Keeping Secrets & Telling Lies

by Trice Hickman

  He looked at the woman who was his grandmother, and although she had a young, graceful face, her eyes were layered with what looked like years of hardship and sadness. But she cradled her baby as if she was her most prized possession, hugging her close to her body.

  The more he read, the more Ted felt as though he was having an out-of-body experience, and none of it seemed any more real to him now than it had when he first made the discovery two weeks ago. He picked up a slightly tattered document from the Mississippi state foster care system, listing Carol Lynn Milleux as a mixed-race child who had been orphaned at age five, when her mother developed a fatal infection after battling a month-long bout of pneumonia.

  Ted looked back at the picture of a grandmother he never knew, and the mother he now realized he’d barely known, and all he could do was wonder.

  He ran his fingers over the edges of the two additional photographs that lay in front of him, showing little Carol Lynn with two different black families. In one photo she appeared to be a little older than Alexandria was now. No one in the picture was smiling, and little Carol Lynn looked especially subdued. In the photo with the second family, she was clearly a pubescent young girl, probably twelve years old. She was already showing her exquisite beauty, even if it was through sad-looking eyes. Ted noticed that she carried the same burdened look on her face that her mother had borne. She was holding hands with a much shorter, but bright-eyed young girl, who he could see was none other than Hattie McPherson. In both pictures, Carol Lynn stuck out as the lone white face in a sea of deep brown ones.

  Ted pushed the pictures to the side of the small conference table and picked up the long handwritten letter his mother had penned, pouring out her confession. Even though he had read every line nearly a hundred times over the last two weeks, it still seemed like a dream.

  Dearest Theodore,

  I am sorry that the truth had to come to you on paper, through my death, rather than from my own lips. But, dear son, please know that I kept who I was from you because I wanted to protect you from the ugliness of this world. I did what I thought was best for my family.

  My mother was a young domestic who worked for the family of a prominent businessman who had his sights set on a position in the Louisiana state legislature. She lived on the property with the family, but once she became pregnant by her employer, through a relationship that was not of her own choosing, the lady of the house put her out with only the clothes on her back. Her family shunned her for bringing shame on them by carrying an illegitimate child. She was sent to Jackson, Mississippi, to live with distant relatives, and that is where I was born.

  Although she died when I was a small girl, I have fond memories of my mother, and I can still see her smile when I close my eyes.You remind me so much of her. Please believe me when I say it was hard for my mother, raising a mixed-race child, especially since I didn’t look colored, or black, as they say now. I was as white as snow, and it caused problems for her. She was a young, unmarried, uneducated black woman with an illegitimate baby by a white man, so opportunities were not plentiful. She scratched together a small living for us by cleaning houses and taking in laundry. But after she became ill and then died, I was all alone.

  With no relatives willing to take me in, I was placed in the state foster care system. Although I looked white, black blood was in my veins, and no white family would take me once they were made aware of my background. I was placed with several black families, who took me in but treated me harshly. I never quite fit in, and my life was a living torment.

  Thank God for Hattie McPherson. She was my salvation. I met Hattie when we were in second grade. While the other children in our segregated school teased me because I was different and accused me of thinking I was better than they were because of my white skin, Hattie embraced me like a sister. She was there for me through the cruelty and mistreatment I experienced. But even with Hattie’s love and friendship, the weight of being mixed race in a small town in the rural South was just too much. One is a lonely number.

  I had heard about fair-skinned blacks who were light enough to pass. I knew that if I left Jackson and went to a city where no one knew my background, I could live as a white woman and have a better life. So that’s what I decided to do. When I turned sixteen, I left Mississippi and never looked back. I moved to Boston, changed my name, lied about my age, got accepted into Wellesley on a scholarship, and started a new life.

  By the time I met your father, I had managed to graduate from college and had been living as a white woman for over six years. I loved him so much, too much to continue lying to him. I knew he deserved the truth, especially considering the reputation his last name carried. So I took a chance and told him. To my surprise, he still wanted me to be his wife. The only thing I asked was that he agree to keep my secret, which he did. Your father even helped me get official-looking documents and craft a better story than the one I had made up. So we settled here in Boston, started our life together, and raised our family.

  The only other person who knew our secret was Hattie. She and I never lost contact over the years. She is one of the best people I know and was a genuine and trusted friend, as I am sure you will soon discover.

  You are probably asking yourself why I am telling you this now, if at all. Honestly, I planned to carry my secret to my grave, but from the moment Victoria became your wife, I knew that I couldn’t. You needed to know for reasons that neither Lilly nor Charlie will ever struggle with.

  I know that over the years Victoria felt as though I did not care for her, but I want you to know that was never the case, and in fact, it was just the opposite. I always liked her very much. She is a good mother to Alexandria, a good wife to you, and a smart and kind young woman. Most of all, I have seen with my own eyes how much she loves you. But I had to keep my distance from her. I couldn’t allow myself to get close to her or her family. As I said, she is a smart young woman, and very inquisitive. She asks many questions.

