VALERIA HAD KEPT the diaries sorted chronologically as I had left them a few days before. I couldn't figure out why, but something was wrong, maybe the way she had stacked them back in the box. I pulled out the journals from the forties and reread some of the entries. Valerie joined me at the dining room table and flipped through some of the later books.
"I never realized Walterene kept these." Valerie stacked several more on her side of the table.
The cardboard box and the table held twenty or thirty books. Some of them, especially the earliest, were actual diaries with the little locks and keys, but the majority were spiral-bound notebooks or hard-bound blank books given to her as Christmas presents from Ruby. As I read an account of Uncle Earl visiting from New York City, the phone's ring jarred me back to the present.
"I'll get it." I left Valerie in the dining room and grabbed the phone in the den.
"How'd the retirement party go?" Daniel's voice boomed through the phone with enthusiasm.
The events of the past night rewound in my mind until I realized it had started with the party. "Fine, but that's just the beginning of my adventure." Taking a deep breath, I said, "You know I can't go anywhere without a catastrophe." How much should I tell him? He's a reporter, and news like this is hard to ignore. "Have you been to work today? Heard anything from your friends at the paper?" I wondered if he had seen the police reports.
"No, I'm off today, remember?" His voice softened. "Are you okay?"
I settled into the wingback chair and lit a cigarette. "I'm tired, but all right. This is strictly off the record, right?"
"Of course, I hope you feel like you can trust me."
Did I? The sting of the newspaper article from our first meeting still ached, but the more time spent with Daniel, the more trust I developed. I hadn't shared anything about Mr. Sams or the diaries with him. Is it time?
"I came home from the party and found…" I had intended to tell him the same story Valerie had told Edwina and Roscoe, but realized Daniel would have access to the police reports and might catch me in the lie. "I found Ruby missing. I called the police, and then, later in the night, I discovered her bound and gagged in the attic."
"What? Is she okay?" His surprise reassured me that he didn't know about it, from the newspaper or from any involvement in the actual act. Did I really believe he could be connected? I wasn't sure of anyone or anything, but craved someone I could trust with my confidence, with my emotions, with my heart; I hoped it could be him.
"She has a concussion and is being held at the hospital for observation."
"Any idea who did it? Or why? What did the police say?"
"You know about the phone calls I've received and what happened at the Observer building." I tapped the cigarette ash off into the glass ashtray and took a sip of iced tea. "I believe it's the same guy-or guys."
"You mean more than one?" he asked.
"Sure. Mark and I had a hard time carrying Ruby down from the attic; there had to be more than one person to get her up there."
Silence settled heavy on his end of the line.
"You still there?"
Daniel cleared his throat. "Uh, who's Mark?"
Shit, I hadn't said anything to him about Mark. ''My cousin, Mark Harris."
"He was there?" He clipped his words.
"Yeah, I called him after I got home and couldn't find her."
Silence again.
His reaction puzzled me. "Do you know Mark?" I asked, meaning more personally than professionally.
"Yes. I've had dealings with him in the past. What does the hospital say about Ruby?"
Good dodge. But I didn't let it go. "Dealings? Like what?"
"Well," he sighed, "his father is running for Senate; he's helping manage the campaign; he's the young, handsome poster boy employed to appeal to the younger voters. That's my job, to know and talk to these people."
His defensiveness worried me. Could he and Mark be more than casual acquaintances? There was Mark's secret to be guarded. I had always assumed I was the only man in his sexual past, but was that naive? I decided to let it go, for now.
Valerie walked into the den and waved her hand in quick jerks as if she had something to tell me.
"Hold on a minute," I said into the phone, then placed my hand over the receiver.
Valerie held her oversized pocketbook on her shoulder and dangled her car keys. "I'm going back to the hospital to sit with Ruby. Why don't you stay here and rest?" Her watery eyes drooped, and her black hair fell over her cheek. She looked older than the sixteen years she had on me; of course, the events of the past week could've worn the strongest person down.
"Okay, but I'll be there in a little while." I winked at her. "Val, thanks for always being here for me. I love you."
"I love you, too." She kissed the top of my head as she left.
