The Secrets She Carried

by Davis, Barbara

  We go into town now and then, Susanne all gussied up in her hat and white gloves, me in tow with her packages. To anyone who asks, I am her girl. And I am that especially to those who do not ask, women too busy worrying how to make a chicken stretch a full week to bother with the goings-on at Peak. For the colored women, though, she spares no breath at all, giving them a good, wide berth, as if their darkness might rub off on her milk white skin. Clear as glass she is to me, parading me and her belly under the noses of her lady friends, as if she’s the first woman in the world to ever have a baby.

  Yet, I see what no one else seems to, or are perhaps too polite to remark—that this baby isn’t agreeing. There’s no motherly glow about her, no bloom of new life in her cheeks, only a dull pallor that hangs about her, as if her light burns too low. And the more her belly burdens her, the more she presses me for pickled okra and lemon ice and back rubs, and with calls to her room in the middle of the night to brush her hair when she can’t sleep. When none of these work she takes another dose of her tincture. She sleeps then and wakes up mean as anything.

  She slaps me sometimes, after the tincture, calls me lazy and cracks my knuckles with her big silver hairbrush. I should care, should be hurt or angry. But I hold no fondness for her, and so I let the words glance off. Lots of girls would have left when they found out what the woman was all about. Maybe I should have too. But by then there was Henry.

  Chapter 5

  Three weeks pass before I lay an eye on Susanne’s husband.

  For a while I wonder if he might not be a figment of her imagination, someone she dreamed up after taking too much of her tincture. But the baby growing in her belly is real enough, and so I guess he must be too. I can’t blame him for staying gone. Susanne is either shut up in her room with a cloth over her eyes or squalling like a wet cat about something. The only time the man’s even in the house is to sleep, which he does way down the hall from Susanne, which makes me wonder how that baby even got in her belly.

  Then one day I’m with Susanne up in her room, pinning her hair, when I hear something rattling up the drive. I sneak a peek between the curtains. She likes them closed in the afternoons, says it keeps out the heat. I think it keeps out the air, but I keep quiet. They’re her curtains.

  “Someone’s coming up the drive,” I say when I spot a rusty-looking truck spraying gravel out behind.

  Susanne shakes her head, loosening one of the curls I just pinned up. “That will be Henry,” she sighs. “Master of Peak Plantation.”

  I pin the curl back, but I can’t keep my eyes from wandering to that little slit between the curtains. The truck is parked now, with one door open, and I see a man climbing down from the seat. He’s tall and rangy, wearing overalls and a plaid shirt with the sleeves pushed up. Him, I think? He’s the big important man Susanne’s been going on about? Climbing out of that old wreck with his knees all filthy, and a mashed-up hat on his head? I don’t believe it. Then I think, Susanne would never lie about something like that.

  As soon as I finish Susanne’s hair, I slip down the back stairs and through the kitchen, hoping to get a closer look. I catch sight of him again from the back porch, heading into the barn with a couple colored men dressed just like him. After a while I give up on him coming out and go back inside, where Lottie’s busy stirring something on the stove.

  Lottie’s proper name is Charlotte, although Susanne refuses to call her anything but Cook and expects me to do the same. I don’t, though, when we’re alone. She looks near Mama’s age, looks tired like Mama too. She’s big-boned and solid country, with a head of rusty hair and a voice tough as gristle. Susanne brags that she’s the best cook in Gavin. I don’t know if that’s true, or even if it’s saying anything at all. Not many folks can afford a cook these days. And the food here is different from what I’m used to back home. The corn bread and sweet potato pie are fine enough, but there isn’t much flavor to the rest of it. It’s all chicken and pork chops—fried, fried, fried. At least there’s always plenty of it. These days, that’s saying something.

  Lottie’s still wary of me, not sure how tight I am with the Missus, afraid I might make trouble for her. Today she pours me a glass of tea and sets a saucer down in front of me with two squares of corn bread. It’s good, still warm from the oven. I wash down the first bite and think about asking if she’s ever thought of throwing in some hot peppers, like Mama does. I don’t, though. I don’t think she’d like it.

