The Secrets She Carried

by Davis, Barbara

  Leslie was aware of the blood slowly ebbing from her limbs, of Jay’s hand closing hard on her shoulder, of the slow, heavy tick of the kitchen clock, but there were no words in her head, nothing that could convey the horror of what she’d just heard. If Porter noticed her distress, he gave no sign. He went on talking, as if having begun, he found himself unable to stop until he’d told it all.

  “Randy offered to split the money three ways if we’d help him. We said we would. Fifty dollars was a fortune back then. It took five nights of waiting before she finally come out to the shed. Randy had the kerosene, and Sam brought a bunch of old rags. We waited ’til she was inside; then Randy counted to three and we all lit out—only I ran the other way. Reckon all those nights of waiting turned me chicken. I tore all the way to Annie Mae’s and told her everything. She made me call the police. I didn’t give my name or rat on anybody, just said there was a fire at the Gavin place. Then me and Annie Mae lit out on my bike to go back and wait for the engine.”

  For a moment Leslie thought she was going to be sick. “You let them do it,” she whispered hoarsely. “You knew they were going to murder a woman, and you just let them do it.”

  Porter’s narrow shoulders sagged. “They may’ve been my brothers, but one time I saw Randy beat a kid so bad he lost an eye, and he’d have done worse to me if I told. So yes, I let them do it. Been living with it ever since, too. That’s why I’m here today, because I’m sick to death of living with it.”

  Leslie had gone from being physically unable to speak to simply having no idea what to say. Was she supposed to commend him for coming forward—now, when it was too late to help anyone? Comfort him for his years of guilty suffering? But no, Annie Mae was taking care of that. Her hand closed tight over the old man’s blue-white knuckles, her eyes soft and full of feeling.

  “Miss Nichols, I know what you think, but I been living with this man ever since my Minnie Maw died. I wasn’t but sixteen when my pa kicked me out, couldn’t cook or wash or nothing, but he took me in, took care of me. He’s a good man who got caught up in a bad thing when he was young. He’s done a lot of good since then. None of it can bring back that lady, but he would if he could, I swear it.”

  Jay’s face was strangely pale as he stepped from behind Leslie’s chair. “And where was Maggie when they started the fire?”

  Porter raised damp eyes, clearly confused. “The girl?”

  “Henry’s daughter,” Jay barked. “Where was she?”

  “I guess she was in the house with her mama. How should I know?”

  “You’re telling us she didn’t have anything to do with the fire?”

  Porter’s eyes shot wide. “Where in hell would you get a fool idea like that?”

  Leslie took a breath so deep it left her dizzy. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we finally know what happened that night, and why.”

  “Lots of folks wouldn’t care to know,” Annie Mae answered softly, her lower lip jutting thoughtfully. “Most folks just be happy to leave it all stay buried, couldn’t bother themselves to learn what happened to a woman like that.”

  Leslie felt her protective hackles rise. “And what kind of woman would that be?”

  Annie looked momentarily startled, then shook her head. “Oh no, ma’am, I didn’t mean that. I helped Minnie Maw bring enough babies on the quiet to know that happens pretty regular. No, I mean not white.”

  Leslie’s mouth hung open a moment. “I don’t…I’m sorry…not white?”

  Porter had been wiping his glasses on the hem of his shirt. He looked up now. “Sweet God in heaven, Annie Mae. The girl has no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “He’s right, Annie Mae, I don’t.”

  Annie Mae squirmed uncomfortably, her eyes back on the gloves in her lap. “I mean, not white, Miss Nichols, just like I said.”

  Leslie blinked several times, then swiveled her head in Jay’s direction. He looked almost as dazed as she felt. Not white? How was that even possible? She thought of the portrait over the fireplace, her grandmother’s skin so smooth and pale, her features fine as porcelain. If Adele was Maggie’s mother—and they had a document proving that she was—how could she have been anything but white? Unfortunately, it wasn’t a question suitable for sharing with Landis and Annie Mae.

