Lilly

by Madelyn Bennett Edwards

  Sissy and I were ushered upstairs to adjoining bedrooms, each with en-suite bathrooms. We pretended to be queens and ended up sleeping together in the same bed, in silk pajamas Hannah brought us from our mother's closet. She took our clothes to launder, promising they'd be outside our bedroom doors in the morning.

  We took showers and wrapped ourselves in robes that were terry cloth on the inside and silk on the outside and we danced around the huge bedroom like school girls.

  Breakfast was pleasant. John had already gone off to work so it was Mama, Sissy, and me. I told Mama it was good to see her happy and that I didn't have any hard feelings that she left Daddy. Mama apologized, sort of, for complaining about me to Daddy.

  "I had to do something to divert his anger. And you've always been so strong." She looked embarrassed, not sorry, but I took what I could get at the time.

  Sissy agreed that it was nice to see Mama happy but said she was still angry at the way Mama left because Sissy became responsible for a mean, sick man when she was only fifteen.

  "I'm not going to try to explain and I don't need absolution, but I will say I had no choice about how or when I left." Mama picked at her eggs and took a long gulp of tomato juice, which I thought might be laced with vodka because there were two olives and a celery stalk in the glass.

  "You haven't asked about Albert or the older boys." Sissy looked at Mama but Mama was busy stirring her grits absent-mindedly.

  "Albert calls me every week. I talk to James regularly and he comes here a couple times a year. He brings Albert with him. Will and Robby aren't interested in talking to me and I can't force it." She looked sad and it was the first time I considered that she might love her children; something she'd never shown. I could see the pain in her body language—the dropped shoulders, downcast eyes, fidgety fingers, shuffling feet under the table.

  "Can I call you sometime?" I reached over and took one of her shaking hands. Her fingers were cold and sharp, but she cupped them around my wrist.

  "I'd like that Susanna Christine." She only called me by my full name when she was angry, but I didn't see anger on her face this time, only pain. "And I'd like to meet Lilly. She's my first, my only grandchild, you know."

  “Would you like to come to the wedding?”

  “I might. When is it?”

  “We haven’t set a date or place yet, but I’ll let you know.” I squeezed her hand.

  I got up and hugged Mama and I felt a surge of forgiveness and understanding.

  "I want you to be happy, Mama. You deserve it." I was getting in the car and she was standing beside me.

  "Thank you. I am happy." She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me extra long. "And don't forget to send me pictures of my granddaughter."

  Sissy and I didn't talk much until we drove across the state line into Louisiana on Interstate 10 and were about two hours from Jean Ville. She said she was glad we'd gone to see Mama and that she would stay in touch, maybe even go back for a visit sometime. I told her that Emalene said, "Love your mother, you only get one."

  "She also said that about Daddy," I told Sissy. "If you can accept what Mama did to you, maybe I should try to accept what Daddy did to me." It was starting to drizzle and I turned on the windshield wipers. The swish-thump of the back and forth rhythm was hypnotic.

  "Mama seems to have accepted your engagement to Rodney. How does that make you feel?" Sissy asked.

  "I'm glad, but I didn't need her approval. After all, she didn't care if we approved of what she did." I drove slowly through the rain that had started coming down harder. It sounded like it would break the windows. Sissy used a Kleenex to wipe the inside of the windshield where it was fogging up and I slowed down as the rain came down harder.

  "And she wants to meet Lilly." Sissy was talking just above a whisper.

  "That makes me happy. Lilly needs as many people who love her as possible."

  "Anyway. It's good to see Mama happy. Don't you think?" Sissy said, her face peering out the window of the car at the rain.

  "Sure." The cool water hit the hot surface of the highway and created steam that smelled musty and damp.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ***

  Honesty

  It was our last night in Jean Ville and I was in my bedroom packing when I heard the back screen door slam. I was ready to get back to New York and to Rodney; ten days was a long time to be away from him.

