“You don’t remember?”
“I remember him throwing the radio in the sink.”
Aunt Minnie sighed. “Most couples have squabbles. But for Nadine the sun rose and set in Reverend Apollo Jones.”
“He was so much older,” I protested. “He robbed the cradle.”
“Oh, he loved her all right! Loved her voice. She sang in the choir at the church. Nobody could touch her when she sang ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow.’ And Reverend Apollo Jones just couldn’t help himself. Already married with a son …”
“Did people gossip?”
“Yes, indeed. It was a scandal.”
“But Daddy married Nadine anyway?”
Her gaze turned hard. “Nadine went after him. We tried to get her to act right. But when she wanted something, she went after it.”
My eyes smarted with tears. “Guess she wanted to be with him more than she wanted to be with me. As soon as he died, she died, too.”
“Don’t be bitter, Orphea. If your mama died of a broken heart, it wasn’t because she wanted to leave you behind.”
“Then why did she die?”
“Like I said, maybe she was sick for longer than we knew. Could have had a brain tumor growing. Or maybe she wasn’t as strong as we all thought.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Nadine was the strongest person I’ve ever known. She did whatever she wanted to.”
Tears welled up inside me. I fought them back. I knew I was demanding explanations for something that couldn’t be answered. And I couldn’t help it.
I felt Aunt Minnie’s callused hand grip my shoulder. “If Nadine was strong, you’re stronger.”
“Then why do I feel so weak?”
You know how when things are bad, the littlest thing can pick you up?
Ray had finished the mobile home. Lola was ecstatic.
“My boy is the best painter! Ain’t it pretty?”
“Gorgeous!” said Aunt Cleo. “Indeed and trust, I’ve never seen light purple I liked better, except maybe the color of lilacs.”
“Think Ray could spruce up our place?” Aunt Minnie asked. “We can pay him soon as we get a ride down to the bank.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Lola.
So Ray began to paint the store. Aunt Cleo wanted it pink like it always had been, but Aunt Minnie insisted on yellow.
“We need a change around here,” she said firmly. “Getting tired of looking at the same stuff.” The following Saturday, Lola went to the hardware store in town and picked up some yellow paint. She got a small can of shiny black as well, so that Ray could spruce the sign up.
“I wanted it painted pink like always,” Aunt Cleo muttered. “Don’t know why you have to always get your way, Minnie.”
“Because I’m oldest,” Aunt Minnie said, spitting into her tobacco juice can.
One day, while I was out on the porch with Ray, helping him mix paint, Aunt Cleo wheeled herself over and nabbed me.
“Lookee here,” she whispered, grabbing my elbow.
“Something you’d like, Aunt Cleo?”
“Want to show you something.”
I came closer.
She tugged at her story quilt. “Can’t let Minnie get wind of this.”
“Aunt Minnie is in the back, clearing out her garden.”
Ray looked up curiously.
“You can hear, Ray,” said Aunt Cleo. “This concerns you, too.”
We sat at her feet. She took the story quilt off her shoulders and spread it on her lap.
“See this here patch on the quilt with the three black bars? Those bars are an iron gate.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Ray.
“You pointed that square out to me once before,” I told her.
She nodded. “It’s for our Grimes relative. Your great-great-grandfather whose body got stolen!”
“Stolen? He’s not buried out back with the rest of the family?”
She shook her head.
“Who stole his body?” asked Ray.
“Hate to say this, Ray. But it’s your people.”
“I didn’t steal no corpse, now …”
“Of course not, boy. Not saying you did. But he was Grimes and when he died, the Grimeses came to take him away.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Use your brain, girl—he was white and so are they.”
I glanced at Ray. His face had turned red.
“It was the rich Grimeses,” added Aunt Cleo.
“Oh, well, that’s a different branch altogether,” Ray said, perking up.
I still felt uneasy. “Why are you mentioning it, Aunt Cleo? It’s in the past. Why don’t we talk about some of the other squares in the story quilt?”
“Because it isn’t in the past! Minnie and I promised our own father that we’d go to where the Grimeses are buried.”
