“The twins never left?”
“Nope. Both married and raised their families under this roof. So did my father, a descendant of the twins. They were astute business owners and ran Magnolia better than the previous proprietors. They have a long-standing store downtown that still carries their name, Jack and Jon’s General Store. The twins’ names were Jackson and Jonathan.”
“What happened to Delphine’s grand and great-grandchildren?”
“Many lived in Natchez. Others scattered across the country. Delphine’s firstborn, Sylvie, wed a local man. They lived in Natchez many years after starting a family. Later, they settled in Baton Rouge. That’s how I traced Lily as Sylvie’s descendant.”
“Sylvie . . . it’s good finally knowing her name.”
“Sylvie Randolph, later Hardy when she married Emile Hardy. Simone, you have distant cousins from the twins right here in town. Lily was speechless when I mentioned a specific name. She explained Ella Davis was a lifelong friend.”
Simone’s eyes widen. “You’re kidding? Ella?”
Kin
Three hours later, awash in Delphine’s essence and her newfound heritage, Simone wanders to the computer and opens the document she started the night before, glowering at the blank screen. Every word she’d typed gone. “Impossible . . .” Mystified, she toggles through several files, recalling that she’d clicked save before closing the laptop. After imbibing three heady, king-sized champagne flutes, the screen blurred in her vision. Did she delete the file?
With an immediate realization, she smacks her forehead. “There is no assignment.” She snickers and slumps into the chair. Even though it's a bogus assignment, there's a great need to write the article, given her ties to the home’s history. But what happened to the document? It didn't simply vanish unless . . .
“Was it you?”
A quiet breeze sweeps through the room, stroking her nape, and straightening Simone’s back as she expects a temperature drop and a rolling peach to appear.
“Are you behind me?”
Unafraid, she glances side to side, sniffing around the chair, her pulse beating with compassion, not fear after experiencing Delphine’s tragic life. Parker’s words come to her again reassuring her Delphine won’t harm her own blood. Simone swivels toward the sunny honeymoon suite bright with light from the open windows and patio door. She strolls into the steamy morning toward the garden near the wooded descent. People will know what happened there.
“I will write your story,” she whispers, standing in the exact spot where Delphine had snatched her wrist. Dream images of the messy peach pulsing in her palm evoke Delphine’s difficult delivery. The bite into the bloody peach and Delphine gnawing through the gelatinous umbilical cord are analogous. Simone folds her arms around her waist, recalling her phantom childbirth spasms.
“I wish you’d escaped the camp, found a better life up north, and seen your children alive again.” Unmoving, she peers at the shrubbery, imagining Delphine materializing with a reply although she knows she can’t and won’t. Delphine is omnipresent, forever knowing and watching, she believes. Sighing, she strolls out of the oppressive heat back to the laptop. Three imperative words occupy the screen that was blank moments ago.
“TELL MY STORY.”
The supplication mystified her days ago; not anymore. Delphine's not asking but demanding she fulfills an obligation. For two hours, Delphine’s world spills onto the page: Her confinement in the nursery as a wet nurse. The psychological and sexual abuses by Lorelei and Henry. The concealed pregnancies Lorelei feigned as her own. The escape to disease-infested contraband camps. The forced starvation of thousands of freed slaves. And Delphine and her newborn’s wrongful death in the Union Army camp.
When she types the last word, energy that gripped her mind and hands eases away, leaving her drained and tearful. She wipes her eyes, staring at the screen with immediate relief and an urgent question. How will she publicize the story for others to read? Bridgette . . .
A muffled ringtone breaks her thought. She fetches the cell phone from her handbag with swelling eyes. Oh no, lunch!
“Ella, hi.”
“Child, I expected you ten minutes ago.”
“I’m so sorry. This has been a crazy morning. Ella, I have much to tell you. I’ll be there in a flash.”
Thirty-five minutes later, a modest, pale yellow, two-story cottage appears as Simone veers the car onto a sloping tree-lined driveway. A sense of déjà vu assails her. “Why does the home look so familiar?” She has never been to Ella's home. She reasons it’s just a common architecture in Mississippi.
