"And to think he is my first cousin." she said.
On that note Andrik could not remain silent. "These people are not related to you or me for that matter. That woman downstairs in that wheelchair is as white as the driven snow. I got half a mind to go down there and wring some necks until somebody tells me the truth."
Willetta felt an insidious guilt gripping her. She had the answers in the palm of her hands and had not yet shared them with Andrik. She would keep her secrets until she decided which was worse, not knowing or knowing the truth.
CHAPTER 21
Volume 2, pg. 1 (September 1930): "Mable had a nursery full after I took Willetta away from her. So, I stopped feeling so guilty after a while. She never was too smart. Never figured out who took her four year old baby while she was hanging clothes out to dry. It's quite ridiculous that I should have gotten away with such a public crime. My Willetta is twentyfour years old with a baby of her own now."" #
"Are you recovered," Olivia asked Willetta as she entered the room.
Willetta stopped in her tracks. She had decided to put it all behind her, but Olivia's boldness was too much.
"Yes, thank you. May I ask you a question," she said sweetly.
"Sure," Olivia said without blinking.
"How old are you," Willetta asked.
"I'm thirty-two," she replied.
"So, you were a twenty-one-year-old woman when you gave your eighteen-year-old brother keep-quiet money to give to a fifteen-year-old girl he raped," she said between her teeth.
Martha and Octavia's sounds of protestation were loud as Willetta closed in on Olivia.
"Just tell me this. How many more girls did you pay off to keep quiet about your sick brother," Willetta was circling Olivia and staring her up and down like she was the vilest thing on earth.
"Now just wait one cotton-pickin second," Martha said. "Orlando Jr. raped you, Willetta?"
Willetta never took her eyes from Olivia as she said, "Yes ma'am, he did."
"Olivia, you knew about this and didn't say anything," Aunt Octavia said as she fell into the nearest seat.
"Granddaddy was running for district secretary. There would have been a scandal," she said coldly.
"John five verse nineteen, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," Octavia said.
"Leave the room this instance, Octavia. I will not sit here and listen to you blaspheme God and his Word by misquoting scriptures. Becky, take her to the library. If you had a proper
understanding of the Bible, you wouldn't have married that asinine Amos Townsend in the first place. I know the scripture you should be quoting. Proverbs thirteen verse twenty, which says, "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed"."
It was kind of sad to see a seventy-year-old woman escorted out of the room at the command of her ninety-year-old mother and it wouldn't be an understatement to say that everyone in the room was verily, verily relieved to see her go.
#
Aunt Olivia turned out to be just a treasure of information. She had some first rate diplomatic skills as well. She took the bull by the horns so to speak and reduced Olivia to tears. She let her know in no uncertain terms that she thought she was a cold-hearted wretched creature who would never receive an ounce of mercy or kindness from anyone because of her evil disposition. She was ashamed to have her as a family member, which would definitely be reflected in her last testament and will. Her feelings were that evil people and power, meaning money, were not a match and that if it were up to her, which in all probability it was, Olivia would live a poor woman and die a poor woman. And that was all she had to say on the matter. Ms. Olivia was summarily dismissed to the library with her mother, which is where they were to stay until their party was ready to leave. #
"Sometimes all it takes is asking," Aunt Olivia said. "Matthew seven verse seven says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I know I sound like Octavia, but she is my child you know."
"Tell me about my father," Andrik said.
"His name was Richard Myers. You look a lot like your daddy, but you look more like your granddaddy. His name was Rick Myers. He and Jean fell hard for each other real fast. Some folks didn't like it." She looked hard at Martha.
"Well, I saw him first," she said.
"Martha wanted him too. She never forgave Jean for winning Rick's heart. Jean never forgave Martha for killing Rick's son."
"I didn't kill, Richy," Martha said fiercely.
"You may as well have. Stanley drank his first taste of whiskey while sitting in your lap. Willetta stay away from that stuff. It's in your blood baby," Aunt Olivia warned.
'So, what really happened," Andrik asked. #
Aunt Olivia gave a short version of the events leading up to and after Richard Myer's death. Stanley and Richard were close. They were almost like brothers even though there was a ten year difference between them. Mama Jean and Rick raised Richard in the little house and Willetta raised Stanley in the 'Big House.' The boys were always together as they got older. They worked the fields together as young men and split the money. Soon Stanley was engaged to Maureen Jones and Richard was dating Anita Mosley. Then one day Stanley came running to Mama Jean, drunk as a skunk with Richard in his arms and blood running down over both of them. Jean thought both of them was hurt until she saw that Richard's legs had been cut clean off by the tractor blades. Martha swore she could hear Jean screaming all the way up at the Big House. A couple of days before the funeral, Anita Mosley, came crying and distraught to Mama Jean. Said she was pregnant and wouldn't have nowhere to live if her preacher daddy found out that she had laid with a man without the benefit of marriage.
"That's when Jean started bartering with the devil. She went into those demon-journals written by Etta and William Thompson. Just to set your mind at ease they didn't have a thing to do with parenting a soul, except for the little girl that died. Now she was the real Willetta. Martha, your mother's real name was Sadie Tucker. She was stolen from Mable Tucker, Etta's sister in 1910 about the same time Sylvia Jean was adopted. I thank the Lord every night that I don't have that crazy blood running through my veins." Aunt Olivia said.
