by D L Lane
July 16, 1937
“Welcome home, Mississippi!” Ms. Bauman cheered, the staff with her clapping as Thayer and I walked through the door of his home, Emmanuel secure in my arms.
“Let me see, let me see,” Ms. Bonny said excitedly, coming over to peek inside the blanket. “Aw...look at him.”
“I’m trying to,” Ms. Bauman grumped, crowding in. “Scoot over so I can see.”
Laughing, Thayer placed his palm on my lower back. “Maybe we should step a little further into the house before all the cooing begins, ladies.”
“Mr. King is right.” Ms. Bauman nudged Ms. Bonny’s arm. “Let’s go into the parlor.”
The small crowd made their way into the room, and when I walked in, my jaw dropped. Someone had decorated it with a big sign that hung over the fireplace, saying, “Congratulations!” and Inga stood there in her white uniform, dimples in her plump cheeks, lips upturned into a smile holding a platter of cupcakes and other assorted goodies.
Gaze moving around the room, it landed on the table covered in wrapped packages, and then over to Thayer’s mama, daddy, and the sister I’d yet to meet but had seen pictures of, grinning at me from the settee. While seeing them was in itself surprising, my gasp was audible when I saw... “Fawna-Leigh? What on earth are you doing here?”
The corners of her lips lifted as she stood, her gray-streaked chestnut hair bobbing, hands straightening her pretty, blue dress. “Mr. King made arrangements for me to come.”
For the umpteenth time since Emmanuel’s arrival, I cried tears of joy.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I’ve been waiting a long time for you to ask
July 20, 1937
With the baby asleep in the bassinet taking his afternoon nap, I went to the vanity Thayer had brought into his room for me—the one I still occupied even though I’d offered to move to another space.
“This is your room now,” he’d said, daring me to argue, so, of course, I’d obliged. But as he usually did, Mr. King got his way.
Being pulled toward the glittering crystal, I picked it up and gave my mama’s perfume a sniff. Months ago, Thayer had done what he said and retrieved my things from beneath the old worn floorboard in my room at Daddy Bruce’s house.
Putting the bottle down on the vanity top where it belonged, I picked up my grandmama’s wedding ring and slipped it on my finger, holding my hand out in front of me to admire the shimmer of the small diamonds.
“I wish you could be here to meet your grandbaby, Mama. I know you’d love him, and he’d grow up loving you. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure to tell him all my stories, and he’ll get to meet you through me.”
Tap, tap, tap.
Hurrying over to get the door, so the knocking didn’t wake Emmanuel, I grinned when my eyes met Thayer.
Placing my finger to my lips, I stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind me.
“Is the baby sleeping?” he asked.
“Yeah, he fell off as soon as I put him down.” Locking my eyes with his sky-blues, I said, “He’s such a good boy, and rarely fusses or cries.”
“He is a sweet little one,” Thayer said a wistful smile on his face.
“Did you need to speak to me about something?”
Thayer’s face smoothed. “The Judge has finally set a date for your brother’s sentencing.”
“When?”
“Friday.”
Fear walloped me. “That’s tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
I’d only been in the courtroom twice during James Henry’s trial. Once when Thayer was called to the witness stand, and the second time when I was, telling the judge and jury what Dudley McCoy and Alistair Blevins did to me. Recalling the horrifying events, and talking about them was hard on me, so it took me a few days to recover. After that, Thayer insisted the proceeding was too upsetting for me to attend, and the jury had been hung the first time. But the judge ordered them to deliberate further, finally coming back with a guilty of murder in the first-degree verdict on both counts after weeks behind closed doors.
“We have to be there,” I said.
“I know. I’m already working on it. But what do you want to do about Emmanuel?”
“I don’t want him in a courtroom.”
Thayer nodded. “I agree. I will ask Ms. Bauman to take care of him.”
