When All Is Said and Prayed

by E. N. Joy

  Paige shook her head and covered her ears, as if her former mother-in-law was standing over her, repeating those exact words again. If Mrs. Vanderdale had made such statements with someone listening, God only knew what she kept to herself about black people. But technically, wasn’t Norma considered black? Paige had honestly never categorized her children. It didn’t matter to God, so why should it matter to Paige? No way was heaven segregated, and Paige just refused to believe that it was.

  “Oh, God!” Paige said, standing up, rubbing her temples to try to massage away her oncoming headache. She began pacing. “But she’s a saved woman now,” Paige said to herself, mumbling about Mrs. Vanderdale. When Paige had first met her mother-in-law, she had not been a churchgoing woman, but between Paige and the Vanderdale housekeeper, Miss Nettie, she had ended up a saved woman in love with Christ. Both Paige and Mrs. Vanderdale even attended the same church. Even after Norman’s death, Paige had remained very much a part of the Vanderdale family. She’d seen no signs of Mrs. Vanderdale falling back into her old ways of thinking when it came to African Americans. But could something she’d been keeping in the dark now be coming to light?

  “You know what they say,” Paige said to herself. “Once a cheat always a cheat. Once a liar always a liar. Once a thief always a thief.” Paige let out a harrumph. “Well, could the same be said to be true about a bigot?”

  Not able to let this slide, Paige would have to find out if, in fact, the children’s grandmother was behind this pending strife between light-skinned sister and dark-skinned sister. She began biting her nails in both nervousness and worry. She was nervous about having to confront her former mother-in-law. She was worried about finding out the answer.

  Chapter 2

  “Paige, honey, how are you?” Miss Nettie greeted as she opened the door of the Vanderdales’ luxurious home.

  It was close to eight thousand square feet, and when Norman first drove Paige there to meet his parents, she felt like she was entering a mansion. It sat on three acres, which was more than enough land for them to ride the horses they owned. The land was well manicured, and the house had a private drive that was about as long as Paige’s neighborhood street.

  “Well, hello, Miss Nettie,” Paige greeted with a hug before stepping into the house. “I had just missed you last Sunday, when I came here for dinner.” It didn’t matter how many times Paige had been to the Vanderdale home or even that she’d once lived there. Entering it always made her feel like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. It was just so much for one to take in, but once one did, it just felt like home.

  “I know, I know, child.” Miss Nettie made a shooing motion with her hand and closed the huge, custom-made oak door. “But I heard that soul food spread I cooked before I left went over well. Wasn’t hardly a spoonful of nothing to put away.” Miss Nettie laughed.

  “Well, you already know I like to eat.” Paige ran her hands down her voluptuous curves.

  “And you know Mrs. Vanderdale treats my soul food spreads like it’s a foreign delicacy.”

  Both women laughed in agreement. Paige’s laughter faded out much quicker than Miss Nettie’s, which didn’t go unnoticed by the older woman, who seemed to have a sixth sense.

  “Oh, Lord. Come and sit down.” Miss Nettie headed over to the couch in the parlor.

  The parlor had recently been redecorated. To Paige, the style looked like something out of the movie Gone with the Wind. The end tables had drapery-like covers on them with lace trim. Doilies covered the coffee table. The couch, love seat, and chair had a tight-seamed yellow pattern. One word to describe the room was sunshine. Paige was about to cover the sun up with a dark cloud, though.

  “I can tell something is wrong, so don’t even try to deny it,” Miss Nettie said as she sat down on the couch and then patted the spot next to her for Paige to do the same. When Paige showed hesitance, Miss Nettie hit the spot again. “Come on now, child. I got laundry still to do yet. Bring it on over here and tell Miss Nettie what is wrong.”

  Paige exhaled and then slowly walked over toward the couch. The entire time she contemplated whether to bring up her concerns about Mrs. Vanderdale and the whole skin color thing to Miss Nettie or to just wait and confront Mrs. Vanderdale first. Paige sat down and then looked down at her twiddling thumbs while she continued to contemplate what to do. If the tables were turned and someone had a problem with her, she would want them to bring it to her first rather than discuss the situation behind her back.

