Deep Dixie (43 page)

“
Only way to get answers is to ask, lamb.
”

Dixie rounded her shoulders as she looped her arms over one upraised knee.
“
Where to start...I want to know why you kept it secret so long and who all you
’
ve kept it secret from? How
’
d you manage to get married in Mississippi and then stay married without anyone suspecting, especially when you had a child together—
”

“
Now that part is easy to answer, child. Let me start there. We did not marry in Mississippi. We never would have been permitted to, no matter how rich or powerful the Founder may have been.
”
Lettie brushed her fingers over the gold-stamped name in the corner of the Bible.
“
We married up north while we accompanied young Samantha Eugenia and George Robert—your grandparents—on their extensive wedding trip.
”

“
You...went with them on their honeymoon?
”

“
Different times, Dixie Belle, different times,
”
she croaked out, her head shaking.
“
If you can
’
t stop looking on this through modern eyes and try to see how it was back then, how it used to be so many years ago, then there ain
’
t no sense even going on with the tellin
’
of it.
”

“
I just...
“
Dixie looked at the kind old smile, and her heart melted.
“
Go on, please.
”

Lettie lifted her head and patted the gray-white fuzz of her hair as if it were a mantel of silver.
“
You know, Founder Fulton hand-picked me to accompany him back to Fulton
’
s Dominion from New Orleans in the summer of nineteen seventeen?
”

“
I know.
”
She thought of trying to move Lettie along, to get to the marriage and the secrets and what needed to be done now concerning Fulton. But she held her tongue, knowing one wrong word might cause the woman with a century
’
s-worth of history in her to withdraw and not speak of it again.

“
He
’
d saw me standing on a balcony with my mother, who was much fairer than me.
”
Lettie looked off into an unseen distance as if she were watching it replay again before her age-clouded eyes.
“
I was brushing her long, black hair, ever-so gentle. She was a frail thing, my mother, prone to headaches and long bouts of taking to her bed. I loved her so and I loved to brush that long, silky hair of hers. I always took care not to tug or fight the tangles, but to stroke them out slow, over and over, until they got good and gone.
”

“
I remember.
”
Dixie smiled, recalling the times in her childhood when Lettie had combed through her snarled wet hair without so much as a snag.

“
Founder Fulton thought I was my mother
’
s serving girl and he came straightaway to the
house to ask could he hire me off to come tend to his wife and the new baby they was expecting. My mother saw it as the answer to a prayer, seeing as she was so sickly and worried how I
’
d get on after she was gone.
”
Lettie fell silent.

Dixie could see in the woman
’
s ancient eyes how much she still loved and missed her mother. It was a sentiment Dixie knew well.

“
Founder Fulton promised my mother that if I said yes and come along, he would look after me, look after my spiritual welfare, and that I
’
d always be treated like one of his own while in his home.
”

“
But all those years, Miss Lettie, everyone thought you were the maid when you should have been the mistress of the household. That
’
s not being treated as one of—
”

“
That was reality, child. I was the baby maid for a time, until that baby grew up. Then not long after that, the baby come back to live here, and we had more babies to raise.
”

“
One of them yours.
”

“
Yes, one of them my Helen Betty.
”

“
How did you keep who her father was a secret, Miss Lettie?
”

She shrugged.
“
At the time, I figured ain
’
t nobody cared what a little colored baby maid did, who her child was, or even who her child
’
s father was. Looking back now, I reckon more folks knew, or at least suspected, than let on. But they never said a thing. They wouldn
’
t, long as they thought we wasn
’
t married and I was kept in my proper place.
”

“
Why?
”

“
Marriage, now, that represented a threat to too many people. To say back then that a colored and a white could love one another like a husband and wife, to think that a little brown- skinned woman could be respected as a partner by the town
’
s founder, it would have scared lots of folks—scared them silly. And when a thing like that happens, ain
’
t no one safe.
”

Dixie
’
s heart ached for all the wrongs she realized Miss Lettie had endured, for all the misunderstandings, many of them her own, that had affected how people had behaved toward the old woman.
“
But you loved and respected my great grandfather no matter what people might have thought of it, I can hear it in your voice when you talk about him.
”

“
Yes, I did, as he did me. I never once doubted Founder Fulton
’
s affection for me, though he rarely showed any kind of emotion toward anyone. That
’
s the way men acted back then.
”