Taking my hand off the receiver, I said to Daniel, "Sorry, Valerie was leaving for the hospital."
"That's okay. So, you think the same guy who went after you in the morgue did this to your aunt?"
"I hope it's the same person; I don't want to think there are that many different people in Charlotte after me." I snuffed out the cigarette. "Listen, I need to get back to the hospital to see Ruby. Can I call you tomorrow?" I wanted to see him face to face and bring up Mark again to get his reaction.
"Sure," Daniel replied. "In fact, come by the office around six, and we'll grab dinner."
I processed the new information after I hung up the phone, Daniel knows Mark, but how well? Mark knew I had seen Daniel; actually, as I thought back on the day after the Observer basement incident, he'd known Daniel's name before I said it. Damn, how'd he know?
The walls of the house crowded me; the oak looming above the roof held the spirit of a struggling, dying Mr. Sams. Wind rustling the leaves produced a cry for help, a cry for vengeance. Why had Walterene and Ruby wanted to live with that tree? Maybe it was the California coming out in me, but the energy in the house seemed to have cursed the people living here. Why now, after all these years? In less than two weeks, Walterene had died, I had been attacked, and now Ruby was in the hospital; I needed to get out of there, so I grabbed my car keys and headed for Carolinas Med to join Valerie at the vigil by Ruby's bed.
RUBY'S ALERTNESS REINFORCED our hope for a speedy recovery. She still could not remember what had happened to her, from the time she sat down for supper Saturday night until waking up in the hospital Sunday morning. The doctor decided she needed to stay in the hospital until Monday for a full range of tests to be performed. Valerie and I sat with her until late, and then I spent the night at Valerie's condo.
Monday morning, Valerie went to work with word to call her as soon as the tests came back. I hung out at the hospital until they took Ruby. Finding no cute interns to entertain myself with, I decided to go see Grandma again. Gladys the Bitch attended her book club on Monday afternoons, so I knew I could avoid her.
The azaleas appeared brighter and heartier than the last week when I had stopped by Grandma's house on Dilworth Road. Maybe it was knowing that Ruby would be okay, or maybe it was knowing that I wouldn't run into Gladys the Ice Bitch of All Time. She knew about Ruby, but hadn't come by the hospital, or even called Valerie to find out how she was.
Grandma Eleanor's house, dappled in spring sunlight through the oaks and maples, wore the veil of the most peaceful place on earth. The warm afternoon allowed me to drive with the car windows down, and when I drove up the driveway, I could smell the sweet scent of the flowering hyacinths by the steps of the front porch. I rang the doorbell and waited for Martha to answer.
"Mister Derek, come on in." Martha smiled and stepped back for me to enter.
"How's Grandma doing?" I asked.
She closed the door, and said, "The poor old girl has her good days and bad days, like most of us, I guess."
"What's today?"
"Today, she's pretty good, but she been talking about her mama and daddy. After breakfast, she asked me if her daddy was coming to take her home." Martha shook her head as if she saw the same fate coming for herself. "Miss Eleanor will be glad to see you."
She led me through the entrance hall and past the curving staircase back to the sunroom where Grandma sat on the rattan couch reading her mail.
Grandma Eleanor's simple A-line buttercup-yellow dress complimented her emerald rings and necklace. Her thin gray hair framed the soft and composed features of an elegant woman in her nineties. "Derek." Grandma looked up and smiled. "Come sit by me." She patted the cushioned couch next to her. "Gladys and Thomas aren't here, just me and Martha."
"I know, Grandma. I wanted to see you. You feeling okay today?"
"Yes, I feel fine. How about you?" she asked as she held tight to my hand.
"Great. I thought I'd come visit, since I knew Mother would be at her book club. Where's Dad?"
"He's playing golf. He's starting out his retirement like most men." She shook her head in mock disapproval.
Martha brought out a glass of iced tea for me and placed it on the coffee table. I always liked the warm clean smell of Martha, a cross between mocha and Windex. She gathered up Grandma's mail. "Miss Eleanor," she leaned in and raised her voice, "I'm going to put this mail on the desk for you."
