What Mother Never Told Me

by Donna Hill

  Alone in her room, Marie's words continued to mock Emma. Hadn't she been driven by the need to discover where she'd come from? Hadn't that unquenched thirst for knowledge led her in search of her father in New York?

  She'd begun to suspect the real roots of her existence when she'd secretly opened a letter addressed to her mother from her friend Margaret in Chicago, where her mother had gone to live shortly before the Great Depression. Margaret had gone on about how she'd run into Mr. Rutherford and he'd asked about her, wanted to know if she was well. She'd written that Mr. Rutherford said that one day Cora had just up and run off from her employment without a word and never came back...

  That night at the dinner table, Emma came right out and asked her mother. "Who's Mr. Rutherford, Mama?" She'd never forget the look of alarm turned to shame then dismissal.

  "Who's Mr. Rutherford, Mama," she'd repeated, demanding an answer.

  "He's just a white man I worked fo' when I was up north."

  "For a long time I've wanted to ask you what brought you back here. Just why did you leave Chicago? Did your leaving have to do with Mr. Rutherford? Answer me, Mama! You owe me this much. You owe me the truth."

  "I don't owe you nothin', girl. I left there and that's that. I've raised you the best way I could, given you everything you ever wanted, ain't never denied you nothin', and here you is, speakin' to me like you's the mother and I's the child."

  Emma had refused to let the story rest. "Who's Mr. Rutherford? And what does he have to do with you coming back to Rudell? Why are you getting upset unless there's something you're hiding?"

  Cora's voice was low, her anger barely contained. "I don't have to hide nothin' from you. How do you know 'bout Mr. Rutherford, anyhow? Who told you 'bout him?"

  "I just know about him, that's all. Who is he? What did he do to you? Is he why you left Chicago? Mama, answer me," she shouted. And the next instance she would never forget for the rest of her life.

  Cora suddenly seized her daughter by the arm. "I don't have ta tell you a damn thing, girl. It's none of your business what happened, and that's all I'm ever gon' say 'bout that ag'in in my life."

  Cora kept to her word, until the day she died. She never spoke of her life in Chicago or Mr. Rutherford. But Emma's hunger for the truth would not be denied. She left Rudell, in search of her roots, and she found William Rutherford--her father, the man who raped her mother.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick was relaxing in the living room, feet up on the coffee table listening to some old jazz standards, when Parris walked in barefoot with a bottle of champagne in one hand, two glasses and a corkscrew in the other.

  He got up from the couch, a smile spreading across his face. "And what do we have here?"

  "A celebration."

  He took the glasses from her hand and set them on the table. "Celebration?"

  "Yep." She set down the bottle of champagne. "Would you do the honors?"

  "Sure." He took the corkscrew and opened the bottle, delighting them both with the pop and the fizz. He filled their flutes to near overflowing. "So what are we celebrating?"

  "To finally signing on the dotted line," she said, raising her glass.

  He'd received the last set of papers by certified mail that morning, officially declaring Nick Turner and Sam Blackstone as owners of what would soon be Rhythms.

  He touched his glass to hers. "And to great things ahead."

  They sipped and sat down.

  "I can't believe we're finally on our way," Nick said, taking another swallow of champagne. He released a deep breath. "This is something I've been dreaming about since I was old enough to play in a nightclub." He draped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "I have you to thank."

  Her brow creased. "Me? This was your dream. Yours and Sam's. And you never let it go."

  "Oh, I did. I let it go when I got involved with Percy. I saw the quick money, the notoriety." His gaze drifted off. "The way I was living, the way I made my money had strings attached that were choking the life out of me. I'd convinced myself that working for a man like Percy justified my ends--I could play my music with my band and pretend that I was actually running a club that could never be mine." He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "But then one day I look up and there you were asking about a singing gig." He chuckled at the memory and hugged her a bit tighter. "You had that little Southern thing going on in your voice and I remembered thinking, 'So this is a real live Southern belle.'"

