The Secrets She Carried (49 page)
“Thank you for coming with me,” she said into the collar of his jacket. “And for not thinking I’m crazy.”
“Can I ask you something?” His chest hummed as he spoke. “Why include your photo? With the exception of that picture, everything in the box belonged to the past.”
She stepped back but kept hold of his hands. “I’ve never been very sentimental, but I wanted there to be something of mine. I’m here because of her—all of this is. It was Adele who gave Henry his children, Adele who’s responsible for Peak still being in my family. I didn’t want this to just be about the past. I wanted it to be about the future too. I wanted her to know that something good finally came from all that love and pain.”
Jay smiled and wiped a streak of dirt from her cheek. “For someone who’s never been very sentimental, you’re certainly making up for lost time.”
“I know you’re teasing, but I’ve been thinking. Most of my family’s problems occur because we never stop trying to run away from home. Maybe we don’t all pack knapsacks and hitch a ride out of town, but we find ways to do it. Adele left an entire race behind. Maggie spent years pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Jimmy drank himself into a stupor trying to drown the voice of his conscience. And I ran off to the big city, hoping I’d forget I was ever here at all.”
Jay lifted a strand of hair out of her eyes. “And yet, here you are, back for good.”
She kissed him then, a warm, brief graze along his lower lip. “That’s the thing. That’s what I finally figured out. The past never dies. And no matter how hard you try, you can never really run away from home.”
T
he Poison Moon was standing room only, the air humming with idle chatter. It seemed half the town had turned out. Leslie’s stomach knotted. She’d expected twenty, maybe even thirty, but nothing like this. As she scanned the sea of familiar faces, the bell on the front door jangled and another string of guests filed in.
She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the strains of Celtic holiday music drifting through the shop. The place looked amazing, a wonderland of twinkle lights and evergreens and gold and silver ribbon. Deanna had gone all out, but then she wasn’t likely to skimp when it came to a reading by Gavin’s own Master of Heartbreak.
Young Buck had already found the refreshment table and was filling a pair of plastic cups with something pink and frothy, a star-shaped cookie stuffed into his mouth. Beside him, Angie looked vaguely frazzled, shooing Sammi Lee from the cookie tray with one hand, holding her rounded belly with the other. Sammi Lee’s baby brother was due at the end of February and, if Young Buck had his way, would likely end up being called Baby Buck, despite his mother’s strenuous objections.
The front door jangled open again. Leslie checked her watch. They’d be starting soon. Heading back to her seat in the front row,
she dropped down beside Jimmy, grateful when she felt him give her shoulder a squeeze.
If Jay was nervous, he gave no sign, standing in the small clearing amid the sea of folding chairs, chatting with Deanna, resting one hand on a table groaning with copies of
The Secrets She Carried
waiting to be autographed. He must have felt her eyes because he turned and shot her a wink. Deanna snuck a look at the clock behind the checkout counter, then leaned in to whisper something in his ear. When he nodded, she stepped away, moving to stand beside the stool.
“Everybody,” she called over the low drone of guests. “If you’ll take your seats I think we’re ready to start.”
After several moments of rustling coats and clanking metal chairs, a hush fell over the room. Deanna smiled her bright pink smile and cleared her throat.
“First, I’d like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. I’m sorry about not having enough chairs, but we’ve never had this kind of turnout before. I hope we’re not breaking any fire codes, but if we are, I’m counting on Sandra Toomey to smooth things out with her hubby, who is on shift as we speak.”
She paused until the chuckles subsided. “As most of you know, we’ve had a bona fide celebrity living right here in our little town. Seven years ago, Jay Davenport—sometimes known as J. D. Hartwell—honored us by choosing Gavin as his home. I doubt anyone missed the recent notice in the
Gazette
announcing his engagement to Maggie Gavin’s granddaughter, Leslie, who finally came home to us last summer. But what most of us didn’t know is that for quite a while now, he’s been working on his eighth novel, called
The Secrets She Carried
, and now, after years of silence from one of the country’s most beloved authors, it’s finally here—hot off the presses and sure to sell like hotcakes.”
There was a premature smattering of applause. Jay smiled tightly, tugging at his collar as if it had suddenly grown too tight.
Deanna gushed on. “The best part is we have him here tonight to read an excerpt from that new book.” She held out an arm, beckoning him forward. “So now, without further ado, please welcome our own…Jay Davenport.”
