The Secrets She Carried (45 page)

Annie jerked her chin again but said nothing.

“So you
do
know what happened—both of you?”

Landis and Annie Mae shared a furtive glance. Before either could reply, Jay arrived with a tray. The silence thickened while he poured out four mugs, then set out the cream and sugar. When he was finished he stood behind Leslie’s chair, arms folded, waiting.

Annie Mae stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into one of the mugs and passed it to Landis, who cupped it unsteadily and sipped. His glasses steamed briefly. When they cleared, his eyes were fixed on Leslie.

“We was all just boys.”

“Randall and Samuel were your brothers,” Leslie supplied to bring Jay up to speed. “The other boys the police picked up that night.”

Landis barely nodded. “We used to do odd jobs for Mrs. Gavin, chopping wood and such. It wasn’t much money, but back then it was more than a lot of folks could get their hands on. Then one day she paid us each a little extra to bother that woman.”

Leslie abandoned her own mug and sat up straighter. “You mean Adele?”

“I didn’t know her name then, but yeah, the woman who lived in the cottage. We’d mess up her garden, or yank her clothes off the line and stomp ’em in the mud. She knew it was us, of course. She didn’t like us much. Didn’t like your granny running with us, either. One day she caught us all out behind the barn and gave us what for. Me and Annie Mae lit out, but my brothers, they never got past it, especially
Randy. The way he saw it, a woman like that didn’t have no place telling him what to do. Even if she was grown and taking care of old man Gavin on the quiet.”

Annie Mae was staring down at her lap, fidgeting with the frayed finger of one of her gloves while her coffee went cold.

Leslie didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “You knew Adele was Henry’s mistress?”

Porter nodded, shaking loose an oily lock of hair so that it fell into his eyes. “Everyone knew. Only people liked the old man too much to talk about it. It was all pretty quiet until she had that boy.”

“Jemmy,” Annie Mae supplied, the first words she had uttered since her arrival. “His name was Jemmy.”

“That’s when the real talk started,” Landis continued. “Didn’t look nothing like his daddy, but we knew it for sure.”

Leslie glanced between them. “How?”

Annie Mae pushed away her mug and folded her hands on the scarred oak tabletop. “Because I was there the day he was born. Mr. Henry was too, proud as any new daddy I ever saw.” She swallowed hard and let her eyes slide to the window. “That’s how they knew for sure—’cause I told.”

Landis picked up the thread as if Annie Mae hadn’t spoken. “Didn’t take long for word to get back to the old man’s wife. After that I guess she lost her mind. One day she called Randy up to the house and put a proposal to him.”

It was Jay’s turn to join the conversation. “What kind of proposal?”

“She offered to pay him fifty dollars.”

Leslie blinked at Porter, uncomprehending. “Fifty dollars…to do what?”

Behind the thick glasses the old man’s eyes fluttered closed. He dragged in a deep, wet breath. “To burn her.”

Leslie was aware of the blood slowly ebbing from her limbs, of
Jay’s hand closing hard on her shoulder, of the slow, heavy tick of the kitchen clock, but there were no words in her head, nothing that could convey the horror of what she’d just heard. If Porter noticed her distress, he gave no sign. He went on talking, as if having begun, he found himself unable to stop until he’d told it all.

“Randy offered to split the money three ways if we’d help him. We said we would. Fifty dollars was a fortune back then. It took five nights of waiting before she finally come out to the shed. Randy had the kerosene, and Sam brought a bunch of old rags. We waited ’til she was inside; then Randy counted to three and we all lit out—only I ran the other way. Reckon all those nights of waiting turned me chicken. I tore all the way to Annie Mae’s and told her everything. She made me call the police. I didn’t give my name or rat on anybody, just said there was a fire at the Gavin place. Then me and Annie Mae lit out on my bike to go back and wait for the engine.”

For a moment Leslie thought she was going to be sick. “You let them do it,” she whispered hoarsely. “You knew they were going to murder a woman, and you just let them do it.”

