A story the lives twins girls born in Chicago in the early fifties and how the death of one twin effected all.
My nostrils flared as I scrutinized the very familiar percale cotton fabric for a hint of her…my heart pounded inside my small chest and my soul ached as I turned her dress over and over trying to find some scent of her quintessence, her very existence. A million thought of should I and could have raced through my mind now. I should have put it in plastic or I could have saved something else. But now it’s too late, this small faded and dingy dress is all that I have left of her, my sister.
This was her favorite dress, once a bright lemon yellow background with black and white geometric motif running through it now nearly a year later, the yellow is quite dingy and the designs are nearly worn away, the white collar missing. Mama had taken her time making this one extra special by adding a larger sailor collars and puffy sleeves on it to make it special. Emanuella immediately claimed it as her favorite dress. This was the best pillowcase dress that Mama had ever made and she was going to wear until the day she died. Everyone laughed and told her at the rate she was growing, the dress would not last that long. Little did anyone in my family imagine that she was actually making a dismal predication?
That is the reason I choose to keep it. The dress had not been washed since she died. After they found her body, Daddy brought home all of the clothes that she was wearing that fateful day and the dress was at the top of the bag. It was utter chaos that evening, so I don’t think any one even knew that I took it. Some weeks after we buried her Mama Hattie, our grandma had someone come in and take all of her stuff away so that Mama could get better. But I needed something for me…I needed to feel her.
Years earlier, Mama started making our clothes by hand and without a sewing machine too. Material for dresses cost too much money so Mama started using old pillowcases at first and then
she began buying more pillowcases with bright colors and nice designs on them. At first, our dresses was just a hole cut for our heads and arms but as we got older Mama started adding collars and sleeves. She even started adding ribbons and little buttons that she found on some of her or Mama Hattie’s old dresses or blouses.
When I want to be with my sister, I go into my bedroom closet, and move all the way to the back with the door closed…and sat in total darkness holding her dress to my nose…sniffing every inch. A sudden rush of warm tears trickled down my cheeks as my soul ached for my deceased twin sister.
My sister and I were born Christmas Day in 1951. We were quite a surprise to our parents in many ways. The second surprise reason was that I wasn’t a boy. As the doctor helped me make my grand entrance into the cold Chicago winter’s morning, he declared,
“ It’s a fine healthy boy, Miss Hattie.”
Mama Hattie took me from the doctor and went down the hall to the warm kitchen. She pulled up a chair to the pre-warm oven door to warm me when mama started screaming again and everyone ran back into the room for my sister’s arrival. Mama Hattie was wiping me down when she started laughing.
“Well you ain’t no boy, but you got the biggest puss I ever did see.” Mama Hattie said to me.
This story would continue to haunt me all of my life as it is told at nearly all family gatherings or nostalgic nights within our immediate family. It would bring laughter to everyone but the baby with the big puss!
Since we were born on Christmas Day, I was named Esther, which means Star after the Christmas star that led everyone to the manger where the baby Jesus laid. And my sister was named Emanuella after the baby Jesus himself. The other significant thing was that I was a warm chocolate complexion like my Mama, like Papa and Emmanuella was what people called high yellow. Papa looked at his second daughter and said to Mama jokingly.
.”This one must be the milkman’s baby.”
Mama Hattie hollered from the kitchen.
“James, boy you betta hush your mouth cause sometimes coloring can jump back generations. Anyway I’m pretty fair skinned myself and my pappy damn sure wasn’t no milkman.”
“I’m sorry Mama Hattie I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
Papa apologized to everyone and brought Emmanuella into the warm kitchen to clean and warm her up too.
Having two babies instead of one cost a lot more than my parents was planning on spending. Mama would have to stop working at the Post Office because we were going take a lot of work. Mama Hattie would come home from her job taking care of the rich white peoples in the Chicago suburbs of Oak Park as soon as she could to take over while Mama got her some rest. Then Papa would come home and fix dinner or watch us so that Mama Hattie could fix it. Mama had to find ways to make Papa’s little check that he made as a auto parts salesman and whatever funds Mama Hattie had left from her daily salary of twenty five dollars for cleaning and cooking.