  “But I’ve seen her picture,” Leslie said instead. “She was—”

  “The prettiest woman I ever saw when she grow’d up. Yes, ma’am, I’ll give you that. Had that creamy skin and all that shiny hair. If it wasn’t for that little boy coming along, she might have gotten by. Plenty of folks did back then, so they could get work, or schooling. Hard life, though, breaking off from your family, and scared to death all the time that you’ll slip up and give yourself away. Passing, they called it. Fitting, I suppose, since it really was a kind of dying.”

  Leslie shook her head as the truth of it sunk deep. Adele Laveau had been of mixed race. By the standards of the day, that made her black, which meant, fair skin or no, Maggie would have been counted black as well, since the one-drop rule still applied in those days. And in the South, had it ever really stopped applying? Her head came up slowly as a new thought occurred.

  “Did Henry know?”

  Annie Mae nodded. “Oh, he knew all right. No way not to when the boy came. All curly headed and brown, he was. But Mr. Gavin wasn’t one bit surprised when Minnie Maw put that child in his arms. He loved him right off. There wasn’t no missing that.”

  A sickening possibility struck Leslie. “The night of the fire, was Jemmy—” She let her voice trail off, the words too awful to say aloud.

  “No.” It was Porter who chimed in, his voice thinner than before but emphatic. “The boy wasn’t with her. She was alone.”

  “Mr. Gavin sent the boy away not long after,” Annie Mae went on. “To live with his grandmama, I expect. My uncle, he was a porter back in those days, said it had to be Adele’s mama who carried him onto the train, because she favored the boy’s mother so much. Said Mr. Gavin looked like he was about to break in two when he handed the child over. After, when the story went around about Adele’s mama taking the boy back home, no one who knew better said different. And that was the end of it.”

  No one said anything for a long time. Annie Mae snuck a glance at Landis, who continued to study the floor, his slender shoulders heaving with the effort to breathe. Jay stood with his arms folded, clearly too numb to speak.

  “Tell whoever you want,” Porter wheezed at last. “I’m long past caring.”

  His lips were a deeper blue now, his skin waxy and gray. He needed to get home to his oxygen, and truth be told, Leslie was ready to be rid of him. Her head was already pounding, and she desperately needed time to digest the news and to contemplate this startling new branch on her family tree.

  “Mr. Porter,” she said, standing more abruptly than she intended. “I know you said you didn’t come to help me. I’m also sure you can’t understand why this was so important. Just know that it was, and that I’m very grateful to you both.”

  Annie Mae took her cue gracefully, lurching to her feet. Wedging a thick arm beneath Porter’s, she helped him up from his chair. When she attempted to rewrap his scarf, he swatted her hands away and shuffled toward the door.

  Chapter 47

  Leslie glanced up when she heard the front door close. Jay flipped on a lamp and stood looking down at her on the sofa.

  “Have you been crying?”

  Leslie dabbed at her eyes. “No…maybe. Did they get off all right?”

  Jay nodded grimly. “Annie Mae’s driving, thank God. He looked awful.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t easy for him. Hell, it wasn’t easy for me, and all I had to do was listen.”

  Jay squatted down before her, curling her chilly fingers in his. His hair was damp with melting sleet, the scent of winter still clinging to his jacket. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Leslie shook her head. “Honestly, I’m not sure I can. I have no idea
what to think, let alone say. It’s all so awful.”

  “Not all of it.”

  Jay’s relief was palpable. While she’d been horrified by the grisly details of that awful night, Jay had been relieved to learn once and for all that his suspicions about Maggie had been unfounded.

  “You’re relieved,” she said, a simple statement of fact.

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.” He dropped down beside her on the sofa. “I’ve been grappling with those thoughts for more than a year, hating myself for having them, and yet never quite able to shake them. Now I get why your grandmother couldn’t bring herself to tell me the rest. All that time I thought she was involved. Turns out just knowing what happened was enough.”

  “You think she knew it wasn’t an accident, then?”

