“Let me see that again. My glasses are much better than yours,” Lena said, holding out her hand. She looked at it. “I can’t make it out, either. But why would your father’s last name have Powell, then be changed to Perdue? That makes no sense at all.”
“I know. Let’s see if anything else is in here that might explain things a little better,” Memory said. They went through the rest of the things. Other than more jewelry and lots of papers that didn’t mean a whole lot to them, there was nothing to help them.
“Well, this other stuff I understand being in here,” Lena said. “But I’m lost when it comes to that paper with your father’s name on it. There’s nothing in here, from what I can see, that explains why Grace felt it necessary to include your father’s official birth record in a box left to us. Unless, of course, she merely wanted you to have your father’s legal birth record . . . as a keepsake. You know what? We might be too old to do this.”
“Didn’t you say Grace left a videotape and a journal or something like that along with this box?”
“The tape,” Lena said in a tone that clearly indicated Memory was absolutely correct. “I hope I brought it with me.” Lena got up and headed out of the parlor to go to her room. “I was in such a hurry to pack and get here. I pray I remembered to bring it, although, if I did, I don’t remember exactly where I may have put it when I unpacked.”
“I pray you brought it,” Memory said as she sat holding the box and the birth record while waiting for Lena to go upstairs to her room and look for the tape.
“Got it,” Lena said, triumphantly holding the tape in the air when she came back.
“Now, we need to find a videocassette player in this house,” Memory said. “There’s definitely not one in here,” she said, looking around the room that didn’t even have a television.
“Grandmother had one put in the playroom for the children to watch when they come over.”
“Let’s go,” Memory said, hopping up on her feet. “Maybe Grace will open our eyes and tell us something more on the videotape.”
They went to the playroom, popped in the videotape, and began watching it.
“I sort of remember her. She was regal-like back then, too,” Memory said, seeing the elderly woman on the screen. “She didn’t smile much, except on the occasions when she was talking directly to me. Now I know why. I was her granddaughter.”
They listened as Grace spoke about various things concerning why she had done what she did, and how much she truly loved Memory in spite of sending her away with Mamie Patterson. How she wished things could have been different. Then they heard it, what they were looking for.
“You may be wondering why Ransom Perdue’s birth record is in that box,” Grace said. “And why I left that for you two, as opposed to my daughter. Pearl Black, an old friend of the family, brought that to me before she died. I wish she’d given it to me decades ago. Had she, then things for my daughter might have been vastly different. You see, Ransom was born to a woman named Adele Powell. Adele was married to a man named Winston Powell. Adele, incidentally, is the woman my husband was married to prior to me. Adele died right after giving birth to Victor Fleming Jr. Like Pearl, Pearl’s mother was a respected midwife. Pearl’s mother was there when Adele gave birth to Ransom. The problem was, Adele was a white woman married to a white man. Or so everybody thought. Keep in mind this was in the early nineteen hundreds. Adele was, in actuality, a black woman who had apparently passed for white. She’d married a white man named Winston, and, from what I hear, she’d tried everything to keep from ever having a child with him, claiming she didn’t want children. Of course, we now know that her fear really was of having a baby that might come out looking black. Disastrous, when you happen to be married to a racist.” Grace took a deep breath and released it.
“Nevertheless, she did get pregnant. And according to Pearl, when it was time for her to have the baby, she made her way to Pearl’s mother on some pretense that she was out and about when she went into labor. There is much dispute of that being true. The belief is that she purposely sought out Pearl’s mother just in case the baby did come out clearly a black child. Her husband would have most certainly accused her of being with a black man. He never might have guessed it was due to the blood that ran through her veins.” Grace took a few seconds to readjust her body before continuing.
“The baby was born. Pearl’s mother gave the baby to her and proceeded to fill out the proper paperwork on the newborn as was required by the state. Adele looked at her baby closely, thought the baby had a slight color to him, and asked Pearl’s mother honestly what she thought. Pearl’s mother concurred that her baby would most certainly darken in a few weeks. He was already dark around the top of his ears. She was told there would be no way of hiding his true color.”
Grace uncrossed her legs as she relaxed a little more. “Adele decided to confide in Pearl’s mother and asked her if she could possibly find her baby a good home, as there was no way she could take a black child back to her husband’s house. No way. From my understanding, especially back during that time, black people were known to take in children that relatives and neighbors didn’t want to raise or couldn’t take care of. Pearl’s mother took the baby and gave him to a friend of hers. People didn’t show birth certificates like we do today, so no one ever knew the truth. Ironically, Ransom Perdue grew up being the best of friends with Pearl. Of course, Pearl didn’t find out any of this until years after Ransom disappeared. Pearl was a wealth of folks’ secrets. Things her mother told her and things she learned firsthand—untold history and knowledge she told me she’s written down and documented. Who knows where those documents are, now that she’s gone?”
Grace leaned forward. She seemed tired and out of breath now. “I’m going to end this here. But I needed you to know the truth. Montgomery Powell the Second’s grandmother was a black woman. Everybody knows how he feels about black people. It wouldn’t be impossible to prove this fact about Montgomery’s heritage, if needed. Had I been in possession of this information when my stepson, Heath, was alive, I would have used it to get Sarah out of those horrible places and back home where she belonged.