"Aunt Olivia, how do you know all this," Martha asked.
"Remember I was the youngest. Etta carried me with her everywhere she went. While she was watching daddy, I was watching her. I saw where he hid the journals and when he died, I saw where she hid the journals. So, I read each and every one of them to my everlasting sorrow."
CHAPTER 23
Volume 3, pg. 1 (August 1931): "Sylvia Jean and John are talking about marriage. I hope they marry soon. I would like for Sylvia to leave. She has not treated me the same since William died."
#
The hum of the motor was all that could be heard as they rode along the interstate. Reflections upon all they just learned from ninety-year-old Aunt Olivia were somber to say the least. Willetta's reunion with the demons of her past left her exhausted and tearful. Her eyes and lips were swollen serving as indicators of her distress.
Martha felt a chill all the way to her bones. She didn't think she would ever be warm again. She remembered her grandmother. Even at eighty, she could conjure up Etta's face. She had been a pretty woman; solid in frame, big legs, big arms and a small waist. Martha was seven when she died. She remembered her voice. It was loud and
commanding.
Martha's mother, Willetta, had never spoken badly of Etta. But in hindsight, Martha could remember the sadness and despondency her mother often felt. Even though the house was her inheritance, she always referred to it as "momma's house" or "daddy's house."
When Martha asked Aunt Olivia why she'd kept such horrible secrets for so many years, she wasn't prepared for the answer.
"Look at me, Martha. I'm not a Negro. I'm just as Caucasian as anybody
ever was. Momma and daddy never took me anywhere. I was in a makeshift prison out there on Thompson Estate. If they had taken me out, people would have asked questions. I started wondering why I looked so different as I got older and that's when I started snooping and reading things I had no business reading. That's how I ran up on the journals," Aunt Olivia stopped. She took a shaky breath and hit her thigh, before rocking back, closing her eyes, as if feeling the horror all over again. She then continued the story.
"Momma stole me right from under my own momma's nose. She wrote it in the journals. She was proud of what she did. After I read those journals, I got to be afraid of just about everything. I was scared of momma. I was scared of the house. I was even scared of Willetta and Sylvia Jean. That's why when momma died in nineteen thirtyfive, I left and married the first man that asked me to. I tried to forget what I knew about momma and daddy."
After all that telling of the past Aunt Olivia was tired and the nurse said the visit would have to end. But before Aunt Olivia left she asked, "Andrik, did your grandma pass those journals on to you?"
"No ma'am. I didn't even know Mama Jean was my grandmother until Ms. Martha showed up," he said.
The nurse stopped the wheelchair as Aunt Olivia raised her hand. "Jean never told you she was your grandmother?" she said incredulously.
"Never," Andrik said.
The old woman's eyes opened wide and her lips trembled. "There are too many secrets in this family. I was going to tell you to burn the journals, but I don't know who she gave them to. Check underneath the loose boards in the master bedroom on the West Wing. That's where momma used to hide the journals when daddy died."
Octavia and Olivia were told to stay. Aunt Olivia wanted to have a family meeting. She said she would arrange for someone to pick up their things from Andrik's house.
#
The journals were fast becoming an obsessive thought for Andrik. Finding them was his new priority. He spent the majority of his life wishing he were either someone else or somewhere else. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he could be someone else. But finding out Stanley Thompson was not his father, had done just that for him. It had changed him. He was no longer the rejected son of Stanley Thompson. He was the son of Richard Myers, grandson of Rick and Jean Myers. He no longer felt an overwhelming sense of loss over Mama Jean's failure to tell him who she was. He felt an inquisition was in order to find out why she kept that secret. Aunt Olivia's reaction over him not knowing that Jean was his
grandmother struck him as odd. Mama Jean had her own secrets, separate from those involving the century old secrets of Etta and William Thompson. Andrik's interests were focused singularly on the secrets of Mama Jean. It was her journals he was interested in and hers alone.
#
Damion Racy had never in his life been more incensed than at the present. He was down a dusty country road looking through iron gates at the car of his slut fiancé who had the nerve to leave him stranded at the altar. He didn't like beating on women, but he knew some of them deserved it. Willetta Jones was one of those women. He knew he would end up beating her, but never this soon. They weren't even married yet. He would drag her butt back to Atlanta. Forget the wedding. She deserved a courthouse wedding anyway. He got back in his car and slammed the door. He would just wait until she came out or until she showed up. Where was she anyway? He smiled an evil grin as he prided himself on placing that tracker on her car. Not too many men were ahead of their game like him. If he were Greek, he'd be a god.
CHAPTER 24
Volume 3, pg. 1 (August 1931): "Olivia is getting to be a big girl. She's sixteen now and such a lovely young girl. Her mother was pretty with all that red hair. William never could understand why I brought a red-haired white baby home. I don't understand it myself. It just came into my head when that woman left that little boy in charge of the baby. I can still hear him screaming when I took the child away from him. I wonder how he's doing now. He should be about twenty."
