Dusty memories of the past clouded across her grandmother’s eyes. “My mama thought the world of Mrs. Attabury.” Her grandmother tipped her head. “She didn’t have a whole lot of use for Mr. Attabury, but he passed on when I was only about ten or so. After that, Mama did her best to bring Ms. Attabury along and help her get through life.” The memories began to take over her face. “Mrs. Attabury was only 21 when she married. She was what they called back then a mail-order bride.” Her grandmother chuckled. “That was probably owing to the fact that no sane woman around here would’ve married the man. She was from out in Kentucky or Tennessee. Something like that. Mama always said her Southern drawl could come out something wicked if she was distracted or angry.
“She lived the rest of her life sticking pretty close to that house. Never went back to visit her kin that I remember.”
“And why was that? Why didn’t she get a job or move? Especially after Mr. Attabury died.”
Her grandmother considered the question. “Mama always said fear will keep a body from moving. Mrs. Attabury didn’t have marketable skills that I know of, and I think getting out…” Her gaze darkened. “There was an accident.”
“With the car?”
A nod and her grandmother’s face fell even further. “It broke her heart I do believe. Shattered it something awful. That’s what Mama always said, that she was never the same afterward. In fact, I think it didn’t do Mr. Attabury any good either. He was a snake before, but an angry, wounded snake is a thousand times worse.”
“So why did your mother stay then? He must have been an awful man to work for.”
“Oh, he was that, and more I suspect.”
“Why do you say that?”
Thoughtfulness drifted over her grandmother’s face. “I don’t like to talk out of turn, and gossip is the devil’s playground, but…” She pursed her lips as if trying to decide if she would continue. “There is two churches around here. The one with Pastor Steve that I go to, and the one near Greely that most of the black folk from around here go to.”
Dani nodded. “I’ve actually kind of wondered about that.”
“Well, it is what it is now, but when I was a youngin’ them two churches were as different as night and day, and a body didn’t choose which to go to so much as you knew which one you was supposed to go to.”
“Segregated,” Dani offered with a gulp.
A moment and her grandmother nodded slowly. “At first yes. Eventually, just unspoken like most things became.”
“But you go to the one here?”
“Yes.” Sadness washed over the old woman’s face. “They’s people in town back then that enforced things, not out loud so much as in whispers and words. One of them groups didn’t like the fact that my mama still worked out there for someone everyone knew had been a slave owner back in the day. By that time most of the children of slaves had broke free and gone off to their own lives. My mama’s line had worked for the Attaburys about as long as she could remember back, and folks around here have a long memory.
“They started saying things at the church about Mama and how she was a sell-out and an Uncle Tom and how if she had anything other than rags in her head, she would high-tail it out of there and burn the place down as she left.
“I can remember many mornings coming home from church and hearing Mama crying in the kitchen as she made Sunday lunch over things people had said to her. Then one day Zeke Jackson told me I was going to hell because my mama had sold her soul to the devil. Now mind you, I didn’t know nothing about what he was talking about, so when we got home, I asked Mama what he meant.” She let out a breath. “Had I known all the commotion that was going to cause, I’d have probably kept my mouth shut, but I was just a young kid who didn’t know no better.
“Well, Mama swore right then and there that she would never have me step foot in that church ever again, and we never did—her and me. Daddy and the boys kept going there. Mama and I started going to the one here. She said no real Christians would ever teach their kids something so horrible, and she’d gotten tired of the way even the others treated her when she tried to consider them friends.”
“Was it any better at the new church?”
Her grandmother’s gentle smile spoke of sadness and acceptance. “I’ve learned people is pretty much people wherever you go. They’s good ones, and they’s the not so good ones. The label Christian don’t change a person’s heart, and a person’s heart means more than whatever label they try to put on it.” She nodded. “The pastor that was here, the one before Pastor Steve, he was a good, Godly man who did everything he could to make sure we was welcomed and felt a part of things. I don’t know that we ever really did until ‘round about the time Mama died. By that time, color had started to be just part of who a body was, not all of who a body was.”
“And Mrs. Attabury?”
Regret crossed over her grandmother’s face. “I don’t think she ever saw Mama that way—black or white or polka dot. She just knowed Mama was her friend and someone she could count on. Mama used to tell me that she couldn’t leave because Mrs. Attabury needed someone to love her, and the Lord had seen fit that she would be that somebody. She wasn’t always an easy woman to love I think, but Mama said unconditional love can’t just be about when it’s easy.”
“So she stayed until the day she died?”
“That she did.”
“And Mrs. Attabury died…?”
“Oh, some years after that. I don’t really remember. By that time I was raising my own family, and we had enough trouble without dipping our toes in that one.”
Dani nodded. “My mom.”
Her grandmother smiled. “Yes, your mother was quite a handful. Stubborn as the day was long. She come out that way, and no amount of time ever changed her much.”
“And she and Daddy?”