“Virginia will be happy to spend time with him, but no matter what, we have to come back regardless of how late our return. I can’t be away from the baby for too long.”
“No argument here.” Taking my face between his large, warm palms, he leaned down and brushed his lips softly across mine.
“Thayer,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his tight waist. “Kiss me like you mean it.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time for you to ask,” he said and stole my breath with his.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Why did you do it?
August 12, 1937
My brother came scuffling in wearing black and white stripes—the jangle of being bound both wrists and ankles with cuffs and chains greeted me before he did.
“Sippi!” A smile stretched across his angular face as he took a seat across from me—Angola prison guards positioned around the room—the big man who escorted him in, stepping back. “How-ya doin’?”
“I should be asking you that, James Henry.”
“I’m-a doin’.” He shrugged. “Three meals a day, so I can’t complain.” He glanced toward my flat stomach. “The baby come alright?”
“He did.”
“Girl or a boy?”
“A beautiful baby boy. I named him Emmanuel.”
A scowl pinched his features.
“Listen,” I said, “I know we don’t have much time, so I’m going to get right to it.”
“Go on, then.”
“I wanted to come and tell you I’m going to try and help you.”
“There’s no helpin’.”
“There is.” I stopped bouncing my nervous foot. “Thayer is going to talk to Governor, Leche.”
“Mr. King shouldn’t waste his time. He already wasted his money on those fancy lawyers, and look where I’m at.”
“Maybe you should have listened to both of your attorneys and not allowed me to testify?”
“Naw...” He shook his head, the overhead lights highlighting the small lines at the corners of his eyes. “You needed to tell your story.”
“But, it wasn’t helpful to you.”
“I always knew what would happen. There ain’t no way I won’t swing for what I did.”
My heart twisted. “Why did you do it?”
He dropped his gaze as if studying his scarred hands resting on the table. “They hurt you, Sippi.”
“They did,” I agreed.
“Look, I know no one could accuse me of being a good big brother, least of all you, but when I saw what was happening—what had already happened—somethin’ inside me snapped.”
“Like when your vision turns red?”
“I didn’t have one of my spells.”
“You didn’t?”
“For the first time in my life, I had to do the right thing.” He locked his eyes with mine. “For you.”
“I wish the police hadn’t found you,” I said, sorrow filling my voice.
“Me, too.”
The tears I promised myself I’d never shed around my family, welled up, but I managed to hold them back. “There’s something I’ve been wondering about. Well, two things, really.”
“Go on then and ask.”
“You’d been gone for months, what made you come back home when you did?”
“Tired of running, I suppose. I figured I’d go home for a while. Take my chances. If I didn’t draw any attention to myself, maybe the law wouldn’t find me.”
“And you found me,” I mumbled.
“When I walked into the house, the kitchen chairs had been overturned, and a mess scattered ’round liked there’d been a struggle, so I took out my knife thin
kin’ someone had come in to steal something, and there’d been a fight. Why anyone would bother with our place, I didn’t know. Then, I heard a noise from your room.”
He looked down as a lump of dread formed in my throat.
“I wasn’t expecting...” James Henry’s chin lifted, and he looked at me, grief apparent. “I saw, and you know the rest, Sippi.”
With a nod, silence filled the space between us for a moment.
“When you told Alistair it was up to me—” I nibbled on my bottom lip.
“Yeah?”
“If I had said to let him go, would you have done it?”
My brother’s mouth hooked to the side, keeping his eyes on mine. “Alistair Blevins was a dead man the moment I walked into your bedroom.”
“Then why did you say it was up to me if you weren’t going to let him go?”
“To give you back some of your own.”
Brow furrowed, I asked, “How do you figure?”
“I did what you were powerless to. What deep down inside you wanted to do.”
“Time!” One of the guards yelled.
“Well...” James Henry got up and rolled his head along his broad shoulders. “I’ve gotta go.”
“I know.”
