Under the Tulip Tree

by Michelle Shocklee

  Frankie’s eyes met mine before her gaze shot to the daguerreotype I held out. “It can’t be.”

  Her words echoed those I’d uttered upon learning the truth.

  She shook her head and jerked away from the picture as though it held the stench of death. “Where’d you find that?”

  “In a box that belonged to my great-great-grandmother Helen.”

  “Helen?”

  I nodded.

  She stared at me a long moment, then glanced at the picture she held. “I remember Charlotte had an elder sister who was already married by the time I went to live in the big house. I believe her name was Helen.” She glanced up. “You say she’s your great-grandmother?”

  My chin trembled as I nodded. She’d left off a great, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t meet her gaze and instead stared at the floor.

  “Lord have mercy,” she breathed.

  A long silence followed. When I found the courage to peek at her, I found her studying the picture of Charlotte.

  “She sure growed into a purty thing, didn’t she?”

  I didn’t respond. Her quiet words weren’t for me.

  She exhaled a deep breath. I glanced up to find her gaze fixed on the daguerreotype I still held.

  “That Miz Sadie?” Her voice hardened.

  I nodded, unsure whether to extend the framed picture to her again or not.

  Her glare bored into it, as though the woman herself stood in the room. About the time I wondered if I should put it away, she held out her hand. I relinquished the final dagger into the heart of our budding friendship.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected her to do upon seeing Sadie’s face again. If she tossed the photograph into the furnace of her kitchen stove, I wouldn’t blame her. If she yelled and cursed, I would hear her out. But her quiet study of the images nearly undid me. I tried to think of something, anything, to say that would lessen the pain I’d brought to her, yet I knew nothing I said could do that.

  “Mm-hmm. That’s just how I remember her.” She lifted the picture up to the morning light streaming in from the window. “This must’ve been taken after I was sold.”

  My stomach knotted. Now was the time to offer a long-overdue apology for the sins of my family, yet what could I say?

  I stood. “I don’t know if you can—”

  Her sorrowful eyes met mine, and a sob brought an end to my inadequate speech. Before I knew it, a flood of tears, remorse, and pain came forth, and I was powerless to stop them from consuming me. I stood there and cried as I’d never cried before. Wailing for six-year-old Frankie. For her mammy. For myself.

  I sobbed louder when I felt her frail arms go around me, tugging me into a fierce embrace in the same way Grandma Lorena had the previous evening. We wept together there in her tiny living room, a former slave and the white offspring of her worst enemy. I don’t know how long we remained there, but even after the heart-wrenching sobs ceased, we stood, arms around each other.

  When her grip on me loosened and she pulled back, red-rimmed eyes met mine. “Tears wash the windows of the heart.”

  I sniffled and nodded.

  She settled back in her chair and pulled a handkerchief from the front of her dress. I had need of my own handkerchief tucked in my purse, but I couldn’t move. I had to know. I had to know what she thought of me.

  “You have every right to hate me and my family.”

  She blew her nose again, wiping it this way, then that. When she looked up, I recognized the expression in her eyes. I’d seen it the previous day, when she told of forgiving Burton Hall.

  “Hatred is a powerful thing. It can turn a person into something they ain’t. It don’t matter what color your skin is.” She picked up the photograph of Sadie, her eyes narrowed. “I hated that woman. I hated her with every bone in my body. For years I let that hatred feed my soul. Every white person I met felt it. Even after Mr. Waters bought me and gave me a comfortable life, I hated. I ’spect my life might not have been so hard had I let go of the hate. Sam and Miz Illa talked about God and his love, and I learned to read the Bible myself, but that hatred never really left me. I hid it, I suppose.”