  “She knew something. Maybe she overheard the boys talking or saw something the night of the fire. We’ll never know.”

  “And the part about Adele being her mother and not being white—do you think she knew about that too?”

  “Again, we’ll never know. Does it…bother you?”

  Leslie turned to look at him, mildly surprised. “You mean that I…” Her voice trailed away as she inventoried her jumbled emotions, trying to locate some shred of shame or outrage simmering just beneath the surface, but there was nothing. “No, I don’t think it does. I’m still me. Adele Laveau was my great-grandmother. The rest is just ancient history. Maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling so drawn to her, because some part of me knew. Do you think that’s possible?”

  Jay squeezed her hand but gave no answer.

  “‘When I gave you up to a new and better life,’” Leslie said softly. “The letter I found in the attic—the one from Adele’s mother—spoke of giving Adele up to a better life. She meant a white life. But it wasn’t a better life. It was just a different life, one that forced her to hide who and what she was. And then Maggie had to lie.”

  “It was a different time, Leslie. And it was the South. The scandal would have ruined Henry and taken Peak down with it. In those days if you crossed racial lines they’d burn a cross on your lawn.”

  Leslie turned her eyes up to him. “Or burn down your shed?”

  “Or burn down your shed, yes.”

  Leslie closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the sofa cushions.

  “It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Living a lie all those years, trying to fit into a world that wasn’t hers, loving a man that wasn’t hers, giving birth to a child, a daughter, that was never really hers. And then to die like that, alone and trapped. It’s…incomprehensible.”

  The final word was little more than a choked whisper. A pair of drops squeezed between her lashes. Embarrassed, she brushed them away and turned her head. Part of her wished she’d never stumbled across the grave, never heard the name Adele Laveau. But even as the thought entered her head she knew it was a lie. Adele was as much a part of Peak as Maggie. Her heart and bones were buried in its soil, her echo trapped in its walls, and nothing would ever change that.

  “You’ve had quite an afternoon,” Jay said gently. “What do you say you go soak in a nice hot tub, then lie down for a bit? I need to go out to the barn and take care of a few things. When I come back I’ll throw something together for dinner.” When she started to protest he cut her off. “Go—you’ll feel better.”

  Jay had been at least partly right. The bath did make her feel better, but lying down had produced no rest at all, only the churning and rechurning of the day’s revelations. After half an hour she had given up, venturing down to the study instead. It seemed right somehow to be among Henry’s things when his losses felt so fresh, to roam his sanctuary, touch the things that had both comforted and tortured him in his grief.

  Pausing before the small cloth-draped table that showcased the old phonograph, she reached for the handle with its polished oak knob. It wobbled as she touched it, making the large metal horn lurch dizzily from its crane. Steadying it, she lifted the cloth to peer at the table beneath, only to find herself looking not at a table but at a battered old trunk turned on its side.

  It seemed an odd use for such a thing, especially when the table near the window was much better suited for displaying a delicate antique. Curious, she lifted the cloth further, noting badly scarred corners and a plain brass latch, suggesting the trunk’s original purpose had been functional rather than decorative. Kneeling, she squinted to make out the tarnished brass plate riveted to one corner. PARSON’S HARDWARE, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA. EST. 1914.

  New Orleans.

  Was it possible she was looking at the trunk Adele had brought with her to Peak? After carefully moving the phonograph to the floor, she dragged off the cloth and wrestled the trunk over so that the lid faced up. It landed with a promising thud, clearly not empty.

  She held her breath as she tried the latch, cursing under her breath when she found it locked. Moving to Henry’s desk, she searched the drawers for a key, then for a letter opener or anything else that might be used to pick a lock, but found nothing. Not that she had the slightest idea how to perform such a task.

  It took a moment to remember the ring of keys Goddard had given her all those months ago, and several more to finally remember where she’d put them. There had to be twenty keys on the ring, but only one that had any shot of fitting. To her surprise it slid home easily, turning with a rusty click. The smell of mothballs wafted out as she lifted the lid. Her heart thrummed in her ears as she pushed aside several yellowed sheets of the Gazette.