“
What about Helen Betty?
”

“
He loved her, too, dear, but you have to understand—
”

“
I know, it was a different time.
”

“
And Founder Fulton was a man of his times, and his times were even farther back than mine. He was over sixty when we married, you understand. I was nigh onto forty my own self.
”

“
Oh.
”
Dixie blinked.
“
I guess I didn
’
t realize that.
”

“
He acknowledged Helen Betty and provided a fine upbringing for her and remembered her generously in his will.
”
Lettie looked away.
“
For all the good
that
did her.
”

Dixie wanted to ask about the cryptic remark, but before she could find a way to phrase the delicate question, Lettie had started on her tale again.

“
When Helen Betty was still quite young, her daddy passed over so that she never really knew him. But we went on living here, your grandfather running that fool automobile dealership of his that never earned a nickel and your grandmother and me raising our babies together. Strange as it may seem to you, we didn
’
t stop to think what was fair or who deserved to inherit what. We were a family—one of our own making and not to everyone
’
s taste, for sure, but a family all the same.
”

“
A family that pretended to the world that you and your child were outsiders, Miss Lettie.
”

The old woman set the chair rocking and laid her head against the small, white pillow tied to the back of the seat.
“
I suppose that
’
s so. And suppose days came I wasn
’
t none too happy about that. But it
’
s all so long ago, child. I
’
ve let go of any ill feelings I might have harbored and I ain
’
t no outsider now, not in my heart, not in God
’
s eyes.
”

“
But—
”

“
Founder Fulton been dead half my lifetime ago, Miss Dixie Belle. That
’
s a considerable long time.
”
Lettie
’
s mouth stretched into her broadest grin, revealing the pale gums where she
’
d been missing teeth since before Dixie was born.
“
Why you want to fuss over all this now? It don
’
t make sense and it don
’
t change nothing. It is what it is: the past.
”

“
It
’
s not entirely the past, Miss Lettie.
”
She laid her hand on Lettie
’
s bone-thin arm.
“
You say you feel like you
’
re a part of this family and you are, just like Sis is, just like Grandpa.
”

“
Now, you don
’
t got no call to set to bad-mouthing me.
”
Lettie held her hand up, coughing out her dry cackle.

Dixie shook her head.
“
What I mean is we all love each other, but because of this secret you
’
ve kept for so long, there
’
s a part of our family that
’
s missing. You have a grandson--
”

“
Ain
’
t the secret that kept him away, lamb.
”
Lettie shook her head and pursed her lips before she went on.
“
My Helen Betty was hardly sixteen when she met that no- good Wallace Summers. I begged her not to see him. She ignored my advice. I warned her that if she ever told him about who her father was she might be placing herself and me in jeopardy
”

“
You actually feared for your lives?
”

“
It was turbulent times for colored and whites. Who knows what might have happened, and without Founder Fulton alive to protect us...
”

Dixie cringed, her stomach tied in knots at the idea of what that must have been like for this sweet, dear soul.
“
Oh, Miss Lettie, I am so sorry. How many times you must have wanted to just—
”

“
Blessed is the man who endureth temptation: for when he is tired, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised them that love him.
”
She quoted from the book of James without having to open so much as the cover of the Bible still resting in her lap.

Dixie could only nod.

“
Helen Betty never told Summers about who her daddy was, I
’
d swear that much is true.
”
Lettie placed her hand on top of the Bible as if she were taking an oath in a court of law.
“
And she promised not to tell her son until he was full growed. Of course, you know she died before she saw that happen.
”

“
Then don
’
t you owe it to her, to yourself, to our family to correct that, Miss Lettie? To tell Fulton the truth?
”

“
Fulton.
”
She gave a weak smile and her eyes closed.
“
You found him then.
”

“
Found him?
You mean you knew?
”

“
Well, I did tell you
and
Mr. Walker that I had a grandson who was a lawyer in Jackson at a time when you both said you needed a lawyer. Don
’
t get much better of a rowboat than that, girl.
”

Dixie laughed.
“
Then you want to see him? Because he said you—
”

“
The question is does he want to see me, lamb?
”
Lettie
’
s usually rasping voice grew strong.
“
It
’
s been his choice all this time. I ain
’
t gone nowhere. He could have found me if he wanted.
”