  Her back is to me; she’s stirring something in a big bubbling pot. I catch a whiff of ham hock as she drops the lid back on. “You plan on staying?” she asks, still holding her big wooden spoon.

  I blink at her like she just asked to borrow a hundred dollars. I’ve got a job, a roof over my head. Where else would I go? Then I think of Chicago, where I’m eventually meant to end up, and of Mama’s people waiting for me there. But Chicago feels a million miles away.

  Lottie doesn’t notice that I never answer. “Ain’t really any of my business,” she says in that gruff voice of hers. “And maybe I ought not to tell you, but there’s been a whole passel of girls through here—girls just like you. They all leave after a while. Some don’t stay a week. What about you? You gonna stick it out?”

  “Have to,” I say, swallowing hard. “Nowhere else to go.”

  “No kin to take you in?”

  I shake my head, not sure if I feel bad because of the lie or because it feels true when I say it.

  “Well,” says Lottie, shaking some more salt into whatever it is she’s cooking. “It ain’t really my place to say—ain’t really my business at all—and you probably don’t need me to tell you, but Ms. Susanne’s a handful. And she’ll be getting worse if things don’t go well with that belly of hers.”

  Lottie’s eyes narrow down when she says that last part, and I can see just how badly she’s itching to make it her business. I forget about my corn bread and lean forward in my chair. She drops down next to me at the long table, her face all screwed up with her secret.

  “This one’s number four,” she says, squinting one eye at me. “All the rest are dead.”

  “Three…dead?” I breathe the last word out. Back home, folks would say that was some bad voodoo.

  Lottie sucks at her teeth a minute, shakes her head. “Never born is more like it—lost every one.”

  “Oh,” I say, closing my eyes at the thought of it.

  “Yes, ma’am. Never had a live one yet, and it’s eating her up.” Lottie grunts as she hauls her stout frame out of the chair and moves back to the stove. She peeks under the pot lid, turns down the flame. “She was always an uppity thing, but nothing like she is now. I truly don’t know how Mr. Henry stands it.”

  “For better or worse,” I say, like I know something about it. “Love is supposed to be for better or worse.”

  Lottie gives a little snort. “No love between them two—different as pigs and chickens, and a lot less friendly. But then, what they do ain’t none of my business.”

  I shoot a look at the door, then drop my voice. “He never goes to her room,” I say with my cheeks all hot. “At night, I mean. Come to think on it, I never see them together at all.”

  Another snort, louder this time. “Not likely to, either. Except maybe at dinnertime. Even then they don’t talk, just chew and try not to look at each other. Poor Mr. Henry…” Her voice trails off. She sucks on her teeth some more.

  I press my lips together, but the words come out anyway. “As far as I can tell there’s nothing poor about Mr. Henry, with all his land and his fine white house. And any man who’d marry a woman like Susanne has to be cut from the same cloth.” I sound like Mama when I say it, prickly and hard, but I made up my mind about Henry Gavin long before I saw him climbing out of that rickety truck.

  Lottie lays down her spoon. “It ain’t like that,” she says with her lips turned down, and for a minute I think she’s going to cry. “He’s a good man who made a bad mistake. He wasn’t thinking about love when he married
her, just about land, and this place. Now that’s all he’s got.”

  “You mean Peak?”

  “A quarter of this land used to belong to her daddy—came to Henry when he died. He knew that woman wasn’t no prize—not pretty, not sweet, and not exactly fresh at almost thirty, so he sweetened the deal to get her off his hands. Henry didn’t care anything about a wife. He only took her ’cause he wanted that land and ’cause she’d been chasing him all over town for years. I guess he got tired of running.”

  I’m thinking of Mama now, and the man who was my daddy. He lived and died for his passions, Mama used to say—all of them except her. I’m also thinking that a man who could make a deal like that—a wedding ring for a few acres of dirt—might be exactly the kind of man Susanne deserved.