  She looked at the picture again, and I noticed she held it in her gnarled hand. “It wasn’t until I saw Burton in that hospital, his arm cut off and looking so pitiful, that forgiveness finally took hold inside me. Them Federals was planning to take him away to prison for who knows how long, and there weren’t nothin’ he nor his mama coulda done about it. It was as though I finally saw him as he was—a man who had no control over his situation, just as I’d been the day Miz Sadie beat me.” She shook her head. “He looked as helpless as a newborn baby that last time I saw him. I’ve often wondered what happened to him.”

  “Grandma could only remember that he served in the army.”

  Her eyes on the photograph, she said, “When I forgave him—when I actually said the words—all that hatred slipped away. Even the hatred I’d carried so long for Miz Sadie. It was gone. I remember that feeling like it was yesterday. Like I dropped something heavy that had weighed me down for too long. Seeing her face now, all these long years later, don’t bring it back up.”

  She laid the picture in her lap and met my gaze. “God healed the scars inside me, Rena. I could never hate you nor your family.”

  I fell to my knees at her feet. “They don’t deserve your forgiveness. Sadie probably never admitted what she’d done was wrong.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s between her and her Maker. I won’t let hatred steal away the peace I have in my heart. You can’t let it steal yours either.”

  I clasped her crippled hand in both of mine. “I’m sorry, Frankie,” I whispered, tears falling down my cheeks. “I’m sorry for what a member of my own family did to you. I’m ashamed to know they’re responsible for this.”

  A look of peace settled over her features as she held up her hand. “God will heal these ol’ fingers someday.”

  “How can you believe that? He hasn’t done it yet.”

  “Chile, you remember the day you come to my door the first time?”

  I nodded.

  “What did I tell you?”

  I thought back to that day. I’d been so nervous. Frankie had come to the door and said something I still didn’t understand. “You said the Lord wouldn’t let you go home until you talked to me.”

  She smiled. “Nothin’ surprises the Lord. He’s got a plan and a purpose for everything. We just have to wait on him.”

  I stared at her. “You believe God brought me here . . . on purpose?”

  She chuckled. “It sure couldn’t be a coincidence, now could it?”

  I knew she was right. “But why?”

  Her gnarled fingers grasped mine. “For this. If I’d told my story to anyone else, that’s all it would’ve been to them. A story. But you came to my door, and lookee what the Lord done.”

  I still wasn’t sure I understood, but I was grateful she didn’t hate me or my family.

  “What happens now?”

  She put her other hand on my cheek. “Now you and that fella of yours go out and change the world.”

  It felt good to laugh. “Alden and I aren’t dating, you know.”

  “I know, but you should. He’s perfect for you, just as Sam was perfect for me.”

  “Did you marry him after the war ended?” I asked, still at her knee, like someone who belonged.

  “I did. Soon as we heard General Lee surrendered to General Grant. We decided to stay in Nashville and help with the rebuilding. I thought about going to school to become a nurse but in the end chose not to. Sam and I worked as a team. I didn’t like the thought of being in a hospital away from him all day, if you can believe it.” She chuckled; then her smile faded. “Things weren’t easy after the war. We were free, but jobs were scarce. A lot of white folks didn’t want to pay us for work that’d been done without wages during slavery. It took many years before the city and the people recovered. ’Bout the time we settled in and
started to figure out freedom, the Ku Klux Klan came around, scaring folks and causing trouble.”

  Her expression grew soft. “Sam wasn’t a preacher, but he was close enough for most folks. He’d read from his Bible—the same one he let me take to the prison hospital—and share the gospel with anyone who’d listen. He did lots of other work, too, but sharing God’s Word . . . that’s what he knew he was supposed to do.

  “We were married almost ten years before the Lord blessed us with our son. I’d given up hope of having children. God had given me four babies, but I figured my hatred had killed them all. Sam never stopped praying, though. He told me the Lord would give us a son someday, and he was right.”

  I glanced at the framed photograph of a young man I’d seen on the table by my chair the first day I came to see Frankie. “Is that him?”