“Oh.” The exhale was filled with hard acceptance. “They was both angry at the world, and I think that glued them together somehow. Nothing we did could talk her out of being with him or marrying him. I kept telling her that two pasts don’t make a future, but she wouldn’t listen. They were going to change the world the two of them, and nothing anybody said could change their minds.” She sighed again. “But I guess they did eventually find a life together.”
“It didn’t last.”
“No. But we got two very important gifts out of it—you and your brother.”
Dani smiled at the compliment. “Not sure I’m much of a gift.”
“Oh, honey child, you were about the prettiest little gift these here old eyes ever saw when you was born. I remember your grandpa. He was so proud of you, he could’ve popped his buttons.” She chuckled. “He went around that hospital to everybody that would listen, and he’d tell them all about how you was the softest thing he ever did hold and how you was so smart, you would surely be talking and walking before they even left the building.” Her smile radiated like the sunshine. “He loved the stuffing out of you.”
Tears she hadn’t known were there spiraled up her chest and out of her eyes. “I don’t even remember him very well.” She shook her head. “I lost so much time with both of you. I’m so sorry.”
Her grandmother smiled through her own tears. “Long, long time ago, when Elise was being so obstinate and not coming around and bringing you and Mitchell, I got pretty angry with her and with God, and I went to talk to Pastor Smith—the one between Pastor Steve and my mama’s pastor—about it. He told me about a word from Hebrew called qavah. It’s the word in that Bible passage about ‘They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.’ Well, according to him, qavah is the word that got translated as wait, and one meaning is wait like we think about. But another meaning is to bind up or weave together, so he said it was important while I ‘wait’ upon the Lord, I also needed to bind myself to Him or up with Him. Basically to work on myself, or better yet, to let the Lord work on me and my heart.
“I always believed somehow that the day would come when the Lo
rd would work a miracle though to be honest, I’ve been praying extra hard here recently because I wasn’t sure how much longer I had to let Him work before I checked out of here for good.” She let out a chuckle before growing serious. “That’s why when you called me about the Attabury house back when, I just knew it was the Lord. I knew He was moving in ways I had always hoped and prayed would happen but had begun to think might not in my lifetime.”
“So you’ve been praying all these years?”
“Child, when all you’ve got left to do over a situation is pray, then you learn to get mighty good at praying.”
For a long moment, Dani sat just absorbing her grandmother’s wisdom. Then she picked her gaze up. “I just have one more thing.”
“You name it.”
“I want to go visit the graveyard where Great-grandma and Hazel were buried.”
“Well, now, I think that would be right nice.”
They took her grandmother’s car because her grandmother getting into the SUV proved too difficult. Dani couldn’t help but think what the homeowner’s association people would think if she parked this car in her driveway back in Raleigh. However, she was beginning to see in bright, vivid colors the depth of the prejudice—not in black-and-white but in status and prestige—that thinking represented.
The graveyard turned out to be a simple plot of land out on a hillside surrounded by trees. They got out, and Dani went around to hook her arm in her grandmother’s.
“Is Grandpa buried out here too?” she asked.
“That he is, child. Can’t believe it’s been so long, seems like just yesterday.” It was effort for her grandmother to walk on the uneven ground, so Dani slowed her own steps down to barely meandering.
Together, they walked the full length of the land before her grandmother turned right.
“Mama wanted to be buried by Papa. He was already way out here where they still believed God separated folks from one another in Heaven.”
Dani didn’t argue though she understood perfectly what her grandmother meant—the colored section of the graveyard. A few rows from the end, they came to one, and her grandmother turned. Five down, she stopped.
Olivia Jackson Jones
1907 – 1982
Simple. It was the first word that came to Dani’s mind. However, as she looked at the headstone what struck her most was how much history was lived in those 75 years.
Looking over at her with a sad glance, her grandmother put her arm around Dani’s back and pulled her closer. They stood like that, heads together just being.
A sniff and her grandmother tugged her back. “The other one is this way.”
The separation of the two graves became clear the farther they walked. Clear at the other end and midway down, they came to a section of the graveyard with huge stones topped with even bigger crosses. Her grandmother let out a small puff of air as they came to an ebony black one, possibly the biggest in the entire graveyard. On one side of the stone was Mr. Attabury’s name, emblazoned for all the world to see, including date of birth and death. It had a picture on it though it had been faded with time.
On the same headstone on the right was Hazel’s name, birthdate—October 9, 1900 and date of her death—March 4, 1990. Dani let out a breath as tears came up. So much life lived, so much life never lived.
“I wonder if they’re together in Heaven,” Dani said softly, and surprise lit across her grandmother’s face. One look and Dani laughed. “I mean Hazel and Olivia. I wonder if they looked each other up once they got up there.”
Her grandmother laughed. “Eh. I don’t think it’s as big of a walk in Heaven as it looks like down here.”
With a nod, Dani hugged her grandmother. “Thank you.”
“No. Thank you, child.”
Dani decided to make one more stop on her way out of town. She wasn’t sure Rachel would be there, but on the off-chance she might, she swung through town and pulled up to the cute, little two-story. They had done a marvelous job on it.