  Lottie must see into my head. All of a sudden her eyes go soft. “He’s a good man, Adele, got a good, big heart. His daddy died while he was in school, so he had to quit. Shame, too—he was smart, all the time reading something. But it was just him to look after his mama, and all this place too, while his friends were off at school or chasing girls. This place is all he knows. That dirt out there, that’s where he lives, not this house. And those tobacco stalks are his children.”

  “The babies…he didn’t want them?”

  “Oh, he wanted that first one,” Lottie says, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. “Wanted the second one too, I reckon. Every man wants a boy. But after the second time with Ms. Susanne…well…I think he kind of quit hoping. She keeps trying, though, God help us all. Bound and determined to start some kind of dynasty, finally prove to folks she was good enough to marry a Gavin.”

  I finish my tea and corn bread, watching Lottie about her business, pulling a plate of pork chops from the ice box, mixing flour and salt and pepper in a bag while a blob of Crisco melts in a black iron skillet, and I think, she’s so used to this kitchen she could probably fix supper blindfolded.

  “How long have you been here, Lottie?”

  “Ten years, I guess it is now. Came to cook for Mr. Henry just after his mama died. They were already married then, but Missus doesn’t know the first thing about cooking.”

  “She isn’t much on eating, either,” I say. “She’s so thin you can almost see through her.”

  “It’s that stuff she takes, all them drops in her cup. It steals her appetite.”

  I cock an eye at her, wondering how she knows about the drops. I’ve never seen her outside this kitchen, and maybe the dining room, but only for as long as it takes to serve and clear away. “You know about her tincture?”

  Lottie’s nostrils flare like she smells something bad. “Course I know about her tincture. Who do you think gets to dose it out every time one of you girls up and leaves?” She shakes her head then and goes back to her pork chops. “I don’t like to talk, though—ain’t really any of my business.”

  A few days later I’m on my way to the kitchen when I come across Susanne in the dining room. She’s wearing her pearls and that frothy lavender dress, drumming her thin fingers on the starched white tablecloth. I’m surprised to see her there. By now, Lottie generally has the plates cleared away. Henry must be late for supper.

  Susanne’s head snaps in my direction, her ordinarily pale face flushed with impatience. Her eyes are narrowed, her mouth already open when she realizes I am not Henry. I tuck my chin and turn to leave, but Henry is there somehow, filling up the doorway. He’s as hard as a tree and planted just as firmly, as if he’s grown roots to the carpet, and I wonder, as I blunder into him and stumble back, how such a big man could have come into the room so quietly.

  For a minute all I can do is stare up at him, inhaling his soap and his hair tonic. He’s handsome in a craggy sort of way, like a cowboy in the moving pictures, tall and lean, with a shock of dark hair slanting down over his forehead. There’s a brooding look about him, like he’s got a lot on his mind, but there’s something else too, under all that sun-browned skin, a kind of quiet that softens up all those hard angles. Mama always said it was impolite to stare, but I can’t help myself. I would never have guessed the lofty Susanne Gavin would ever marry the man standing in front of me.

  Susanne’s looking him up and down now, like she can’t believe it either. Her eyes scrape over him slowly, as if she wants him to know she doesn’t like what she sees. He’s got on a clean pair of overalls, and a worn chambray shirt buttoned all the way to his Adam’s apple. Her gaze lingers on his hands, tough as horn, the nails stained brown. She sighs then and waves a hand in my direction.

  “This is my new girl, Henry, the one from New Orleans. Her name is Adele.”

  Henry nods. “Pleased to meet you, miss,” he says. “We’re about to have some supper. You’re welcome to join us.”

  I don’t have to look at Susanne to know what she thinks of this idea. I can feel the disgust boiling off her from across the room. Sighing, she tosses down her napkin. “It’s dinner, Henry. Not supper. And Adele eats in the kitchen, with Lottie. Not with us.”