Grandma grinned at her and nodded. I wasn't sure if she had heard everything Martha had said, but she seemed to understand.
Unlike my last visit, neither Ruby nor Gladys was there to change the subject when Grandma started talking about the past, and since Martha had mentioned Grandma's reminiscing, I seized my opportunity. "Grandma? Do you remember a black man who used to work for Papa Ernest called Mr. Sams?"
Her smile wilted, and Martha stopped mid-step.
"Is that a yes?" I asked looking from one to the other.
"Where in the world did you hear that name?" Grandma asked. Martha turned to watch us.
"I heard he was killed in that oak next to Walterene and Ruby's house." I watched their stern expressions.
Grandma glanced up at Martha. "Go on and put that mail away." Martha left us alone, and Grandma regained her composure; patting my hand, she said, "Mr. Sams did a bad thing. Papa fired him, then they found him in that tree. That's all there is to that story."
"But," I felt like she still thought of me as a six-year-old, "someone hung him from the tree. What did he do that Papa Ernest fired him?" I wanted to compare her story against what I'd read.
She fidgeted with a linen handkerchief she'd pulled from her pocket. "A Negro can only get so close to a white family; why, Martha has been with me for over forty years, but she still knows to keep her distance."
"Distance?" I asked.
"Getting too familiar, friendly, acting like part of the family." Her moist hazel eyes held me for a moment, then she said, "Derek, you've grown so much. If you had a daughter who told you an old friend had touched her in her private places, wouldn't you do something?"
"Grandma," I held her shaking hands, "sometimes little girls make up stories to get attention."
"Oh, I know that, but Papa wouldn't hear of keeping Mr. Sampson on-"
"Wait," I interrupted, "his name was Sampson?"
"Yes, Caleb Sampson, the children called him Mr. Sams; it was easier for the young ones to say." She let her eyes drift to the floor.
I wanted to get as much of the story as I could while she was willing. ''Go on. You said Papa Ernest wouldn't hear of keeping Mr. Sampson on as the gardener."
"Well, Vernon was always Papa's favorite. He saw him as his rightful heir. My brothers never satisfied Papa, so Vernon was his last chance.
"Gladys, being my second child and a girl, always took a backseat to what Vernon got, and she knew it. I tried to make her feel special, and her father doted on her like she was a princess, but it never seemed to be enough." A tear slipped down her wrinkled cheek, and she dabbed at it with her handkerchief. "I think that's why she said what she did."
I thought back to Walterene's account. "Could it have been an accident? I mean, Mr. Sampson playing with the kids as he had always done, and Gladys taking it as something more?"
"Oh, yes, that's what we all thought, but she wouldn't back down. Papa finally decided, in order to make peace, he would get rid of poor old Mr. Sams. I think it devastated that man." She took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. "He worked here for years, started when I was young, and he so loved Gladys, watching her grow from a baby to a young woman, but that ended the day Papa fired him. Then they found him dead."
She didn't continue, so I prompted her, "Did you know that some people thought Mr. Sampson had been lynched by a group of white men?"
The statement didn't seem to surprise her; she sat for a moment thinking, then said, "No, Papa wouldn't do that. He cared for Mr. Sams, but again, he wasn't family. We always were most important to Papa. He watched over us-and still does."
"How does he do that?" I asked, wondering if she might be getting confused in her thinking.
"He's in our blood. He made sure we married the right people, had the right children." She laughed a short chuckle. "We're like race horses. The bloodline stays pure. Do you know that Theodore is my third cousin?"
Damn, my grandfather was my grandmother's third cousin. "Isn't that illegal?"
"No, no," she laughed. "Papa Ernest put us together, and within a year Vernon was born…" She drifted off into her own thoughts.
"That kept the Harris name and bloodline for Vernon and Gladys," I said.
" Vernon more than Gladys," she added off-handedly.
Confusion needled me. Vernonmore than Gladys? "How so?"
"Oh, never you mind." She patted my hand again. "When a man touches a girl in the wrong way, he must pay for it."
"But you just said that no one really thought Mr. Sams-"
"Not Mr. Sams. Papa." Her gaze was far off.