  I heard murmurs on the back porch and could tell two people were talking. I peeked through the curtains that covered my window and saw Tootsie in one rocking chair, Lilly in another.

  I didn't mean to eavesdrop but I felt protective of Lilly and didn't know what Tootsie might tell my little girl. I sat in the chair in the corner of my room where I could hear the conversation as Tootsie began telling Lilly about the Ku Klux Klan raid on our house when I was twelve and how they left our home on and marched to the Quarters.

  "Your grandfather, Bob Burton, still lives in that house and he's a crotchety old man, he is." Tootsie laughed and I couldn't hear Lilly's response.

  The Past is the Past

  Present day by Tootsie

  It started long before you was born. Long before your Mama, Susie, was born, even before Marianne. Bob Burton knowed my daddy, Catfish.

  One day Mr. Burton—he was young then—he come to the Quarters to axe could Catfish get him a hog at the slaughterhouse and butcher it. I was in the field picking corn and Mr. Burton come out there and axe me how old I am. I say I was about fourteen, give or take, and he say I was the prettiest thing he ever saw and we start to walk in the field and got lost in the rows, the tall corn stalks hiding us from view.

  One thing led to another and he start to come visit me when Catfish was at work. My Mama was sick at the time and she died soon after, so me and Mr. Burton would go to the fields or, if it was raining, to the barn. Next thing I know I'm expecting a baby and I tell him and he say he don't know nothing about no baby and he quit coming around for a long time.

  Marianne was born, and when she was about four or five months old, Mr. Burton come to the Quarters and axe could I go help his wife. She just had her second child, and that was Susie, and the Burtons had a boy who was three and Mrs. Burton couldn't handle it. So my sister Jesse kept Marianne and I went to the Burtons’ house every day and did what I could so the kids would eat and have clean clothes and take they naps and stuff.

  Then a year later Mrs. Burton—she tole me to call her "Miss Anne"—well, she have another boy and few years later another one. So I stayed on to help and Mr. Burton took that to mean he could come around to the Quarters again and see me. And that's how I come to raise your mama and how Marianne come to be your aunt.

  I waited for Lilly to say something, ask a question, make a comment; but it was quiet and I became nervous and caught myself twisting a strand of hair tight against my scalp. Maybe this was too much information for my daughter, I thought. Then I reminded myself that Lilly was fifteen and she'd been through what most people don't endure in a lifetime. I had to trust Tootsie's wisdom.

  Okay now where was I—yes, the Klan. They was a bad bunch who tried to keep coloreds and whites apart back in the 1960s and ‘70s, and even before that. They thought it was their job to enforce what they called the Jim Crow Laws, which was rules the Southern whites made that said Negroes couldn't drink water at public fountains or use public restrooms or eat in restaurants or stay in hotels. It was bad in those days. Yeah, it shore was.

  Tootsie stopped talking and I heard Lilly inhale. I wanted to look through the curtains to see if she was okay but was afraid to break the spell. I knew Lilly had questions; this was foreign to her, information about the Klan and Jim Crow and Southern bigotry.

  Let me back up. Your mama, Susie, met my daddy Catfish when she was about six or seven. That was in the '50s, and the Klan was there then, too. Susie and her brothers caught a big ole snapping turtle and they stopped Catfish one day to give it to him and S
usie and Catfish start to talk. Over the years Catfish would stop and talk to Susie when she was playing in the yard and he was walking home to the Quarters.

  He had to walk right in front the Burton house to get home, and Susie would wait for him. When he retired and quit walking in front her house, she stole off to the Quarters to see Catfish. After that it come to be a regular thing. Susie would come visit Catfish and Catfish would tell Susie stories. And that's how she come to write that book with all them stories Catfish tole her.

  Well, when Susie come to the Quarters to see Catfish, that's when she met Marianne. They got to be friends right away but they had to hide it because, remember, coloreds and whites couldn't be friends of no kind. One day Susie was on Catfish's porch and Bob Burton drove up and come in my house to see me and Susie seed what was going on and that's when she knew Marianne was her half-sister.