# The ride home passed just as all trips back home do; quickly. It's odd that when the enigma of the destination is gone, the road gets shorter. The trip home was mostly quiet and solemn. The obscure past of Etta and William Thompson dominated the minds of all three passengers of the sleek black Audi now wheeling towards Thompson Estates.
About ten minutes into the trip home, Andrik slid his hand across the seat and took Willetta's left hand into his. It was the most natural and comfortable hold for them both. His large hand completely engulfed hers and she felt the warmth of it throughout her whole body. They remained that way the rest of the trip.
Even though full-spirited and lively, Martha was elderly. Her eighty years were too mighty to fight with and slumber came easily, even if unwanted. Soft snores echoed in the back seat, as her chin rested on her chest and she slept heavily.
Andrik was the first to see the red Mustang parked in front of the gate. "I hope this is not another long lost relative. I don't know if I can stand it," he said ominously.
Before he could stop the car, Willetta opened the door and jumped out. She knew exactly whose car it was and fear gripped her in its vice. She had an awful intuition that she was about to be murdered. It flashed before her eyes. She could see Damion pulling out a gun and shooting her in the head without hesitation. So, she did the only thing she could think to do. She jumped out of the car and ran for her life.
"What!" Martha jerked awake when Andrik slid to a stop. The first thing she saw was the huge, muscle bound man running past her window. Then she heard Andrik curse as he tore at his seatbelt. She was old, but she had some sense. She reached forward and pressed the red button to unlock his seatbelt. "Run boy!" she shouted as he lunged out of the car.
Andrik did just as he was told. He could hear his own blood coursing through his brain and along his ear drums as he ran. It was obvious the man was out to kill. Andrik saw his face and could see the vicious anger. What in the world had Willetta done? He saw her in the distance. The man was right up on her. He had his hands on her. What Andrik saw next turned the green trees, the brown dirt of the road, and the blue sky into a haze of red.
# Damion saw Willetta when she jumped out of the car. He had been waiting three hours and for her to pull up in a black Audi with another nigger was too much. He tasted blood as he threw his door open. Every predator instinct he had was on go. Just to see her run spurred on his animalistic instinct to hunt. Oh, he would catch her and she would be sorry when he did.
Damion caught up with Willetta in no time. He grabbed her by the arm and swung her around. The fear in her face made him want to howl with glee. He raised one huge hand and balled it into a fist. When it made violent contact with the right side of her face, her legs crumbled and she fell to the ground.
"Get up!" he screamed. Before he could kick her, he felt his neck being jerked upwards. His feet came off the ground next and he couldn't breath.
"You want to die?" Andrik asked.
"No. Man, please," he whispered. Something was wrong. He couldn't get any air. "You will die, if you put your hands on her
again. Do you understand?" Andrik could barely
control his anger. His training in martial arts fully
equipped him to snap the fool's neck and be done
with it, but he put him back on his feet and took his
arm away.
Damion immediately elbowed him in the
stomach and knocked him to the ground with one kick to the leg. A full fledged fight ensued to Damion's ultimate sorrow. When Andrik finished with him, he couldn't see out of either eye, three ribs were broken on the right side, and he couldn't support himself on his right leg.
#
Willetta didn't come to herself until she felt
a cold towel being pressed against her eye. For the
second time in one day she found herself awakening
from unconsciousness with Andrik standing over
her. This time there was no comfort to be found
looking into his face. He was angry and he was a
mess.
"You have to stay awake. I'm going to sit
you up. He busted your right cheek and your eye is
swelling," he said coldly. She felt his huge hand
pressing into her back to give support as he slid her
into a sitting position. At least she was in her own
bed. She was happy to see the pastel green wall, the
screen with the red-haired white woman on it, and
the tub sitting in the middle of the room. In just a
few days these sights had become near and dear to
her.
"Andrik are you okay," she croaked. Her
throat was incredibly dry and everything in her
mouth felt like sawdust.
"I'm fine," he said, "but your man is in
pieces down stairs. I need to get back down there.
There's no telling what your grandma is doing to
him. She asked me for some rope," he murmured. Willetta winced as laughter bubbled up
inside of her. "Let her do what she wants with him.
He's not my man. His name is Damion Racy and I
left him at the altar. I was afraid to tell him I didn't
want to marry him. When you called and said
Mama Jean was dead, it was perfect timing. I fled Atlanta, Georgia in the middle of the night without
a word to anyone."
Her words were like balm to his bruised
soul. Andrik felt the anger sliding away. He laid
his open palm gently against the unharmed side of
her face and said, "He'd be dead if I was a murderer,
but I'm sure between me and Martha we can make
sure you won't have to worry about him anymore." With those words, he stood and left the
room instructing her to stay put and to stay awake
until he got back.
CHAPTER 25
Volume 4, pg. 1 (August 1933): "I've done some things to be ashamed of. William's death was not exactly natural, but he was so tired. He said he was tired of the secrets and wanted to make amends. Well, I couldn't let him do that. So, I put my William to sleep. I miss him so much."
Journals of the Secret Keeper Page 9