by Ann Tatlock
Jane laughed and brushed aside the compliment. “And you haven’t changed at all, Laney. It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too, honey. I’ve thought about you so much over the years, wondering what had become of you. Your grandmother never included much news about you in her Christmas cards.”
“It’s my fault, Laney. I should have written once in a while instead of falling out of touch.”
“Well, never mind. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
They shared a smile as Jane studied Laney’s face. It wasn’t true that she hadn’t changed. She had, but only slightly. A few wrinkles, some streaks of gray in the dark hair that she wore twisted into a bun at the back of her head. But the eyes were the same—sweet, gentle, twinkling with an unmistakable joy.
Only after a moment did Jane remember Truman, who stood waiting at the bottom of the steps. He leaned on his cane with stacked palms, and Jane realized he’d probably brought it with him so he always had something to do with his hands. “Laney,” Jane said, waving an arm toward Truman, “I want you to meet my friend, Truman Rockaway. Truman, this is Laney Jackson.”
For a moment, neither spoke. Truman stood immobile on the walkway, looking up at the woman on the porch. The noonday sun caught the glint of tears in his eyes, and his jaw worked, as though he was trying hard not to let them spill over.
Finally Laney held out a hand and said, “Welcome, Dr. Rockaway. I’m very happy to meet you.”
Slowly, Truman climbed the steps and clasped her hand. “Please forgive a sentimental old man,” he said quietly. “It’s just that you’re the spitting image of your mother. For a moment there I almost thought I was looking at Maggie again.”
“I take that as a compliment, Doctor,” she said, smiling kindly. “Mamma was a beautiful woman.”
“That she was. I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Jackson.”
“Please call me Laney.”
Truman bowed slightly as he withdrew his hand. “And please call me Truman.”
“Well, then.” Still smiling, Laney looked from one to the other. “Won’t you come in? Lunch is almost ready.”
Laney led them past a wide, polished staircase and down the hall to an expansive dining room, situated between a large front room and the kitchen at the back of the inn. The room was arrayed with six round tables, all covered in white cloths and set with painted china and linen napkins. At the far end was an antique corner cupboard filled with serving plates of all kinds and a serving buffet on which sat glass pitchers of ice water, sweet tea, and an eclectic collection of glasses, cups, and saucers. Overhead, three ceiling fans turned lazily, augmenting the air-conditioning by giving off the slightest hint of a breeze. Several guests of the inn were already seated at the tables, sipping iced tea from tall glasses. They glanced at the newcomers as Laney and her guests entered the room. Some nodded and exchanged polite greetings.
Laney waved Jane and Truman to a table set for five. “Clapper and Bess will be joining us in a minute,” she said. “Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll let them know you’re here.”
Jane watched Laney disappear into the kitchen before she pulled out a chair and sat down. “I don’t remember anyone named Bess,” she said. Absently, she unrolled her napkin and laid it across her lap.
Truman shook his head, two lines forming between his brows. “I don’t know who she is either, unless . . .”
His words trailed off, but Jane didn’t seem to notice. She gazed about the room, taking it all in. “It’s a lovely place, isn’t it? Have you ever seen the inside before?”
“Oh no. Back when I lived here . . . well, folks like me didn’t come to places like this. Unless, of course, we were employed here.”
Jane nodded her understanding. The other guests chattered and laughed casually. As Jane listened, she became aware of music coming from another room, something classical, matching the quiet dignity of the inn. Like the name of the town, the Travelers Rest Inn had an air of restfulness. “Are you glad we’re here, Truman?” she asked.
“Oh yes.” Truman drew in a deep breath and smiled contentedly. “I’m very glad. I have the sense that. . . how to explain? I’m finally in the right place at the right time. I guess that’s the only way to describe it.”
“I think I know what you mean. It’s almost as though this place drew us to itself, as though we’re supposed to be here.”
