“I was just making a comment. We all know where this is going. We know the history when it comes to stuff like this.” Knowledge crossed his legs and folded his arms as he sat back against the couch.
“Well, I know it firsthand,” Gramps said. “Mister V came and told me about a job in Richmond, Virginia, he’d lined up for me. They were paying good money, good money. He said I could go, make some money, and be in a position to take care of Sarah and a family. He seemed sincere enough. Assured me he would take care of Sarah ’til I came back for her. Course on my way to this great job, things changed quickly. I can’t say for sure whether it was Mister V’s doing or not. But I got stopped before I cleared North Carolina’s state line good. You two boys don’t know real fear until you’ve been stopped by hooded men you know mean you no good.” He drank more of his water.
“Well,” Gramps continued, “they were talking about stringing me up then and there. You talking about somebody doing some kind of praying, I cried out to the Lord, you hear me. Then one of the men said I fit the description of someone that had robbed some folks in the community. He said he was a policeman, and they needed to do things by the book. He took me to jail. They tried and convicted me, even though I was nowhere near that town and there was no evidence proving I was. They sentenced me to ten years on a chain gang. But you know: that policeman actually saved my life. I didn’t know it at the time, but he kept them from dangling me from a tree.” Gramps shed his glasses and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
Gramps shook his head. “On the chain gang, them folks weren’t no joke. When I was close to finishing my ten-year sentence, they said there had been a mistake. I wasn’t the one who’d done that crime after all. So they was letting me go early. Six months before my ten years was up, and they come telling me that. No apology, no compensation for time lost. Nothing, but ‘We made an error. You now free to go.’ That was it.”
Zenobia got up, went to her father, and put her arm around him. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I never knew any of this.” Now she was crying.
“Oh, that was a normal thing back in my day. We learned to call on the Lord early. When things start riding your back, you fall on your knees and tell the Lord about it.” Gramps sat back in his chair and motioned for Zenobia to go sit back down. He had more to tell. “I’m just thankful that my fate wasn’t like so many other innocent men gone now. So when I tell folks that the Lord saved me, He saved me in more ways than one.”
“What happened after you returned to Asheville?” Clarence asked. “Did you go back and find Sarah?”
“I was going to go look for her,” Gramps said. “But as soon as I got back to Asheville, and my old friend, Pearl Black, heard I was in town, she quickly came to see me and told me I needed to lay low in a hurry. We pretended that I left town just as quick as I’d come. Pearl sneaked me back to her place and hid me out for about a month. She and I grew up together. When we were kids, we were closer than white on rice. Pearl was a tad bit older than I was, but we were like peas in a pod. She was like a big sister. Course, I’d been gone all that time, and both Pearl and I were a lot older by the time I returned. But minds don’t seem to age like our bodies do. With us, it was just like it was when we were younger. That was around the beginning of April in 1943. She was thirty-nine; I was thirty-three.”
“And you actually remember how old she was?” Zenobia asked with a mischievous grin. “Most men I know have a hard time remembering their own age, let alone recalling someone else’s. And that was a little over sixty-five years ago.”
Gramps remembered because he and Pearl discussed their ages at that time. “You remember dates like that when you have markers, like when you were released from hard labor. Where we were in life was so different from where we thought we would be. Pearl thought she would be married with a houseful of children. And I never thought I’d leave that prison alive.” With his hand shaking, he picked up his glass and sipped his water.
“Pearl had been there with the Flemings,” Gramps said, continuing the tale. “Pearl was a midwife, as was her mother before her. Pearl happened to be there when Sarah delivered her baby. Pearl was the one who helped bring my daughter into the world.”
“Your daughter?” Zenobia practically screeched the words as she sprung up.
“Yes, my daughter. You see, Sarah was pregnant when I left. At first, Sarah’s daddy believed the baby was this other fella’s that lived down the road from them. But when the real truth came out and her daddy saw Sarah was more determined than ever to keep her baby and still be with me, that’s when he seemed to come around and try to help us. That was the only reason I left her to go take that job. Sarah was having our child, and I wanted to do right by my family.”