  "Marianne and Susie are sisters?" Lilly's voice was riddled with surprise. It was the first time she had responded and I wanted to be with her, to put her in my lap and rock her. This was a lot of information. But I made myself trust Tootsie and I sat and listened.

  "Shore are," Tootsie said. "And that makes Marianne your aunt and all those children in the Quarters is your cousins. Girl! You got lots of cousins because Rodney related to lots of folks, too, so you have cousins on both sides." Tootsie took a breath and the rocking chair rocked back and forth and I could hear Sissy and Marianne talking softly in the kitchen. I wondered what Lilly was thinking when she didn't respond.

  So anyways, I think Susie met Rodney at the gas station his daddy owns over at the Y, where Main and Jefferson Street come together north of town. Anyway, Rodney would come to the Quarters when Susie was here and they got to be friends, maybe fell in love way back when they was teenagers.

  When Susie found out the colored school didn't have no books for the kids to take home and that those children at Adams High School shared some ole torn-up books, she start to box up all the thrown-out books at the white school and sneak them here to the Quarters.

  The Klan must have found out about Rodney and Susie. See, back then, a colored boy couldn't even look at a white woman. He had to cross the street if one start to walk his way and he had to keep his eyes down looking at his feet. Well, the way I hear tell, Rodney ran into your mama somewhere in public and he touched her, maybe just put his hand out to stop her, and someone saw him do that and they went after Rodney's daddy, and almost kilt him. They hung him up in a tree in his own front yard and burned his house to the ground.

  The only thing saved him was Rodney. That boy stood as tall as he could and reached his arms up over his head for his daddy to stand in his hands until Bo and Sam got there to cut Ray out of that tree. Fact that he didn't die was a miracle.

  There was a pause and complete silence. I peered through the curtain but I could only see the back of Lilly's head, which was hanging a little low, and her shoulders were slumped. "Honesty," Rodney kept reminding me, was how we needed to live, so I let Tootsie continue, uninterrupted.

  “I'm telling you all this so you know how much your mama and daddy loved each other and how hard they fought to be together so they could raise you.” Tootsie took a deep breath.

  The Klan and Susie's daddy made sure that didn't happen. You see I think your Mama quit seeing your daddy because she thought she had to protect him and his family from the Klan. But she never stopped loving him. I believe she brought you into the world because if she couldn't have Rodney, she could have a part of him; then she saw she couldn't have you either. If her daddy had found out about you back then I don't know what would have happened.

  Before she left for college, Susie would come to the Quarters all the time, maybe every week; and she would come whenever she was home from college to visit Catfish and to see Marianne. Catfish loved Susie like his own granddaughter and he felt protective for her.

  Catfish used to sit on his porch in the evenings and tell me and Marianne how special Susie was. He'd repeat some of the things she said to him, and he'd say, "Now ain't that smart. That girl, she so smart."

  And he thought she was beautiful and he worried some boy would take advantage of her. When she start to see Rodney, Catfish had a long talk with that boy. He was about sixteen or seventeen and Catfish sat him down and say, “Boy, you keep your zipper zipped when you around Susanna. If I hear you take advantage of that girl I'll make you sorry.” Catfish would talk to Rodney about respecting Susie and told Rodney he needed to take care of her while she was growing into a woman and not take advantage like lots of boys do with girls. Catfish, now he was protective of Susie. He shore was.

  I listened to Tootsie talk about how much Catfish loved and protected me and felt pride in the relationship he and I had formed. I remember Rodney telling me that we should wait until I was at least eighteen to have sex, and we did wait. I had no idea that advice came from Catfish. Catfish never told me he loved me, although I always felt it. I would tell him I loved him and he'd say, "Run off now and leave me be. You done wore me out." And he'd laugh.

  Catfish was my inspiration, but I didn't know he'd also been my protector.

