“Are you sick?”
“I thought pregnant women were supposed to have morning sickness, not afternoon sickness.”
“Happens that way, sometimes.”
Honey Belle scooted back her chair on the linoleum floor and stood up, feeling a little green and a whole lot wobbly. Perspiration beaded along her forehead and above her top lip.
“I’m going outside. I need some air.”
Aunt Tess called for the waitress to put their food in to-go boxes. “I’ll be back after I see to my niece.”
The waitress nodded.
Honey Belle didn’t go far, just to the edge of the building. She leaned against it, gasping deep breaths of air.
Her aunt followed. Honey Belle leaned into the cool hand touching her cheek as her aunt said, “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine now, Aunt Tess. Do you mind if we go home? I need to lie down.”
The waitress stepped out the entrance door. “Here’s your food. That’ll be ten dollars.”
Honey Belle watched her aunt rummage inside a uniform pocket. After handing the waitress two fives and accepting the bag of burgers, she placed her arm around her niece’s waist. “Isn’t your doctor’s appointment tomorrow?”
Honey Belle didn’t want to talk. She wanted to take a nap. “I don’t mean to be a pest, Aunt Tess.”
“Hush, you hear me. You’re many things, and a pest isn’t one of them.”
She nodded and blinked away tears. “Remember when I asked why you’d never married?”
“Uh-huh.”
Honey Belle drew in a wavering breath as she followed her aunt to the bright yellow Volkswagen Beatle. “You were a little evasive with your answer.”
Tess opened the door as if impatient to be done with this conversation. “No more than you, niece, about the father of your baby.”
“I need to know about your life, Aunt Tess. I see your career, the house you live in, your success.” Honey Belle ducked her head as she settled on the car seat. Her aunt was standing at the door, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand. “I have so many doubts about raising this baby, about being a single parent.” She stopped abruptly. “Never mind, Aunt Tess, your secrets are your own. Just like my secrets belong to me.”
Honey Belle looked down and shuffled her feet to a more comfortable position on the little car’s floorboard. She swiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, chasing away memories that threatened to spill over into tears.
Chapter Fifteen
Issues. Honey Belle had lots of issues to deal with. One part of her needed to share the threats Tripp’s father had made if she didn’t leave town, if she didn’t get rid of the baby. Insecurities nagged at her, threatening to drown her in a whirlpool of self-doubt.
Reassurances. She needed reassuring that she was a good person, responsible and capable of loving and nurturing a child. What if she’d inherited her mother’s mean-spiritedness, her inability to show love?
“Back all in the same day.” Aunt Tess’s drawl drew Honey Belle back to the present.
She nodded and blinked away the tears. “I’ve never cried this much in my entire life, Aunt Tess. What’s wrong with me?”
Her aunt reached over and patted her niece’s hand. “It’s called hormones. Your body is trying to adjust to the changes it’s going through. Add to that you’re still grieving for the loss of your mama and daddy. Put it all together and that’s a lot of emotions to deal with.”
Honey Belle opened the door and climbed out of the car.
“Come on.” Aunt Tess jiggled the sack from the restaurant. “We can pop these hamburgers in the microwave.”
The thought of a reheated greasy hamburger caused a wave of nausea to sweep over Honey Belle. “I’d rather have a cup of your special hot chocolate.”
She accepted the warm smile her aunt offered. “Double Dutch with a generous splash of half-and-half. Guaranteed to make all your troubles seem trivial.”
“If only that were true, Aunt Tess, the world would be a better place for all of us.”
They walked through the back door and into the kitchen decorated with shelves of colorful jars of canned tomatoes, okra, and pickled peaches.
Honey Belle settled on a stool as her aunt melted chocolate in a double-boiler, then added the milk, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a liberal pinch of cinnamon. Inhaling the savory aroma, she felt as if her aunt’s house was the safest place in the world.
“You wanted to know if I’d ever married.”
Absently thrumming her fingers on the counter, Honey Belle whispered, “What did you say?”
“You’re a thousand miles away. Take the tray of cookies to the den. I’ll follow with the hot chocolate.”