  Theodore, this information is for you and you alone. What you choose to do with it will be your decision. But if you want to learn more about my life, about who I was, contact my friend Hattie McPherson in Jackson, Mississippi, and she will lead you to the answers.

  With All My Love,

  Your Mother

  Ted shook his head, remembering something his mother had said when he first told her that he was in love with Victoria. “It’s hard for blacks and whites when they decide to intermingle. . . to marry. I’ve seen things in my day. The road you’ll travel won’t be an easy one, not even in today’s time,” Carolyn had said. Now he knew that she’d been speaking from direct experience.

  He tucked the letter back in between the pictures and other documents he’d been keeping in his attaché. For the time being, they would find a secure resting place within the safe-deposit box in front of him.

  After Ted completed the paperwork and left the bank, he headed to his office, with thoughts of Victoria heavy on his mind. He could feel in his bones that something was slipping away between them. Normally, after returning home from a trip, especially if they were lucky enough to have the house to themselves, they would make love that very night. But when he returned home yesterday, they had barely kissed. When she had asked him questions about his visit to Boston, it had taken the wind out of his sails. His guilt and stress over lying to her had left him so deflated that instead of joining her for a pleasure-filled bubble bath, as he had wanted, he fell into a deep sleep, not waking until early the next morning.

  He felt awful about the recent decisions he had made, all the lies he had told, and the secret he was keeping. Even though there were certain things he didn’t discuss with Victoria and never planned to, like the complex and often ruthless business deals he crafted at ViaTech, as well as while pursuing some of his entrepreneurial ventures outside the company, this was a situation that he knew he needed to share with her. Their relationship had been built on trust, and now he was tearing down the very fabric of what held them
together.

  But telling Victoria the truth was more difficult than it seemed. He didn’t know how or even where to begin, because he would have to explain why he hadn’t told her from the beginning, and why he’d found it necessary to continually lie, even after she’d questioned him several times.

  He wanted to tell her that he’d kept his mother’s secret from her because of the unbelievable shock that still seemed to grip him. But deep down, he knew it was because he had yet to reconcile the jarring reality of who he really was. And deeper still, he’d have to admit a very sobering truth—that he wasn’t ready to acknowledge the black blood running through his veins. What kind of awful hypocrite does that make me? he asked himself. Victoria had often told him that he’d never know what it felt like to be black, and now that he had the opportunity, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to live the experience.

  He thought about the sometimes heated words that he and Victoria had exchanged over the years, whenever they approached the subject of race. He shook his head, thinking about the irony of the situation. The tension they had gone through over race and raising a biracial child had all been a waste of time, because in essence, he and Victoria were both black.

  But after living life as a white man since the day he was born, Ted didn’t know any other way to think of himself, and he had never even pondered the issue of racial identity until he met Victoria. But for the last two weeks, race had been the one thing he couldn’t get out of his mind.

  When he looked in the mirror, he saw himself with a new awareness. He’d begun to study his features more closely. He knew that his strong jawline; straight, angular nose; and piercing blue eyes were imprints that his father had passed on to him. But when he peered deeper, he noticed something he had never paid much attention to: his smooth, wrinkle-free skin had a slight olive-colored undertone that always tanned to a beautiful toasted perfection during the summer. He thought about how all his life he had heard people say with envy, “I’d kill for a tan like yours.” And he thought about the off-hand comment he had overheard Victoria’s cousin Patsy make last Christmas. “Girl, Ted’s aging really well for a white man. There’s hardly a wrinkle on his face. He’s smooth, and he’s got rhythm. You sure he’s not an undercover brotha?” she had teased.

  Now, when he looked at Alexandria, he knew that she was black ... on both sides.

  As he approached the ViaTech building and parked his car in the executive garage, he thought about the fact that sooner or later he’d have to acknowledge the lineage that had been passed down to him from generations of people he had never known existed.

  When he arrived in his office,Ted was surprised to see that Jen was already there. It was barely seven o’clock, and she was working like she’d been behind her desk for hours. Her quick fingers pecked at her computer keys as she prepared his schedule for the week ahead.

  “Didn’t expect you in until later this afternoon,” Jen said, equally surprised to see him. “You came back early.”

  “Yes, I decided to cut my trip short.”

  Jen handed him a folder full of papers. “The Dynamex account,” she said. “You want me to hold your calls this morning?” she asked.

  Ted gave her a wink and a nod. “Thanks, Jen.”

  After he settled behind his desk, Ted jumped into the work in front of him, poring over the complicated documents in the Dynamex folder. Conquering hard tasks was second nature to him, but today it was like working a math equation. He was stressed, but he couldn’t let anyone see it. Even though his assistant knew him well, he was thankful she hadn’t detected the anxiety that was making his chest pound like a drum.

