The first week, an article about Jesse and me was on the front page of the paper. The speculation was that we were illicit lovers who had killed Martin Drapple in a sordid triangle gone sour. (I once again had to assure Jesse’s parents that this was not the truth. I’ve since learned that some of their church friends have turned their backs on them, but they still seem to have many people to lean on). To escape the police, the paper said, we ran off together and haven’t been found despite a multistate search. It hadn’t occurred to me that the police think we are together. In a way, I wish we were. I miss Jesse and wonder if I’ll ever see him again. I was very happy to learn, though, that—at least as of this past Thursday—they hadn’t yet found him.
I’m hopeful that Mrs. Williams either skipped over this article when she read the paper to her husband, or that she doctored it a bit to tame it down.
According to the paper, my car was discovered a week after our disappearance on a street in Norfolk, Virginia. There was no mention of the mural being inside it and I wonder what Jesse did with it. I can’t imagine him trying to travel unnoticed while carrying that enormous canvas. It hurts to think that he might have had to burn it or find some other way to get rid of it. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only an object. It’s Jesse’s escape that really matters.
The reporter must have interviewed half the people in Edenton that first week. Everyone had an opinion. People thought they’d spotted Jesse and me one place or another. A man thought he saw the mural in the woods, but it turned out to be an old patchwork quilt. Some people who watched me paint in the warehouse say they saw a romantic spark between Jesse and me. Others said I was envious of Martin’s talent, “which Miss Dale couldn’t begin to match.” Mr. Arndt seemed more upset over the loss of the mural than anything else. “I hope that it can be recovered in pristine condition,” he said. “We were truly looking forward to having it grace the post office wall.”
And now, a month after our “disappearance,” the paper seems to have run out of news on us. I think that is the best news of all.
Monday, July 22, 1940
I’ve been living with the Williams family for two months now. I have a routine, starting with getting up when they do. It took me a while to make that transition, but I felt selfish sleeping in while they all got up to work. I have a quiet breakfast with them in the near dark. Then they all—even little Nellie—go outside to work on the farm, rain or shine. I could never be a farmer! Only Aunt Jewel stays behind. She puts on a white pinafore, gets her medical kit, and heads out to see her patients. She has a car, a very old Buick that she worries will give out on her someday at a critical time, but for now it’s working well enough to take her—or as they say here, to “carry” her—from farm to farm or into the colored neighborhoods of Edenton. She wears a serious expression when she leaves the house. Serious, with a sense of purpose and anticipation, all her focus on the patients she will see that day. On the babies she will deliver. Someday in the not too distant future, all her focus will be on me.
I spend the day cleaning and sewing and cooking (to the best of my ability). Dodie taught me how to pluck and clean a chicken and how to get the grit out of the leafy vegetables. I think she’s smart and could probably go back to school and then college, but she seems content to live here and help out on the farm. I know she doesn’t like me. She calls me “a right spoilt white girl” and I guess I am. She sees me as a burden, which I also am. She has friends, including a boyfriend, and it annoys her that she can’t invite them into the house at any time the way she apparently used to. I’m more than happy to hide in Nellie’s bedroom when the friends come over, but she gives me a sour look when she asks me to do so. I don’t think very many things make Dodie happy.
Sometimes in the evening, I sketch the family members on sketch pads that Jesse left behind. Except for Nellie, they refuse to pose, so I have to catch them on the sly. Mr. Williams falls asleep in his big rocking chair while everyone else reads, and that’s when I draw them, waiting for the moment they look up so I can sketch their eyes. The whole family looks tired from working so hard. I am tired too, which is why I haven’t written much in this journal of late.
I don’t dare sign anything I draw here. One evening a policeman came by. Fortunately, Dodie saw the car come up the driveway and I was able to rush up the stairs and into the closet with its claustrophobia-inducing wall pocket just in the nick of time. He didn’t stay long, but when I came downstairs again, Mr. Williams chastised me for leaving the sketches in plain sight on the table by the sofa. Dodie told the policeman the sketches were old, from when Jesse lived here. I hope he believed her.
