The Truth Is the Light (8 page)

Chapter 14

G
ramps continued on with the story. “Pearl told me Heath, that was Sarah's half-brother, instructed her to let my baby die. I can't tell you how my heart sank when I heard Pearl's words. A poor, innocent child and that monster wanted Pearl to kill her.”

“So Pearl let the baby die?” Zenobia asked in a quiet resolve.

“Pearl said Sarah was out of it. She didn't know what was going on. Pearl didn't know what she was going to do to save my baby, but she told me she was prepared to do something. As it were, Pearl told me that Grace, Sarah's mother, stepped up to the plate. She said Grace took my baby”—Gramps wiped his eyes again—“and carried her to this other woman, a colored maid, who just happened to be in the house when she went in labor and had also just delivered her baby earlier. Grace told this woman—her name was Mamie . . . Mamie Patterson—that instead of one baby, she'd delivered two.”

“That doesn't even sound plausible,” Knowledge said.

“Why not, Knowledge?” Clarence asked. “Back then it would have been easy to pull something like that off.”

“Well, did they?” Zenobia asked. “Did they pull it off?”

“Yes. Pearl said she recorded Mamie's delivery as a twin birth. The plan was to protect the baby from folks like Heath until it was safe to disclose the truth, the truth that Sarah wasn't told but instead tragically made to believe that her baby had died. But then soon after that, Victor Senior took sick and died. And Heath and his brother, Victor Junior, were in charge of running things. And the first thing them two did was send Sarah away. Claimed she'd lost her mind and needed to be institutionalized.”

“So why didn't her mother do something to stop it?” Zenobia asked.

“Because she didn't have any power,” Gramps said. “According to Pearl, she didn't even know where Sarah had been sent. That's how they kept Grace in line. But she did what she could. And that little evil devil Heath . . .” Gramps stopped as he shook his head. “I just shouldn't have left. If I'da stayed instead of leaving, things might have . . .”

“Daddy, you can't go back and change things. That's what you used to tell me all the time: Whatever is . . . is. We deal with what is,” Zenobia said.

“I know. But every time I think about all the bad things that happened, I just find it hard to forgive myself. I feel like it's all my fault because I wasn't there to protect them.” Gramps wiped his eyes again with his handkerchief. “I should have been there.”

“Did you ever find”—Zenobia swallowed hard—“your daughter? My sister?”

“No. I left on the twenty-ninth of April intending on locating Sarah. She deserved to know our daughter had lived. Our daughter was with this other family now. They had moved and no one knew or could tell me where they were. After about a year of trying, I headed for Detroit, Michigan. Went to work for the Ford Motor Company, who were hiring coloreds as janitors and for other type of jobs that weren't great but paid better than most. I met your mama. We married, had your two brothers and you, Zenobia. Course later on things did open up more for colored people at Ford. I moved into a better position. But by then, it was close time for me to retire.” He shook his head. “Who would have ever thought or believed that even with me retiring at the age of seventy, I would still be around some thirty years later? God has been good to me. He's been so good.”

“Daddy, do you know my . . . sister's name? Did Pearl happen to know or tell you her name?”

“Memory.” Gramps nodded.

“I know you have a good memory, Daddy. But did Pearl happen to know your daughter's name?”

Gramps grinned. “Memory. That's actually her name: Memory Elaine.”

Chapter 15

“W
hy are you telling us this now, Gramps?” Knowledge asked when he saw how the words his grandfather was speaking were affecting his mother.

Gramps got to his feet. “I'm telling y'all this now because of a wooden box I made with wings on the inside of its lid that has somehow set off a chain of events.”

“A box you made?” Knowledge asked.

“Yes. As I said, when I was young, I loved working with my hands. I loved creating things from wood; I had a special relationship with wood. I crafted this wooden carved box for Sarah. Her mother liked it so much, she asked me to make two more. I gave them those three boxes with wings etched on the inside of the lids, but I kept one because it wasn't as perfect as I wanted, but wasn't bad enough to throw away. I've had that box now for seventy-something years. I packed it and took it with me after I came back from that prison camp. And it's been with me ever since.”

“Gramps, you just said it set off a chain of events,” Clarence said. “What chain?”

Gramps sat back down. “Yeah. I pulled out that old box from the trunk in my room. You know the one that sits over in the corner?”

“Yeah,” Zenobia said.

“Well, I pulled out the wooden box to get an old watch out of it.”

“The one you gave to me when I was baptized last Sunday,” Clarence said.

“Yeah.” Gramps nodded. “That one. I pulled out the box to get the watch, and just when I was about to unlock it, Miss Countess knocked on my door and came in.” Gramps then recounted everything that happened with Countess.