  His mind went back to Victoria because she was the one person he couldn’t fool, the one person who had already noticed subtle, yet profound changes in his behavior. He knew she was wise to him, and that she sensed he hadn’t been fully honest when detailing what he had found in his mother’s safe-deposit box. And he knew it was only a matter of time before she dug, questioned, and probed until she found out the truth.

  He leaned back in his chair and looked out of his large corner office window, pausing in deep reflection. The early morning sun was making an attempt to shine over the Atlanta skyline. He reached over and picked up the neatly framed photo of his family. “I’ve got to tell her,” he whispered aloud. “I can’t continue to live this lie.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Things Still Weren’t Right....

  Victoria glanced at her watch and sighed. It was eight o’clock on Wednesday evening, and she had completed only half of the things on her long to-do list. The week had been busy, filled with meetings, site visits, and food tastings for upcoming events. Divine Occasions had become so lucrative that she would soon need to bring another full-time staff member on board. She loved growing her business and following her dreams, but it often caused an internal conflict over balancing her professional aspirations and her family’s needs.

  At times she resented the uneven load she was expected to carry. Ted could be out of town for days on end and could work late nights at the office for weeks, all in the name of corporate business. But if she stayed away too frequently, or for too long, her absence was felt more than his, making her feel guilty whenever her work took her away from home.

  She wanted to be home right now, having dinner with Alexandria, but her duties as a businesswoman had kept her chained to her office all day. It was times like the present that she was thankful she had a dependable child-care service. She picked up the phone and made a quick call to say good night to Alexandria, and to let the babysitter know that she needed her to stay for another hour. She’d already talked to Ted to let him know that she would be working late, and not to her surprise, he had told her that he would be working late, too—again.

  Over the past couple of weeks they had barely spent any time together or interacted outside of their parenting duties. She shuddered when she thought about the current state of her marriage. They were becoming passing shadows in the night.

  Two weeks had passed since Ted’s return from his trip to Boston, and she was more worried about him than ever. Alexandria had come home a few days after, which had made her feel better, because at least her daughter was back to her old self again. Victoria knew the trip to North Carolina had made all the difference. Since her return, Alexandria hadn’t asked once if her mommy or daddy was going to go away for eternal sleep like her granny Carolyn had. Her short-lived concern about mortality had been replaced by the excitement of her upcoming enrollment in what she called “big kids’ school.”

  Now Victoria’s biggest concern at the moment was her husband. She’d hoped that Ted would return to his old self, too, or at least open up to her about whatever the real secret was that his mother had been keeping. But to her disappointment, neither had happened.

  Although she felt guilty for doing dirt of her own, she knew that Ted was hiding something as well. She tried to empathize because of the grief and loss he had suffered, but her gut told her that he was lying, and that whatever Carolyn had been hiding must have bordered on the criminal. It was the only explanation she could think of to justify his change in behavior and his constant preoccupation with hidden thoughts, which seemed to be pushing him further and further away from her.

  Victoria paused, rubbing her eyes as she looked at the wall clock across the room. It was approaching eight thirty, and she was still stuck on the same two lines of the catering contract she’d been looking at for the last half hour.

  She rose from her desk to stretch her limbs, trying to shake off the bad feeling that had overtaken her—the knowledge that her marriage was in deep trouble. She and Ted were drifting toward shaky ground, not just because of his suddenly strange behavior, but also because of what she had done with Parker.The guilt was slowly eating at her like a sore that would not heal, and she knew it was impacting her interaction with her husband.

  The fact that Ted hadn’t noticed that her behavior had changed, and didn’t seem to care that t
heir intimacy was eroding, gave her even more reason for concern. She thought about what had occurred between them a few nights ago, while they were in bed. They were lying uncharacteristically apart, he on one side of their California king–size mattress and she on the other. He hadn’t touched her in days, so she asked him outright about her suspicions.

  “If your mother did something bad, I mean really terrible, you know that you could confide in me, right?”

  Ted was silent for a moment before answering. “V, why are you still asking me about that? I told you everything there is to know.”

  Victoria reached out and draped her arm around his shoulder. “I’m asking because I know you,” she replied. “And I know that there’s something you haven’t told me... . I can feel it.” She said this while peering deep into his eyes, thanks to the sliver of light that shined in from the hallway. She saw fear and vulnerability staring back at her, and it frightened her, but at the same time it was the most honest expression she’d seen and the most connected she’d felt to him in weeks.

  Her heart sank because in that moment she felt like shit for what she had done with Parker. A single tear slid down her cheek at the thought. “I love you... . I’ve made some mistakes”—she paused, trying to hold back the flood that threatened—“but I promise you, I’ll work hard to be a better wife. Just don’t shut me out.”