Blessing in Disguise Read Free

make was no louder than a whisper.
    Darting through Margaret’s small, neat living room, she followed the shouting voices that grew louder and louder as she made her way toward the back of the house. Her heart was pounding. At the end of a narrow, dimly lit hallway, she spotted an open door. From where she was standing, she could just make out the back of a chair with a man’s jacket thrown across it. She crept closer, edging around so she could peek in without anyone’s noticing.
    The blinds were drawn, but thin bands of light leaked through, throwing stripy shadows over a neatly made double bed and a dresser that looked strange until Grace realized why: unlike the dresser in her mother’s room, with its lacy scarf and Limoges vanity set and silver-backed combs and brushes, there were no knickknacks cluttering its surface, no perfume bottles, no jars of face cream or tubes of lipstick, nothing but a plain wooden hairbrush.
    Margaret, dressed in a limp blue housecoat that was nothing like the crisp suits she wore to work, stood with her back up against the dresser, one hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes round with panic. Across from her, on the other side of the bed, stood a big man in navy trousers and a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. In the dim light, his forearms looked dark and shiny.
    Daddy hovered in the doorway, his back to Grace. She could see his reflection in the mirror behind Margaret, huge and wild-haired, making her think of the story of Sampson that Sister Boniface had told in Catechism. She remembered another story, one Daddy had told about when he’d been a fireman, long before he was a senator, and even before he got elected to Congress. How he’d once dashed into a burning tenement that was about to collapse, and carried a three-year-old boy who’d been hiding under the bed to safety. A window had exploded in his face as he was climbing down the ladder, and if it hadn’t been for his helmet and mask Daddy might have been killed. He still had a faint purplish scar above one eye that Grace loved to run her finger over. The skin was soft, almost silky, not like the roughness of the rest of his face.
    Now, with his reflection mostly hidden in shadow, all she could see was Daddy’s scar, standing out vividly in a slash of light.
    “Put it down, Ned, before someone gets hurt.” His voice rolled down like thunder from a mountaintop.
    That was when Grace saw the gun that Margaret’s husband was holding. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She tried to suck air into her lungs, but it was as if they were packed with cotton. She ducked down lower, too scared to run.
    “Who the hell you think you are, waltzin’ into a man’s house, telling him what to do?” Ned waved the gun in Daddy’s direction. “Yeah, I know, you the big hero got every black man bending down to kiss his shoes. Out there marching with Dr. King for the black man’s rights. Yeah, well, what about this black man’s rights, huh?” His voice was choked off by a sob. The gun wobbled alarmingly in his grip. “What about a man who comes home to a wife who ain’t his wife no more?”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ned,” Daddy said, trying to sound reasonable. His voice wasn’t scared, just sorrowful, like when he’d spoken into the microphones at President Kennedy’s funeral.
    “God’s sake, man, don’t tell me I don’t know!” Ned was nearly screaming. “You think just ’cause you the boss man that mean you payin’ the bills round here and sayin’ what’s what? You don’t know a damn thing what goes on outside that fancy office of yours. ...” Grace realized suddenly that he’d been crying, his cheeks wet and his hand unsteady as he raised the gun, aiming it at Margaret.
    “Put it down, Ned.” Daddy spoke more sternly this time. “Whatever the misunderstanding between you and Margaret is, I’m sure—”
    “Ain’t no misunderstandin’!” Ned shouted. “I seen what I seen!” He was