  Beneath the newsprint, the trunk was crammed with plain, everyday things: dresses of softly worn calico, flattened hats and serviceable shoes, bedclothes and kitchen linens—and a weathered leather pouch.

  Her hands trembled as she unwound the leather thong that fastened it, then reached inside to extract its contents. Letters. She recognized the faded stationery at once, and the cramped, scratchy hand. There were eight in all, tied up with plain brown twine. They were addressed to Henry. Leslie held her breath again as she tugged the knot free and fanned the letters out in her lap. They were in order by date and spanned more than a decade.

  She lost track of time as she began to read, savoring the small details of a young boy’s coming-of-age, of schooldays and spelling bees, bike riding and bandaged knees, of learning to dance and drive and play the saxophone. But perhaps more compelling than the letters themselves were the photographs included in every one, a progression that ran from a round-cheeked boy with tawny skin and a mop of bright curls to a man full grown, strikingly handsome in his United States Army uniform.

  But what then?

  Leslie studied the face of the young soldier, trying not to think about why the letters had suddenly stopped. Had he died? Had Vivienne? They would never know. A realization struck Leslie as she stared at the date in the right-hand corner of the page—October 4, 1957. The letter in her hand had been written a full ten years after Henry’s death. In fact, several of them had. And yet here they all were, carefully stored together.

  Maggie.

  It made sense, of course, but the thought of it left her heartsick. Closing her eyes, she imagined Maggie opening letters still addressed to her father, reading, again and again, news of the brother who had been torn from her life. When she was finished she would have folded them tenderly and slid them back into their envelopes before tucking them away with the others. She had obviously never bothered to write to Vivienne of Henry’s death, but why? Was she afraid the letters would stop? Or was she simply too proud to acknowledge a socially inconvenient brother, however loved? It was one more thing they would never know. Sighing, she refolded the final letter and placed it with the stack in her lap. They were making her sad, and she was tired of feeling sad.

  The smell of coffee and bacon wafting through the study door was a welcome diversion. After retying the string of twine, Leslie slid the packet of letters back into the leather pouch and tucked it beneath her arm.

  In the parlor she found two trays
set up in front of the sofa and a fire crackling in the grate. She slipped the pouch between the cushions, on her way to the kitchen to lend a hand, when Jay appeared carrying plates heaped with pancakes and bacon.

  “I’d think with your father here you’d have more in the house than eggs and soup. He’s already eaten, by the way. Angie brought sandwiches out to the barn so they could keep on working.” He handed her a plate, then the bottle of syrup beneath his arm. “I thought you were trying to fatten him up.”

  “I am, but all I can get him to eat are eggs and soup, so there’s no point in anything else. I got ambitious last week and made a meatloaf. He barely touched it.”

  Jay grinned as he slid in behind his tray. “Sure it wasn’t your cooking?”

  “It was good!” Leslie shot back as she tore a strip of bacon in two and crumpled half into her mouth. “I did potatoes and everything.”

  “You seem to be feeling better. I’m glad you got some rest.”

  Leslie pulled the leather pouch from between the cushions and placed it in her lap. “I didn’t, actually. After you left this afternoon, I went into the study and I found something. Turns out the table that’s been holding up that old Victrola all these years isn’t a table at all. It’s an old trunk, and I’m pretty sure it was Adele’s. I found this inside.” She paused to hand him the pouch. “It’s full of letters.”

  Jay eyed the pouch almost warily. “What kind of letters?”

  “From Adele’s mother to Henry. They’re all about Jemmy, about him growing up. There are pictures too.”

  “Did you read them?”

  “Of course I read them. They’re wonderful—and they’re sad.”

  Jay reached for the fastening, but Leslie stopped him. “Would you mind not opening that right now? I’m sort of on overload. I’d really like to just sit here and eat.”

  “Sure.” Jay grabbed his jacket off the arm of the sofa and slid the pouch into an inside pocket. “They’ll keep ’til later.”