Parking the car, she sits frozen a moment, pondering Ella’s reaction to their kinship. Has Parker told her? Did Mom divulge they’re cousins before she passed? No, Ella could never keep their relations a secret, not this long. Given Parker’s poem and the museum exhibit, she’s aware of the Devil’s Punchbowl. And being Delphine’s descendant, she’s no doubt experienced the dreams. Lost in mental queries, she’s startled by Ella’s voice.
“Moni, you gonna just sit there?” Ella asks, tilting her head, sashaying toward the car in a stunning floral maxi dress that halters at her neck. Bright dandelions shimmy with the sway of her petite frame, her body like Josie’s—short in stature, slender and wiry.
Why hadn’t she noticed the similarities? She and Lily could be sisters. Their stature and mannerisms are the same. The noonday sun strikes her oval eyes, brightening warm cinnamon irises like Delphine’s and Lily’s as she approaches.
Simone exits the rental straight into her open arms.
“I didn’t mean to startle, but you sat stiller than a statue when I yelled from the porch. Is somethin’ wrong?”
“No, no, absorbed in thought.”
She releases her embrace and studies Simone’s face. “Well, stop your ponderin’ and come inside the house.” She remains fixed, awestruck. “Lord, I’m lookin’ at your mama. The hair is lovely, Moni. Just like Lily.” Her eyes narrow in a pensive daze before she clears her throat and motions toward the house.
They stroll past two buzzing bees hovering over a sweet-smelling flower patch, arousing the stinging bite from her childhood. As they draw closer to the porch, an impression strikes her again. “The home looks so familiar, but I don’t recall ever visiting.”
“Moni, you were too young to remember. You were just three when Lily brought you for Christmas. It was the best holiday with y’all here. You zoomed around the house on that red, three-wheel scooter your dad gave you for Christmas. Drove your momma crazy. When you rode onto the porch and fell off the stairs, Lily hid the scooter. You kicked a fit, bawled yourself to sleep on my sofa.”
“Hmpf . . . I recall falling off a scooter, but I thought it happened at home.” She rubs the crescent-shaped scar on her elbow, a permanent reminder of the childhood fall.
Shaking her head back and forth, Ella stares at the six porch steps where Simone tumbled. “Goodness gracious, child. Lily was beside herself when she saw you sprawled lifeless on the ground. The fall stunned you into silence for a moment,” she explains with a slight chuckle. “When you came around, you wailed so loud it pulled my neighbors from their houses. It’s a blessin’ you fell sideways and not headfirst.”
Simone dissects Ella's face, noticing striking parallels: Cinnamon eyes. Thick lashes. A subtle flare of the nostrils. Round chin. The unmistakable features of Delphine’s descendants. “Why didn’t you ever visit Baton Rouge?”
Ella’s brows and forehead wrinkle over her narrowed eyes. “Moni, I visited many times when you were a child.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“Sometimes, I’d visit for a day or two on the weekends. I even babysat you when Rod and Lily needed alone time. But it became more difficult to visit with my job and tryin’ to raise a family. I believe you were in first grade the last time I took care of you.”
“First grade . . . Wow, that’s a while ago. Hmm, I remember someone babysitting once. But I nev
er had a clear image of the face.”
“You were young. I should have visited more often.”
“And we should have, too.”
In front of Ella’s home, Simone notices several cars parked along the narrow street. “Looks like someone’s having a gathering.”
Ella smiles and grabs her arm. “Let’s get out of the heat.”
Inside, crowded bookshelves line polished floors, overstuffed armchairs, and gleaming tables. Not a speck of dust is visible. The smell of baked goods wafts from the kitchen, sweet as a bakery. Ella must spend her days cleaning, cooking, and reading, a passion she and Lily share. A variety of African art adorns lemon walls, lemon the dominant color on the main floor. Family photos rest atop of a wooden console behind a tan, pleated couch. A photo of teenage Ella and Lily grabs her attention. The two adolescents with a striking resemblance could be sisters.