Anyway, I’m doing my best as I wait nervously for my baby to come. It’s the nights that are hard. I hate going to sleep because of the nightmares. They are bloody dreams about murder and childbirth. I toss and turn and wake up trying to scream but only squeaks come out. At first, I scared Nellie, but I told her I just have bad dreams sometimes, so now when I wake up that way, she comes over to my mattress on the floor and tries to comfort me. “You all right,” she coos, smoothing one of her small hands over my hair. She tells me my dreams are only make-believe. “Ain’t nothing to worry ’bout,” she says.
I tear up when she treats me so kindly. I wonder if my own child could be like her? A funny, smart, winsome little thing with a caring heart? But then I remember my child is also Martin Drapple’s child, and I feel ill.
How can this be happening to me? I lie on my mattress, Nellie often curled up next to me, asking myself that question over and over again.
I have no answer.
Wednesday, July 24, 1940
Last night, Mrs. Williams and I were sewing in the living room when she suddenly asked me if she was ever going to see her boy again.
I don’t know what got into me. I broke down crying. It was her voice, so different from her usual voice. It had pain in it—the pain of a mama who knows she might never again see her child. I went over to where she sat on the sofa and put my arms around her. She didn’t soften or return my embrace, but I didn’t care. I know she still blames me for getting Jesse into this terrible mess. But I needed the comfort of a human touch, and I held her as long as I dared.
“I sure hope so,” I said, when I finally pulled away. I told her I hoped we’d both get to see him again someday soon, but I know that will never happen. It’s too dangerous for him to come home. Mrs. Williams turned away from my impossible words. Most likely, neither of us will ever see Jesse again.
Friday, July 26, 1940
I was taking my turn in the bathtub last night when I felt the baby move. At first I thought it was some odd bubbling in the bathwater, but then I realized what it was. I guess most women feel joy at that sensation, but it made me sick to my stomach. Maybe I’d been denying what was really happening in my body all this time. I don’t know. What I do know is that I felt no joy, only the horrible realization that a part of Martin Drapple is still alive and, worse than that, it’s alive inside me.
I rushed out of the tub, put on a robe Mrs. Williams had given me, and ran down the hall to Aunt Jewel’s room.
I have been in her room several times. She checks my blood pressure there, takes my temperature. Feels my belly. Hers is the most sterile-feeling room in the house. There is nothing on the top of her bureau or vanity dresser. Her spotless yellow bedspread has sharp corners and is tucked smoothly beneath her pillow. She does have a bookshelf lined with what I assume are books about midwifery, and even the tops of the books look free from dust. I don’t clean in this room—there is nothing to clean—so I know she keeps it that way on her own.
When she saw the frantic look on my face and that I was still dripping water from my bath, she took my arm and led me to the stool in front of her vanity dresser. Then she sat down on the corner of her bed. Her room is so small, so compact, that our knees were practically touching.
She asked me if I was in pain, and I told about feeling the baby move.
She
smiled. Sat back. “I figured that would be comin’ soon,” she said. “Good. You have a healthy little one in there.”
I began to sob, pressing my hands to my belly through the thin robe, saying over and over again that I don’t want this baby. I looked at her imploringly. “What am I going to do?” I asked her.
She said nothing for a moment, just let me cry. Finally, she touched my knee and said she thought I’d change my mind in time.
I know I won’t. This poor child would always remind me of Martin. Of that night. Of what he did. I swallowed hard, suddenly afraid I was going to be sick. I cannot stand remembering that night! The baby would always remind me of what I did, too. “This baby was conceived in a night of rape and murder,” I said. I stared hard at Aunt Jewel to make my point, but lowered my voice to a hoarse whisper. “I … don’t … want … it,” I said. If I ever do have a child, I added, I want it to be conceived in love.
