“Though lovers be lost, love shall not. And death shall have no dominion.”
Dylan Thomas
With its temperatures typically hovering at nearly a hundred degrees, with humidity in the nineties, mid-August was unanimously held to be the most miserable part of summer by everyone in the region. The residents of Hickory Dock, Tennessee, saw no reason to disagree. But after generations of toiling in the fields of slave owners and land barons, they stoically bore it with little, if any, complaint.
Tansy Wilson was no different. At least in mindset. But in nearly every other way she was different from those amongst whom she lived.
Tansy was the seventh of nine children. She was the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, a fact that the superstitious took very seriously, for seventh born male and female children born of seventh born parents were said to be special in some way. Almost mystical. Perhaps that was part of which set her apart.
Tansy's father, despite the racist attitudes of White folks and the ravages of the Great Depression, had somehow managed to afford a run down gas station situated alongside the main thoroughfare through the county. As surrounding businesses had failed, more and more folks had brought their cars to him for gas and repair, and his reputation as an excellent and fairly priced mechanic had spread. It was said there was no motor he couldn't fix.
His business had thrived through the Great Depression and beyond. As time had passed, he'd lost his first wife as she gave birth to their fourth child. The child, a son, survived, and a few months later he had remarried. His new wife had been the mother of two children of her own and five years later Tansy had made her appearance as the woman's seventh child. She was one of three daughters of the eleven children total born to Wilford Wilson.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, her father had immediately enlisted in the Army where he became a mechanic. Eventually all eight of her brothers followed suit. Left behind at home, the women of the family had continued to operate Wilson's Gas Station and Mercantile where Tansy surprised everyone as she seemed to have inherited her father's way around an engine. Soon, she had nearly as many customers as her father had had.
She was a homely girl, to say the least, with her bristly hair, too broad nose and slightly bucked teeth. But her brown eyes were large and expressive and her mahogany skin was clear and unblemished, even as a teenager. As a result she was the envy of many women and, with her inherently sunny nature, had enjoyed no shortage of suitors.
But Tansy had had an excellent example of manhood in her father, and she was determined not to settle for anyone who didn't possess the same gentle nature and sense of honor as what he had exhibited as she had grown up. Many of those who sought to court her were fine men to look at but had lacked those qualities she sought. Some had served their time in the military while others had been discharged for less than honorable reasons. Others had had no real interest in her as an individual, but only wanted her to become a mother to their motherless children. Tansy had turned them all down and she was often accused of being too picky. She didn't care. She knew what she wanted and needed.
The father she adored died during a Japanese attack on a tiny island in the Pacific and been buried in a segregated cemetery there on that island. It had taken nearly two weeks for the devastating news to reach them. It was much longer before the truth of his heroism had been divulged, for he had died dragging the injured men who had hated him for his race to safety. Before the war was over, all but two of her brothers had also died but due to injuries and so-called battle fatigue they were no longer able to help out with the business. A few years after the war, one shot an innocent White bystander during a flashback and was summarily lynched while the other disappeared one night and was never heard from again. So the women continued as they had throughout the wartime years.
Then one day, an ailing gray 1932 Ford Roadster arrived at Wilson's. The driver, an older Black man named Charles Turner, had been passing through the county on his way north where he hoped to find work in the booming auto industry, when the car engine had begun to overheat. He and Tansy had taken an immediate liking to one another and as a result he was not in the least upset when he was told he would have to wait for the repairs as she was pretty backed up. Despite the fact that there were other mechanics in the area that could have repaired his car in a much shorter period of time, he had taken up residence at a nearby rooming house, accepted a temporary job as a stocker at the local hardware store, and on his off days was often seen around Wilson's “sparking” the grease and oil soiled Tansy.
Everyone saw the difference in Tansy as her relationship with Charles blossomed, for she had at long last found the elusive man who possessed the same qualities of gentle honor as her beloved father. It wasn't long before she fell in love with his laughing good humor, enjoying his gentle teasing as she tinkered on the cars under her care. When the gas station was closed, they took long walks through town and along the roadside, where he sometimes picked hardy purple chicory and Queen Anne's lace to make simple bouquets for her. She pressed them all within the pages of her Bible.
