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had known Del all of his life—she should hear about Hank
from him.
“I came to tell Del about your Daddy,” James said, his voice
thick with sadness.
“Did he tell you too?” Lance asked.
“Tell me what?” James asked.
“That he was a nigger.” It took James a single step to go
from the doorway to where Lance sat in the middle of the room.
He grabbed the boy by the shoulders, raised him to standing
and pulled him to within inches of his face.
“Don’t you ever,” James said struggling to remain calm,
“call any man, woman or child, a nigger,” he spat out the last
word. “Do you see Del sitting there? You show some respect.”
“Did you know Daddy was passing?” Lance challenged
James. He could see from James’s expression that he had no
idea. James let go and the boy dropped back into his chair.
James rubbed his forehead and shook his head.
“I didn’t know anything about this,” James said, sounding
dazed. “All I know is that your father is a good man, did the
best he could by you and your mother. He did the best by all
of us. My God,” James whispered as he leaned against the
table for support—first Hank’s death, now this revelation – it
was all too much.
Hank had helped James understand that no one should
prosper from discrimination. He had been adamant about
adding colored men to their work crews.
“Every man deserves a chance to feed his family,” Hank told
James, when he expressed concern about how their customers
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Donna Drew Sawyer
might react. “You let me know who has a problem and I’ll
talk to them,” he’d said. Now he better understood why Hank
begged him to buy into the company. If anyone had found
out about Hank passing, James could take over and keep the
company alive.
“The secrets we keep from each other,” James said, col aps-
ing into a chair, his head in his hands.
“Born a Negro, lied and lived as a white man, and in the
end, died a Negro all the same,” Lance said, his anger growing.
“If your father is any example, there are a lot worse things to
be in life than a Negro. You carry his blood in your veins. You
shame him, you shame yourself.” James said, without looking
up. At that moment, Lance realized that to James Stephens
and every other white person in Richmond, his father’s blood
made him a Negro, too.
Getting up from the table, Del said, “James, you go on home
now. We be all right here. The boy’s upset, he don’t mean no
harm.” She helped James to his feet and walked him out to the
back porch where they talked for a few minutes in low voices.
When Del came back inside, wiping her eyes with the
corner of her apron she said, “Your father would never allow
disrespectful talk, Lance. Never heard a harsh word come out
of his mouth about a person’s color.”
“And now we know why,” Lance said.
“Don’t you go forgettin’ who you are, Mr. Lance Henry
Whitaker,” Del said using his full name the way she used to
when he earned her wrath as a boy.
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“Who am I, Del? You tell me, because I’ll be damned if I
know. How can someone you think you know be so, be such
a—,” Lance searched for a word.
Before he could say something he would regret, Del said,
“Tonight be raw with emotion ‘cause you loved your Daddy.
I loved him too. That ain’t never gonna change. He is who
he always was, the father who loved you, more’n anything or
anyone and the man who did right by us all. A truth told don’t
change that. Learn the reasons why he was passin’. With the
knowledge, come understanding, and then forgiveness.”
“Why couldn’t he just die with the secret, instead of leaving
me and my mother to deal with it?” Lance said.
“Secrets like that don’t stay secrets forever, Lance. The
truth—it shows up in unpredictable ways. Like when a baby’s
born,” Del said, remembering how frantic Hank had been
the night Lance was born—worried about Miss Maggie for
sure—but after she found out Mr. Hank was passing, Del
knew he was also worried whether their child would be born
with color. Now his son would have that same worry. Fate had
finally forced Mr. Hank to give his son his birthright—one
that the boy was unprepared to deal with.
“Your father asked me to keep some things for you,” she
said. “Didn’t want your Grandmamma gettin’ into them. Wait
here and I’ll fetch them for you.” Del left the kitchen and
returned a few minutes later with three leather-bound journals
tied together with a maroon ribbon.
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“These here belonged to your Daddy,” Del said with rev-
erence. “In his own hand he put down some of the things he
wanted you to know, ‘bout the past and how he reasoned things.”
“He gave these to you to read?”
“No, he gave them to me to hold, should something ever
happen to him,” Del said, choking on the words. “He said he
wrote these just for you, just for his son, and I would never
betray his trust by reading what was not meant for my eyes.
Your Daddy told me he tried to explain it all here,” she said,
patting the stack of journals and handing them to Lance.