Following Simone’s gaze, Ella lifts the frame from the console with a wistful sigh. “I love this photo of your mom. We were inseparable in high school. People teased and said we’re joined at the hip. And we were.” She stares at the picture with a chuckle, her bosom heaving with a fond memory. “No matter how busy our lives, we spoke every day. I miss her phone calls.”
“So do I. Ella, there’s something I need—”
“I know, child.” Ella’s chin and brows dip, assuming a guilty expression.
“Know what?”
“We’re family.”
“Why’d—”
“I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t the right time with your mom’s death.” Ella takes Simone’s hand, seating her on the couch. “Growin’ up, I felt a strong, inexplicable connection to Lily, a bond resolved the day Parker contacted us. Lily called me the night she’d discovered our ties to the Randolph family. I was more than shocked to learn my best friend was kin. We planned to meet Parker at Magnolia Sunrise, but . . . the Lord had other designs. I urged Parker to wait until you and Roderick had time to mourn Lily’s death and after your trip to France. That’s when Parker informed me of his plan. Well, you know the rest.”
“I knew you withheld information yesterday.”
“Lyin’ is never easy. I almost broke my promise to Parker. He’d asked me to wait until you two met and you saw Magnolia Sunrise.”
Quiet chatter resounds from the rear of the home.
“You have guests?”
“People who’ve been waitin’ to meet you.”
“People?”
“Your kin. A few of Delphine’s local descendants. Come on, lunch is out back,” she says, grabbing her hand and leading her to the enclosed porch.
Around the colorful table, replete with southern food and spirits, sit several generations of Delphine’s descendants, ranging from adolescents to senior citizens. Skin tones vary from the darkest of dark to the lightest of light.
The veranda lights with smiles and gleeful hand waves as chairs screech back from the table. “Welcome, cousin!” they greet in unison, approaching and stating their names with firm embraces.
In Simone’s astonishment, fifteen names sound in one continuous stream, forgotten, unrepeatable. The overwhelming acceptance into an unexpected family causes tears to well up in her eyes. Lost for words, she smiles and wipes a tear, wishing Delphine could see her wonderful progeny. “Hello, family.”
Antiquity Rises Again
Simone wrings her hands, stares at the packed Samsonite, wrestling with staying a few days longer, though she’s been in Natchez seven days longer than she’d planned. She relinquished the Bluff Side suite to honeymooners for the nursery, per Parker when her reservation ended a week ago. He’s been a gracious host, but since his wife, Amelia, returned a day ago, her being only a wall away and sharing a bath is intrusive. For the first time tonight, their low, intimate voices and amorous laughter resound from the master suite, causing uneasiness. She grimaces, imagining her proximity makes them just as uncomfortable. No. It’s inconsiderate to stay longer, back to Brooklyn in the morning. With a resolute sigh, she closes the luggage and pulls it toward the foot of the bed.
Light fades in the far corner, pulling her gaze toward the dark laptop screen, dimmed in power save. She ambles over and touches the pad. Delphine’s story emerges again, an article completed a day ago after gathering information from her descendants, people who’ve lived in the same town, unaware of their relations until Parker. Now a cohesive group, they’re committed to a common cause, telling a factual account never told, one they won’t let others forget—the tragic deaths of thousands of freed slaves in Natchez contraband camps. Historical narratives future generations will retell.
After learning of her kin, Simone was eager to tell her father what transpired and phoned him after Ella’s luncheon. Everything flew from her mouth before Roderick could say a word. The next morning, he arrived unannounced at Ella’s with an overnight bag and Lily’s Bible. Just as Mom conveyed in dreams, Parker’s poem, transcribed on Ella’s oatmeal stationery, lay tucked between the pages of Matthew 7:18.
“A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.”