Honey Belle set the tray of homemade pecan sandies on the coffee table and settled on the floor in front of the fire place, resting her back against the sofa while Aunt Tess poured two steaming cups of cocoa.
Tess sat down across from her niece. Honey Belle reached for a cookie. “It’s your life, Aunt Tess. Really, you don’t have to tell me.”
Tess, too, reached for a cookie. “Post traumatic syndrome. And my confession comes with a condition.”
Honey Belle wiped crumbs from the corners of her mouth and reached for a second cookie. Her voice reflected caution. “What is this post traumatic thing, and what is the condition?”
“When I finish telling you my story, you’ll know what PTSD is and what caused it. Second, I’m not asking you to name names—just give me enough information to help me understand why you don’t want the father of this baby in its life, or yours.”
Honey Belle sipped her cocoa and set the cup down. “No pressure?”
Her aunt crossed her heart and hoped to die. “No pressure.”
Honey Belle laughed. “Deal. You go first.”
Her aunt’s voice softened as she spoke. “I graduated nursing school a few months shy of my twenty-first birthday. I needed to get away…away from all the problems Delilah caused our mama, the endless screaming and arguments, the phone calls to the cops when my sister didn’t come home at night. She was fourteen and more than Mama could handle. I’d had a bellyful of my sister’s hateful shenanigans. I wanted to get as far away as possible, and I wanted to see the world, so I joined the Peace Corps.
“I was sent to Rwanda in Africa. The village consisted of a small but well-equipped hospital, a mission, and a school. The native people were wonderfully accepting of a white nurse with a southern drawl. The only other white women in the village were three nuns. Two were teachers, one was a nurse. Father Brendan O’Toole was fresh out of the seminary and, like me, on his first foreign assignment. Dr. Roger Kemp from the United Kingdom was the staff physician. He was thirty-five years old and reminded me of Clark Gable with his infectious smile and pencil-thin mustache.
“I don’t remember when I fell in love with Roger. Maybe it was the time when we worked round the clock during a cholera outbreak. Roger was tireless, and I was proud to assist him. Our professionalism developed into a friendship, and from there into a full-blown, goo-goo-eyed love. Five months later, we said our vows in the chapel, with Father O’Toole officiating. Nine months later Roger Scott Kemp, Jr. was born. We called our beautiful baby boy Scotty.”
Noticing the slight tremble in her aunt’s voice, Honey Belle lifted the teapot and refilled both their cups with hot chocolate. Eager to hear more of the story, she waited patiently until her aunt seemed satisfied the steaming liquid was cool enough to take a sip.
“About three months after Scotty’s birth, a young native staggered into the compound. His wounds were so severe that, to this day, I don’t know how he managed to survive long enough to get to us. Before he died, he said rebel warriors had destroyed his entire village.”
An odd sense of trepidation raced up Honey Belle’s middle. Wrapping her suddenly chilled hands around the warm cup, she sipped the sweet confection inside.
Her aunt’s eyes looked like faucets that were about to be tur
ned on. Honey Belle had had enough life experience to recognize raw emotional pain when she saw it. Only the crackling of the fire in the fireplace eased the tension of silence that hung over the room.
Honey Belle cleared her throat. She wished she’d never asked about her aunt’s past. “It’s too painful, Aunt Tess—these memories. I should have kept my curiosity to myself. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too. Time hasn’t healed the wounds in my heart. Maybe the telling of it will.”
A visible tremor wracked Tess. Honey Belle didn’t know if she wanted to hear the rest of the story. She sucked in a deep breath and blew out slowly.
Tess continued in a monotone. “Roger used the shortwave radio to notify the authorities in Tanzania. Officials in Tanzania said they were aware of sporadic attacks on villages, but they were short-manned and had notified officials in Brussels to send soldiers. We were advised to arm ourselves as best as possible. Roger then contacted the Peace Corps officials. He was told to prepare to evacuate. Because we were more than five hundred miles away by Land Rovers, Roger requested a cargo plane. He wanted to evacuate the entire village. The Peace Corps said they’d do their best. We held out little hope for more than a bush plane.