Standing to my feet, I went toward him, only to be stopped when his earlier uniformed escort stepped in front of me. “Maintain the distance,” he said.
“Okay.” I peeked around him, looking at my brother. “I’d hug you if I could.”
“Don’t worry ’bout it, Sippi.”
“Time to go,” the guard said sternly to James Henry.
“I’ll see you as soon as I can,” I called out.
My brother’s “Take care of yourself” drifted back to me before the screeee of the hinges filled the visitation room, followed by the echoing clang of the closing metal door.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I’m happy you’re here
September 19, 1937
Placing my fork across the top of my breakfast plate, I glanced over at Thayer, who was rocking Emmanuel in his arms, smiling down at him like I imagined a birth father would look at their child—love and devotion beaming from him.
“You’re getting to be such a big boy.” He stuck his tongue out and made a silly face, causing the baby to giggle and toss his wrinkled fist in the air wildly. “That’s right. I’m crazy about that little laugh.”
“I want to go to church today,” I announced, drawing Thayer’s attention.
Without a blink of an eye, he said, “All right. Where would you like to go?”
Emmanuel cooed.
“My mama’s church.”
He studied me for a moment. “Are you sure? We don’t have to go into the parish. We can find a church in Baton Rouge.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I want to go.”
The corners of his mouth lifted. “Then get ready, and we will head to Bethel.”
Pleased, I smiled. “You want to come, too?”
“Of course. I go where you go, Mississippi.”
Those words lit up my heart.
***
Holding my baby, I walked through the double doors of Bethel Baptist Church, memories of clasping my mama’s hand when I was small as we sat in the first row to hear the preacher on Sundays overtaking me.
“Don’t fiddle with your dress, Sippi and stop wigglin’ around,” Mama had reprimanded in her church-whisper.
My wiggling stopped for a bit, only to start up again until she gave me ‘the look,’ the one that said she’d turn me over her knee and swat my bottom when we got home if I didn’t behave.
Smiling at the recollection, Thayer and I stepped out of the vestibule and in where the congregation sat primly in the pews—stained glass lit up in a kaleidoscope of colors. As we started up the aisle, the piano music came to a fumbling halt. All eyes going to me as one-by-one, they turned in their seats.
Low murmurs bounced through the large room, getting louder and louder.
“What’s she doing here?” I heard someone ask.
“The nerve,” someone else added.
Wavering, I clutched Emmanuel tighter to my chest, feeling stupid for thinking this was a good idea while the heat of mortification pummeled me. I glanced down, two-seconds from turning around and running out the way I’d come. But Thayer placed his strong arm around my waist, leaned in, and whispered, “You keep that head held high Mississippi.”
Looking up into his face, I drew from his steadfast strength and nodded.
Shifting the baby so that Thayer could take my hand, I held on as he led me up the aisle, saying, “Good morning” to the gaping people we passed, not stopping until we stood at the very first row, then he helped me gain my seat, sitting beside me.
The gray-haired pastor, who came to the podium during the last part of what I’m sure his parishioners believed to be our walk of shame, looked at us, eyes rounding behind the lenses of his glasses, then a smile formed on his lips. “Welcome!” he said enthusiastically. “It’s good to see you again, Mississippi. Mr. King. We’re glad to have you both with us this morning.”
All the mutterings swirling around the sanctuary stopped.
When Thayer inclined his head, Reverend Barnard announced, “Sister McNamara will be singing the opening song for us today.” His bright gaze focused behind me. “Sister.”
The sounds of scuffling took place, followed by an “Excuse me,” then footfalls before Edith, a friend of my mama’s, stopped at the pew Thayer and I were seated in—a lopsided grin on her marred face. “I’m happy you’re here,” she said, then made her way to the front.
The piano started to play, then the disfigured woman who’d lost everything, including her entire family in a house fire only a week or so after Mama passed, sang, “It Is Well With My Soul.”
