The remodeling and the additions were a boon for Stacey and Dee. Three separate families lived in the three upstairs bedrooms and all paid a monthly rent. They were all young couples, two with children younger than three. They all shared the bath, the kitchen, and the sun parlor, and they all were happy to be there, for this was their start in the North. All the families, like ours, had migrated up from the South looking for better jobs, for less discrimination, for all the opportunities of the North. Stacey and Dee were fair with all of them, friends with all of them, and when any of the families upstairs decided they needed more space and could afford to move, there was always another family waiting in line to take their place, for with the house came assurances of who Stacey and Dee Logan were, who we were as a family, and how tenants were treated. Those upstairs rooms were in great demand and were never vacant.
With all the rooms upstairs occupied I asked Stacey about rooms for Christopher-John and Man. Stacey told me not to worry about them. They would stay downstairs with us when they finally came home. When that would be, we didn’t know. We didn’t know either if they would be coming to Toledo or going back to Mississippi. Following the end of the war on both fronts, we had expected their return any day, but the months of 1945 had passed into the spring of 1946 and still both Christopher-John and Man were in service over in Europe. I was exasperated with the waiting. “How much longer do you think it’ll be?” I asked Dee as she stood at the kitchen table rolling dough for a sweet potato cobbler. “Before they come home, I mean.” I was at the ironing board ironing a dress for the night.
Dee looked at me and shook her head. “Have no idea. Clayton and Christopher-John don’t either.”
“Well, I hope it’s soon. I want them home.”
Dee smiled at my impatience. “We all want them home, Cassie. Have patience.”
“You know that’s something I’m short on.”
Dee laughed. “You’re telling me? You never were one for patience, Cassie.” She glanced over. “You about finished with that dress? I want you to make the cornbread before we go. No telling what time we’ll get back.”
“I’ll be finished in a few minutes,” I replied.
“All right.” Dee, always organized, checked the wall clock. “I just have to get this cobbler in the stove and finish up the collard greens. The beets are ready and the okra’ll be done in a minute. Pork chops won’t take that much longer. Soon as the cobbler’s done, you can put the cornbread in.”
I nodded, enjoying the smell of frying okra and smothered pork chops and onions slowly baking. It was Friday morning and we were preparing dinner early because we were going to see the doctor in the afternoon. Dee was taking the girls in for a checkup and I was going to have a physical exam for a job for which I had applied. It was a position as a counselor at a girls’ summer camp sponsored by Stacey’s union. If I got it, it would be something different, and a challenge too. I would be out of the city for the summer and back in the countryside. More important than that, it would mean a full-time paycheck for two months. Since I had arrived in Toledo I had not earned much money. Although I had a little part-time job at Roman’s, which was fine while I attended the University of Toledo, taking courses I needed in order to teach in Ohio, the pay was minimal.
Dee finished rolling the dough and began cutting it into large squares. “So, what time is Moe coming?”
“About the same as usual. He’ll go home from work, change, then get on the road.” The iron was now cold. I took it over to the stove, took a second iron from the gas fire, and set the cold iron on the grill. I placed the hot iron upright on the ironing board to let it cool a minute and readjusted my dress on the board. “He’ll be here in plenty of time for us to go to the movies.”
“I still wish Moe would just move down to Toledo,” Dee said. “I hate that he has to make that trip from Detroit every weekend.”
“He doesn’t have to make it,” I said, testing the iron on a rag to see if the hot metal scorched it.
Dee laughed. “Oh, yes, he does! Moe would be lost if he couldn’t come down to see you!”
I waved off her comment. “It’s not just me he’s coming to see. It’s everybody, the whole family.”
“Cassie . . . you know how Moe feels.”
I shrugged. “You know I love Moe. He’s my friend.”
“But that’s all, isn’t it?”
“I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you mean.”
“But he’s in love with you, Cassie, and you know it.”
“Yes, I know it, and I’ve told Moe I don’t feel that way about him, and that’s okay with him—”
“Maybe for now. But that can’t go on forever, his feeling the way he does and you not returning those same feelings.”
“Dee, I think you’re wrong. I like being around Moe. I like talking to him. It’s good to have a man to talk to other than just Stacey.”
Dee smiled. “That, and because you can wind Moe around your little finger. He always agrees with you, whether he really does or not.”
I took up the iron, cool enough now to finish my dress. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Having a man who agrees with you?”
Dee eyed me in all seriousness. “Not all the time. That’s sure not what I would ever want in a man.” She began to layer the cobbler. Setting slices of uncooked sweet potatoes in a deep pan, she layered them with the thinly rolled squares along with pats of butter and a mix of sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. “If Robert had been that kind of man, we never would have gotten together. I need a strong man, and, Cassie, I know you do too.”
I just looked at Dee and continued ironing my dress.
I knew Dee was right about Moe and me. But then Dee was pretty much right about everything, and she always knew what she wanted. Even as far back as when she had first come into our lives she had known what she wanted, and what she wanted as soon as she saw him was Stacey, and as soon as Stacey saw Dee, he wanted her too. That was back in early ’42, when Stacey came home from Memphis, where he was working as a trucker driving big rigs and living with Aunt Callie’s son Percy and his family. When Stacey arrived he already knew a lot about Dee. Mama, Christopher-John, Man, and I had written and told Stacey that Dee was beautiful, petite, and cocoa-skinned, a striking young woman.
Dee Davis had come into our community in the fall of ’41 to teach at Great Faith School. She was a recent graduate of the Negro Teachers Training School down near Brookhaven, and like other young Negro teachers in the state, she looked for teaching positions in Negro schools throughout Mississippi. As part of her contract with Great Faith School, Dee was given housing and board in the home of members of Great Faith Church. Initially she boarded with the Caldwater family, but in January of ’42, when the Caldwaters needed the room they had given her, Mama, having been a teacher at Great Faith School, and Papa, who was a deacon at Great Faith Church, invited Dee to stay with our family. At that time, I was a student at Lanier High School and Stacey was in Memphis, but Christopher-John and Little Man were still at home. Since I went home about every weekend, I got to know Dee soon after her arrival and I agreed with Christopher-John and Man that she was right for Stacey. The three of us repeatedly told Dee we wanted her to meet our oldest brother. We had all fallen in love with Dee, and we had a feeling Stacey would too.