Thankfully the older model gold car was out front, so she parked and hurried up the sidewalk. On the porch she noted how festive the little red flowers were in the window boxes, and then with a laugh, she realized they were actually plastic. That was just like her friend, never put on airs if they weren’t needed.
“Well, Dani!” Rachel said in surprise and joy when she opened the door. “Caleb didn’t say you were coming today.”
“That’s because Caleb didn’t know.”
Rachel laughed. “Come on in.”
The house beyond was what she had always heard people call ‘lived in.’
“Sorry about the mess,” Rachel said, picking things up as she went through the living room where the two kids were playing.
“Oh, goodness, don’t be. It’s not like I called ahead.”
“So what’s up?” Rachel asked when she gave up trying to make it be something it simply wasn’t.
“Well, I just stopped by. I’ve been over to see my grandmother.” Dani wasn’t sure what reaction she would get to that news, but it was clear Rachel understood just how big of news that was and also that she was trying to make it look like she didn’t.
“Wow. So how did that go?”
“It was nice, good. It was good.”
“Good and nice?” Rachel sat on the couch and patted the other side. “Mind filling in between those lines?”
Dani sat carefully. “I don’t know. Have you ever thought life was one way and then things happened and you began to think about all of it in a really different way?”
“Story of my life.”
“Yeah,” Dani said. “It’s been happening to me a lot lately too. Like I always thought people here were backwards in their thinking. I was so glad my mom ‘made it out.’” She put finger quotes around the words. “That’s what she always said, ‘Thank goodness I made it out’ like being here was some kind of prison sentence she’d escaped from or something.” Her mind traced back over her day. “Grandma and I talked today about the Attabury family and her mom, and my mom, and I don’t know. It’s just all so different than I thought it was all those years.”
“Don’t you think some of it is seeing it through the eyes of an adult rather than a child?”
Dani nodded. “That’s some of it. My mom would tell me stories about how it was here, and I think now she had some biases and chips I didn’t really understand at the time.” She shook her head slowly. “I think I’m just trying to figure out where the truth is in all of it.”
“Truth can be a hard thing because everyone comes at life from their own perspective,” Rachel said, “but I know for me talking things out has really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Like when Sage first came here way back in high school, I thought she was a stuck-up rich kid that looked down on all of us, but since I’ve gotten to know her, I see now she’s not like that at all. I think it’s important to give people a chance to tell you their story so you can maybe see life from a different perspective than just yours.
“Caleb and I have been talking a lot lately about the need in this town and around here. So many people are hurting, so many are struggling just to get by.” Rachel leaned back and shook her head. “I saw them in the school when I worked there. Parents who looked like they hadn’t slept in days dropping off kids who went from being in trouble for one thing to being in trouble for something else. We tried to help, but…” She shrugged. “It’s overwhelming sometimes, looking at how much hurt there is in the world.”
Dani nodded. “I hear you. I think that’s why I love it here so much. It’s not that things are perfect, but people here really care—like you and Caleb and the others. We’re not just a number to you all.”
Rachel laughed, lifted her hand and said, “Next.”
At that moment Dani sensed movement by her leg, and she jumped and looked down. “Oh, wow.” Her heart turned over at the sight of the fluffy gray cat that came and brushed up next to her leg.
“Oh, you goofy cat,” Rachel
said. “I’m sorry. I can put her outside if she’s bothering you.”
“No. No. It’s okay.” Putting her hand down, Dani ran it across the soft fur. “She’s beautiful.”
Shaking her head, Rachel sat back. “One of Caleb’s grand ideas. She was a stray. He found her one day and thought the kids would love her.”
“She’s so soft.”
“That’s owing to the three baths we had to give her to get all the matting to let go.” Sitting forward, Rachel put her elbows on her knees and folded her hands. “Believe me, when Caleb takes on a project, you might as well not argue about it because it’s going to get fixed—one way or the other.”
“Sounds like just the kind of guy I want working on my dream house,” Dani said, and she meant every word of it.
“Sorry I got late,” Dani said as she sped back to Raleigh. How had that much time gotten away from her? “She can go to extended day if it doesn’t work.”
Eric sighed. “Yeah, you’d better. I’m going to try to take off early tomorrow. I really shouldn’t be leaving now.”
“Okay. Don’t worry. I’ll call them and let them know.”
“Sorry,” he said, and she could hear he meant it.
“No. No. That’s okay. I just thought if you weren’t snowed under, it might work. But I’ll call them and get her as soon as I get back into town.” She knew she should let him go, but it was nice feeling the connection with him again. “I was thinking about doing some tuna noodle casserole tonight. You up for that, or do you want something else?”
“Sounds great. Listen, I’ve got to go. Drive safe.”
“Will do. See you in a little while.”
“K. Love you, babe.”
“Love you too.”
When Dani hung up the phone, she smiled as she turned up the radio. It had been a good day, a very, very good day.
While they ate later, Eric asked about her day, and Dani shared with him all that her grandmother had said.
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 45