“We armed ourselves with what little we had—a rifle, a handgun, spears—not much, I’m afraid. We were peacekeepers, teachers, healers, unprepared for what was about to happen.
“They came on us like a nightmare. Hutu rebels. We never heard them. One minute I was assisting Roger with an appendectomy, the next minute our ears were filled with gut-wrenching screams. Before we could react, rebels entered the operating room. The leader spoke English. He ordered us outside. When Roger protested the woman on the operating table would die if he didn’t finish the operation, that horrid beast simply removed his pistol from its holster—”
Honey Belle shuddered. Her aunt’s gaze was lost to memory.
“We were ushered outside. Women were screaming, children crying, and bewildered old men wailing. There was so much confusion. My immediate thoughts rushed to Scotty. He was with Sister Mary Clare and Bunni, my wet nurse. I fought my captors. My arms were twisted so tightly behind my back it felt as if they were being pulled from their sockets. And still I fought, I kicked, I used my head as a battering ram. Roger fought, too. I kept hearing him calling my name, saying he loved me, and to be brave. Before my head exploded with pain and darkness closed in around me, I saw Roger forced to his knees.
“It was morning when I finally opened my eyes. Even after I regained consciousness, the next hours had the unsteady presence of a dream. The compound yard was littered with bodies. Every male child had been murdered—”
It was painful for Honey Belle to think of what had happened to Tess’s baby. She protectively cradled her hands around her middle. “And Scotty?”
“Him, too.” The hurt came through in those two words.
“Aunt Tess, I—”
“Let me finish,” she held up her hand. “I need to get it out. All of it.”
Honey Belle watched as Tess raked trembling fingers through her short gray hair. “My baby looked like a broken doll lying there in the dirt.” She shuddered and brushed away tears. “Roger and Father O’Toole hung on wooden crosses. The sisters lay spread-eagled on the ground, their hands and feet tied to stakes, their robes and dignity stripped from them. As my mind tried to absorb the horrors, it took several minutes before I realized that I, too, lay in the baking African sun, naked as the day I was born.
“I cried out to God asking him why he’d allowed this to happen. I cursed the Hutu devils for killing my child. I prayed for the plane to arrive, I prayed for safety, I prayed for maggots to eat the eyes of our enemy.”
When Tess stopped speaking, Honey Belle assumed her aunt had finished the story, leaving the rest to imagination. She was wrong. Tess continued.
“If you even think you can picture how awful it was, you are wrong. The leader squatted next to me. He said his name was Ngoma. He called me Nkento. Woman. He said he wanted me to live so I could tell the world of his power and how the Hutu would rule Africa. As dry as my mouth was, I managed to create enough saliva to cover his ugly face with spittle.
“‘You bastard,’” I screamed at him, “‘You filthy murdering, bastard. I hope you rot in hell.’”
“He laughed a long, loud, barking hyena sound. In his language, Ngoma ordered his men to rouse Roger and Father O’Toole—by jabbing them with spears. Then turning to me, his eyes ferocious under his huge furrowed brow, he flung his hand toward the nuns, in disgust.
“For days, we were brutalized. Roger and Father O’Toole were forced to watch our degradation. I vowed I would live through the nightmare.”
Tess seemed to concentrate on a fingernail as she clicked it back and forth. “There’s a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you know it’s true but it seems like a fantasy.
“I don’t even remember when the rebels left, or how many days I lay all alone with the dead in the baking sun. I awoke in a Tanzanian hospital. Roger’s parents were sitting next to the bed. They had flown in from London.”
Honey Belle stared into Tess’s blue eyes. She wanted to wrap her arms around her aunt, to hold her as one would do to comfort an injured child. She whispered, “Roger?″
Tess spread her hands apart in a hopeless gesture. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I needed a place to heal. Returning to South Carolina, to my mother’s home with Delilah’s problems, wasn’t an option. Instead I went to England to live with Roger’s parents, and to pretend Rwanda never happened. That Africa was a faraway place with make-believe people in history books. The tragedies that happened there were not mine.” She sighed. “I stayed with Mr. & Mrs. Kemp for two years. Eventually, I couldn’t stand the way people would duck their eyes and whisper about me, saying how tragic for having suffered such a loss.