  Paige looked up. “Is Mrs. Vanderdale home?” she asked the housekeeper, who had been much more like family to both her and the Vanderdales.

  “No. She’s out getting her hair done. She should be back shortly, because she’s been gone a minute now.”

  Paige exhaled. Perhaps Mrs. Vanderdale not being home was a sign that maybe she should run things by Miss Nettie first. After all, Miss Nettie was always so full of wisdom and had never led Paige wrong with any of her advice. Besides, it was more than likely that Mrs. Vanderdale would discuss the situation with Miss Nettie, anyway. Those two talked about everything. What difference did it make if Paige told Miss Nettie first?

  “The girls were arguing last evening,” Paige told Miss Nettie.

  Miss Nettie let out a laugh that made her belly jiggle. “When ain’t those two gals arguing? They remind me of how Sam and Norman used to go at it when they were youngins.” Sam was short for Samantha. She was Norman’s younger sister.

  Paige sat there with a stoic face.

  Miss Nettie stopped laughing and, with a serious tone, said, “That can’t be all that’s got you bothered. What else is it?” Concern laced Miss Nettie’s voice.

  “Well, it’s not them arguing. I know it’s normal for siblings to argue and have disagreements. It’s what they were arguing about.” Paige paused.

  Miss Nettie waited patiently for Paige to continue. Clearly, the subject of the girls’ tiff had cut bone deep for Paige, as she was having a hard time even speaking about it. Miss Nettie put her hand on Paige’s shoulder to encourage her to gather the strength to continue.

  “Norma told Adele that she was ugly because she’s dark skin,” Paige said.

  Miss Nettie’s eyes bucked. A brown-skinned woman herself, she wasn’t ignorant about the torment some darker-skinned black folks had to deal with within their own race.

  “It broke my heart to hear my little one say that.” Paige shook her head and began to wring her fingers. “You have no idea how many times I felt that way about myself growing up, that I was ugly because I was dark skinned. I mean, dark-skinned girls never got featured in commercials. The black girls and the other women who did all had fair skin and either bone-straight or natural curly hair. Blue or gray eyes,” Paige said and then stood. She squeezed her fists together and began walking back toward the door, in thought. “It just brought back so much pain. And I recognized that same pain on poor Adele’s face after those words cut her like a knife.”

  “I can imagine how bad that made you feel,” Miss Nettie said. “No one wants to see their child hurting.”

  “That’s not even the half of it. I mean, the first questions that popped into my mind were, ‘Where on earth did Norma get that from? Who taught her that?’” Paige exhaled and turned back to face Miss Nettie. “That’s why I want to talk to Mrs. Vanderdale.”

  Miss Nettie looked a little puzzled. “You want to ask her if she knows where Norma got it from?”

  “Yes . . . well, not exactly.” Paige looked down at her hands again. “I want to ask if she’s the one Norma got it from.” Paige looked up to find that Miss Nettie had jumped to her feet.

  “Paige Vanderdale, how can you even think that Naomi would do such a thing?” Miss Nettie asked, referencing her boss by her first name. Miss Nettie and Paige interchangeably addressed the woman formally as Mrs. Vanderdale and casually as Naomi.

  “Well, I . . . I . . .” Paige stammered. She then got defensive. “Well, you know just as well as I do that she’s very capable of p
lanting such poison in the girls’ heads. You do remember how she treated me when she first met me. It was as if black people were the gum on the bottom of the white man’s shoe.” Once again Paige had allowed her mind to go back into the past, revisiting Mrs. Vanderdale’s attitudes about having a black daughter-in-law, her belief that the color black was tainting their lily-white family.

  “You know good and well she got delivered from that kind of stinkin’ thinkin’,” Miss Nettie shot, pointing a finger at Paige as she walked over to her. “And you know like I know that when God delivers somebody from something, it is done. Ain’t nobody and no thing more powerful than God Almighty. And nothing can reverse anything He’s set into place.”

  “I’m not questioning the power of God,” Paige said. “Just the weakness of man.”