Porter’s narrow shoulders sagged. “They may’ve been my brothers, but one time I saw Randy beat a kid so bad he lost an eye, and he’d have done worse to me if I told. So yes, I let them do it. Been living with it ever since, too. That’s why I’m here today, because I’m sick to death of living with it.”

Leslie had gone from being physically unable to speak to simply having no idea what to say. Was she supposed to commend him for coming forward—now, when it was too late to help anyone? Comfort him for his years of guilty suffering? But no, Annie Mae was taking care of that. Her hand closed tight over the old man’s blue-white knuckles, her eyes soft and full of feeling.

“Miss Nichols, I know what you think, but I been living with this man ever since my Minnie Maw died. I wasn’t but sixteen when my pa kicked me out, couldn’t cook or wash or nothing, but he took me in,
took care of me. He’s a good man who got caught up in a bad thing when he was young. He’s done a lot of good since then. None of it can bring back that lady, but he would if he could, I swear it.”

Jay’s face was strangely pale as he stepped from behind Leslie’s chair. “And where was Maggie when they started the fire?”

Porter raised damp eyes, clearly confused. “The girl?”

“Henry’s daughter,” Jay barked. “Where was she?”

“I guess she was in the house with her mama. How should I know?”

“You’re telling us she didn’t have anything to do with the fire?”

Porter’s eyes shot wide. “Where in hell would you get a fool idea like that?”

Leslie took a breath so deep it left her dizzy. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we finally know what happened that night, and why.”

“Lots of folks wouldn’t care to know,” Annie Mae answered softly, her lower lip jutting thoughtfully. “Most folks just be happy to leave it all stay buried, couldn’t bother themselves to learn what happened to a woman like that.”

Leslie felt her protective hackles rise. “And what kind of woman would that be?”

Annie looked momentarily startled, then shook her head. “Oh no, ma’am, I didn’t mean that. I helped Minnie Maw bring enough babies on the quiet to know that happens pretty regular. No, I mean not white.”

Leslie’s mouth hung open a moment. “I don’t…I’m sorry…not white?”

Porter had been wiping his glasses on the hem of his shirt. He looked up now. “Sweet God in heaven, Annie Mae. The girl has no idea what you’re talking about.”

“He’s right, Annie Mae, I don’t.”

Annie Mae squirmed uncomfortably, her eyes back on the gloves in her lap. “I mean, not white, Miss Nichols, just like I said.”

Leslie blinked several times, then swiveled her head in Jay’s direction. He looked almost as dazed as she felt. Not white? How was that even possible? She thought of the portrait over the fireplace, her grandmother’s skin so smooth and pale, her features fine as porcelain. If Adele was Maggie’s mother—and they had a document proving that she was—how could she have been anything but white? Unfortunately, it wasn’t a question suitable for sharing with Landis and Annie Mae.

“But I’ve seen her picture,” Leslie said instead. “She was—”

“The prettiest woman I ever saw when she grow’d up. Yes, ma’am, I’ll give you that. Had that creamy skin and all that shiny hair. If it wasn’t for that little boy coming along, she might have gotten by. Plenty of folks did back then, so they could get work, or schooling. Hard life, though, breaking off from your family, and scared to death all the time that you’ll slip up and give yourself away. Passing, they called it. Fitting, I suppose, since it really was a kind of dying.”

Leslie shook her head as the truth of it sunk deep. Adele Laveau had been of mixed race. By the standards of the day, that made her black, which meant, fair skin or no, Maggie would have been counted black as well, since the one-drop rule still applied in those days. And in the South, had it ever really stopped applying? Her head came up slowly as a new thought occurred.

“Did Henry know?”

Annie Mae nodded. “Oh, he knew all right. No way not to when the boy came. All curly headed and brown, he was. But Mr. Gavin wasn’t one bit surprised when Minnie Maw put that child in his arms. He loved him right off. There wasn’t no missing that.”