Aunt Jewel nodded in silence, her gaze steady on me. She nodded for so long that I began to squirm under her scrutiny. Finally she told me that there is a white family who lives not far from the farm. They aren’t wealthy, she said, but they have a lot of love. It’s a man and wife and the husband’s parents, and they all live together. Aunt Jewel was the wife’s midwife for two pregnancies, both of which ended in stillbirths.
When the woman got pregnant a third time, Aunt Jewel insisted they go to a doctor. So the woman had that baby with an obstetrician in the hospital, and that baby died, too.
I can only imagine that woman’s pain. “What was wrong?” I asked Aunt Jewel.
“They don’t rightly know,” she said, “but the doctor told them not to try any more. The news just about killed that woman.”
I was beginning to follow her. I asked her if that family might be willing to take my baby.
Aunt Jewel thought they would. “I believe they’d be thrilled to the moon and back to have your baby,” she said. But she told me I still needed to wait to decide. She is convinced I’ll love the baby “more than you love your own life,” she said.
I shook my head slowly. She was wrong. I know I won’t. I asked her to please talk to that family for me, but she refused to talk to them yet.
I looked toward the window, thinking about handing my baby over to another woman. A woman who would never attach horror to a little innocent child, the way I always would. I looked back at Aunt Jewel and asked her if she’d tell them how the baby was conceived.
“No, Sugar,” she said. “I sure won’t.” She said my “little one” deserves a fresh start. That nobody should hear about the sins of the father.
“Or the mother,” I added wryly.
Aunt Jewel leaned forward, resting her hand on mine, and she told me that I did what anyone would have done to save her life.
“But … maybe he wasn’t really going to kill me,” I said.
“He kilt somethin’ in you,” she said to me. “The way I see it, that’s just as bad.”
Tuesday, October 29, 1940
I’m shocked to see how long it’s been since I wrote in this journal. It used to be my everyday friend, but now it feels like a reminder of all the wrong turns I’ve made in my life.
I’m so big now, I feel like a hippopotamus moving around this house. I can’t believe I still have about two months left to go, according to Aunt Jewel. My appearance has changed in other ways, too. I’ve always been fair, but now I’m downright paper white from being inside all this time. My black hair hangs down past my shoulders. The bangs I’ve worn all my life are gone and I now sweep my hair away from my face. I wanted to keep it in the style I’ve loved for the past few years—that little bob with short bangs—but Aunt Jewel says this is better. When I leave, I’ll be far less recognizable without that distinctive haircut. I hardly recognize myself when I look in the mirror. Who is that white-skinned, long-haired, rotund woman? I don’t know her.
Actually, I do know her. She looks very different than she used to and she’s been through a lot, but she finally has her sanity back. I read through this journal before writing in it tonight, and I am shocked to see how thoroughly I lost my mind after what happened with M.D. (I can no longer bear to write his name.) I don’t know who that woman was who painted the motorcycle in the mural. The knife in Freda’s teeth. I wish I could erase those weeks and months from my history. In retrospect, Jesse was extremely tolerant of my insanity. I’m sure he’d been waiting and hoping for it to pass.
Where are you, Jesse?
I catch Mrs. Williams crying from time to time and I want to cry along with her, but I don’t do it in front of her. I don’t feel I have the right. I leave her alone. I just try to make her life easier by helping all I can around the house.
Meanwhile, I am getting more and more frightened of having this baby. The bigger I get, the less I can imagine being able to push it out of me. Aunt Jewel reminds me that women tinier than me have been giving birth for all time, but that doesn’t help. I keep thinking of the white woman she knows who had the stillborn babies. I’ve told Aunt Jewel to let that woman know she can have my baby once it comes, but she still refuses to talk to her and her husband. She still thinks I will warm to this child once it’s born. Even if I did, what would I do with it? Where would I go? One thing I know for certain: I will have to leave soon after I have the baby. I can’t ask the Williams family to live this way, in fear and danger, any longer.
