Journals of the Secret Keeper (2 page)

"Etta, why haven't you asked me about
Andrik," she said.
Willetta frowned, "Who is Andrik?"
"The young man you met in the yard today,"
Mama Jean said. She reached her hand out toward
Willetta. Willetta took it and guided her into the
kitchen.
"How do you know there was a young man
in the yard," Willetta asked. She had no idea how
much Mama Jean had heard.
"He was in here helping me when he heard
your car coming down the road. He stepped out on
the yard to see who was coming. Don't nobody
come down this road too much," she said.
"He takes care of you," she asked
incredulously.
"Yes. I took care of him ever since he was a
baby," Mama Jean said. "Some people show
appreciation for that kind of thing."
"I've never seen him before in my life,"
Willetta scoffed. Either Mama Jean was crazy or
she was making up stuff.
"Your mamma brought you to me when you
were nine. Andrik was eighteen and gone off to
college by that time. He's Stanley Thompson's
boy."
"What! Mama Jean that man doesn't look a
thing like Stanley Thompson." Willetta laughed.
Mama Jean sat at the table and waited for
Willetta to fix her plate. "Well, that's his boy and
now since Stanley is dead, Andrik owns all that land
and that beautiful house too," she said.
Willetta busied herself fixing Mama Jean's
plate. Her thoughts were on the tall dark-skinned
man who had stopped her car from running into
Mama Jean's front porch. He didn't look like
someone who had grown up down the same country
road she had grown up. He looked distinguished
and educated even though he was driving an old
beat-up pickup. Looks were always so deceiving.
Was anything ever as it actually seemed?
Willetta put the plate before Mama Jean and
sat down beside her. "Can you feed yourself,
mama," she asked.
"I can try. Andrik usually feeds me. He's a
good boy," she sighed.
Without a word, Willetta picked up the
spoon and began to feed Mama Jean. She was only
able to take a few spoonfuls of everything, before
she declared she was full. Willetta gave her a glass
of juice and then led her away from the table. She
sponge bathed her and put her into a fresh gown.
Willetta then led her to the small bedroom they
always shared.
"Etta, I ain't smelled candles burning for a
long time. Thank you, baby," Mama Jean said
before pulling the covers up to her chin and closing
her eyes. Her breathing eventually evened out and
Willetta knew she was asleep.
She sat on the bed she used to sleep in. It
was less than a foot away from Mama Jean's. She
could reach out and touch Mama Jean from her
bed. They had slept like that for years. Willetta
missed the closeness they once shared.
Candlelight flickered against the low
ceiling. Willetta lay back against the pillows and
stretched out on her bed. She had showered and
changed earlier. She wore a t-shirt and baggy
flannel shorts. She was ready for bed and tired, but
knew from long ago that leaving food out when
your home sat in the middle of a field was not the
best idea. So, she got up and went back into the
kitchen.
The knock at the door frightened her and she
screamed. The door flew open and the huge man
that Mama Jean claimed was Stanley Thompson's
son suddenly filled the kitchen. Willetta stood in
the middle of the kitchen and stared at him in
disbelief.
"Are you all right," he asked.
"I was until you scared the mess out of me.
What do you want?" she said
Andrik's eyes traveled the length of her. Her
hair was tousled and unkempt around her head and
face. The t-shirt she wore was tight and stretched
across her breast. A small bit of stomach showed
between the shirt hemline and the waist of the
baggy flannel shorts. She was indecent. But she
was at home and he was not.
Willetta would not give him the advantage
of making her nervous. "I said what do you want,"
she repeated and turned her back on him as she
walked to the sink to run water for the dishes.
Andrik had never seen a woman look so
adorable in the most ridiculous outfits. "I came to
make sure Mama Jean was okay. Did she eat?" he
asked.
Willetta turned slowly away from the sink to
face him again. "Look, Andrik. She told me who
you are. I'm here now. Please do not invade my
privacy by bursting in on me in the middle of the
night. I am quite capable of taking care of Mama
Jean without your help. Thank you for everything
you have done, but you may leave now," she said.