“Where’s that?”
Her eyes got wider. “In the white cemetery.”
“What kind of cemetery is that?”
“The segregated kind.”
“Maybe you better start at the beginning, Aunt Cleo.”
“My father’s mother was Gabriella Proud. She married a man named Grimes. She was black and he was white. Of course, it wasn’t legal for different races to get hitched in them days.
“But my grandmother Gabe, that’s what they called her, was going to be her own person and love who she wanted and she loved this white fella. From the rich branch of the Grimes family.”
Ray snorted. “This means I had nothing to do with it.”
“Are you sure you have this straight?” I asked Aunt Cleo. “The stories I hear about white men and black women in the old days—”
“This isn’t one of those,” she said. “This is a real love story. She loved him and he loved her, too. That was my father’s father, you see. And my father told me all about it. Gabe and Babe, that’s what they called him, liked to read, liked to garden, both good-looking. They got married even though they weren’t supposed to, with a preacher and everything.”
“How?”
“Beats me, but they did it. Got the marriage certificate on record in town.”
“Get to the part about the body stealing,” Ray prodded.
Her eyes twinkled. “So, Gabe Proud and Jameson Grimes—Babe’s first name was Jameson, Babe was just his nickname—well, they got married and had a family. But when Babe Grimes died his sister came to claim his dead body. ‘You had him in life, but you will not have him in death,’ she said.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“Handed down.”
“Tell us the rest,” said Ray.
Aunt Cleo smoothed out the quilt. “This Grimes sister and her husband took my grandfather Babe to be buried. They put him in the white cemetery. Daddy was a teenager at the time. They wouldn’t allow Grandma Gabe to go to the funeral. But they allowed his son to go. But when he left, they shut these iron gates on him.
“ ‘We let you come to the funeral, Eugene Proud, but don’t think you’re ever coming back in here again!’
“ ‘But that’s my daddy!’ said Eugene. ‘I got to visit his grave to pay my respects.’
“ ‘Don’t step foot in here, young Proud. If you do, you and all your family will be mighty sorry!’ ”
“So, your father never went back?” I asked.
“He never did,” Aunt Cleo said sadly. “In those days, that was serious stuff. Worst case, he could have been shot if he went back through those gates.”
“That makes me mad,” said Ray. “I don’t want to be a Grimes, if they’re that mean.”
“Doesn’t matter how mean they are now,” I piped up. “Now nobody can keep you out of a cemetery because of your race. We have laws.”
“Minnie and I can’t go through those gates,” Aunt Cleo said quietly.
“Why not?” said Ray. “Mama will give you a ride to town. You can go visit your grandfather’s stone on a Saturday sometime.”
She shook her head. “Minnie wil
l not hear of our going. I’ve begged her. During my own father’s lifetime, he couldn’t go through those cemetery gates. He was afraid; he had been threatened. He made me and Minnie promise him that we would go visit our grandfather’s grave for him. Our daddy asked us that just before he died. I promised him, Orphea, that I would do it. And Minnie promised him, too. But Minnie is still afraid. No matter what she promised, no matter how times have changed, she won’t walk through those gates.”
“But what can I do?”
“Go find the grave. Go to town. You and Ray can do it. The white cemetery is just over by the big grocery store. Pay respects to your ancestor for your aunt Minnie and me. Tell him he doesn’t have to hover anymore.”
A shiver went through my body. “He hovers?”
“We feel his presence sometimes. He’s been waiting a long time for his family to come visit him. If you go to the cemetery, his spirit will be at peace and pass on.”
“I’ll do my best, Aunt Cleo.”
“Thank you, Orphea. Whatever you do, don’t tell Minnie.”
“Lola, if you pass by the paper factory, tell the straw man that we’ve been waiting on him for nearly a month!” Aunt Minnie yelled.
“Don’t forget to pick up that thread for me, Orphea,” Aunt Cleo cried out. “And some peanut brittle from the candy store, bunion pads from the pharmacy, and some bakery bread and pickles! Tell them to put it on our account! See you later!”