As her sweet voice filled the air singing of peace like a river, it touched me. She, who knew the depths of great sorrow and monumental loss, meant those words. There was no denying the serenity and belief, they weaved through the notes and radiated from her crippled posture. And for those few minutes, while she closed her eyes and sang, her terrible scars went away, and I saw the woman, beautifully whole.
This sense of tremendous peace which had eluded me, but Edith had somehow discovered, seemed to flow off her and drift my way, settling around my shoulders like a warm security blanket, making my eyes swim with tears.
As if sensing the shift, Thayer draped his suit-covered arm along the back of the pew, fingertips dipping into my hair. When I peeked up at him, he winked at me, bringing another layer of warmth to my skin. Oh, I’d already figured out I loved him, but in that instant, a bone-deep conviction took over. Even if nothing became of us as a real couple, he would be the only man I’d ever love, doing so until the end of time.
***
“Charles,” Thayer said, once we were all squared away in the backseat of the car after the Sunday service. “Take us to the diner.”
There was only one in the parish.
Blinking over at him, I asked, “We’re goin’—”I pursed my lips. “We are going to Ruby’s Place?”
He nodded. “I’m starving, and you didn’t eat much for breakfast, so you must be just as famished.”
“But, maybe it would be better to go into Baton Rouge.”
Placing his palm over my hand, he leaned back. “Now, why would we do that?”
“You saw what happened in church this morning. What do you think will happen when we walk into Ruby’s?”
Tightening his fingers, Thayer said, “You know what I think?”
I gave a shake of my head. “I’m sure I don’t.”
“All the good people of the parish need to get used to the fact you are not caving to their bad behavior or judgmental ways, and neither am I.”
“No caving, huh?”
“Never.” Tapping the tip of my nose, he said, “Besides, doesn’t it give you just a little bit of pleasure to rub their noses in our happiness and make them squirm?�
��
Our happiness?
I needed to let that simmer.
“Thayer Drayton King,” I said, shaking a finger at him, “we just finished listening to the reverend preach on turning the other cheek.”
“We did.” A grin broke free. “And, I’m turning it while making all those hypocrites squirm.”
Smiling, I looked ahead. “I guess we’re going to Ruby’s then.”
“That’s the spirit!” He slapped his knee. “I’m craving some of her delicious fried green tomatoes anyway.”
***
Everybody gawking round two had begun the moment we entered the diner, but I grabbed my composure, keeping my posture straight, chin up.
“Let’s go to the free booth in the back,” I said, briefly glancing at Thayer.
Palm firmly placed between my shoulder blades, he shook his head, herding me toward a table in the middle of the room.
“Here?”
“I’m partial to this one,” he said, pulling out the chair for me. “Give me the boy and have a seat.”
Thinking I’d lost my mind and so had he, I slipped Emmanuel into his arms—the baby gurgling in contentment.
After taking his seat, Thayer placed Emmanuel’s tiny chest against his larger one, holding his upper back and neck as someone’s, “Doesn’t that Singleton girl have any shame?” echoed over.
Looking in the direction of the woman who was shaking her head, face puckered, Thayer left, and Mr. King took over. “Tell me, Mrs. Thibodaux, just what should Mississippi be ashamed about?”
Thelma’s dark eyes widened as she started spluttering, hand fluttering at her chest. “I-I...”
“That’s what I thought.”
“She’s a tramp!” a man heckled.
I wanted to slink down in my chair, but my eyes rounded in surprise when Mr. King stood, holding my baby close. “Mississippi has more integrity in her pinky finger than you have in your entire body. Let’s face it, giving birth isn’t a crime, unlike being arrested for indecent exposure after being booted out butt-naked from your mistress’s home, now is it, Jenkins Johnson?”
The room exploded in astonished huffs and low chatter.
While people in the parish tended to know everyone’s business and their dirty little secrets, that didn’t mean they spoke of them in public. No, they just took great pleasure in saying mean things under their breath where you could hear them.