Despite of our family finances, we grew up quite healthy and chubby. And Emmanuella loved to eat. She was always willing to eat whatever was leftover on anyone’s plate and still looked for more. Mama Hattie said it was a good thing her having such a good appetite like that. By the time we started school Mama was having a hard time making those pillowcase dresses for the both of us.
Emmanuella sprouted pass me in height on our fifth birthday. Her high yellow complexion and jet-black Indian type hair always caught everyone attention and if there is one thing that Emmanuella loved was being told how pretty she was. And then the next usual comment was.
“Are you sure they twins? Why Emmanuella so pretty, who she take after?”
And of course Papa’s favorite answer about the milkman would be told and everyone would laugh. The truth is told Emmanuella looked just like Papa but a lighter version. And her silky black hair was from his Mama, named Viola. I didn’t care about all the attention that was paid to my sister. She was prettier than I, but I looked just like Mama. And my claim to fame was that whoever saw me even if they didn’t know me would immediately know that I was Mary Ann’s child.
Emmanuella was taken from our lives in the summer of 1961, when we were just nine years old in a horrible way. Mama nearly lost her mind and Papa walked the streets night and day looking for him, to kill the person who took his child’s life. The publicity from the papers and television was a curse and a blessing. Until the police found the killer, everyone feared for my life and so did I. Nightmares of an unknown faceless demon chased me through my dreams every night for weeks. The blessing came in the thousands of letters and cards sent by what seemed like the whole world that were filled with money orders, checks and cash to help us out during those days. Papa could afford to take some time off work and help out with Mama’s care. Mama Hattie cut her work schedule down to only half a day.
Emmanuella’s funeral was a big event in Chicago in the summer of 1962. A. A. Raynor Funeral Home said they never seen the likes of it. People from all over Chicago and the suburbs came and made long lines. They stood outside for hours to see the body of the girl that was taken from her hard working catholic blue collar family in such a horrible way.
Someone had seen a man walking through the alley two blocks from our apartment with a pretty little girl who was eating an ice cream cone. She wasn’t scared so no one thought anything about it. Later that night when Emmanuella didn’t come home Papa and his best friend that we call Uncle Oscar came back after searching for her and decided to finally call the police. The next day, some children playing in an abandon building found my sister’s body.
I can remember the knock on the door and Mama and Mama Hattie screaming and crying. I covered my ears as I looked around at the adults reacting to the horrible news. Some of the neighbors heard the commotion and ran over to the door and I was whisked away to stay at someone’s apartment. Later on that week, I overheard someone talking to Papa about how Emmanuella died… the friendly stranger raped her and then just broke her neck.
Months crept by slowly passed and the police was not even close to finding out who killed her. Mama Hattie got mad and went to one of her employers and told her about the police not doing their job. Little did they know that Mama Hattie worked for Judge Edith Sampson, as her housekeeper and cook? Edith S. Sampson was the first black woman ever to sit as a circuit court judge in Illinois as well as the United States. The very next morning, there were squad cars and detectives canvassing the whole neighborhood asking questions and looking for clues. By weeks end, the police knocked on our door and told us that they had a suspect in custody and asked Papa like to come down to the station and identify the suspect.
When Papa came home, he looked like hell…He fell onto the living room couch, silent and in despair. Mama and Mama Hattie gathered around him waiting to hear what kind of monster killed our precious Emmanuella. Papa began pounding his clenched fist into the couch as he told of his heart-wrenching ordeal.
“I arrived at the 11th precinct one of the black officer pulled me aside. He told me to be strong. I wondered why he was saying that. Of course I was going be strong…I am going to look into the eyes of the animal that killed my baby and try my best to kill him. But Lord forgive me, when they opened that door and I ….I saw him…He was sitting at a table with his hands still in cuffs. Baby, I though someone was playing a cruel joke on me. I walked closer to him…. Oscar…what you doing here man?”
He just looked up at me with them crocodile tears in his eyes. He says “James…Man I didn’t mean to hurt her…She just…Emmanuella just come upon me at the wrong time, man. I’d been drinking a lot and I just lost it … She was so sweet when she asks me for the ice cream. James, we like brothers. I never meant to hurt her. I just woke up and saw her lying there. I can’t remember actually hurting her. It just seems like a bad dream.”