“See you later!” I called with a wave.
It was another Saturday and Ray and I were going into town with Lola. Owning a general store didn’t prevent my aunts from being out of practically everything. Ray wanted to linger in every store—it had been so long since he’d been to town. The candy store took forever. I told Ray I’d buy us a treat with my money. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted chocolate with pecans or marshmallows. We ended up buying some of each. Then we hopped into the car with Lola again and headed for the five-and-ten, where Lola bought Ray some art supplies and I got myself a black-and-white composition book. I’d been writing so much that my journal was all filled up. Then we made our way toward the cemetery, the “white” one where my Grimes ancestor was buried. Though we hadn’t told Aunt Minnie, we had let Lola in on our plan. She was happy to help.
“It’s time the old ladies put that story to rest. It seems to weigh heavy on them. Besides, Jameson Grimes is Ray’s ancestor, too. Locating the grave would be nice for us all.”
Lola knew just where the “white” cemetery was. She let me and Ray off at the grocery and pointed us in the right direction. “Just around the corner from the parking lot. You’ll see some shiny brass gates. Meantime, I’ll drop in on the straw man.”
Within five minutes of leaving her, Ray and I came upon a modern-looking graveyard. The gates were wide open. An office was right off the entrance. Through the glass door we could see a lady in a flowered dress sitting behind a computer. She smiled and motioned us in. Though she looked middle-aged, she had a perfectly smooth face. In my mind, I called her Mrs. Peach Face.
“Help you?”
“Yes, please,” I said. “We’re looking for the grave of a Jameson Grimes. Would have been buried here about eighty years ago.”
Her little face lit up. “One of the old ones!”
“Our relative.”
She looked at Ray, and then looked at me. “Related to both you and him?”
“Well, that’s what my aunts say.”
“This is my distant cuz,” Ray boasted.
Mrs. Peach Face turned to her computer and keyed something in. “I’ll look up the name.”
“Ray and I just found out that we were cousins recently,” I couldn’t help chiming in.
“And y’all found each other? This kind of thing is happening more and more. Different branches of the same families connecting up. Rest a spell. I’ll see what I can find for you.”
Ray and I busted open the candy. Mrs. Peach Face lit on her computer like a flea on an elephant, finding Jameson Grimes’s location before we could finish the chocolate with marshmallow.
“He’s way around the back of the hill, in the old part of the graveyard. Best way to reach it is to walk around the corner. You’ll see another set of gates. But it’s just as easy to climb over the wall.”
“Thank you.”
“Good luck.”
We found him! Walked around the corner and up the hill. The second set of gates was black, just like on Aunt Cleo’s quilt. The gates were choked shut with weeds and wildflowers. So Ray and I hopped the stone fence and started looking. It took a little while, because for some reason Jameson Grimes was in a plot with some people called Gallitan. At least, all the other stones in the plot had the name Gallitan on them except his. It took Ray’s eagle eye to find him.
“How come he’s in with the Gallitans? The rest of the Grimeses are over there under the cherry tree.”
“Who knows? But this is his marker. It says Jameson Grimes on it.”
Unlike the fancier stones in the Gallitan plot, Great-great-grandfather Grimes’s marker was stubby and plain, without a verse or fancy lettering.
“Just wait until we tell Aunt Cleo and Aunt Minnie!”
“Ain’t supposed to tell Miss Minnie,” Ray reminded me.
When we got home and I gave Aunt Cleo the news, she smiled so hard I thought her face would break open.
“The lady who works in the office was nice to us,” I told her. “You can go to see the grave yourselves. Lola says she’ll drive you!”
“Drive Cleo where?” I hadn’t seen Aunt Minnie behind the soda fountain.
“I asked Orphea to find Grandpa Babe Grimes’s grave,” Aunt Cleo said bravely. “And she and Ray did!”
Aunt Minnie’s mouth dropped open. “In the white cemetery?”
“I don’t think it’s a white cemetery anymore, Aunt Minnie.”
“My father was told never to enter those gates.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Lola will take us to town, Minnie. If the children could walk through the gates, we can, too. Please, we promised we’d pay our respects.”