  Parris playfully poked him in the side. "I wasn't that bad. Was I?" Her brows rose in earnest.

  "Let's just say I knew you weren't from around these parts," he teased, dragging out each syllable, which earned him another poke. "And when I heard you sing that first time--" he shook his head "--humph, my heart crossed the Mason/Dixon line for good." He adjusted his body in the seat to face her. His eyes creased as he spoke. "I'd never met anyone like you before. The women who'd been in and out of my life were hard and fast, like the life I lived. All of them looking for the next best thing, which was all I needed--something temporary. You...you were different. You were slow and easy. Made me want to turn down the volume of my life and listen to the melody." His finger stroked her forehead. "Made me want to choose between what was easy and what I honestly wanted for myself."

  Parris abruptly got up and went to the window, leaned against the frame. She set her glass on the sill. "Not bad for a little 'ol country girl," she said, trying to make light of his heavy confession.

  "What's wrong? What did I say?"

  Parris glanced over her shoulder and forced a smile, before looking away. "Nothing." She took a sip of her champagne and lowered her head.

  "So, why the sudden change in temperature? It got very chilly, very quickly." He leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs, watching her, waiting. She thought he didn't hear her the times she cried in the bathroom, trying to drown out the sounds with running water, or the hours she spent at night staring at the wall until frenzied lovemaking and total exhaustion claimed her. But he did. He heard and saw it all. It was like watching a shadow. You knew it was there, that it was a replica of something real, yet you couldn't touch it. But he'd promised her and himself that he wouldn't push her, wouldn't probe, and if and when she was ready to talk about what happened in France, she would. He wasn't the enemy. She needed to know that.

  Parris gazed off at the Manhattan skyline, its majesty still marred and forever altered by the gaping hole of rage. What could she say? She was none of the things he imagined her to be. She was no savior, no wise woman who saw into the future and could tell him the best road to travel. She was in search of her own life, one that was splitting at the seams.

  Meeting her mother and realizing that Emma knew who she was all along, yet refused to acknowledge her, did something to Parris's spirit, her sense of worth, that she didn't think she would ever recover from. There were no words to explain the wretched emotion of realizing that in the light of the eyes of the woman who gave you life, you had no value. How do you find the words to explain that? And to live with the knowledge that her grandmother, the woman whom she'd idolized and patterned her life after, had been complicit in the lies and deceit, the charade that was her life. She just didn't know how or when she would ever be able to reconcile that and reclaim at least a glimmer of who she thought she once was.

  Since her return from Europe, she'd merely gone through the motions of getting from morning to night. She participated in all the excitement surrounding the club. She'd eaten, bathed, laughed, slept and made love to Nick as if her life depended on it--and maybe it did. She needed to fill every waking hour until her eyes shut with finality and her body had nothing left to give.

  That is the battle she struggled with. And it was hers alone.

  Nick came to stand beside her. He plucked the glass from her hand. "Look at me."

  Reluctantly she did.

  "I know it hasn't been long since you've been back and the past few months have taken their
toll--your job, losing your grandmother...your trip." He clasped her shoulders. "You're not alone. You think you are. But you aren't. I don't want you to just hear the words. I want you to believe them."

  Of course, she was alone, she thought, even as she leaned against his strength and murmured that she believed him. She would always be alone in that space that could never be filled, like the yawning emptiness where towering buildings once stood. She would always be standing on the path--alone--looking her mother in the eye when realization descended.

  "Dance with me," he said against her ear. Nat Cole's "Unforgettable" played softly in the background. He took her hand.

  As they swayed to the music, wrapped in the strength and security of Nick's warm embrace, she almost believed.

  After a long conversation with her friend and former coworker, Gina--who was calling from her weekend retreat in the Poconos--Parris hung up the phone with a half smile on her face. Of course, Gina had a few choice expletives to describe Emma that even made Parris wince. And she was pretty sure Gina made up most of them. Once again they promised to get together, and Parris assured Gina that she would always have the best seat in the house at Rhythms.