“ I ran across the room to grab that monster, that animal and put him out of his misery when the police held me back. I wanted to kill him…I wanted to kill my best friend, baby…Honey how am I gonna live with the fact that my friend kilt my baby. God forgive me please.”
Papa finished before breaking down in uncontrollable weeping. Mama Hattie stood over him, trying to console him and Mama just dropped to the floor in a dead heap.
Papa got a better job with the city and Mama’s pillowcase dresses really started to take off. After all the publicity about what Emmanuella had on when that monster took her from us, other mothers asked Mama to make their girls some dresses too and she got paid well for them. She got a sewing machine and could now buy better material for her dresses. And best of all was that I didn’t have to wear no more pillowcase dresses. Mama and Mama Hattie took me to a real store and brought me a lot of new dresses and everything to go with it. As I looked at my images in the mirror of the store, I could see Emmanuella … she was standing next to me with the same dress on smiling. I turned quickly to find her but she wasn’t there. I guess it was just my imagination.
My present caught up with me as I heard from the dark closet, Mama Hattie calling me.
“Esther…Esther baby…Mama Hattie’s missing you. Where are you at baby? ”
She softly called from room to room until she heard my weeping through the door of the closet and opened it and pulled me out onto her full and soft arms. She held me and we cried for Emmanuella together. Mama just happened to be passing by the room and saw us.
“Please you’ll gotta stop this, Esther…She’s been gone for almost a year now. Emmanuella gone to be with Jesus now and you should be rejoicing not crying. Mama Hattie stop babying her.”
And just as quickly she left us and went out of the apartment. I did believe my sister was happy in heaven but it didn’t stop me from missing her so much. Mama didn’t or couldn’t understand what
its like to lose half of you. Mama Hattie said.
“The next time you need some time alone to grieve for your sister I wouldn’t interrupt me no more in our secret place. Some people needed more time to mourn than most. Ain’t nothing wrong with your feeling like you are. Your Mama just trying to be brave herself. I know she cries herself to sleep some night…I can hear her. Crying is a good thing…you don’t want to hold all that misery in, it could make you sick something awful.”
All too soon it was time for the trail, my parents wouldn’t let me go…I had to go to school and one of Mama’s friends would pick me up. Sometimes when I got home they would be there already. I tried to read their faces but Papa would always look the same to me with his pipe dangling from his lips. Mama, she had good days and bad days. Sometimes she could walk in and the other times someone had to carry her. Mama Hattie didn’t want to go cause she didn’t want to hear no bad stuff. She was too scared that she would leap across that courtroom and start beating on Oscar herself.
One day on my way home from school the family friend was stopped by someone to chat and my eyes wandered to the newspaper stand on the nearby corner. I read the headline “I can’t remember anything! Suspect claim to have had a black out!”
In a hypnotic gaze I moved closer to the newsstand. There on the front of the Chicago Defender was a school picture of my sister…the last one she had taken before…well you know. And there next to her was the picture of the man who had taken her away from me. Papa’s friend Uncle Oscar…he was always over to our apartment, eating and drinking with the family. I looked at his picture again…he looked terrible. I nearly felt sorry for him. He was in handcuffs and he looked dirty. I quickly began to read the story before I was caught. No wonder Papa was so silent. No wonder Mama nearly lost her mind. No wonder Mama Hattie wanted to beat him.
When I got home I went to my secret place. I sat there in the darkness holding her dress…My mind took me on a scary journey…I was Emmanuel and I was eating ice cream as someone pulled me down the alley way as the El passed overhead. I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going because I loved Butter Pecan ice cream more than anything. I could hear him telling me how he enjoyed being with me more than anybody and that’s the reason he only brought
treats for her and not Esther. We came to the abandon building that was a block from my apartment; Uncle Oscar said that there was something he wanted to show Emmanuel…me! He took her up three flights of stairs to an empty apartment and opened the door. The room was dirty and empty except for a filthy box spring in the middle of the floor. He pulled me in and closed the door and told me to have a seat on the mattress while he got my present. I had finished my cone and wanted to wash my hands…I got up to find some water and saw Uncle Oscar drinking some liquor and one of his hands was playing with something in front of him.
When he sees me looking at him, he just smiles and says that my present is almost ready. I start to grow uncomfortable and ask to go home. Uncle says not yet…but soon. He grabs me and takes me back to the mattress and lays me down. He starts to rub my legs and then moves up to my thighs and then he put his finger inside the leg of my panties.