Confusion prompted me to keep asking questions. Papa Ernest? He touched someone?"
Her eyes returned to me, and I hoped her mind had clicked back to our conversation.
"This has been on my mind lately." She shifted on the couch and straightened her dress along her thin thighs. "I haven't thought about it in years, but it keeps coming back, especially as the end gets nearer." She rubbed her hand over her mouth as if trying to keep the words in. "Derek, you should never tell this to anyone." She stared hard into my eyes.
Nodding, I said, "Okay, Grandma, I promise."
"Papa Ernest… He…" She struggled for the words.
"Go on. Grandma," I said.
" Vernon is… Vernon 's daddy is Papa Ernest."
I couldn't catch my breath.
"He would come to me during the night after Mama had gone to bed. It started when I was sixteen." More tears spilled down her cheek, and she brushed them away as if they stung.
Chills tingled my hands, and my head ached. Papa Ernest molested Grandma, and Vernon was the result. Did anyone else know this? Gladys? Vernon?
She leaned in closer to share her secret. "You see, I was afraid for Ernestine. She's two years younger than me, and I thought he might try the same thing with her. So I never complained, never gave him a reason to stop with me and go to her."
Thoughts rumbled in my mind, but I concentrated on her words; I wanted to hear everything she had to say, I could tell her mind was clear; she didn't seem to be confusing timeframes or searching for words as I'd heard her do before. She had something to tell and needed to clear her soul to someone. I felt honored she'd chosen me.
The tears returned and flowed quickly down her face. She didn't try to wipe them away this time. "He only stopped when I realized Vernon was on the way. Theodore and I married within a month. Papa said that the baby would have his blood and Theodore would give it the Harris name, making it the rightful leader of the family."
My confused thoughts bounced in my mind, but shock paralyzed me. I couldn't ask questions; I could only nod.
She continued, "Theodore was good to me, and we loved each other, but Vernon had the birthright, and as he grew up, he knew he was chosen."
I recovered enough to ask, "Does Vernon know who his father is?"
"Yes," she sighed. "Papa told him before he left for college, and I admitted it when he confronted me."
"But, why are you telling me?"
"You never know everything about your family, and as families go, we have a lot of secrets hiding in dark corners. I know you aren't close to us, and I don't know why, but maybe a little truth about why we are the way we are might help you understand us-especially Gladys. I know she loves you and wants only the best for you."
Yeah, that's why she does things like sending me away, banishing me from my family.
"She has the best intentions," Grandma said. "But, like with Mr. Sams, sometimes she doesn't realize the full consequences."
I took the handkerchief from her and wiped away her remaining tears. "Grandma, thanks for telling me. I'll keep it to myself." Inbreeding, that explained a lot about Vernon. We sat on the couch holding hands, her head on my shoulder. Silence settled over us as my mind tried to absorb all my grandmother had revealed. I felt a little guilty about having pushed her for details, but I'd wanted the truth, and she seemed like the only one who knew the full story. Footsteps and rattling pans told me that Martha was in the kitchen.
Grandma lifted her head. "I think I'd like to lie down for a while."
"Okay, Grandma. Let me help you upstairs." We walked slowly up to her bedroom. I hugged her good-bye and promised to come back soon.
Before leaving, I found Martha in the kitchen preparing a roast for dinner. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked.
"You can ask, but I might not be able to tell you the answer," she stated and turned from the oven to face me.
"What do you know about Mr. Sampson's death?"
She took a breath, then turned back to the oven. "Nothing. Way before my time here."
"You never heard the name before?" I moved next to her so I could see her face.
She walked away from me, fiddling with a timer. "I heard the name, but not much else."
"But," I started.
"Mister Derek, you best let the dead lie in peace. Don't go bringing up ghosts that nobody wants to see." Martha crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at me.
Smiling, I conceded, "Okay, I understand." Although I knew she would be a dead-end, her attitude only intrigued me more.
Papa Ernest, Grandma, Vernon, Martha, and Mr. Sams; I drove away from the house on Dilworth Road wondering what else my family hid from me and hid among themselves, and how these secrets stirred the fog we viewed each other through.