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Hank, the husband and father we both loved.’” Charlotte’s
face contorted in pain at the thought of her precious daughter’s
love and generosity—qualities she knew were not her nature.
Lance sat down on the bed, exhausted by all of the
old memories.
“Belle Greene once told me to find someone who knew
my truth. Someone I could confide in. All these years I kept
everything inside and then I found Emma, I was going to tell
Emma. I wanted to know what love without secrets and lies
felt like—I’ve never known that kind of love. I’m certain you
don’t know either,” Lance said. “Look at us, Charlotte, we are
all each other has; you are the only one who knows my truth.
You let Emma leave both of us because you were afraid her love
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for me would take something away from you. The sad thing is
that she loved you, too.” Lance got up to leave the room then
stopped, turning to face his grandmother he said, “I’m done,
Charlotte. I can’t take anymore of you. I broke my promise to
my father, now I’m going to break the one I made to my mother.
I can’t be around you anymore. I’ll find Emma, but we won’t
come back here. I’ve got to find her or I’ll end up just like you.”
Lance moved to the door.
Charlotte reached out and grabbed his coat to stop him.
“We’re more alike than you know,” she said.
Lance turned around to see tears streaming from Charlotte’s
eyes. She took a linen and lace handkerchief from the wrist of
her sweater and pressed to her cheeks and nose.
“I was born Cora Ann Cox, in 1877, in Enfield, North
Carolina,” she said haltingly, speaking barely above a whisper.
“I was the light-skinned daughter of a black woman who didn’t
have the right to say no to a white man. I was my mother’s
shame, and I was nothing to my father,” she said spitting the
word “nothing” out like a mouthful of bile. “My husband never
knew. Your mother never knew. I don’t even know why I’m
telling you.”
Lance could only stare at her. My God, he thought, so many secrets. Charlotte’s confession explained so much about the woman he had known all of his life, and hated for most of it.
“I hated your father because his truth was the same as
mine, and he threatened the existence I struggled so hard to
escape. My daughter and I achieved the ultimate advantage
over segregation—we were white! I did whatever I had to do
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to keep my secret. When my sister-in-law, Elsa, found out
about my past I threatened to kill her if she uttered a word to
anyone. She knew I meant it too, that woman went to her grave
with my secret. Your father’s confession could have destroyed
everything—for me, for your mother and especially for you. I
was the only one who knew that you were more colored than
white, and I did what I had to do to keep you from the hard life
of being a Negro in America, an existence that you don’t know
anything about because you’ve always lived the privileged life
of a white man. But I knew,” the old woman said, shaking her
fist, as if at God. Lowering her head and her fist, she said in
a near-whisper, “I knew because before I was Mrs. Charlotte
Bennett, I was Cora Ann Cox, one of old man Cox’s nigger
bastards—hated by white folks for having the black blood of
my mother, and by black folks for having the white blood of
my father. But I showed them,” Charlotte said, her lips a thin,
hard line. Her eyes, no longer tearful, were narrowed into slits
of determination.
“I did the only thing a girl could do on her own to make
her way. Night after night, I spread my legs for strangers and
I learned that sex and knowledge were powerful currencies for
a woman. Back then there were no feminists, or Black Power,
or any of that—I was colored and I was female and I was a
bastard—but look at me now. I showed everyone who said I
was nothing! I showed every goddamn one of them.”
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(II)
Albemarle County, Virginia—1890
Cora could feel his eyes on her as she scrubbed the kitchen
floor on her hands and knees. She tried to ignore him by keeping
her eyes on her work, rhythmically moving the scrub brush in
circles the way her mother had taught her. The man was stand-
ing in the doorway watching her every move. She didn’t dare
look up at him, she hoped by ignoring him he would go away.
“Hey little gal,” he final y said. “You workin’ up a nice sweat
there, little gal. I’m enjoyin’ watchin’ it make rivers between
those pretty little titties up under your dress there,” he teased.
Cora grabbed the front of her dress and turned her back to him.
“Hey Sally,” he called to the woman escorting him to the
bedroom upstairs. “What about this young thing here?”
“Oh, Mr. John, she’s just a baby. She’s here with me for
safekeeping. I got an experienced girl for you right upstairs.”
Sally pulled at his arm but the John didn’t move.
“I want this one,” he said. “I’ll pay you extra for this one.”
To Cora he said, “Ever had a white man before? I’ll bet you’d
like it, I know I’d like you.” Sal y made eye contact with Moses
whose bulk and blackness kept all the Johns who came and
went from being any more unruly than Sal y wanted them to be.