Jay took a seat on the stool, nodding graciously while he waited for the applause to die down. When it did, he opened the book to the last page and began to read…
It’s a soul-wrenching thing to live a lie.
God knows I’ve lived more than my share—but not with Henry. From the beginning he knew who I was, and what I was. There are lots of names for what I was. Quadroon, high yellow, colored—and lots more polite folks don’t say in company. Henry knew them all. He knew what loving me might mean, but loved me anyway. If the good people of our little town ever guessed the truth about me—about us—it would have finished him. Not the breach of his wedding vows; plenty of folks overlooked that transgression. It’s the other they would never forgive.
Forgiveness is a pretty word, flung down into pews on Sunday mornings, but in the backs of small-town shops and in the parlors of neat white houses, it is not so freely tendered, and harder still to find when it is ourselves we must forgive. And yet that’s all that’s left to us, really, when our fires burn down and our embers are all out, to own the choices our hearts have made, and not pretend we could have done different.
We are each of us dealt our little measure of time, set down on a road, and made to find our way home. But every man’s road is different, every woman’s, too, and the right way comes clear only when we’re looking at it from over our shoulder, when for better or worse we have chosen at the forked
places and must live with what we chose. I suspect, for those who never had to stand at such a fork, the way must seem very clear indeed.
It’s a mean thing for the heart, straddling the fence between the known and the new, walking between worlds and belonging to none. Sooner or later the heart must choose. Mine was no different. I know now that when I got on that bus all those years ago, I was really just making my way home, to Henry and this place he loved with his whole heart. Peak is where I belong, where, thanks to Henry, my blood will always flow in the veins of its women, and my bones will always lie in its soil.
You’ve heard my story now—my sin and all its wages. I am weary from the telling but sorry for none of it. I made my choices and I have answered for them. Do I have regrets? Once perhaps…but no more. The heart wants what it wants, you see, and eternity is much too long for regrets.
CONVERSATION GUIDE
THE
SECRETS
SHE
CARRIED
BARBARA DAVIS
This Conversation Guide is intended to enrich the
individual reading experience, as well as encourage us
to explore these topics together—because books,
and life, are meant for sharing.
CONVERSATION GUIDE
QUESTIONS
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Running away rather than confronting uncomfortable situations is one of the themes of the book. What situations, past or present, is Leslie fleeing? Are the potential consequences she fears emotional, physical, or both?
2. What other characters in the book are seeking to run away from something, and how does that avoidance express itself? What pitfalls do they encounter as a result?
3. In the early part of the book, the relationship between Leslie and Jay is tense and wary. What events eventually lead them to realize they may have misjudged each other?
4. How does Adele’s voice (first person, present tense) contribute to the overall flavor of the book? How did you feel about her story being told from beyond the grave?
5. Do you have a favorite passage or scene from the book, and if so, what about it speaks to you?
6. The book includes two women who evolve deeply as a result of story events. Discuss how Leslie and Adele change, learn, and grow over the course of the book. What specific events lead to this growth?
7. Discuss Henry’s strengths and weaknesses. Though Adele never stops loving him, how does her perception of him change as the book progresses? How did you feel about his decision to send Jemmy away?
8. How does Leslie’s sense of family evolve over the course of the novel, and what events or discoveries specifically influence that evolution?
9. Discuss the concepts of forgiveness and redemption and how they are addressed in the book. Which characters require redemption and why? Which characters bestow forgiveness, and how is it shown?
10.
The heart wants what it wants
is repeated several times throughout the book. Do you see Adele relinquishing Maggie to Susanne as an act of strength or weakness? Does love justify any action?
11. At the end of the book, we discover that Adele is part African American and has been passing as white. How do you think southern society in the 1930s would have responded to someone like Adele, especially in light of her relationship with Henry?
12. The book closes with Adele speaking of the choices she has made over her life, as well as the wages of her sins. How does her assertion that we can only choose in the moment and then live with what we have chosen stand up to your own beliefs about life choices and regret?
After spending more than a decade in the jewelry business,
Barbara Davis
decided to leave the corporate world to pursue her lifelong passion for writing.
The Secrets She Carried
is her first novel. She currently lives near Raleigh, North Carolina, with the love of her life, Tom Kelley, and their beloved ginger cat, Simon.