  Nick was in the front room practicing a new number. He'd been at it for several hours and had mentioned that the guys would probably be coming over later to run through the numbers and she was more than welcome to sit in.

  Any other time the invitation would have been welcome. But after talking with Gina--woman stuff, girl stuff, family stuff--she realized how much she missed connecting with other women. How there was an inherent gene of understanding between women that defied explanation. When one girlfriend said to another "I know what you mean," they actually did.

  She got up from the side of the bed and straightened the covers, fluffed the pillows then walked to the window. The sky was overcast and the weatherman predicted perhaps a dusting of snow--ensuring that March went out like a lion. Since she'd moved from the South to New York, she hadn't cultivated a lot of "girlfriends," mostly acquaintances, but none other than Gina, whom she actually confided in, shared things with. She hadn't made that kind of connection with anyone else.

  A midnight blue Jag eased to a stop at the red light on the corner of her street. And it brought Celeste Shaw to mind, pulling up in her Jag in the middle of the 'hood. Parris smiled at the memory. Although they'd only really talked that one time during lunch, they'd clicked and found themselves opening up that secret compartment that they kept off-limits to most people. She'd promised Celeste that she would call when she returned from France and even sent a message with Leslie to that effect when she ran into her at Tracey's, and had yet to call.

  Parris drew in a breath, looked around. Why not? She went to the closet and took her purse down from the top shelf. After flipping through the array of business cards, she found the one Celeste had given her. She went for the phone and dialed the number before she changed her mind.

  Celeste stepped out of the steaming shower and wrapped herself in her pink terry cloth robe. She used the sleeve to wipe the mist from the mirror then opened her robe, baring her damp body to the hazy reflection. She looked the same, she thought, as she tilted her head from side to side, except for the still puffy and swollen eyes from hours of crying. But she wasn't. Not in her head.

  She was uncertain if her bold move across the color line was an act of outright rebellion against the establishment beliefs of her parents and those like them, or if it was because what was going on inside her was real...since she'd met Sam.

  Since Sam left her apartment, for the first time in two days, she had the chance to think about what had gone on between them. Right or wrong. But she couldn't clear her head. She couldn't come to terms with all of the issues that clashed against each other. Of course, in this day and age mixed couples were part of the cultural norm, an everyday occurrence that didn't cause a blip on the radar, at least not in a city like New York.

  But she wasn't your average, everyday New Yorker. She was from one of the wealthiest families in the country. Their pedigree dated back to the Mayflower and they prided themselves on the family's "pure" lineage from both sides of the ivory ancestral tree. Throughout her entire life she couldn't recall her parents ever having one black friend. Not even a passing acquaintance or a token country club member to at least present the illusion of inclusion. But her parents lived in the rarified air where inclusion and tolerance and acceptance were not discussed, because in their world they didn't have to be. Had it not been for the intermittent influence of her grandfather in her life and her own rebellious streak, she may very well have turned out to be a carbon copy of her mother.

  She shivered at the thought and tugged on the belt of her robe and stepped out in her connecting bedroom. Sam left about an hour earlier. Neither of them wanted the time to end, to push them back into the real world. They'd made love so many times in the past few days that she'd lost count. All she could keep clear in her head was that she couldn't bear not having him next to her, on top of her, inside of her, as if his essence was her lifeblood. But he had a session with Nick and she, unknown to Sam, had some soul-searching to do.

  Yet from the moment he walked out the door her spirit seemed to give way and the tears wouldn't stop coming. She didn't know why, except that there was a space where Sam was and now he wasn't, and she was experiencing what it would feel like if she gave in and gave him up.

  Stupid. It was all so stupid, she thought as she tossed a pair of slacks onto the bed. Stupid, because it was so instant, like some dumb-ass game show. Stupid because this kind of thing didn't happen to her. She didn't allow herself to get caught up in any man.