  “Yeah, chile” Tootsie’s rocker went back and forth. “You got quite a mama there. And quite a daddy, too. I know it took a long time for you to know who you are, but now that you do, you should see that you truly special. I wish Catfish was here to know you. He'd love you just like he loved your mama. Yeah, I miss Catfish. You would have loved him…

  Lilly didn't say a word, and I sat in my chair and listened to the rockers move back and forth and felt my heart beat hard against my ribs.

  *

  Rodney was waiting at baggage claim when we arrived at Kennedy International and we took a cab to Manhattan to our condo. When we entered the lobby, the concierge called me over to the desk and handed me a long, white box with a satin ribbon tied around it. I looked at Rodney who shrugged his shoulders as if to say "I don't know anything about that."

  I wasn't surprised to find six long-stemmed white lilies in the box when we got up to the apartment. I put them in a vase of water on the dining room table and made myself a mental note to discuss the lilies with Rodney when we were alone.

  We spent Christmas in New York where Lilly was able to be with Joe and his family, and Rodney and I had some private time together. The lilies kept arriving, one every other day and our “house in the sky,” as Lilly called it, was always filled with the fresh flowery scent. Rodney said he knew nothing about them, even after I pressed him about how they were delivered to me over the past two years, no matter where I was.

  "They came to our house in Brooklyn Heights. They'd arrive at Marianne's house when we stayed there. After I bought the house on Gravier Road they'd be waiting for us when we arrived in Jean Ville, and the florist would deliver one at least every other day. After we moved into this apartment, they were delivered here. Whoever is sending them knows where I am—which house and city. It's spooky and I always thought it might be you."

  "I wish I could take credit, Susie. Sorry." He kissed me on the cheek and I looked away, wondering who the heck kept sending these lilies.

  While Lilly was with Joe, Rodney and I revisited all the places we had gone when I was eighteen and he'd come to visit me—the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, the coffee shops in Soho, the delis in Greenwich Village, the ferry to Ellis Island. We also spent time alone in the apartment, ordering meals from the restaurants downstairs and languishing in bed most of the day before Christmas Eve. We talked about where we would live after we were married and Rodney reminded me he'd promised his brother, Jeffrey, he'd go back to Jean Ville and practice law with him and Sarah.

  I told him I was afraid Jean Ville had not kept pace with the rest of the world as far as bigotry and prejudice. I said I didn't think we'd be safe, maybe Lilly wouldn't be safe, in our hometown.

  What is it about hometowns that beckon people back after years of living away? Rodney had not lived in Jean Vil
le in seventeen years—seven years in college and law school and ten years in the army. He’d become accustomed to military life, where discrimination was almost nonexistent, so he couldn't imagine that our town hadn't kept up with Civil Rights.

  I knew Jean Ville wasn't ready for a mixed-race couple. I saw it in my dad's reaction when I told him who I was going to marry. I read it on the faces of my white friends like Cindy and Sylvia and their parents, too. I was deathly afraid of what might happen to Rodney or, even worse, Lilly, if we lived there as a family.

  In the time I’d had my little house on Gravier, I’d experienced backlash from my white friends and my own family members, simply because of my relationship with Marianne and Tootsie. Bigotry was still active and rampant in Jean Ville, Louisiana.

  I urged Rodney to consider living in New York for Lilly's sake. Finally, we compromised.

  I agreed we would get married in Jean Ville so our families and close friends could be at the wedding, and I promised we would spend the summers on Gravier Road where Lilly could be with her cousins and Rodney with his family.

  Rodney agreed we would live and work in New York during the school year and he would work with Mr. Milton handling my accounts. Meanwhile, Lilly would complete her three years of high school and I would finish my second book about Catfish and his stories.

  “After Lilly graduates from high school we can re-assess whether it’s safe to move back home,” I promised. That seemed to make both Rodney and Lilly happy.

  Lilly returned from Joe’s house on Christmas Eve. The three of us had a private party where we exchanged gifts, then we attended midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

  On Christmas morning, a huge box of white lilies arrived.