“Come on, Mr. John, you don’t want no trouble here. She’s
not a working girl,” Moses said, standing between the man and
Cora, blocking his view.
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“Alright, alright,” the John said. “I came here to get laid,
not to get laid out,” he was the only one who laughed at his
joke. “Sally, think about putting that one to work. I’d pay you
extra for some of that,” he said as he ascended the stairs.
“Don’t you worry none, little Cora, I be here when you
need me,” Moses said, returning to his post on the front porch.
Cora sat back on her heels in the middle of the wet floor
pul ing her dress tightly around her as if it could protect her. She felt even more vulnerable than the day her father sent her here.
“I’m sorry ‘bout your mother,” Mrs. Cox said as she put
Cora in the wagon that day. “You can’t stay here, Mr. Cox
wants you gone. Maybe if your momma hadn’t died giving
birth you could stay, but with her and the baby gone, Mr. Cox
thinks it best you go too.”
“Where am I goin’? Why can’t I stay here? I won’t be no
trouble. Momma taught me to be no trouble.”
“You gonna go stay with your Aunt Sally, your momma’s
baby sister. She lives up near Charlottesville. Hear she’s got a
fine house with plenty of room. You can get some more schoolin’
there, have a city life. Maybe find a nice husband and not have
to work the fields for a livin’. Be a good life,” the woman told
her husband’s twelve-ye
ar-old daughter. That was a year ago
and Cora hadn’t been to school a day since.
Mrs. Cox had been right about one thing, Sally did have a
fine house. During the day the house was quiet. Sal y’s “roomers”
slept in, read, and went shopping. At night they went to work;
they were high-yellow colored girls servicing white men in one
of the most renowned brothels in the county. Cora’s job was to
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help the girls prepare for their customers; press their hair, wash
and iron their fine clothes, change the bed sheets and keep the
house clean. She did all that in exchange for a small room off
the kitchen, three meals a day and the tips the girls gave her for
little extra things she did for them. Cora never gave up hope
that one day she would thrive in the city, but as long as she was
under Sal y’s roof, Cora believed the only way she would thrive
or survive would be to lie on her back for strangers.
(III)
“How much money can you make bein’ with men?” Cora
asked Iris, one of the prostitutes that had taken a motherly
interest in her. Cora was sitting at Iris’ dressing table, playing
with the bottles and jars of perfume and makeup.
“Don’t you get caught up in all this,” Iris warned. “I was
‘bout your age when I found my way here, now it’s all I know.
What am I gonna do when all that there face paint don’t hide
that I’m an old girl? Then none of these here men will want
Iris, they’ll be wantin’ something fresh and new – like you.”
“Couldn’t you just get married to one of the men before
you get old?” Cora asked.
Iris laughed, “No man, black nor white, wants this cow
now that they had all the milk. Moren’ likely, I’ll be doing what
you’re doin’ now, taking care of the girls still young enough to
make men ask for them,” she said, taking a long drag on her
cigarette and blowing the smoke out slowly as she thought
about the truth she’d just told.
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“You can read, can’t you little Cora?” Iris asked.
“Went to school through almost 6th grade,” Cora
said proudly.
“Then you count on that kind of learnin’, not the education
you get workin’ what’s between your legs.”
“I read books all the time. You don’t make no money readin’
books,” Cora said.
“Some women do,” Iris said. “I’ve seen them in
Charlottesville in their fine homes with servants and hus-
bands attendin’ to them. They found their refinement in book
learnin’, little Cora. You could be a teacher. You halfway there
cause you can read. Those books that Miss Sally keeps in the
parlor—they just decoration to me but you can get the learnin’
that’s in ‘em, then you can teach me and we can both be ladies.”
Iris got up from the bed and did an elaborate curtsy that sent
young Cora into a fit of giggles. A moment later, Iris turned
serious. She stood next to Cora who still sat at her vanity. For
a few moments she looked at their reflection in the mirror. Iris
picked up her hairbrush and began slowly and lovingly brushing
Cora’s long black hair, tears filled her eyes.
“If you brush your hair one hundred strokes at night it will
shine like a new penny,” Iris said “My Mama used to tell me
that.” She was silent for a few minutes then she said, “Little
Cora, what we do here is kill dreams. Women don’t get to
decide much in this life but we can still dream. Don’t let no
one take that from you. Don’t let dreams go so easy—don’t do
that to yourself. You’re a looker that’s for sure and right here,
right now, men who can’t get a looker like you on their own are
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willin’ to pay to pretend they can. Make ‘em pay with a ring,
not a few dollars a couple times a week. Iris can tell you smart
and strong too. Put the looks, books and the ‘bilities God gave
you together and use your gifts to find another way.”