“Sadly, it’s too late for me to do anything with it. But Montgomery is as bad as his father was. Should you need leverage on him, I wouldn’t hesitate to use this information. And not to sound like I’m chewing bitter grapes, but I don’t know if we can really be sure that Adele’s son, Heath, was truly even Victor Senior’s child. After all, she was still married to Winston Powell when she conceived him. Do with this information as you deem necessary, if it’s not already too late, and help bring my daughter home where she belongs. Sarah deserves better than she’s gotten in life. It’s too late for me now. I’m one hundred and two years old now. My time on this earth is at hand. I couldn’t save my child, not like I wanted to. I pray, between you two, you can do a better job than I.”
The tape went blank.
“Oh my,” Lena said. “This is huge.”
“I don’t get it,” Memory said. “This is 2005. Nobody cares about stuff like this anymore. The one-drop rule is a thing of the past. And everybody knows there were some light-skinned black folk who passed for white. I could have passed if I’d ever wanted to. So Montgomery Heath Powell Sr. had a black mother. So what? I had a white mother. So what?”
“You don’t understand. For Montgomery Powell the Second, it really is a big deal,” Lena said. “You see, the first time I ever met Montgomery, he was acting like the biggest racist. You should have heard him. It was scary, really. He called us all kinds of names. Then Grandmother made a reference to him possibly being a descendant of black people. I don’t know if she knew that for a fact or whether she was just bluffing to get him to back down, but it did cause him to get off-balance. Grandmother held up an envelope. She told him she had proof. After everything was over, I questioned her about it. She gave the envelope to me and said that if knowing made that much of a difference to me, I could open the envelope
and see for myself what it contained.”
“So what did you do with the envelope?” Memory asked.
“I burned it.”
“You did what?”
“I burned it,” Lena said as she shrugged her shoulders. “I realized it really didn’t matter to me. But now this.... This is some pretty substantial evidence here.”
“So what do we do with it?” Memory asked.
“Grace left this for me and you,” Lena said. “It’s obvious she still didn’t know where her daughter was. I suppose Grace was hoping we might somehow be able to use it to help get Sarah back home where she had failed all of those years.”
“I wish Grace had found us. Then we could have all worked together to find Sarah before Grace died. She didn’t get to see her daughter for years. It’s a generational curse.”
“A curse we’re breaking now. But Grace likely felt if she wasn’t able to help her daughter with all her power and resources, we wouldn’t have been able to do much. But why not use this on Montgomery while she was still alive?” Lena asked. “If it could be effective against him, why not use it herself instead of leaving it for us? I don’t get it.”
“Maybe she did,” Memory said. “It’s obvious she didn’t get this until she was too old and ill to fight anymore. Then you have to know who you can trust, because in the wrong hands, this evidence could have been totally destroyed.”
“I do know, before we found Grandmother, Montgomery seemed to have been making plans for her to die. I’m not saying he was going to kill her or anything, but he claimed she was ill and near death. I’m sure he was scheming to legally obtain this house. The copy of the deed to this house that was inside the box,” Lena said, “wasn’t that in Grandmother’s name?”
“I believe it was.”
Lena pressed the eject button, took out the videotape, and turned off the VCR. “I think we need to talk to Grandmother. It’s high time we stop this playing around and start pulling together.” They started walking out.
Memory stopped at the doorway. “After you,” she said, playfully bowing while allowing Lena to walk past her.
“Thank you, Mother,” Lena said.
Memory stood still. She couldn’t help but get emotional. After all, this was the first time, since Lena was around six years old, that she’d called her mother.
Chapter 47
Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Isaiah 58:14
Landris waited for Dr. Freeman at the nurses’ station. “Mr. Landris,” a short man with dark brown hair said as he extended his hand to greet him. “I’m Dr. Freeman. Thank you for getting here so quickly.”
“Tell me what’s going on. I just checked on my son, and he’s not in there.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Landris. Did the person who called not tell you anything?” Dr. Freeman’s beeper went off. His glasses sat close to the end of his nose as he read it.
“No,” Landris said. “She just said I needed to get here right away, and you would tell me everything.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Landris. If you don’t mind, can you walk with me?” he said as he started down the hall. “Your son was still having major problems with his breathing. We had what we call an endotracheal tube, ET for short, in his windpipe. This was getting air and oxygen to his lungs at a regulated rate, but something started happening and—”
“Dr. Freeman, is my son okay?” Landris asked in a tone demanding an answer.
“Your son is fine—for now, anyway. I believe we were able to stabilize him. I sent him down for a few tests. That’s why he wasn’t in there when you looked in on him.”
Landris let out a sigh of relief. “Thank You, Lord,” he said, looking upward and lifting his hands in a form of praise.
“I’m sorry if we worried you. I don’t like saying this sort of stuff over the phone, because I understand how anxious parents already are. Sometimes things get lost in the translation, and it can create a nightmare of a problem for both the doctor and parents.”
“I’d like to see my son. When will he be back? I want to be sure he’s okay.”