Lance got up from his chair; took the journals from Del
and walked toward the open back door. Del reached for him
but he pulled away, so immersed in his own pain that he was
blind to her suffering.
“Del, you pretty much taught me everything I know about
life, maybe now you can teach me how to be a Negro,” Lance
said as he went through the door, “‘cause I sure as hell am not
white after tonight.”
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• 9 •
(I)
She had Frances change the sheets but the scent of
her husband’s bath soap, shaving cream and hair pomade
combined to bring him back into the bed they had shared
for twenty years.
“How could you, you bastard?” she cursed him. “Oh, Hank,”
she cried clutching his pillow as she loved, hated, feared and
missed him until she was final y exhausted enough to sleep. By
dawn, she had accepted her husband’s death but had not forgiven
him. She had talked herself into believing that Richmond would
ignore the inconvenient truth about her late husband. After al ,
she was Margaret Bennett Whitaker; the celebrated hostess of
Richmond’s prestigious West End. President of the Richmond
Women’s League and the West End Garden Society, and a
member of the social committee for the Virginia Historical
Society. The city of Richmond, the West End community and
her friends could not do without her.
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The next morning, she carefully did her hair and m
akeup
and dressed in black. With dark circles under her red eyes, she
planted herself in the drawing room to await the arrival of her
society friends. Surely they would come offering condolences
and baskets of home cooked food prepared by their household
help. She deluded herself into believing it would not matter
to them what Hank had revealed—she was still Margaret
Bennett Whitaker, her friends would understand that she and
her son had been done an injustice. They would help her go
on with her life.
While Maggie waited, Charlotte paced the room. She
knew the sympathetic callers Margaret expected would never
come. She was pragmatic enough to know that with the news
of Hank’s heritage, her daughter and her grandson would feel
the full savagery of Richmond’s very civilized society. She didn’t
get to where she was today by underestimating the insincerity
of their social class.
Where is Lance? Charlotte wondered. She did not want to
upset Margaret by telling her the boy had not come home last
night. She swept aside the fear that some racist hothead had
hurt him to atone for his father’s deception the same way she had
swept up the glass from the rock that had been hurled through
the kitchen window early this morning with the message, Get
Out Niggers wrapped around it. She was afraid to leave Margaret in the house alone with Frances. If something happened, in
her current state, Margaret couldn’t deal with it and Frances
wouldn’t know what to do unless someone told her. Charlotte
was not going to let fear paralyze her family. She would remain
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calm, wait for Lance to come home and then go downtown to
Hank’s office to talk with James Stephens about how Colonial
Enterprises would provide for her family.
As much as she derided Hank about being a janitor,
Charlotte knew the significant financial value of Colonial
Enterprises. Without Hank at the helm, Charlotte would have
to take control—other women in Richmond were heading busi-
nesses bigger than Hank’s. Adeline Detroit Atkinson presided
over the Hotel Richmond and even Maggie Walker, a Negro,
ran a newspaper and was president of a colored savings bank in
town. Margaret was in no condition to take over Colonial and
Lance was too young and racially compromised. They would
have to send him north to school, immediately.
When a car pulled into the drive, Maggie sat up in
anticipation.
“Frances, the door,” she called. But before the maid could
reach it, Lance burst into the room.
“Good morning, Ladies,” he shouted, “guess what I found
out last night?
“Excuse us, Frances,” Charlotte said, dismissing her just as
Lance blurted out, “In addition to the fact that I’m a nigger –
pardon me, a Negro. I found out that Del already knew about
Daddy! Damned if Daddy told her but didn’t tell us! Not a
word to his wife or his son, but damned if Del knew! Birds of
a feather and all that shit.”
Maggie gasped at Lance’s crudely delivered revelation.
Charlotte’s only thought was, who else knows? Does the whole of Jackson Ward know now?
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Lance staggered to the couch, fell onto the cushions next
to his mother, and dropped Hank’s journals on the table in
front of them.
“I got all the answers to our questions in these little volumes
right here,” Lance punched at the books with his index finger.
Charlotte moved in to retrieve them.
“No, no, no, these are for my eyes only,” Lance said, snatch-
ing the books from the table and stuffing them under his jacket.
“Daddy and Del say so.”
“You’re drunk,” Charlotte said.
“Yes I am, thank you. Seemed the appropriate thing to do
under the circumstances,” Lance said.
“Where were you all night?” his mother asked.