  Miss Nettie went to open her mouth, but no words came out. She huffed. “I guess you’ve got a point there.” Being wrong did not sit too well with Miss Nettie, who was usually right, and she went and sat back down on the couch. Disappointment was etched on her face.

  Paige, with a fretful look on her face, joined Miss Nettie on the couch. “I know. It breaks my heart too.” Paige placed her hand on Miss Nettie’s knee. “As much as I hate to, I have to confront her about this.”

  Miss Nettie nodded. “I know that as a mother, you have to do what you have to do.”

  “I just can’t let anybody poison my babies’ minds.”

  The two women sat in silence a few seconds, contemplating the entire situation, until they heard a singsongy voice coming from the dining room area of the house.

  “I saw Paige’s car out front when I drove up into the garage.” Mrs. Vanderdale’s voice could be heard clearly even before she stepped from the dining room into the parlor area. “That means my grandbabies must be here.” Mrs. Vanderdale burst through the swinging door with her arms spread wide, anticipating that her only two grandchildren would come running into her embrace. When there was no pitter-patter of little feet, she stood straight up and looked over at Miss Nettie and Paige, who were sitting on the couch, wearing melancholy expressions. “What’s wrong? Is something wrong with my babies?” There was worry and fear in her tone.

  Paige looked at Miss Nettie. Miss Nettie nodded at Paige, beckoning her to stand up and say what she had to say. Finding the courage deep down inside to do so, Paige stood. “Yes, Naomi, something is wrong.”

  Mrs. Vanderdale began shaking her head back and forth. “Oh, no, not again.”

  Before Paige could say a word, her former mother-in-law’s body fell limp to the floor.

  Chapter 3

  Stuart, the Vanderdales’ butler, rushed through the dining room door. “Is everything okay in here?” he asked. “I thought I heard a loud thud or something fall.”

  “It’s Naomi,” Miss Nettie said as she and Paige helped a weak Mrs. Vanderdale to her feet. “She had another one of her fainting spells.”

  Stuart sighed. Helping tend to Mrs. Vanderdale after one of her episodes might as well have been officially added to his job description. She always seemed to manage to get herself worked up to the point where she had a fainting spell or an anxiety attack. The true severity of any of them was still up in the air. “Let me help get her over to the couch,” he said.

  Stuart, an older black man in his late sixties, went to help the women. He wasn’t shocked to see Mrs. Vanderdale looking as though she was recovering from a fainting spell. Since this type of thing was routine with his boss, Stuart wasn’t worried that Mrs. Vanderdale was facing a life-threatening issue. He just didn’t want to see Paige and Miss Nettie struggle with getting her situated.

  Finding Mrs. Vanderdale passed out or in the midst of a phony oncoming heart attack wasn’t anything unusual for the Vanderdale household. Whenever Mrs. Vanderdale got overly excited, wanted to divert a situation, or just wanted to be plain old dramatic, she’d put on theatrics that could give Fred Sanford from the old sitcom Sanford and Son a run for his money. Despite the fact that she had had over two hundred fainting spells and one hundred near heart attacks, never had a phone call to 911 been required. The usual glass of water always managed to suffice.

  “That’s all right, honey. We got her,” Miss Nettie said. “You just go fetch her a glass of water.” She looked at the salt-and-pepper-haired man, who was a year her junior. “You know the drill.” She rolled her eyes in her head.

  “Indeed I do,” Stuart replied all too knowingly.

  While Stuart went to retrieve a glass of water, Paige and Miss Nettie led a dazed Mrs. Vanderdale over to the couch.

  “Prop that pillow up right there,” Miss Nettie ordered Paige.

  Paige propped up the orange throw pillow that sat in the corner of the couch. They laid Mrs. Vanderdale across the couch. By then Stuart had returned with a glass of water.

  “Here you go.” Stuart handed it to Miss Nettie.

  “Thank you, Stuart,” Miss Nettie said, looking into Stuart’s eyes momentarily.

  “My pleasure.” He nodded and then excused himself.