Dr. Freeman nodded. “That was the CNS beeping me to let me know she was on her way back with him now.”
Landris had become quite familiar with various medical terms. He knew that CNS stood for clinical nurse specialist. He waited outside NICU for his son’s return. When they brought him back, Landris spent thirty minutes with him. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he saw it was seven fifty-five. Eight o’clock was the last official visiting hour of the day for SICU patients. He left his son’s side to go be with his wife.
“Johnnie Mae, you need to wake up,” he said, letting the rail down, making it easier for him to hold her hand. “We have this beautiful son, and he wants to meet you. He’s small, but he’s so beautiful. I can’t explain how it feels when I look at him. Oh, I know, I’m not supposed to call a boy beautiful. Okay, handsome. He’s so handsome. How about that? But he needs you right now. Princess Rose needs you. We all need you.
“Your mother’s memory has reverted back. That happened shortly after the baby was born. She did get to see him, and she knew he was your new baby. She also knew you weren’t doing well. Something, huh? How she could be so much like her normal self one day, then back to not knowing who anyone is the next. She likes my mother a lot, though. Princess Rose was so happy to be able to spend some time with her, I can’t even begin to tell you. Your mother still talks and plays with her, even when she can’t remember who she is. I can see it bothers Princess Rose when your mother doesn’t recall things. I’ve had to stop Princess Rose a few times from getting frustrated about it. It’s hard to explain something like Alzheimer’s to a child. In truth, it’s hard for grown folks to understand.
“My mother’s been a little tired. She tries to hide it from me, but I can tell. I know it has to do with her heart. That’s why she only comes to the hospital once a day. I don’t think she’s even supposed to be in Alabama, but she had to come see about us. Her doctor wants to perform triple-bypass surgery on her. And Thomas had quit taking his medicine. I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want you worrying about it. You were dealing with enough already. I think we convinced him to start back taking his pills. I don’t know. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. I wish I knew how to get him to see he can’t be playing around with his medication like that. Every time I turn on the news lately, somebody with bipolar disorder is getting killed because they’re either not on medication and should be or they were on it and decided to stop taking it. The people who encounter them didn’t know why they were acting the way they were and felt threatened. I’ve got to get through to him that this bipolar disorder is nothing to play Russian roulette with.
“He accuses me of preaching faith and healing but not really believing in it. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong to think medical and Godly healing can go hand in hand when needed. Maybe if I had enough faith, you’d be awake by now. Maybe if I had enough faith, our son wouldn’t be struggling for his next breath now. They took him for some tests today. He seems okay. I just spent the past half-hour with him. Guess what? He grabbed my finger. Well, maybe not really grabbed it, more like brushed it when he moved, but it was like he was letting me know that he’s determined to hold on. Oh, you’re going to be so proud when you wake up and see him. I know you are. He’s a fighter, all right. Why won’t you open your eyes, Johnnie Mae? I know you can hear me. I know you can.” He laid his head down next to her hand, then raised it back up.
“Mrs. Knight is letting Reverend Walker preach Reverend Knight’s funeral. I probably wouldn’t have minded so much except I believe he bullied her into it. He all but threatened me. I don’t know what I’ve done to make that man have it out for me. Reverend Knight warned me to watch out for him. In fact, he gave me something as leverage against him, should
I ever need it. I hadn’t planned on ever opening that envelope, but I have to tell you, I did look at it. Reverend Knight was right. If what’s in that envelope was ever to come out . . . well, I don’t know if the statute of limitations has run out for him to serve jail time for it, but Reverend Walker could definitely be ruined. Then again, in this day and age, who can say how people will really react?
“You’re probably wondering what he could have done that could be so bad. How about he raped his twelve-year-old cousin when he was sixteen? Just the thought of that makes me mad. And would you believe he got away with it, too? According to the papers Reverend Knight gave me, when Marshall Walker and Paul Knight were teenagers, supposedly as a prank, they decided to rob Marshall’s uncle, who owned one of those mom and pop stores. The family lived above the store. Marshall’s young cousin was minding the store that day. I guess Marshall decided, since she was there alone and the opportunity was presenting itself, he’d also take her upstairs and have his way with her as a bonus to the robbery. They’d worn ladies’ stockings over their faces as masks when they went in, so his cousin didn’t know who he was. Not at first, anyway.
“According to the file, Paul Knight thought Marshall’s taking her upstairs was part of the prank. After all, they weren’t planning on keeping the money. That’s what Marshall had told him prior to them doing it. Marshall just wanted to teach his stingy uncle a lesson. Of course, that wasn’t at all what happened. After the incident, the police were called in. Both Marshall and Paul were placed temporarily in juvenile detention while things were being sorted out. A few months following the incident, the store/house burned to the ground. Marshall’s uncle and his cousin both perished in the fire, which was ruled accidental due to faulty wiring. Because Marshall Walker and Paul Knight were juveniles at the time of the alleged incident, that incidentally was dismissed without prejudice, their records were sealed. Paul Knight kept all of this documented information along with other collaborating and pretty damaging evidence. Information he left to me.
If Memory Serves Page 25