“Yes, it’s—”
Jane waited for him to go on, but his sentence hung in the air, unfinished, as his attention turned toward something across the room. In another moment he pushed himself away from the table, wincing slightly as he eased himself up to his full height. Jane followed his gaze and saw that Laney was returning to their table accompanied by an older woman. Dark and slender like Laney but much smaller, the woman wore a blue cotton dress and white shoes with buckled straps, the heels of which added a couple of inches to her diminutive height. A string of imitation pearls hung around her neck, their gleaming whiteness mirroring her large-toothed smile. Her red lipstick was color coordinated with the fiery nail polish that accentuated her tapered fingers. She had a pleasant face rimmed by a bob of wavy gray hair, though her flashing black eyes told Jane this woman had a feisty streak beneath her unruffled exterior.
“Jane, Truman, this is my Aunt Bess,” Laney said when she reached the table. “She’ll be having lunch with us.”
“Bess,” Truman said quietly, holding out a hand. “Of course. Maggie’s baby sister.”
Bess laughed amusedly as she took Truman’s hand in both of hers. “I wasn’t a baby when you knew me, Truman, and I’m certainly not one now. I’m a grandmother six times over, and the great-grandmother of one.”
“Impossible,” Truman said.
“Not at all,” Bess said. “It’s true. I have the photos to prove it, if you’d like to see them.”
“I certainly would.”
“Well, not right now,” Laney said, “or you’ll get lunch all over them. You can do the picture show later, Aunt Bess, after we eat.”
Truman pulled out the chair to his right and motioned toward it. Bess nodded her thanks and sat down.
Laney chose a seat too, saying, “Clapper will be joining us in a minute. He’s just wrapping up a few details in the office.”
“You don’t do the cooking here in addition to everything else, do you, Laney?” Jane asked.
“I do some. But I also have two cooks on staff. One is Geraldine Crowley, who’s been with us from the start. The other is a young man who’s just here for the summer, in between college semesters. His name is Richard Coleman.”
Truman looked up, startled. “Coleman?” he asked.
“That’s right.” Laney gave Truman a knowing smile. “Tommy Lee’s grandson. He helped prepare our lunch today.”
“You don’t say,” Truman said incredulously.
“I believe I just did.” Laney laughed.
“Is Tommy Lee still alive?”
Laney shook her head. “He died some years ago. Heart attack, I believe.”
“Aneurysm,” Bess interjected. “I wasn’t there, of course, seeing as how it happened at a white church. But as the story goes, it was a Sunday morning and he was helping take up the collection during the service. He’d just taken the plate from Mr. Abernathy when he fell over dead right there in the aisle. What a commotion! Women screaming, money flying everywhere, and old Tommy Lee laid out on the floor dead as a doornail. Serves him right.”
“Aunt Bess!”
“Well, Laney, the man was a hypocrite. A member of Buncombe Street Baptist and a member of the Klan too.”
“He wasn’t a member of the Klan.”
“Laney, girl, there are some things you don’t know—”
“But, Aunt Bess—”
“Truman,” Bess said, turning stern eyes in his direction. “You were right, you know. Tommy Lee should have gone on and died down there by the river. It’d have saved a lot of people miles of heartache if he had
.”
“Aunt Bess!” Laney hissed. Jane noticed her anxiety as Laney scanned the room to see if anyone was listening.
Bess waved a hand. “Hush, Laney, I’m just speaking the plain gospel truth. About time somebody did.”
The table fell silent. Jane looked at Truman; his freckles stood out against his now pale skin. His mouth hung open slightly, and his eyes were round and gleaming.
“I’m sorry, Truman,” Laney said. “Aunt Bess has no right to bring that up.” She shot a reprimanding glance at the older woman.
Truman shook his head as though to loosen the words on his tongue. “It’s all right, Laney. It’s—”
“Truman, I never understood Maggie’s decision,” Bess interrupted. “She did you wrong by not going north with you.”
“Oh no, Bess,” Truman said quickly. “No. She . . . she was right. I was a doctor and it was my duty to help. My sworn duty. Even if I wasn’t a doctor, it’s not right simply to leave a man to die, no matter who he is. Maggie knew that—”
“Even so, I’d have gone with Charlie, should the same thing have happened to us, and heaven knows Charlie wasn’t even near worth it.”