Just then I jerked back to reality as I heard Mama Hattie calling for me. I ran from my secret place and ran right into Mama Hattie’s arms crying. Mama Hattie pulled me unto her lap and began rocking and stroking me…now I knew what happened to Emmanuel that fateful day. But whom could I share this information with? Who would believe me?
The jury found Uncle Oscar guilty of rape, abduction and murder in the second degree. He was sentence to life without parole, cause our family asked the jury and the judge not to kill him. We had seen enough of death. Papa told the jury that he and Oscar had grew up together and we was the only family that he had left. And if he was to die, he might have to go the funeral cause there would be no one else to go. Papa wanted him to rot in prison for the rest of his life…remembering the beautiful little girl that loved and trusted him until the day she died by his hands. Mama was too
upset to say anything. But Mama Hattie stood up and walked to the podium and looked directly at Oscar.
“Your Honor and the jury, I just want Oscar Drayton to know that I forgive him…I forgive him as Christ forgave everyone when he died on the cross. I watched you grow up and I fed you at my table most of your life. I stood beside you when your peoples died in that car crash when you were seventeen. I never turned you away…until now. I…. my heart ….my soul…is going through hell right now cause I always thought of you as one of my own.” Mama Hattie bowed her head and then shook herself out of it. With tears, streaming down her ruddy light complexion she continued.
“You hurt us…you took something that was precious from us forever. Emmanuella can’t come back no matter how sorry you may be. You say you can’t remember nothing, but I pray that from now on that each and every night until the day that you die, little pieces of what you did to my grandbabies comes back to you and you realize what a monster you really are. And you turn to the Lord and ask for forgives.”
Mama Hattie turned abruptly and returned to her seat. The District Attorney stood up and asked the Judge if he could read something before sentencing. It was a letter from me, Esther. No one knew that I had written something. Everyone was trying to protect me but I wanted to say something to him like everyone else. I needed to unburden myself also. The Judge gave his permission.
“ I know what you did to her…Uncle Oscar you did hurt and finally kill my twin sister. Yes, you were drinking but you had it in your mind all the time to hurt her although you may not have meant
to kill her. I do believe that you didn’t want to kill her. But she was gonna tell Papa and you could not allow that. Papa was the only friend you had. You choose to take the life of my sister instead of losing the friendship of Papa. I know you are wondering how do I know so much…about that evening. Scary isn’t it…the answer is simple…we are twins. I know about every touch, her fear, her pain and finally her release to the heavens.”
The courtroom was so silent, that you could hear everyone heart beating as the DA continued with my letter to Uncle Oscar.
“Emmanuella is not finished…she’s gonna come to in your dreams…she’s gonna haunt you until the day you die. Cause you could have allowed her to live and taken your punishment for hurting her. But you choose to take her life instead…and she told me to tell you that she forgives you but she will never forget! And she will be waiting for you. And here is a small piece of something to help you remember.”
The DA walked over to Uncle Oscar and handed him something that was inside the letter. Before the DA could finish Uncle Oscar just up from his chair and started shouting and screaming. The bailiffs had a hard times getting him under control. A doctor was called in to give him a sedative so that he could be there to hear his sentence. Double Life without parole…the judge added another life term after hearing my letter or should I say our letter. They literally dragged Oscar away to prison after the sentencing. Papa, Mama and Mama Hattie thanked the Judge, the jurors and the DA for everything and asked what was in the letter that spent Oscar into a tale spin. The DA reached into his pocket a pulled out a small piece of dull yellow material with black and white designs.
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Such a sad write! Caprivating piece indeed. I'm going to write a poem based on this - if you don't mind Isharra - it's been a while since I wrote a poem so it'll take forever to compose! Lol. A well crafted piece!
Enjoyed this story very much even though it did seem to merge all together at times for these "old" eyes of mine. Nevertheless, it is moving and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to read it.
Reviewed by Stephanie Suell
2/14/2004
Isharra,
This story was great. I enjoyed it. A wonderful story about how twins are connected . I have three sets in my family and wished that I could have had a set of twins myself. Sad story, yet beautiful and very well written....seems like a T.V Lifetime story could develop from this...:)...great piece
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