The next woman stepped up to the table. She was middle-aged, wearing a dirty, once-white blouse and a dark skirt patched on the side with green fabric. She was barefoot and had two small, dirty-faced children with her. She looked tired but nodded a greeting.
Val asked kindly, “Your name please?”
“Mary Castle. I’m 47. I have these two grandchildren. They’re five and four. They belong to my daughter, but she left here a few weeks ago and hasn’t come back.”
Val wrote it down and asked, “The reason you can’t work?”
“Lost my husband in the war and I got these two children.”
Val added that to the report.
“Do you know when I’ll get the money? This is the fourth time I’ve applied.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Mary departed and the next woman stepped up.
Val filled out forms for the next two hours. A few women refused to be interviewed by her, but most didn’t seem to care that she was of a different race. Many were elderly and cited their ages and failing health as why they couldn’t work. One woman was blind, others like Mary Castle had small children in the home. The stories were sad. Val had come south thinking only people of the race were destitute and in need of help; she was wrong.
At the end of the day, Sable drove the wagon home, and Val asked, “When will the people who applied for stipends get their funds?”
Sable glanced over. “Never, more than likely.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no money. The forms will be filed and forgotten. The state has no funds and neither do any of the parishes.”
Val was stunned.
“The process is nothing more than an exercise, and it’s heartbreaking.”
Val thought back on all the people she’d met that day: the elderly, the blind, the children. “Is it the same of our people?”
“Yes.”
“Why offer hope where there is none?”
“It’s a question everyone has been asking. The men in Congress don’t see the need to do more than send pennies and offer platitudes and it’s infuriating.”
Val agreed. Mary Castle had applied four times already. What would happen to her and the hundreds of others of both races who would receive nothing?
“So now that you’ve seen the depth of problems we’re facing, what do you think?”
“I think I need to help wherever I can.”
Sable nodded. “Tomorrow is my weekly visit to the Colored Orphanage. Do you want to come along after my orphans are done with school?”
“I do.”
The next day’s visit to the city’s orphanage also fueled Val’s need to help. Most of the children had been abandoned and were under the age of ten. The lack of funding showed in the basic meals of grits and toast; the hand-me-down clothing provided by Sable, other volunteers, and the local churches; and the thin worn cots they slept on. But because they were children, smiles greeted their arrival and she and Sable smiled in response. Val had brought along a few books and sat on the floor and read to them.
When it was time to leave, she knew that if she decided to stay in New Orleans, one of her first acts would be teaching reading at the orphanage.
As she lay in bed that night, she thought about all she’d seen and done over the past two days and she also thought about Drake. He hadn’t come back to Julianna’s since they decided to step away from each other, and she told herself it was for the best, even as the memory of his kisses remained vivid. She was promised to another man, but it was difficult to erase her first taste of passion and the enjoyment she’d found in the conversations she and Drake shared. He’d introduced her to his family, offered to build her a school, and asked about her dreams. Those things alone were enough to endear him to her forever. Since saving her on the awful day they met, he’d been nothing but kind, and caring. Although she was engaged to Cole, she missed Drake LeVeq.
On the second morning of Drake’s absence, Julianna and Henri prepared to leave for their trip to Baton Rouge. Henri had sufficiently recovered from his travels and was eager to investigate the land he might want to purchase. Mr. Doolittle would be taking them to the train station. Doolittle and Julianna’s gardener, a young man named Frank Poole, were outside loading the luggage into the carriage under Henri’s watchful eye.