Eventually she was able to repair his car. After paying her mother the cost of the repairs at the register inside, he had accepted his keys from Tansy, but rather than sadness his dark eyes had shown with earnestness as he grasped her hand in his.
“Will you marry me when I get settled in Detroit?”
Tansy had looked around at the business her family had operated for so long, her mind thinking of how much they relied on her for a good share of their income. In many ways, it was Tansy who supported her mother and the sisters with their children who, one way or t he other, were left without men in their lives, and her heart broke as she turned him down.
“I am needed here,” she replied sadly, “Can you not stay?”
He shook his head just as sadly.
“If I stay here I could not provide you the home you deserve.”
So they had parted with Charles driving away, his Roadster now in perfect operating condition thanks to Tansy's care.
Months passed, then a year. Charles wrote long letters describing his new life in Detroit. He spoke of his job with the Ford Motor Company and the home he had made for himself in one of the row houses the company provided its workers. He sometimes repeated his request that she join him, which she continued to refuse. She never spoke of this proposals to her mother, who was left wondering why their relationship hadn't seemed to proceed as one would have expected.
Then the letters abruptly stopped coming and Tansy began to fear that Charles had found himself another woman with whom to share his life and home. As the weeks passed, she became convinced of it and wept secretly for losing him. Her family noted her sorrow but she steadfastly refused to share her grief with them, continuing to spend her days working on cars and taking long walks along the roadside.
On that sweltering August day a registered letter arrived from an attorney in Detroit. She had accepted it with a feeling of deep foreboding and had slowly opened the envelope. Upon reading the contents, she broke down, falling to her knees as sobs erupted from her body and the letter fell from her hands. Her mother, alarmed by her daughter's wails, had struggled to help Tansy to her feet and, failing that, had lifted the letter to read it for herself.
Charles had died in a work-related accident and left everything he owned to Tansy Wilson of Hickory Dock, Tennessee. Including his beloved 1932 Ford Roadster. Did she wish to claim Mr. Turner's estate or would she prefer all items to be sold and the earnings sent to her? Less the cost of the legal fees and inheritance taxes, of course.
In the end, Tansy had made a trip north to Detroit. There she visited Charles' simple grave and was dismayed to find a permanent marker hadn't been ordered for it. So she had arranged for an equally simple headstone to be placed with his name, birth and death dates, and the epitaph “Beloved by Tansy Wilson” engraved on it. Afterward, she had sadly and systematically sorted through Charles' belongings, electing to sell most it to go toward the attorney fees and taxes and keeping only a small picture of him as a child in Mississippi, a gold wedding band inside a velvet pouch, and, of course, the Ford Roadster that had brought them together.
Now having loved, and been loved, by two rare gentle and honorable men, who had loved her despite her homeliness and manly occupation,Tansy quietly stopped searching for anyone with whom to share her life. To do so would have been to settle for so much less than she had known. She repainted the gray Roadster a bright yellow in celebration of having known those men and was often seen driving along the country roads around Hickory Dock, sometimes stopping to pick bouquets of purple chicory and Queen Anne's lace with a sad smile upon her face.
A bit of a different direction, but I like it. I'm sure that my black friends would love to read this story of love during hard times when people had to sacrifice a lot just to get on with living.
But I immediately fell in love with a 32 Ford Roadster. Like Clyde Barrow, I would've loved to barrel through those back roads with that V8 engine. But not with those mechanical brakes. Why my 1935 was converted to hydraulic brakes. You couldn't slow down as fast as you could go.
I noticed that you also sometimes double up with had had like I do. And then when I go back and read it, only one had is really necessary.
Destiny's Journey, judged Best Western in the Easychair Bookshop competition.
Family deception kept Jennifer O’Malley from marrying her first love ten years ago, West Point officer, Glen Herrington. Now a Civil War widow, she leaves war-torn Richmo