He crossed the room in one step and once
again was in her face. "You don't thank me for
taking care of my own. Mama Jean is more mine
than yours. She raised me for eighteen years and I
left her with a hug and a smile. I called, wrote
letters, sent postcards, and came home when she
asked me to. What have you done Willetta? You
came home when you thought she was dead. I saw
that smile on your face as you drove into the yard.
You may fool Mama Jean, but you don't fool me."
he finished meanly.
What did he think? What did Mama Jean
think? Willetta was tired of it all. "For your
information I left here to keep from breaking Mama
Jean's heart. I was raped by a boy who was older
than me after school one day. That one encounter
got me pregnant. I was scared to death to tell Mama
Jean and so I ran away.
I ended up in a hospital in
Atlanta, Georgia having a miscarriage. I have not
looked back since then. I'm here now. So, please
leave me alone and go away. If you don't think I'm
good enough to take care of Mama Jean, give me
my keys back and I will leave her to you."
Willetta
said.
Andrik didn't know whether to be stunned at
her candidness, her awful experience, or her
flippant willingness to leave Mama Jean again.
Two things were for sure. She was not at all what
he had expected and she definitely needed his
expertise, but not for what Mama Jean thought.
CHAPTER 4
The kitchen was cast in shadows of goldenyellow hues. The flickering of the small flames of
the candelabrums seemed to make soft noises of
their own as silence settled over the kitchen.
Andrik's face was taut, but without expression. His
eyes, though, sparkled with a new alertness and
intensity. Willetta instantly regretted her outburst.
She just didn't have patience for judgments made by
people ignorant of the facts.
"Mama Jean is not really my grandmother,"
she said by way of explanation.
Andrik stood to his full height and reached
for one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He settled
his tall frame into a seat and leaned both elbows and
arms onto the table. He turned to face Willetta who
still stood at the sink.
"Well, I'm sure that will be news to her," his
deep voice said softly.
Willetta tilted her head to the side and
watched Andrik. He was posing and she wondered
why. He was obviously making a great effort to
seem at ease and nonchalant about the conversation,
but his eyes told a completely different story. They
were bright and they were focused intently upon
her.
"When I was in the hospital having the
miscarriage, they tried to contact a family member.
I was out of it and scared. I could barely tell them
my name. After I came to my senses they kept
telling me that my foster parent couldn't be reached.
I finally got up enough nerve to ask who they were
talking about and it turns out Mama Jean was the
foster parent they were referring to."
Andrik remembered how lost he was when
his mamma died. He was fourteen. Mama Jean
said Willetta was fifteen when she ran away. His
eyes lifted once again to her face and he was
surprised to find a look of patience instead of selfpity there. She was waiting on him to assimilate the
facts, before she continued.
"So, what did you do after that," he asked.
"I got up and left the hospital and I started to
use my mind. I went to the poorest black
neighborhood I could find and looked for families
that had children, lots of children. I knew they
would want my help and all I wanted was someone
to enroll me in school. I found the perfect family
and I stayed there and watched those babies and
cooked and cleaned until I graduated from high
school with honors and a scholarship," she finished.
Andrik didn't believe her. It was too
farfetched, but he didn't say so. He just asked
another question, "Why didn't you just come back
home, Willetta?"
"I didn't want to. I wasn't raped by your
average student. He was popular. I was nobody. I
was scared and without a voice. Mama Jean would
have made everything worse. She wouldn't have
rested until the boy was brought to justice. I just
wanted to forget about it and move on."
Willetta rinsed and dried Mama Jean's plate
and poured the dish water out of the bowl. She
neatly folded the dish towel and draped it over the
middle of the two sinks. She turned to face Andrik
again. He was no longer posing. His avid interest
was apparent. Willetta left the sink to sit down with
him at the table.
"Would you like something to drink," she
asked.
"No," he said distractedly, "That shouldn't
have stopped you from coming home. You could
have just kept the truth about what happened to
yourself."