“So, I have a sister?” Zenobia asked, sitting down as though she was in shock.
“No . . . yes,” Gramps said, sounding confused. “Okay, you see, the baby was born. When I got back to Asheville, the first person I saw was my friend Samuel L. Williams. Sam told me he’d heard Pearl had delivered a baby girl for Sarah, but the baby had died right after she was born. More like, they just let the baby die. It was a mere rumor he’d heard circulating throughout the community, mind you, but he felt it was pretty credible. He said Pearl had been the one to deliver the baby. If I wanted to know the truth, she would know and could tell me. That’s when I went looking for Pearl, but she was already looking for me. She said it wasn’t safe for me to be there. She got me to make a big show of leaving so anybody who’d possibly heard I’d come to town would think I’d just as quickly left. Pearl then hid me out at her place. She told me the whole story of what happened that day and the little bit she knew about the time afterward.”
“Okay,” Knowledge said, “hold up for one minute, Gramps. I think I need something to drink.” Knowledge started for the kitchen. “Does anybody else need anything?” Both Zenobia and Clarence shook their heads. Knowledge came back with the strongest beverage his mother had in her house—a can of soda—and sat down. “Okay, Gramps. By all means, please . . . continue.”
Chapter 14
I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
—Psalm 118:5
Gramps continued on with the story. “Pearl told me Heath, that was Sarah’s half-brother, instructed her to let my baby die. I can’t tell you how my heart sank when I heard Pearl’s words. A poor, innocent child and that monster wanted Pearl to kill her.”
“So Pearl let the baby die?” Zenobia asked in a quiet resolve.
“Pearl said Sarah was out of it. She didn’t know what was going on. Pearl didn’t know what she was going to do to save my baby, but she told me she was prepared to do something. As it were, Pearl told me that Grace, Sarah’s mother, stepped up to the plate. She said Grace took my baby”—Gramps wiped his eyes again—“and carried her to this other woman, a colored maid, who just happened to be in the house when she went in labor and had also just delivered her baby earlier. Grace told this woman—her name was Mamie . . . Mamie Patterson—that instead of one baby, she’d delivered two.”
“That doesn’t even sound plausible,” Knowledge said.
“Why not, Knowledge?” Clarence asked. “Back then it would have been easy to pull something like that off.”
“Well, did they?” Zenobia asked. “Did they pull it off?”
“Yes. Pearl said she recorded Mamie’s delivery as a twin birth. The plan was to protect the baby from folks like Heath until it was safe to disclose the truth, the truth that Sarah wasn’t told but instead tragically made to believe that her baby had died. But then soon after that, Victor Senior took sick and died. And Heath and his brother, Victor Junior, were in charge of running things. And the first thing them two did was send Sarah away. Claimed she’d lost her mind and needed to be institutionalized.”
“So why didn’t her mother do something to stop it?” Zenobia asked.
“Because she didn’t have any power,” Gramps said. “According to Pear
l, she didn’t even know where Sarah had been sent. That’s how they kept Grace in line. But she did what she could. And that little evil devil Heath . . .” Gramps stopped as he shook his head. “I just shouldn’t have left. If I’da stayed instead of leaving, things might have . . .”
“Daddy, you can’t go back and change things. That’s what you used to tell me all the time: Whatever is . . . is. We deal with what is,” Zenobia said.
“I know. But every time I think about all the bad things that happened, I just find it hard to forgive myself. I feel like it’s all my fault because I wasn’t there to protect them.” Gramps wiped his eyes again with his handkerchief. “I should have been there.”
“Did you ever find”—Zenobia swallowed hard—“your daughter? My sister?”