  Their eyes lock across the table full of silverware and china, and for a moment the quiet is so thick I think someone’s going to choke on it. I try to think of something to say, something to fill up all that awful silence, but nothing comes to mind. And so I just stand there with my hands folded in front of my apron, trying not to notice that Henry seems to have shrunk a little and that Susanne’s eyes keep darting in my direction.

  Finally, she waves me from the room. As I turn to leave I cast one more look at Henry and feel a wash of sadness, because I realize now that for all Susanne’s talk, she’s ashamed of her very important husband, even in front of me—for his plain ways and plain clothes. I think about what Lottie told me, about the farmland Henry got from her daddy, and I can’t help wondering if he still thinks he got a good bargain.

  Chapter 6

  I must go to church.

  I’ve been at Peak nearly two months when Susanne informs me I’m to start attending services with her on Sundays. It sets a bad example, she says, that some of her help don’t worship in a proper church, and asks if Lottie ever told me she’s a Catholic. She says Catholic with her nostrils all flared, like it’s something you’d catch at Maudie Raven’s place back home on Decatur Street, where four dollars buys a bottle, a girl, and a room for an hour. I don’t tell her I was baptized at St. Augustine’s. I just iron my navy blue dress and polish up my shoes for church.

  Henry is to come with us, I learn when Sunday rolls around. I’ve never known him to go to church before, but the tobacco is in the barns now, hung up on poles to dry in thick yellow bunches, so he’s got no excuse to stay behind. He looks like a stranger in his black suit and shiny shoes. His hair is slick with tonic, and his hands won’t leave off his tie, like it’s a noose cinched tight around his neck. Susanne looks him over, picks something I don’t see off his lapel. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen her touch him.

  We drive to town in the big black Ford. Susanne sits in front with her arms folded, breathing hard through her nose. She’s angry that Henry won’t let George drive us. George always drives Susanne and me into town, maybe because she doesn’t know how to drive herself, or maybe because she likes having someone drive her around.

  Everyone’s already inside when we arrive. I can hear the organ playing. Susanne doesn’t bat an eye, just tucks her Bible under her arm and sails into the sanctuary like she’s Joan of Arc, marching down to the last open pew—the one behind the deacons. It’s odd to see it empty when the church is so full. Then it comes to me—no matter how full that church gets, no one’s ever going to sit in that pew unless their name is Gavin. Susanne slides in, then Henry. I duck in next, careful not to kneel first, my fists balled up tight to remind me not to make the sign of the cross.

  First Presbyterian isn’t anything like church back home. It’s all whitewash and wood, and it’s small—so small you could set it right down in the middle of St. Augustine’s. And like most things in Gavin—and most folks, too—it’s w
orn. The carpet is threadbare, starting to unravel along the center aisle, the old oak pews worn to a dull shine by countless generations of Presbyterian backsides.

  There’s a choir up front wearing dark green robes, leading the congregation in song. I follow along the best I can from one of the thick brown hymnals. Next to me, Henry does the same. The pews are chock-full, but then Mama always did say churches fill up when pockets empty out. Most are wearing their Sunday best, dark suits and respectable dresses. But some of the children’s clothes are a bit short in the sleeve, and here and there, ladies fidget to hide the tatty fingers of their not-so-white gloves. Some, though, are just plain poor. They’re seated in back, mostly dark faces, but some white too, and a few shades in between, wearing whatever they had that was cleanest and least patched. They must be the folks I hear Susanne and her lady friends talk about—the folks from over the tracks.

  When the plate comes around, there’s a lot of shifting and clearing of throats, a lot of eyes fastened to the stained glass windows. I wonder if Susanne even notices; then I decide she couldn’t, or she never would have worn that new hat with all the feathers, or all those shiny beads around her neck. It’s a queer thing to be ashamed of someone who’s better off than you, but I am. And I see, as he cuts his eyes in his wife’s direction, that Henry is too.

  Susanne wastes no time when the benediction is over. She heads for the door, leaving Henry in her wake. I hang back, watching the quiver and weave of her hat feathers up ahead, going still a moment as she pauses for a word with the preacher, then fluttering off again into a flock of ladies at the foot of the church steps.