Zenobia forced a smile. “Well, Daddy, I'm sure there's a good explanation as to how Miss Countess knew about the wings on the inside of the lid.”

“I'm not finished yet. Her daughter, Johnnie Mae is her name, came to my room because her mother had told
her
about the box. She didn't believe I actually had a box as her mother had reported to her. She thought her mother was probably experiencing one of her moments as she's known to do a lot, especially lately.”

“Countess is that woman in a more advanced stage of Alzheimer's that you walk with outside from time to time,” Zenobia said, attempting to clarify who Countess was.

“Yeah,” Gramps said. “Well, it turns out Miss Countess wasn't having one of her moments at all. Johnnie Mae couldn't believe her eyes when I pulled out the box for her to see. And that's when she began to put everything together.”

“Everything like what?” Knowledge asked, frowning.

“Everything, like her mother calling me Ranny.”

“Okay, so she calls you Ranny. That's short and cute for Ransom,” Clarence said.

“Yeah, and that's exactly what Johnnie Mae figured out. That Ranny was her mother's name for Ransom. Turns out Johnnie Mae met both Sarah and Pearl at one point in her life. So she was more than familiar with the name Ransom Perdue,” Gramps said.

“Daddy.” Zenobia clamped her hand over her mouth and went to her father. “Is she sure about this?”

“Yeah, she'd met Sarah first, then Pearl. That's how she came to know about the box. They call it the Wings of Grace box on account of the wings and the fact that Grace most likely dubbed the boxes with her first name.”

“Is Sarah still alive?” Zenobia asked. “Is that what this is all about? Is that why you wanted to leave the nursing home? So you could tell us something about Sarah.”

“No. Johnnie Mae says Sarah died four years ago.” He shook his head as he dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. “I can't believe Sarah was still living and I never found her in all this time. I should have kept looking. I shouldn't have given up so easily. Now they got all these newfangled gadgets. There's that Internet thing. If I'd only told one of you about my past, maybe we could have checked on it ourselves to see if we could have found out something.”

“Now, Daddy, don't go getting worked up about this.” Zenobia rubbed his back with a caring touch. “Sarah could have just as easily looked for you when she was in a position to do it. It's not like you were hiding out or anything,” Zenobia said.

“You don't understand. Sarah thought I was dead. When I didn't come back like I said I would, what else could she believe? She didn't know I'd been arrested and locked away. As sheltered as she was about life, she still knew the times we lived in. I'd either gotten cold feet and run off, was seriously injured, but most likely dead, since death was the only thing I promised her when I left that would keep me from coming back for her.”

Zenobia hugged her father as she rocked him. “But I'm so thankful that you weren't killed. And as selfish as this might sound, if things hadn't happened the way they did, I wouldn't be here and neither would my children.” She looked over at Knowledge and Clarence. “If you had been with Sarah, you never would have met Mother and you never would have had me. So even though it was bad, all things did work out.”

Gramps patted Zenobia's arms draped around him. “Sit, sit. There's something more I need to tell.”

“What else?” Zenobia said. “What more can there be? This is already a lot to process.”

“Johnnie Mae told me yesterday that my daughter is still alive.” Gramps looked in Zenobia's eyes. “Memory is alive! And Johnnie Mae knows how to get in touch with her.”

“Memory is alive?” Zenobia said, kneeling down in front of her father. “Are you sure?”

“She's alive and living in old man Fleming's home in Asheville, North Carolina.” Gramps began to chuckle. “Can you believe my daughter, who I ain't never laid eyes on a day in my life in all her seventy-four years of being on this earth, is still alive and living in the place where all of this began?” He began to wipe his eyes again. “That's what I needed to tell y'all. Johnnie Mae has contacted her. She called me earlier today and told me Memory's whole family is making arrangements to be here tomorrow. And I'd like all of us to be together . . . to do this as a family.”

“I have a sister?” Zenobia said, still processing all of it. She went and sat back down on the couch. “A sister. And she's alive? After all these years, she's still alive?” Zenobia broke down and began to cry as both of her sons comforted her.

Chapter 16

G
abrielle was excited. She was finally going to see Miss Crowe. Zachary teased her after he'd spoken with his mother.

“My mother says there will be no sleeping in the same room in her house,” Zachary said.

“Did you tell her we wouldn't dare think of doing anything like that?” Gabrielle said.

“Nope.”

“Nope?”

“Nah. I like to irritate my mother from time to time. It keeps her on her toes.”

“Zachary, you should have told her. I don't want her thinking badly of me.”

Zachary walked closer to her. “My mother's going to love you. I did tell her you were a churchgoing woman. She happens to like that . . . a lot.” Zachary grinned. “So, what would you like to do tonight?”

Gabrielle shrugged. “Let's watch that movie you brought over the other day.”