  She nodded. “That’s Caleb. He’s so much like his pappy. That boy is smart, too. He went to Fisk University and got his teacher certificate. He married a gal whose people were from Georgia, and they settled in Atlanta. He wanted Sam and me to come live with them and get away from the Acres, but we was needed here.” She winked. “Caleb give me nine grandchildren, and at one time or another, most all of them has come to live with me and Sam so they could go to school. Now it’s my great-grandchildren who’s coming to see me. Jael is his granddaughter.”

  I smiled, wondering why I hadn’t guessed Jael’s identity before now.

  Despite all the hardship, the long years of pain and suffering, Frankie had survived. And then she’d thrived.

  “And Sam?” I asked, knowing the story wasn’t complete without understanding what happened to her sweetheart.

  Sorrow filled her eyes. “He passed on to glory five years ago now. I miss him every day, but I know it won’t be long till I’ll join him and Mammy.”

  We spent a lovely afternoon talking, laughing, and baking cookies for the Sunday school children’s bake sale. When it was finally time for me to leave, Frankie pulled me into a tight embrace.

  “I’m glad you come to me, Rena.”

  Tears threatened, but I nodded. “So am I.”

  As I drove away from the yellow house, with Frankie standing on the porch waving, my heart swelled with love. Real, sweet love for a woman who’d been a nameless stranger a short time ago. A woman whose life went beyond the stories she wove. Whose legacy of courage needed to be told to the generations.

  I knew I would never be the same.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Our fried chicken dinners grew cold as Alden gaped at me from across the table in the noisy diner.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  I shushed him when several dinner patrons glanced our way at his exclamation. “I am. Trust me. The shock still hasn’t worn off.”

  His gaze went from me to the picture he held of Sadie Pope Hall and back again. “She’s your great-great-grandmother?” His incredulous tone hadn’t lowered.

  “Great-great-great-grandmother.”

  He shook his head. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” He turned the picture over to reread the handwritten names for the third time. When he finally laid the picture down, he met my gaze. “What are the odds of you and Frankie even meeting, let alone you being assigned to interview her?”

  “Frankie and Grandma Lorena don’t believe it was a coincidence.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Let me guess. They think some all-powerful, all-knowing deity worked it out.”

  I stirred the mashed potatoes on my plate. His skepticism echoed my own, and yet what other explanation could there be?

  “What do you think?” he asked when I didn’t respond.

  I shrugged. “It does seem . . . orchestrated, don’t you think?”

  He glanced at the picture again and sighed. “I admit it’s a wild twist of fate.”

  I wasn’t sure what to believe, but I knew one thing. Meeting Frankie had changed me. Hearing her stories had opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed. To people I had cared little about. It amazed me now to realize I might have gone my entire life without knowing the truth about slavery—about my own family—had it not been for Frankie.

  “I don’t think I’ll have a job with the FWP after Mr. Carlson hears about this.”

  Alden leaned back against the booth. “I hadn’t considered that. It certainly is a unique situation.”

  “I’m not sure I can continue with the interviews anyway.” I shrugged again. My emotions felt raw, my mind confused and heavy with the truth. “I know it’s unlikely any of the other former slaves were owned by my relatives, yet I can’t help but wonder who they were and what their lives are like now. It would be too painful to uncover more dark secrets. Does that make sense?”

  He reached across the table and put his hand over mine, the first intimate contact he’d ever initiated with me. “It does. And honestly, I wouldn’t blame you. I can only imagine the . . . responsibility and guilt, I suppose . . . that you must be feeling.”

  I nodded, grateful he understood. “Frankie doesn’t hold it against me or my family, but my ancestor maimed Frankie for life. They sold her when she was just a child. She may have forgiven them, but I can’t. I won’t.”

  Alden squeezed my hand. “Let’s take a drive. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  We took his car, leaving Mary’s at the diner. I was surprised when he parked at the bottom of a hill. The sun hung low on the horizon, a big orange ball coloring the city in shades of autumn.

  “Where are we?” I asked. It looked like a construction site of some sort.