“No. I left on the twenty-ninth of April intending on locating Sarah. She deserved to know our daughter had lived. Our daughter was with this other family now. They had moved and no one knew or could tell me where they were. After about a year of trying, I headed for Detroit, Michigan. Went to work for the Ford Motor Company, who were hiring coloreds as janitors and for other type of jobs that weren’t great but paid better than most. I met your mama. We married, had your two brothers and you, Zenobia. Course later on things did open up more for colored people at Ford. I moved into a better position. But by then, it was close time for me to retire.” He shook his head. “Who would have ever thought or believed that even with me retiring at the age of seventy, I would still be around some thirty years later? God has been good to me. He’s been so good.”
“Daddy, do you know my . . . sister’s name? Did Pearl happen to know or tell you her name?”
“Memory.” Gramps nodded.
“I know you have a good memory, Daddy. But did Pearl happen to know your daughter’s name?”
Gramps grinned. “Memory. That’s actually her name: Memory Elaine.”
Chapter 15
The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.
—Proverbs 10:7
“Why are you telling us this now, Gramps?” Knowledge asked when he saw how the words his grandfather was speaking were affecting his mother.
Gramps got to his feet. “I’m telling y’all this now because of a wooden box I made with wings on the inside of its lid that has somehow set off a chain of events.”
“A box you made?” Knowledge asked.
“Yes. As I said, when I was young, I loved working with my hands. I loved creating things from wood; I had a special relationship with wood. I crafted this wooden carved box for Sarah. Her mother liked it so much, she asked me to make two more. I gave them those three boxes with wings etched on the inside of the lids, but I kept one because it wasn’t as perfect as I wanted, but wasn’t bad enough to throw away. I’ve had that box now for seventy-something years. I packed it and took it with me after I came back from that prison camp. And it’s been with me ever since.”
“Gramps, you just said it set off a chain of events,” Clarence said. “What chain?”
Gramps sat back down. “Yeah. I pulled out that old box from the trunk in my room. You know the one that sits over in the corner?”
“Yeah,” Zenobia said.
“Well, I pulled out the wooden box to get an old watch out of it.”
“The one you gave to me when I was baptized last Sunday,” Clarence said.
“Yeah.” Gramps nodded. “That one. I pulled out the box to get the watch, and just when I was about to unlock it, Miss Countess knocked on my door and came in.” Gramps then recounted everything that happened with Countess.
Zenobia forced a smile. “Well, Daddy, I’m sure there’s a good explanation as to how Miss Countess knew about the wings on the inside of the lid.”
“I’m not finished yet. Her daughter, Johnnie Mae is her name, came to my room because her mother had told her about the box. She didn’t believe I actually had a box as her mother had reported to her. She thought her mother was probably experiencing one of her moments as she’s known to do a lot, especially lately.”
“Countess is that woman in a more advanced stage of Alzheimer’s that you walk with outside from time to time,” Zenobia said, attempting to clarify who Countess was.
“Yeah,” Gramps said. “Well, it turns out Miss Countess wasn’t having one of her moments at all. Johnnie Mae couldn’t believe her eyes when I pulled out the box for her to see. And that’s when she began to put everything together.”
“Everything like what?” Knowledge asked, frowning.
“Everything, like her mother calling me Ranny.”
“Okay, so she calls you Ranny. That’s short and cute for Ransom,” Clarence said.
“Yeah, and that’s exactly what Johnnie Mae figured out. That Ranny was her mother’s name for Ransom. Turns out Johnnie Mae met both Sarah and Pearl at one point in her life. So she was more than familiar with the name Ransom Perdue,” Gramps said.
“Daddy.” Zenobia clamped her hand over her mouth and went to her father. “Is she sure about this?”
“Yeah, she’d met Sarah first, then Pearl. That’s how she came to know about the box. They call it the Wings of Grace box on account of the wings and the fact that Grace most likely dubbed the boxes with her first name.”
“Is Sarah still alive?” Zenobia asked. “Is that what this is all about? Is that why you wanted to leave the nursing home? So you could tell us something about Sarah.”