“
Fireproof
. Yeah, that's right. I brought it over, but we didn't get to watch it,” Zachary said, smiling mischievously.

“Quit acting like we were doing something wrong and that's why we didn't watch it.”

“What? I didn't say anything,” Zachary said.

“It's not what you said. It's the way you're acting. You know, I'm starting to think you might be a little bad.”

“Ooh, now you sound like my mother. I believe you and my mother are going to get along splendidly.” He tapped her on her nose. “I know my daddy's going to love you.”

“Yeah, well. It's the mothers that generally have problems with their sweet little sons and the women they bring home to meet them.” Gabrielle put a hand on one hip. “But you are bad.”

“I am not,” Zachary said with a deliberate whine.

The telephone rang. Gabrielle went and looked at the caller ID. She made a face. “Hmmm, I wonder who this is.” She clicked on the talk button. “Hello.”

“Hi, may I please speak with Gabrielle Booker,” a woman's soft voice said from the other end.

Just that one word gave Gabrielle pause. She hadn't been called Booker in eight years. Not since she'd legally dropped that surname and opted for her middle name to become her last. Her first reaction was to tell her that she had the wrong number. She felt if this woman was
that
behind the times that she was asking for her by her old name, it couldn't be anyone she cared to talk to.

“This is Gabrielle,” she decided to say instead of merely hanging up. At least she would find out who this was and what she wanted.

“I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm calling in association with the Red Cross. You gave blood once—”

“That was ages ago,” Gabrielle said with a sincere frown as she tried to remember how far back that had to be. “I was eighteen, and I only did it that one time.”

“Yes, but the reason we're calling is that we have someone who is in desperate need of a donor. Actually, it's a bone marrow transplant,” the woman said.

“Whoa. Hey, look, I'm not interested in being a donor of anything, let alone something that has to do with transplants.”

“Ms. Booker, it's not what you think. The procedure doesn't require you to lose anything. Well, not anything that won't regenerate completely in a few weeks. But this is a child we're talking about. And it's very possible you may be a perfect match. All we're asking is that you go in and let them do a blood workup on you to see. If you're not a good match, then that will be the end of it. But if you are, and you agree to, you would then check into the hospital—”

“Hospital?” Gabrielle looked over at Zachary and widened her eyes.

“It would be an outpatient procedure. I promise you, it's not bad. You can't die or anything like that from the procedure. But this is only if you happen to be a match and if you agree to do it. Ms. Booker, this child is going to die if she doesn't get a donor soon. Her mother is heartbroken and, as you can probably imagine, desperate to save her child's life. I'm sure you must understand how she feels seeing that's it's a child . . . her daughter.”

“I'm sure this must be hard for her, but I'm not interested in doing anything like this.”

“But Ms. Booker—”

“Listen, Miss or Mrs. . . . what did you say your name was?”

“My name is Mrs. Wendy Watts.”

“Listen, Mrs. Watts. First of all, you are looking at very old records. My name is not Booker anymore, it's Mercedes.”

“I'm sorry. Please accept my apology. I'm updating my information now.”

“Well, you really don't need to bother updating your records with any of my information. I'm not interested in giving blood again, and I sure don't care to have anyone calling my house about being a donor of any kind.”

“But Ms. Mercedes, this child—”

Gabrielle hated the tactic this woman was using. Telling someone it was a child made it harder for anyone to say no. But she also couldn't be sure if it really was for a child or just this woman's way of manipulating her heart and conscience.

“Would you please take me off your list? I asked the last person who called me about donating blood years ago to take me off the list. I don't know how I managed to get back on it. And quite frankly, I don't know how anyone got this phone number since I didn't have this number when I originally gave blood.”

“Ms. Mercedes, I apologize if I've upset you. It was not my intention to do that. All we try to do here is to help others. For me, this is not just a job, it's my mission. Will you at least think about this and get back to me? I can give you my number and you can call me back to let me know. Do you have a pen and paper handy?” The woman waited.

Gabrielle really didn't want to pretend she was interested in considering this or in calling her back. Still, she got pen and paper and took down the phone number. “If I change my mind, I'll call you. But I'm going to be honest with you, Mrs. Watts, because I don't want you sitting around thinking you've found someone when you clearly haven't. I'm most likely not going to call you back. I'm pretty certain this is not something I'm interested in doing.”

“I do pray you reconsider. It's a little girl, and she's only eight. I'm going to do all I can to help her. All I ask is that you think about it. Just think about it, that's all I ask right now.”

Gabrielle swallowed hard as she placed the phone back into its base.
An eight-year-old little girl.
She couldn't help but think about the child she'd given up some eight years ago.

Zachary went over and held her as he began to rock her. And it was only then that she realized the loud sobbing and wailing sounds she was hearing were actually coming from her.