“When I returned to the States, I worked in a few hospitals, but I couldn’t stay rooted very long. Eventually, I made my way to Georgia.”
Honey Belle reached for and accepted her aunt’s outstretched hands. She was startled by Tess’s next words. “For these many years, I’ve tried to heal myself by healing others.”
“You’re an attractive woman, Aunt Tess, why haven’t you remarried?”
“The truth be known, I closed my heart and soul, vowing to never love again, nor allow anyone to love me. You’ve changed that, Honey Belle, you and your baby.”
A honeycreeper sang from the bushes outside the window. It seemed impossible that an ordinary evening should proceed outside the house, when emotions inside the room with the glimmering fireplace were so raw and tangled.
“It’s been thirty years and, though not as often, I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes, with ghostly visions swirling inside my head. I work a great deal. It helps keep my mind in order. These days, my life is satisfying…
“As you said, Honey Belle, our secrets are our own. Now that you know mine, I’ll not pressure you to tell me yours. All in your own time.”
Emotions piled up as Honey Belle wrapped her arms around Tess and hugged her. Now she understood the shadows of pain she’d often noticed in her aunt’s eyes. There were days when she looked like the loneliest person in the world. If a person didn’t know better they’d think Tess never felt pain, had never been hurt. Honey Belle knew better. “You’re a strong woman to have survived such a horrible ordeal, Aunt Tess. Mama always said the reason you stayed away was because you thought you were better than us. I have to say that a part of me believed her. She was wrong. Knowing how she was, if you’d told her, it wouldn’t have made much difference. Mama had little feeling for other people’s troubles.”
A quick cramp in her stomach ended her thoughts. She drew in a breath and fought against the knife-sharp pain.
“You okay, Honey Belle?”
She nodded, because the pain had passed. “Yes, ma’am. I’m fine.”
She met her aunt’s serious gaze and felt the
warmth of a smile such as she’d never known from her own mother.
She kissed her aunt’s cheek. “I have lots to think about. Good night, Aunt Tess.”
“Rest well.”
Honey Belle climbed the stairs to her room. After listening to her aunt’s tragic story, she wanted to be alone to figure out the next phase of her own life. And she didn’t want to think about Tripp Hartwell the Third or his father.
Chapter Sixteen
“Not again.” Honey Belle rolled out of bed and rushed to the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the bathtub, gulping deep breaths until the moment subsided. When the rolling nausea passed, she moistened a washcloth and pressed it to her face.
“I have peppermint tea.”
She turned and Tess stood in the doorway, already dressed for work. Honey Belle looked down at her rumpled pajamas, inclined to return to bed and pull the covers over her head.
“I don’t want tea. I want to die.”
Tess laughed and headed for the stairs. “Peppermint will settle your stomach. Come downstairs. I’ll brew you a pot, and there are saltine crackers in the pantry.”
Honey Belle groaned. She used her foot to close the bathroom door as she took up a position next to the commode.
Her aunt’s voice called upstairs. It wasn’t a good thing, her aunt’s insistence, not this morning.
“Give me another minute, Aunt Tess.”
Honey Belle leaned toward the mirror over the sink. Wide eyes, bruised with shadows beneath them, stared back at her. She hadn’t slept well. Visions of Tripp and Hutu warriors had swirled around in her dreams, leaving her with images she couldn’t blink away.
She leaned against the sink, turned on the faucet, and splashed water over her face. She caught water inside her cupped hands to rinse the rancid taste from her mouth.
The soothing aroma of peppermint tea drifted to the upstairs hallway.
Honey Belle rinsed her mouth one more time and dried her face. She lifted her chin, opened the door, and stepped out of the bathroom. When she entered the kitchen, Tess pointed to the cup on the counter. Honey Belle picked it up and inhaled the minty fragrance.
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