Monday, December 16, 1940
This will be the last time I write in my journal. I’m waiting for Mr. Williams to fix a tire on his truck and then he’ll drive me to the bus station in Elizabeth City. I don’t dare take the journal with me. If I’m caught, the journal would lead the police right back to the Williams family and I fear every one of them would be arrested for “harboring a fugitive.” I don’t know what’s going to happen to me but, no matter what, I’ll protect Jesse’s family till the day I die.
The baby was born last week. Aunt Jewel delivered him in her own bed, not wanting Nellie to be frightened by my screams of pain. I’m afraid my screams of pain probably carried through the house, out to the barn, and all the way into town! Aunt Jewel said it was actually an easy birth. I guess she should know, but it’s not something I ever hope to repeat. Not under these circumstances anyway.
The baby had red hair.
I didn’t name him. I didn’t fall in love with him, as Aunt Jewel predicted. I did hold him long enough to feel his tenderness. His innocence. But I felt no love. Once I saw his hair, it was the end for me. I know that is small and cruel of me. He is an innocent baby. But he deserves a mother and father who will see only his pure little soul with no ugly memories attached to him. That is what he now has: he is already with his new family in his new home. Aunt Jewel said his parents already adore him. I feel numb. Dull and empty. But I know I made the right decision.
I don’t know where I’ll go. I have some ideas, though I won’t spell them out here. I should burn this journal, yet I find I can’t. It has been my trusted friend. My link to my mother. I’ll tuck it deep in Nellie’s chest. It will be several years before she’ll be able to read what I’ve written here and I know that when she does, she will hold my secrets tight. There is a bond between that little girl and me. I am trusting my safety to you, dear Nellie!
I’ve thought of a new name I will use, and I plan to create a new future for myself. I hope Jesse is doing the same. If he is still out there, somewhere, somehow, someday, I will find him. I owe him my thanks. Perhaps I even owe him my life.
Chapter 59
MORGAN
August–3, 2018
What happened to Anna?
I read the journal cover to cover while sitting in the recliner in Jesse’s sunroom, and I closed the book after midnight with that question burning in my brain. Had she been able to safely escape from the Williams’s farm? And if she escaped, did the police ever catch up to her?
I felt emotionally drained after reading her story. Anna had felt real to me, increasingly so as I work
ed on the mural. Now, she felt like a friend. I needed to know what had become of her. I feared the ending couldn’t have been good. Had Jesse Williams known how Anna’s story ended? Had he wanted the mural front and center in the gallery as a tribute to his friend who had no longer been able to create art of her own?
I climbed into bed, the musty old journal on the nightstand next to me, but I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep. After lying there for more than an hour, I got up, pulled on my jeans and T-shirt, and quietly left the house, not wanting to awaken Lisa. I’d been secretive about the journal, not mentioning it to Lisa or even to Oliver. I’d needed to be the first to read it.
Edenton slept as I walked through the dark streets to the gallery, the journal clutched to my chest. It was my first long walk since I’d hurt my ankle, and I only started limping a bit as I neared the gallery. I punched in the security code and let myself into the building, turning on the foyer lights. The mural seemed to spring from the wall with the colors I’d help bring back to life. I pushed my chair away from in front of it. Dragged my paint table off to the side. Then I sat on the floor in the middle of the foyer, legs crossed, my hands on my bare knees where they poked through the holes in my jeans, and I began to cry for Anna, who had started the mural with such hope and joy and had ended it with fear and sorrow.
“Hey, Morgan. Wake up.”
I opened my eyes at the sound of Oliver’s voice. The mural was sideways in my vision and I realized I’d fallen asleep on the cool hard floor of the foyer. I pushed myself to a sitting position, blinking my eyes against the light.
“Have you been here all night?” Oliver squatted next to me. I saw concern in his face.
“Oh, Oliver!” I said, grabbing the journal from the floor. I held it out to him. “You have to read this! It’s Anna’s journal from when she was working on the mural!”
“What? You’re kidding.” He took the journal from my hand and got to his feet, then reached down to help me up. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
Big Lies in a Small Town (ARC) Page 31