  “Fort Negley.”

  I gasped. “Truly?”

  He smiled. “Frankie’s stories about the place made me curious. Tom Ellison, the foreman of the project, was in the WPA office when I stopped by. He invited me out to visit. I thought you might like to see the progress they’ve made reconstructing the old fort.”

  We carefully made our way up the hill, deserted now that the workday had ended. Alden explained the rebuilding process.

  “The original limestone blocks that were used to construct the walls surrounding the fort were carried off after the war. People used them to build or repair homes and businesses damaged in the battle. Like Frankie said, the walls were laid out in a multipoint star, with these—” he indicated a triangular-shaped wall jutting out in front of us—“as a perfect place for a cannon.”

  I gazed at the stone walls, trying to envision the fort as Frankie had seen it. To know she’d walked here, frightened and preparing for the impending battle, felt surreal. “It’s as though I’ve gone back in time. I almost expect a Union soldier to come traipsing down the hill or to hear cannon fire in the distance.”

  “I know what you mean.” His gaze took in the tools, stacks of stone blocks, wooden posts, and other construction items scattered throughout the area. “I’ve always enjoyed visiting historical sites, but this is different somehow. Frankie’s stories made this place come alive. She lived right down there—” he pointed to an area below us—“in the contraband camp for more than three years.”

  We hiked to the top of the hill, keeping to the path that circled the fort. To the north lay downtown Nashville and the Cumberland, and I couldn’t help but remember Frankie’s description of seeing dozens of warships on the river before the battle began. Buildings obstructed the view now, but I could well imagine the sight Frankie witnessed that day.

  “I wonder if this was where Frankie and Nell hid when the fighting started.” I turned to study the reconstructed fortification again. The wooden stockade in the center of the fort wasn’t quite finished, but it helped me envision what the original might have looked like.

  “Probably somewhere near here.” Alden pointed to a grassy area between two of the wall’s points. “The Confederates attacked from the south, so this side of the fort would offer the most protection.”

  We stood silent, taking in the view. A train blew its whistle in the distance.

  “I’ve lived
in Nashville my entire life, and yet I knew nothing about Fort Negley.”

  “You can thank President Roosevelt and his New Deal programs for breathing life into the old fort.”

  I chuckled. “It appears we have much to thank the president for, since we both work for the FWP.”

  With a last look at the city below, we headed down the hill. The sun slid over the horizon just as we reached Alden’s car.

  “Thank you for bringing me here.” I wouldn’t forget this place anytime soon.

  After we returned to the diner, where I’d left Mary’s car, Alden offered to escort me home, but I declined. It wasn’t far. We said good night and I drove away. I pulled into the driveway a short time later, hoping no one would hear me arrive. The need to be alone ran deep, and I simply couldn’t face Mama or Mary just now. I didn’t even want to see Grandma, although I knew she was anxious to hear how Frankie took the news.

  I entered the house through the back door. Voices came from the front of the house, so I tiptoed down the hallway and hurried upstairs without being seen. Exhaustion swept over me. Ever since I learned Sadie Hall was my ancestor, my entire world had felt upside-down.

  Stretching out on my bed in the dark, I stared at the ceiling. Mama and Mary’s muffled conversation carried up the stairs, but their words didn’t interest me. My imagination conjured images from Frankie’s story. I saw a little dark-skinned girl, joyful and smiling, wearing a pretty new dress. She twirled and giggled and ran outside with a book held against her chest. She settled under a tree with her treasure, happily looking at the pictures, until a large white hand snatched her up. Sadie’s face crowded my mind then, her eyes blazing with fury, her lips lifted in a snarl. She reached for the fireplace poker, but I screamed for her to stop.

  “Frankie, run!” I yelled, but it was too late. The poker came down on the little girl with a horrific crash.

  “Rena?”

  I woke, startled to find Mama’s face looming above me. Light came from the hallway and illuminated her worried expression.