  Any man...what about Clinton? They were a couple. Everyone knew it. And although Clinton could never make her feel the way Sam did--never brought her to a climax with the kind of awe-dropping power as Sam, or made her feel all woman with just a look, never made her laugh from the soles of her feet, and never made her feel utter devastation if he left--she'd never cheated on Clinton. It wasn't the kind of woman she was, never had been. Until now.

  Celeste wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and went to grab a tissue when her cell phone rang. She darted around the bed to grab it, hoping that it was Sam. She banged her knee in the process, damned the dresser to hell and snatched up her phone.

  Breathless, she said hello.

  "Hey, Celeste...I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time. This is Parris."

  She blinked for a moment in confusion. Her mind had been so focused on it being Sam that it took a minute for her to realize that it wasn't. "Parris?"

  "Yes, how are you?"

  She plopped down on the side of the bed and forced some cheer into her voice. "Sorry. Banged my knee on the way to the phone. Otherwise, I'm good, how are you?"

  "Not bad. A little bored. So I was wondering if you weren't busy, maybe we could...I don't know, go to the place you took me to for lunch, or something. The guys are coming over for a session today and I wanted to give them their 'boys' time." She laughed.

  Celeste flinched at the mention of the session. She knew that's where Sam was heading. What she wanted to do was stay home and beat her pillows until she got the answers that she needed. But in thinking about it, she warmed to the idea. She liked Parris and maybe getting out of the house was the medicine she needed, at least for now.

  "No. I'm not doing anything that can't wait. Getting out will do me a world of good, but we can always go someplace else if you want."

  "How about if we play it by ear?"

  "Fine with me. Hey, do you mind if I ask Leslie to join us? If she can get away."

  "Sure. That would be great."

  "Are you driving?"

  "Hmm, not unless Nick loans me his car."

  "Don't worry about it. I'll swing by and get you and then we can pick up Leslie if she can make it. It'll make it easier moving around the city in one car." Maybe she would even catch a glimpse of Sam.

  "True. You have the address, right?"
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  Celeste checked the information in her BlackBerry. "Yep. I'm going to call Leslie. I just got out of the shower so give me about an hour and I'll be there."

  "I'll be ready."

  Parris hung up with a smile on her face and so did Celeste.

  Leslie sat bent over her drafting table as she put the finishing touches to the preliminary sketches of the entryway and the front seating area of the club. She was relatively pleased with what she'd come up with so far, but she had yet to hit on the thing that wowed her. And if it didn't wow her, it wouldn't wow her clients. She wanted a signature look that could be repeated throughout the entire space, used on their promotional materials and the menus. Basically she needed to create a brand that was unique to Nick and Sam and the atmosphere they wanted to create within Rhythms. She took a long critical look at her sketch. Almost there but not quite.

  She leaned back in her chair and rotated her neck. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the clock. It was almost noon. Mother would want lunch in a little while. She was surprised she hadn't been disturbed a dozen times with that bell. She pushed off her stool and walked toward her mother's bedroom when the ringing phone pulled her in the opposite direction. She picked up the one in the living room.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, Les, it's Cee."

  "Hey." She leaned against the wall. "What's up? I was just going to check on my mother and see if she was ready for lunch."

  "Oh."

  "You can't be any more disappointed than me," she said, hearing the octave drop in Celeste's voice.

  "Not like that," she insisted. "Well, sort of. Parris called a little while ago and wanted to get together. I thought we could do a girls' afternoon."

  Leslie sighed heavily. "I wish I could, but today is Gracie's day off. There's no one here to stay with my mother."

  "Hmm. Well, how about this, what if I sprung for lunch from somewhere fun and brought it over. Would that be okay?"

  Leslie glanced in the direction of her mother's bedroom. "Sure. Let me get her lunch and her up and around for a little while."