“Charlie?”
“My late husband.”
“Aunt Bess! How can you say such a thing about Uncle Charlie? He was a wonderful man.”
“He had his good points,” Bess agreed, “but bear in mind, Laney, you’re not the one who had to live with him day in and day out for thirty-seven years. I know a little bit more than—”
“Clapper!” Laney called as a man approached the table. She sounded relieved. “Clapper, I want you to meet our guests. This is Truman Rockaway—”
“Now, don’t get up, Dr. Rockaway,” Clapper interrupted. He came to the table with a huge smile and a hand extended. “I can shake your hand just as well with you sitting down.”
“All right, then.” Truman took his hand and the two men shook. “Happy to meet you, Mr. Jackson.”
“Everybody calls me Clapper.”
“And you may remember Jane,” Laney went on, “though I don’t suppose you’d recognize her.”
“Well, I’ll be!” Clapper exclaimed. “Are you really the little girl that used to live at the Rayburn House?”
“One and the same,” Jane said with a laugh.
“Well, I’d never have known. My, oh my. You’ve grown up real nice, Miss Jane.”
“All right, Clapper,” Bess snapped. “Get your tongue back in your mouth and take a seat already. I’m hungry and I want some lunch.”
“My tongue wasn’t hanging out, Aunt Bess. I was just paying our guest a compliment.”
“Yeah, yeah. And I’m Martha Washington with a suntan. Now, where’s the appetizer?”
Truman chuckled. “I don’t believe you’ve lost any of your spunk, Bess.”
“You got that right,” Clapper volunteered. “She’s only gotten spunkier with age—”
“Clapper!”
“That’s a compliment, Laney. A compliment. Nothing wrong with having a good dose of spunk.”
As Clapper spoke, an angular young man with a narrow face and sandy hair came out of the kitchen with a pitcher of water in one hand and a pitcher of tea in the other. He approached the table, politely asked who wanted what to drink, and began to pour. Jane noticed Truman watching him intently, the grandson of the man who had knocked his life off course. Richard Coleman must have felt Truman’s gaze, because he cast a quizzical glance at him. But Truman disarmed the boy with a smile and a nod, and Richard Coleman, pouring sweet tea into Truman’s glass, smiled in return.
He’ll probably never know, Jane thought. He would never know who Truman was, or how his own great-grandfather refused to care for a little Negro child, or how his grandfather had caused Truman Rockaway to run from everything he knew and everyone he loved.
When the drinks were poured, the unapprised Richard Coleman began his spiel. “For our main meal today,” he said, smiling courteously as he moved his gaze around the table, “we’re having grilled salmon with cream sauce, boiled red potatoes, and asparagus tips. Dessert will be strawberry shortcake, with fresh strawberries, of course, as well as homemade whipped cream. If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll be right back with your salads.”
With a slight bow, he left abruptly for the kitchen.
“That sounds wonderful,” Truman said.
“What does?” Bess asked. “The meal? Or hearing a Coleman treat you with respect?”
Truman nodded thoughtfully. “They both sound pretty good, now that you mention it, Bess.”
Bess sniffed and lifted her chin. “’Bout time things got straightened out around here.”
Jane regarded the two of them with a kind of wonder and curiosity for what they had seen and experienced, things she herself would never know, things that had happened before she was born. History, she saw, was simply people’s lives, the large events the sum total of individual stories, and much of it rode on a man’s or a woman’s response to heartache. Racism wasn’t the nation’s story, it was Truman’s and Bess’s and Laney’s and Clapper’s. Just like the war in Iraq wasn’t a world story. It was Seth’s and hers and even Truman’s too, because it had brought them here, back to the place Truman had had to flee but that he could now return to, since a page had turned and the story had changed. Truman had survived it all. For the first time Jane thought perhaps she could too.