“Over on the East End, my side of town. I need to start
getting used to my new status as a Ne-gro,” he said, accentuating
each syllable of the word. “Oh,” he said putting his hand to his
mouth. “I probably shouldn’t even be sitting here all familiar
with you fine white ladies. I best know my place—”
“Stop it,” Charlotte cut him off.
“Stop what?” Lance asked. “Telling the truth? Just like my
Daddy did last night. Whether you want to accept it or not,
Miss Charlotte, my life has changed forever!”
“Go get cleaned up,” Maggie said softly, as she pulled a
handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “I don’t
want any of the ladies from the League to see you like this.”
Charlotte looked at her daughter,
“Margaret, no one from the League is coming. We are on
our own now,” she said.
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“They’ll be here,” Maggie protested.
“No, they will not,” Charlotte, insisted as she walked to
the door. “We are no longer the kind of people the League
ladies talk to; we’re the kind they talk about. Lance, please do
as your mother asks; I’m going out, I have to make plans for
our future.”
(II)
“Where’s Mr. Stephens?” Charlotte asked the weeping
woman at the front desk of Colonial Enterprises.
“I’m sorry ma’am,” she said, “We’re closed today. Our
founder died last night.”
“Is James Stephens here?” Charlotte asked again, as if she
had not heard the woman.
“Well, yes, but we’re closed today. Mr. Stephens isn’t—”
Before the woman could finish her sentence, Charlotte walked
toward the back offices.
“Which office is he in?” she asked. The young woman
pointed toward the office with the name “Henry Whitaker”
on the door. Charlotte opened the door without knocking.
James was sitting at the desk, his leather chair turned
toward the window. He slowly turned around to face his unan-
nounced visitor. The only time he’d met Maggie’s mother was
last night, yet there was something familiar about her. Now
he was certain he knew her, but from where?
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“Morning, Mrs. Bennett,” he said, “I wasn’t expecting you;
I’m still trying to grasp what happened yesterday. I was planning
to come over later today to see if Maggie needed my help—”
“I see you haven’t wasted any time. You’ve already made
yourself quite comfortable in Hank’s office, rifling through
everything,” she said, looking at the open wall safe and papers
scattered on the desk.
James stood up and handed Charlotte an envelope.
“Something to tide the family over until we have a chance to
get everything here sorted out. I thought this might be helpful,”
he said, ignoring Charlotte’s suspicions. Charlotte snatched the
envelope from James. He watched as she removed her gloves,
dropped them on the desk, opened the en
velope and carefully
leafed through the bil s, mouthing the numbers as she counted
the cash. He had seen her do that before; he remembered a
white envelope, her long, tapered fingers opening the flap and
leafing through the bills, mouthing the numbers.
It all came back to him in an instant. Now he knew when
and where. He remembered her dark hair, long and luxurious,
today restrained in a tasteful bun. Her body, though concealed
by a fashionable high-collared dress, was still voluptuous. Her
face was unlined after almost four decades and just as beauti-
ful. Her hazel eyes were as fierce as he remembered them. He
could see that she had no memory of him at all, but he knew
her; a man never forgets the first woman he ever made love to.
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(III)
Albemarle County, Virginia - 1892
He stood in the doorway, not quite sure what to do next.
After a night of drinking with friends from the University,
it had been easy to talk James Stephens into going to Sally’s
Cathouse, for the express purpose of losing his virginity.
“You must be the college boy,” she said, looking up from
her book. “Come in, close the door. Don’t be afraid, I don’t
bite. Unless, of course, that’s what you want,” she laughed as
she closed her book. “Cut off, I mean, turn off the lights over
there,” she said, indicating the switch for the overhead light
near the door. “What’s your name, college boy?” she asked as
she stood up and draped a sheer red scarf over the lamp giving
the room a rosy glow. She wore her silk robe open, revealing
her naked body.
James swallowed hard; his mouth so dry that his lips stuck
to his teeth making it hard to speak. She waited for him to
say something but after a few seconds—that seemed like an
eternity to James—she said, “I’m Little Cora. You don’t have
to tell me your name if you don’t want to.”
“James,” he finally managed. “I’m James.”
“Hello, James. You want something to drink before we
get started?”
“Yes, please.”
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She walked over to a table where there was a bottle of
whiskey, a decanter of sherry, and a pitcher of water. “Other
than me,” she said coyly, “what’s your pleasure?”
“Just water, please.”
“Some of my older gentlemen need a little something to
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