A sickening possibility struck Leslie. “The night of the fire, was Jemmy—” She let her voice trail off, the words too awful to say aloud.

“No.” It was Porter who chimed in, his voice thinner than before but emphatic. “The boy wasn’t with her. She was alone.”

“Mr. Gavin sent the boy away not long after,” Annie Mae went on.
“To live with his grandmama, I expect. My uncle, he was a porter back in those days, said it had to be Adele’s mama who carried him onto the train, because she favored the boy’s mother so much. Said Mr. Gavin looked like he was about to break in two when he handed the child over. After, when the story went around about Adele’s mama taking the boy back home, no one who knew better said different. And that was the end of it.”

No one said anything for a long time. Annie Mae snuck a glance at Landis, who continued to study the floor, his slender shoulders heaving with the effort to breathe. Jay stood with his arms folded, clearly too numb to speak.

“Tell whoever you want,” Porter wheezed at last. “I’m long past caring.”

His lips were a deeper blue now, his skin waxy and gray. He needed to get home to his oxygen, and truth be told, Leslie was ready to be rid of him. Her head was already pounding, and she desperately needed time to digest the news and to contemplate this startling new branch on her family tree.

“Mr. Porter,” she said, standing more abruptly than she intended. “I know you said you didn’t come to help me. I’m also sure you can’t understand why this was so important. Just know that it was, and that I’m very grateful to you both.”

Annie Mae took her cue gracefully, lurching to her feet. Wedging a thick arm beneath Porter’s, she helped him up from his chair. When she attempted to rewrap his scarf, he swatted her hands away and shuffled toward the door.

L
eslie glanced up when she heard the front door close. Jay flipped on a lamp and stood looking down at her on the sofa.

“Have you been crying?”

Leslie dabbed at her eyes. “No…maybe. Did they get off all right?”

Jay nodded grimly. “Annie Mae’s driving, thank God. He looked awful.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t easy for him. Hell, it wasn’t easy for me, and all I had to do was listen.”

Jay squatted down before her, curling her chilly fingers in his. His hair was damp with melting sleet, the scent of winter still clinging to his jacket. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Leslie shook her head. “Honestly, I’m not sure I can. I have no idea what to think, let alone say. It’s all so awful.”

“Not all of it.”

Jay’s relief was palpable. While she’d been horrified by the grisly details of that awful night, Jay had been relieved to learn once and for all that his suspicions about Maggie had been unfounded.

“You’re relieved,” she said, a simple statement of fact.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.” He dropped down beside her on the sofa. “I’ve been grappling with those thoughts for more than a year,
hating myself for having them, and yet never quite able to shake them. Now I get why your grandmother couldn’t bring herself to tell me the rest. All that time I thought she was involved. Turns out just knowing what happened was enough.”

“You think she knew it wasn’t an accident, then?”

“She knew something. Maybe she overheard the boys talking or saw something the night of the fire. We’ll never know.”

“And the part about Adele being her mother and not being white—do you think she knew about that too?”

“Again, we’ll never know. Does it…bother you?”

Leslie turned to look at him, mildly surprised. “You mean that I…” Her voice trailed away as she inventoried her jumbled emotions, trying to locate some shred of shame or outrage simmering just beneath the surface, but there was nothing. “No, I don’t think it does. I’m still me. Adele Laveau was my great-grandmother. The rest is just ancient history. Maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling so drawn to her, because some part of me knew. Do you think that’s possible?”

Jay squeezed her hand but gave no answer.

“‘When I gave you up to a new and better life,’” Leslie said softly. “The letter I found in the attic—the one from Adele’s mother—spoke of giving Adele up to a better life. She meant a white life. But it wasn’t a better life. It was just a different life, one that forced her to hide who and what she was. And then Maggie had to lie.”

“It was a different time, Leslie. And it was the South. The scandal would have ruined Henry and taken Peak down with it. In those days if you crossed racial lines they’d burn a cross on your lawn.”

Leslie turned her eyes up to him. “Or burn down your shed?”