She turned to Clapper and smiled. “So tell me, Clapper, how did you happen to buy this wonderful inn?”
“You can thank my father-in-law for that,” said Clapper, who glanced at Laney with a smile. “Yes sir, Cyrus was not only a fine doctor but a shrewd businessman. He started dealing in real estate back in the ’70s, and then he got me involved and . . .”
As Clapper went on talking, Jane noticed Bess leaning toward Truman. Bess’s entire face was a smile as she patted the old man’s weathered hand. Softly, almost in a whisper, she said, “Welcome home, Truman.”
Truman nodded, said quietly in return, “Thank you, Bess. It’s good to be home.”
38
They were finishing their dessert when Jane’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocketbook and checked the number of the incoming call. “It’s Jewel.” She looked at Truman first before glancing around the table. “Will you excuse me?” Flipping open the phone, she rose from the table and headed for the front porch.
Twenty minutes later, Laney joined her there, carrying two fresh glasses of sweet tea. She handed one to Jane, who took it gladly, then settled herself in the rocking chair beside her. “Everything all right, honey?”
Jane took a sip of tea before answering. She looked at Laney and tried to smile. “It’s Seth,” she said. “He’s . . . well, he was my fiancé.”
Laney nodded. “Your grandmother told me about him.”
“So you know what happened?”
“Some. I know he was wounded in the war.”
Jane took a deep breath and stared down at the tea in her hands. “Yes, he’s paralyzed from a gunshot wound. He’s a quad, Laney. He can’t move much from the neck down.”
“I’m so sorry, Jane.” She reached out and patted Jane’s arm. “It seems to me you’ve had more than your share of heartache in your lifetime. I wish there was something I could do to change things.”
“Thanks, Laney. I do too. Most of all, I wish I could change things for Seth. He was a carpenter, you know, and now . . .” She finished by lifting her shoulders in a small shrug.
“What was the call about, honey?”
Jane took another deep breath to steady herself. “Seth’s not doing well. Like I said, that was Jewel, his mother, calling from the hospital. He has pneumonia, you know, but now it looks like he’s developed MRSA.”
“MRSA?”
“Yes, that awful infection people pick up mostly in hospitals, of all places.”
“Well, what does this mean?”
Jane looked out over the front lawn, as though searching for the answer the
re. Finally she said, “Jewel says they’re doing all they can to treat it, of course. She just thought I ought to know.”
For a few moments, Laney rocked quietly. Then she asked, “Do you think you should go back?”
“That’s what I’ve been sitting here asking myself. Maybe I should, but Truman needs to be here.”
“He can stay, even if you go back. He can stay as long as he wants. Bess will make sure he’s well taken care of.”
Jane couldn’t help but smile at that. “Were you playing matchmaker for Bess and Truman?”
Laney chuckled and shook her head firmly. “When Bess found out Truman Rockaway was coming, she ran out and got her hair done, got her nails colored, and bought the dress she’s wearing today. It’s all her doing, not mine.”
“It sounds like she remembers Truman pretty well after all these years.”
“Honey, it seems to me she was probably sweet on him even back when he was dating my mother.”
“You think so?”
“She’d never admit it, but yes, I think so. She was only a few years younger than Mamma; old enough to be interested in Mamma’s beaus.”
“Hmm. Well, Truman will be flattered, even if he isn’t exactly in the market.”
“What? You think he’s too old for romance?”
“No.” Jane thought a moment. “I don’t think a person is ever too old for romance. But . . . I don’t know, Laney. Somehow I think Truman never quite got over your mother.”
Laney looked quizzically at Jane. “Men aren’t much for hanging on to broken hearts, honey. I can’t imagine that he never got over her. What happened between him and Mamma happened a lifetime ago.”
“It’s not so much that he still has a broken heart.”
“No? Then what is it?”
“He told me he always wished for the chance to hear Maggie say she forgave him for what happened by the river, but he never had that chance. I think he regrets it.”
“Oh?” Laney frowned and sat up straighter. She turned toward Jane. “He never tried to contact Mamma.”