  With her rosy cheeks evident on her thick brown skin, Miss Nettie commenced placing the glass to Mrs. Vanderdale’s lips. “Here you are.”

  Paige’s full attention was on Mrs. Vanderdale.

  Mrs. Vanderdale lifted her head slightly, just enough so that she could take a sip of the water without it running down her chin. “That’s enough,” she said, gurgling and turning her head away from the glass.

  Miss Nettie placed the glass on the table. Both she and Paige looked at Mrs. Vanderdale, waiting for her to regain her composure. Several seconds went by. Tired and feeling awkward with the two women staring at her, Mrs. Vanderdale finally sat up.

  “Okay, give it to me. I can take it,” she said, her eyes tearing up. “My poor babies. I can’t believe something has happened to them. When I walked into this room and saw that look on your faces . . .” Her eyes darted from Paige to Miss Nettie. “I recognized that look of despair. It was the same look on everybody’s faces that day our Norman . . . left us.” Mrs. Vanderdale burst into tears. “Oh, God! Now what? What has happened to my grandchildren?”

  Paige looked at Miss Nettie in horror. Had she insinuated to Mrs. Vanderdale that something bad had happened to Adele and Norma? That certainly hadn’t been her intention. But Paige should have known to just spit it out. Mrs. Vanderdale was good at jumping the gun and then running all the way to the finish line.

  All Miss Nettie could do was shrug and then raise her hands in a “Go figure” manner.

  “Naomi, nothing is physically wrong with the girls,” Paige said. She sat down next to Mrs. Vanderdale.

  “You mean the girls are just fine?” She seemed to have found her strength, as she straightened her shoulders up.

  “They are as healthy as the horses out there in the stable,” Paige said.

  Mrs. Vanderdale looked at Miss Nettie. Miss Nettie nodded, indicating that she knew it to be true.

  Mrs. Vanderdale frowned and began to pat her hair. “Do you mean I messed up my hair for nothing?” She stood up and walked to the fireplace. She looked in the mirror that hung over it. She turned her head from side to side, putting any loose strands of hair back in place.

  “I’m sorry, Naomi. I didn’t mean to get you all stirred up like that,” Paige said.

  “Oh, now, now.” Mrs. Vanderdale turned around and smiled as she made a shooing motion with her hand. “You know how I am. I just get excited sometimes.” She took in a deep breath and then blew it out. “Now, you said that something is wrong. What is it?”

  “Well . . .” Paige stood up. She twisted her lips as she tried to think of the right words to say. Not wanting to cause another mix-up, she decided to just come right out and say what she’d come over to address. “Someone told Norma that light skin is prettier than dark skin. So she called Adele ugly, since Adele has darker skin.”

  Mrs. Vanderdale gasped, allowing her hand to fly to her mouth and cover it. “My God! Where could she have gotten such
a thought from?”

  Paige and Miss Nettie shot one another a look. This didn’t go unnoticed by Mrs. Vanderdale.

  “What?” Mrs. Vanderdale asked suspiciously. “I see the way you two are looking at one another. Just say it.”

  Paige looked at Miss Nettie, willing her with her eyes to speak up on her behalf.

  “Mrs. Vanderdale, I think I’m going to leave you two alone to talk,” Miss Nettie said. She then looked at Paige. “Let me know if you need me.”

  “Coward,” was what Paige’s eyes said to the back of Miss Nettie’s head as Miss Nettie exited the room. When Paige looked back at Mrs. Vanderdale, she was standing there, waiting patiently for Paige to spill the beans. “Well, uh, like I, uh, was saying,” Paige stammered. “Norma seems to think—”

  “That light skin is better than dark skin,” Mrs. Vanderdale said, finishing Paige’s sentence. “Yeah, I got all that.” She sounded perturbed as she tightened her lips.

  “And I had some ideas about where she might have gotten it from,” Paige said.

  Mrs. Vanderdale took a couple steps toward Paige. “And just who do you think she might have gotten it from?” She crossed her arms and waited, foot tapping, for the next words to come out of Paige’s mouth.

  “I couldn’t help but think back to some of the comments you made back when Norman and I first got married, when you found out I was African American.”