loving and kind to Emma Lou as he had been during the first days of their relationship. Then, as he got better and began living his old life again, he