"Well, when I found out I had no real
relatives, I decided to immediately start being
responsible for myself. I have never liked
Mississippi and after that it represented everything
sad and wrong in my life."
"Well how do you feel now, being back here
and everything," he asked.
"It does feel like I have been in a long sleep
and am waking up back in the same place where I
left off eleven years ago. It feels weird, like none of
the past eleven years actually happened."
Andrik leaned back in his seat. She'd just
expressed how he felt when he was forced to come
home to attend to his father's estate. The death of
his father had wrought many changes in Andrik's
life. Coming home had brought him face to face
with his own painful past. Mama Jean wanted him
to help Willetta, but the truth was that the both of
them were really in the same situation.
Andrik remained silent for a moment more.
He didn't feel inclined to comment on her last
statement. Somehow, he knew whatever he said
would reveal his own emotional dilemma. He did
not want Willetta to know how similar their plights
were. He would let her sound off of him, but he
was a professional and he could deal with his own
problems.
Andrik looked at the brass candelabrums on
the kitchen table and realized for the first time that
the only lighting in the house was candles. One
heavy eyebrow went up, as he asked, "What's up
with the candles?"
"You should know since you are such an
expert on Mama Jean. She loves candles. We
never used lights at night. It was always candles by
nightfall," Willetta said.
Andrik watched Willetta through the dim
lights of the candle. She was open and honest. It
had been a long time since he had met a woman
who would speak openly about being raped. She
seemed unaware of her beauty as well. She was not
self-centered and therefore, could not be selfish. He
suddenly realized that he may have misjudged her
entirely. Her experience and her resultant actions
were understandable. He wondered why Mama
Jean had not told him that she wasn't Willetta's real
grandmother. How much did Mama Jean know
about Willetta's rape? How much did she know
about what Willetta knew? Andrik knew he would
probably never know the answers, because Mama
Jean was too fragile to answer such questions and
she wasn't going to last much longer either.
CHAPTER 5
Willetta and Andrik stood on the rickety
porch and listened to the night sounds. The white
moon sat still in its place and the rest of the big
black sky was splayed with stars. Andrik and
Willetta were alone except for the night creatures
and a sleeping old Mama Jean. The silence
surrounding them was oddly gentle and comforting
though shared between strangers.
"I guess I should get on back down the
road," Andrik said. "It looks like you have
everything under control."
Willetta remained silent. Her experience
had been that when one shared their past with
another, the confidence was returned unless there
was something to hide. Andrik had been closedmouthed about himself, and Willetta knew what that
meant. He had secrets. She wasn't big on secrets
and had no use for them. In her mind secrets were
the root of all evil.
She knew no more about him than his name.
He hadn't even been the one to tell her that. She
took another look at him and shook her head. He
was a good-looking man with secrets. That had to
spell a whole lot of trouble for some poor woman.
She dusted her hands against her thighs, figuratively
wiping Andrik off.
"Well thanks for checking on us," she said.
Andrik stepped off the porch and walked
backwards to his truck. He watched Willetta as
Willetta watched him. "You did good for your first
day home. I'm sorry about being so hard on you
this morning. I guess I misjudged you. I'll see you
in the morning," he said and climbed into his truck.
He drove off leaving a trail of dust and a
contemplative Willetta.
"Now why would he bother to judge me at
all?" she asked into the night.
Willetta sat on the steps for a while. She
was in no rush to sleep in the twin bed and sheets
that she had left behind eleven years ago.
Everything was just too eerily the same.
She'd had
a baby that was violently conceived growing within
her young womb the last time she slept in that bed.
Willetta held her head in her hands and cursed the
past and the winds that had blown it to the present.
She wanted to be left alone, but she knew
what this was. This was what everyone eventually
had to go through. This was the reckoning. She
had only been surviving the past eleven years. She
really hadn't dealt with anything.
The time had
come for her to feel it, deal with it, and be done
with it. She vowed to take her time and sort it out.
She was twenty-six and had her whole life ahead of
her. She would come out stronger for it, not
weaker.