The verse evoked images of Lily covered head to toe in blossoms, a dream she tried to interpret, the meaning obvious after everything she’d experienced. Ella said the verse is a parable of false prophets. Dad believes Lily picked a random spot in the Bible without forethought. Neither Ella nor Dad dreamt of Lily. Simone pressed her point and described the backward words in the dream, deciphered the day after she woke in the nursery. Written in reverse, Lily’s words, “Senob deirub woleb s‘zehctan sffulb,” means “Bones buried below Natchez’s bluffs.” Lily wanted her to know where Delphine was buried.
After further analysis of the branches blossoming around Lily and the dark limbs spiraling up her arm from Delphine’s poisonous nails, Simone surmised a deeper meaning. Lily used the verse as an allegory of Delphine and her descendants.
“Don’t you understand,” she’d implored Dad and Ella, “Delphine is the healthy tree, the ‘good fruit’ her children and descendants. The diseased tree is slavery and the Devil’s Punchbowl, a tainted harvest of ‘bad fruit’—death, hatred, and systemic racism.”
Following her persuasive tirade, they soon understood and supported her analysis. Lily chose the verse, realizing she’d grasp the meaning even without her intervention. For two days, she and Dad stayed at Ella’s home recounting special times with Mom and her childhood with Ella, things they never knew. Dad’s lingering doubt was put to rest after learning Lily’s heart condition runs in the family. When he mentioned Lily’s ashes, Ella was less than thrilled to hear the urn sit on the mantelpiece. She must have searched her memory the entire night.
As Dad prepared to leave the following morning, Ella described a perfect spot for Lily’s cremains in Natchez National Historic Park. A magnificent waterfall cascading into a flowing creek. "Lily always loved that spot. It gave her much comfort,” Ella explained. Once or twice, Lily mentioned a waterfall, but Simone never knew its location. She and Dad agreed unanimously to return to Natchez next month for a small memorial and to release Lily's ashes into the waterfall.
Simone pulls her attention back to the laptop and Delphine's story. The article will appear in Vocal, an online nonprofit magazine she’d considered working for before Happy Brides. An organization that uncovers and reports untold events in American history. She couldn’t resist writing an article on Magnolia Sunrise's honeymoon specials, which Bridgette will feature in Happy Brides' July edition.
She glimpses the time before closing the laptop. It’s late, she thinks, peering out the window at dusk muting the colorful garden, hoping to catch Delphine’s ghostly family reunion. For a week, she’d watched and waited, only to fall asleep and wake to Delphine’s dissolving image in the rocker. Tonight, she’s determined to stay awake with a brisk walk in the garden.
Simone wanders from the house to the garden's brick path and on toward a bench facing what was once Slave Row. For twenty minutes, with cric
kets and other critters serenading her, she imagines the plantation centuries ago with miles of cotton and tobacco fields, overworked slaves in one-room cabins slumbering before another toilsome day arrives.
Gnats and other insects hover and buzz in her ear. She swats the muggy air, swiveling her head to a single firefly. Then a charge rustles the atmosphere. The hem of her gauzy pants flutter at her ankles. A sweet scent rides the breeze. Tiny lights dot the night, multiplying through a thicket of trees. Simone sits straight, expectant, holding her breath, gasping at the advancing specter. Delphine emerges from the shrubbery, pregnant and aglow in clean slave clothes, not the dusty, tattered dress of her dream. She drifts through flowers that weren’t there during her time. Spectral laughter fills the garden as a woman and man materialize. Delphine’s faint voice calls, “Maw, Ben . . .”
Every hair vibrates on Simone's skin as she steps from the bench across the path through the pungent herbal garden. Two attractive men materialize, strolling with Simone toward the gathering. She halts and gasps when a night-gowned girl rushes through her body.
Sylvie! Her great-grandmother, five times removed.
Simone reaches out to grab the ethereal child. Sylvie escapes her encircled arms toward the huddled family, caught in Delphine's grasp, twirled in circles with gleeful laughter. Bright fireflies swarm, tunnel, and encompass their vanishing figures, releasing a powerful surge.
Simone’s loose blouse flutters as the surge passes through her with Delphine’s overwhelming joy. In the center of the garden where they vanished, a tiny light moves forward, splitting into several lights flickering toward her extended hand.
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