Aunt Minnie finally gave in.
The following Saturday, Lola drove us back into town, this time with my two aunts. Mrs. Peach Face was in the cemetery office. I found out her real name—Mrs. Graves! Weird, right?
“These are my aunts. They own a store on Proud Road.”
Aunt Cleo and Aunt Minerva nodded shyly.
“Proud Road! Used to go up there as a girl. Had a nice apple orchard.”
“That belonged to our family,” Aunt Minnie said. “Afraid it’s grown over these days.”
“Oh, used to be a lot of timber up that way when I was a girl,” Mrs. Graves went on. “A little bitty store almost on top of the mountain.”
“That’s us!” Aunt Cleo said, grinning with pleasure.
“Well, your niece knows where the grave is.” Mrs. Graves smiled at Ray and me. “Such a nice human-interest story—having the cousins find each other. My daughter writes stories for the newspaper.”
“Do tell,” said Aunt Cleo. “Well, our niece writes very good poetry.” I’d never read her any of my poems, but she’d asked what I’d been writing in my journal.
“Such a coincidence,” said Mrs. Graves. “And is your cousin also a writer?” she asked, nodding in Ray’s direction.
“He’s a painter,” Aunt Minerva boasted. “A right smart one! I ain’t seen any of his picture-type paintings, but I do know he paints houses well.”
“He paints beautiful horses!” Lola chimed in from where she’d been standing back near the door.
“I’ll have to come up that way and pay y’all a visit,” said Mrs. Graves.
After all the formalities, we drove around the corner. Ray and I had to get the iron gates unstuck to wheel in Aunt Cleo. So we pulled up the weeds and wildflowers. When the gates were unchoked, we opened them wide enough to push the wheelchair inside. Then Ray, Lola, and I lifted it up to carr
y Aunt Cleo over the markers, because the aisles were so narrow. When we set Aunt Cleo down in front of Jameson Grimes’s tombstone, Aunt Minnie was still outside the gate.
“Come on, Miss Minnie,” Lola called.
She shook her head no.
“Why not?” I ran over.
She cupped her hand to my ear and whispered: “Scared …”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “What are you scared of?”
“Been afraid of these gates all my life. Those people told my father not to come in here. Besides, my legs are wobbly.”
“Take my hand. I’ll walk with you. You’ve come all this way. You should see the grave.” She took a small step, then walked through, holding on to my arm.
Once they were there, my aunts didn’t want to leave. There were prayers to say, and they wanted to catch up on old times with their grandfather, especially Aunt Cleo.
“We finally came to see you, Grandpa Babe,” she cooed. “We would have been bringing flowers all these years but they wouldn’t let us. But Minnie and I will be coming from now on. Say something, Minnie—”
“Say what? He’s dead.”
“You never know, his spirit might be listening. You could say a word or two.”
“About what?”
“Anything that might be of interest.”
Aunt Minnie cleared her throat. “Hello, Grandpa Babe … it’s Minerva Proud speaking. That well you dug will have plenty of water this summer on account of all the snow this year. If you’re wondering, your wife’s family store is still going, though it’s doing poorly. Called Proud Store like always. Your son Eugene and his family went back to the Proud name after you died. Your Grimes relations took their name away when they took your body. Matter of factly, though, we got a young Grimes with us today. Name of Raynor. Not from your branch, but you’re all kin. We also brought Orphea. Cleopatra and I thought we might be the last of the Prouds in these parts, but then young Orphea came to live with us.”
Aunt Cleo reached down and touched the stone. “Rest now, Grandpa.”
In the car on the way back to Proud Road, Aunt Cleo offered a theory on why Jameson Grimes’s marker was in the Gallitan plot instead of being with the other Grimeses.
“His sister was married to a Gallitan,” she explained. “And she’s the one who came to take the body. When she fetched Grandpa Babe’s body, she had it buried in her husband’s plot. Probably the other Grimeses didn’t want him in the big plot with all the other Grimes family members.”
Orphea Proud Page 10