“No. Johnnie Mae says Sarah died four years ago.” He shook his head as he dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. “I can’t believe Sarah was still living and I never found her in all this time. I should have kept looking. I shouldn’t have given up so easily. Now they got all these newfangled gadgets. There’s that Internet thing. If I’d only told one of you about my past, maybe we could have checked on it ourselves to see if we could have found out something.”
“Now, Daddy, don’t go getting worked up about this.” Zenobia rubbed his back with a caring touch. “Sarah could have just as easily looked for you when she was in a position to do it. It’s not like you were hiding out or anything,” Zenobia said.
“You don’t understand. Sarah thought I was dead. When I didn’t come back like I said I would, what else could she believe? She didn’t know I’d been arrested and locked away. As sheltered as she was about life, she still knew the times we lived in. I’d either gotten cold feet and run off, was seriously injured, but most likely dead, since death was the only thing I promised her when I left that would keep me from coming back for her.”
Zenobia hugged her father as she rocked him. “But I’m so thankful that you weren’t killed. And as selfish as this might sound, if things hadn’t happened the way they did, I wouldn’t be here and neither would my children.” She looked over at Knowledge and Clarence. “If you had been with Sarah, you never would have met Mother and you never would have had me. So even though it was bad, all things did work out.”
Gramps patted Zenobia’s arms draped around him. “Sit, sit. There’s something more I need to tell.”
“What else?” Zenobia said. “What more can there be? This is already a lot to process.”
“Johnnie Mae told me yesterday that my daughter is still alive.” Gramps looked in Zenobia’s eyes. “Memory is alive! And Johnnie Mae knows how to get in touch with her.”
“Memory is alive?” Zenobia said, kneeling down in front of her father. “Are you sure?”
“She’s alive and living in old man Fleming’s home in Asheville, North Carolina.” Gramps began to chuckle. “Can you believe my daughter, who I ain’t never laid eyes on a day in my life in all her seventy-four years of being on this earth, is still alive and living in the place where all of this began?” He began to wipe his eyes again. “That’s what I needed to tell y’all. Johnnie Mae has contacted her. She called me earlier today and told me Memory’s whole family is making arrangements to be here tomorrow. And I’d like all of us to be together . . . to do this as a family.”
&nbs
p; “I have a sister?” Zenobia said, still processing all of it. She went and sat back down on the couch. “A sister. And she’s alive? After all these years, she’s still alive?” Zenobia broke down and began to cry as both of her sons comforted her.
Chapter 16
And of some have compassion, making a difference.
—Jude 22
Gabrielle was excited. She was finally going to see Miss Crowe. Zachary teased her after he’d spoken with his mother.
“My mother says there will be no sleeping in the same room in her house,” Zachary said.
“Did you tell her we wouldn’t dare think of doing anything like that?” Gabrielle said.
“Nope.”
“Nope?”
“Nah. I like to irritate my mother from time to time. It keeps her on her toes.”
“Zachary, you should have told her. I don’t want her thinking badly of me.”
Zachary walked closer to her. “My mother’s going to love you. I did tell her you were a churchgoing woman. She happens to like that . . . a lot.” Zachary grinned. “So, what would you like to do tonight?”
Gabrielle shrugged. “Let’s watch that movie you brought over the other day.”
“Fireproof. Yeah, that’s right. I brought it over, but we didn’t get to watch it,” Zachary said, smiling mischievously.
“Quit acting like we were doing something wrong and that’s why we didn’t watch it.”
“What? I didn’t say anything,” Zachary said.
“It’s not what you said. It’s the way you’re acting. You know, I’m starting to think you might be a little bad.”
“Ooh, now you sound like my mother. I believe you and my mother are going to get along splendidly.” He tapped her on her nose. “I know my daddy’s going to love you.”
“Yeah, well. It’s the mothers that generally have problems with their sweet little sons and the women they bring home to meet them.” Gabrielle put a hand on one hip. “But you are bad.”
The Truth Is the Light Page 8