(IV)
“Charlotte, Charlotte, where’d you go?” Lance asked.
Charlotte blinked looking at Lance as if she had never seen
him before, “Charlotte!” he said, shaking her.
Charlotte flinched. “Don’t hit me, please don’t let him hit
me. Moses!” she screamed, “Moses help me!”
Lance grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her, “Charlotte,
I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Lance?” she asked, “what are you doing here?” Charlotte
was shaking; Lance embraced his grandmother for the first
time in thirty years. Charlotte initial y stiffened, unaccustomed
to kindness in their contact with each other, then relaxed into
her grandson.
“I loved you more than any of them,” she whispered. “My
mother, my husband, even my daughter, I love you more than
any of them. After everything I’d been through I didn’t think
I could love like that, until you were born, Lance, until you.”
“Why me Charlotte?” Lance asked.
She was silent for a few moments, then said, “Because I
had to make sure you got the freedom and the future none
of the rest of us could have. You were born white and male,
that gave you the power and authority to make life lie down
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before you. Your father almost took it from you, but I got it
back. Whatever I did wasn’t to hurt anyone, I did what was
necessary to make sure nothing and no one stood in your way.
I was the only one who knew everything—what it was like to
be nothing and believe that’s all there is. I was the only one
who had seen it all. You would have better. I had to make it
better for you, otherwise there was no point to it at all. I just
wanted, I just wanted—”
“What we all want Charlotte, to be loved and accepted,”
Lance finished her thought. “You’re safe now, okay? We all are,”
he said, more tenderly than he knew he could be. Charlotte
clung to him, crying tears that went back seven decades.
She is still running from her past, just like I am, Lance thought.
He couldn’t hate Charlotte anymore. She had given him a gift
tonight, a glimpse of what his future would be like if he did
not have the courage to love Emma. All the fear, hate, and loss
would fester until he ended up like Charlotte—alone and afraid.
When Charlotte had exhausted herself Lance said, “We
will keep each other’s secrets,” remembering what Belle had
told him so many years ago.
He helped Charlotte to her bed and when she was set-
tled, he took her hands in his. Spotted with age, her skin was
pale, and transparent enough to see her veins filled with the
blue blood she aspired to. This is what we use to divide us from one another, he thought, running his thumb over the back of Charlotte’s hand, tracing the raised veins set against the pale
skin that made her heritage invisible. He put her hands to his
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lips and kissed them. Charlotte gasped, pulled him to her and
kissed her grandson for the first time in decades.
“I buried them together,” she said. “Your parents, I did that
for my daughter. Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond. I buried
them there, together.”
Lance sat with her until she fell asleep. He left Charlotte’s
room thinking how close he was to her fate, but Emma
could save him.
(V)
Lance had no idea how to find Emma. As far as he knew,
her whole life had been 580 Park. He knew she had no family
in London. He interrogated the staff and searched her office
and her room. The only other place he could think to look
was where they had been together. He flew back to Jamaica,
hoping Winsom could tell him where to find Emma, but even
when he threatened to fire her, she claimed ignorance. Soon
after, Winsom left the villa at Round Hill and went to work
for another family.
Even a private detective could not find Emma. Lance
replayed their last moments together in his mind and
wondered if she ever intended to be at the house when he
returned. “Forever, I will love you forever,” she’d said. Had
she meant he would be in her heart forever, not in her life?
After a year of searching and waiting, he stopped looking,
and settled back into his old life, a life that now did not suit
him quite as well as it had before.
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• 22 •
March 1969
(I)
Charlotte Bennett died in her sleep three years
after she sent Emma away. The funeral was in the
main chapel of Saint Thomas Episcopal Church on
Fifth Avenue. A few of Lance’s artist friends, some of his
business associates, and the house staff were sparsely scattered
throughout the large chapel. Lance sat alone in the first pew
reserved for members of the immediate family. As the service
started, a woman walked to the front of the church, stood for
a second looking at Lance and then eased in the pew across
the aisle from him. Dressed in black, she looked straight ahead
throughout the service. When she did look Lance’s way again,
he was looking at her. The two held each other’s gaze for a few
seconds, then Emma looked away.
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When the service was over, Lance left the church with the