by Donna Hill
How many nights since he'd lost his Cora had he prayed for one more time to see her face, hold her hand, hear her voice. Finally.
She climbed the one step, looked up at him and said, "I'm Emma."
"Emma?"
She took a step closer. "Cora's daughter."
His posture faltered as he stared at Cora's ghostly image. It was her and not her at the same time. When last he'd glimpsed Emma, it was many years ago. He had no idea until this moment how much she favored her mother. This was his Cora twenty years younger standing before him sure as day.
"I know I should have called," she was saying, her drawl slowly returning, comforted by the lull of the Mississippi breeze. "I was afraid you wouldn't see me." She squeezed her hands into fists to stop the shaking.
A car roared down the road, spitting gravel. David blinked and focused on the woman standing in front of him. "You want to come inside?"
She nodded her head.
"Come on then." He stepped aside to let her pass and shut the door behind them.
Emma grew light-headed the instant she stepped into the front room. She pressed her hand to her chest. It was exactly as she remembered it. She walked through in a dream state as the memories came flooding back, leaving her short of breath.
David walked quietly behind her as she moved from room to room, stopping finally in the kitchen. She pulled out a chair from beneath the old butcher-block table and sat down, remembering all the times she sat across from her mother, hoping and praying that she would look at her, really look at her, and quiet the turmoil that raged in her heart.
"Sweet tea?"
Emma looked up, those green eyes that sent him fleeing all those years ago staring back at him. "Sweet tea?" he asked again.
"Y-yes. Thank you." She put her purse on the chair next to her.
David went to the cabinet over the sink and took out two glasses, got the pitcher of sweet tea from the refrigerator and placed them on the table. He poured hers then his own and sat down. He wrapped his hands around his cool glass and stared into its depths. "You favor your mother."
Emma's gaze snapped up. "Do I?"
"Spitting image." He brought the glass toward his lips but his hands shook so badly he put it back down. "Thought you was her standing out there on the lane." He steadied his hands and took a sip. "Parris came to see you, didn't she?"
Emma's throat knotted. "Yes."
"Hmm." David bobbed his head. "What brings you here after all this time?"
"Things...didn't work right between me and Parris. I need to find her and I knew you'd know how. I have to tell her the things she ought to know. About me, about everything."
David drew in a long breath. "A long time coming," he murmured. "Your leaving, taking on the life of living as a white woman, near killed Cora. And your birth nearly killed me."
Emma gripped the edge of the table as David stood, turning his back to her as he spoke. "We both blamed Cora. All those years, we blamed her for something that weren't her fault." He turned to face her. "I loved your mother from the time we were kids. But she had bigger dreams, bigger than Rudell. So she went off to Chicago. When she come back and agreed to marry me I was the happiest man in the world. She never told me what happened, what he done to her and then here you were, two months early." He swallowed hard. "I brought you into the world right up there on that bed. All I did was take one look at you and I knew you wasn't mine. Couldn't be. 'Bout lost my mind, believing that she...Never gave her a chance to explain. Wouldn't listen. Just packed up my things, walked out and didn't come back for more'n twenty years."
Emma's eyes stung as she witnessed his anguish and regrets, knowing her own. "I know what happened," she managed to say. "I met my father."
David's chest rose and fell in rapid succession. He came to the table, gripped the chair and slowly sat down. "What?"
"I met him...in New York. His name is William Rutherford. Or was, he might be dead by now."
His brow creased into a tight single line. "But...how...how did you know?"
She told him about the letter she'd found addressed to her mother from her friend in New York, how it talked about this Mr. Rutherford, how he wanted to know if she was all right, why she'd run off from her job with him and never came back.
"I sat right where you're sitting, and I asked about the letter, about Mr. Rutherford, demanded to know why she'd left Chicago, who was he and why did he care?" She swallowed over the tightness in her throat. "She wouldn't tell me." She shook her head slowly. "But I knew. I just knew." She sat up a bit straighter, pressed her palms down on the table. "I kept the article that mama's friend Margaret had tucked inside the letter. It had his picture. It was a few months after I got to New York that there he was again on the front page of the newspaper. He was running for office." She scoffed. "I found out where he lived. I got his phone number and I'd call his house whenever the mood hit me. Most times I'd get a servant on the phone, but one day I got him." She paused as the jarring memory of that day rocked her once again. She tugged in a shallow breath. "I made up my mind I was going to meet him, force him to come face-to-face with what he'd done. I got my chance at the Plaza Hotel, just before Christmas. He was hosting a fund-raiser for his run for office. The lobby was teeming with celebrities, all kinds of movie stars. I found him in one of the banquet halls...."
She knew it was him as soon as she saw him. He was no longer the grainy, black-and-white image, flat and one-dimensional. He was flesh. Her flesh. He stood there all proud and handsome, laughing with that big smile...and then all of a sudden he turned in Emma's direction. All the air rushed out of her lungs. Brilliant jade-green eyes, her eyes, stared back at her. The resemblance was extraordinary. If there was ever any doubt in her mind, it was gone.
"Good evening, Mr. Rutherford."
Ever the aristocratic gentleman, Rutherford tilted his head to the right side and regarded her with a dispassionate glance. "You...look oddly familiar. Have we met?"
"I'm sure you're thinking of my mother...Cora Harvey, at the time. She cleaned your house, cooked your meals." Her voice rose in both pitch and tenor, emotion warring with reason as the long-awaited confrontation of her dreams unfolded rapidly before her eyes. "Picked up after you and your wife. Do you remember her now?"
One of his aides moved swiftly and expertly to Rutherford's side, cupped Emma's elbow and whispered harshly in her ear. "Let's go, miss. We won't have a scene."
Emma didn't move, she couldn't. She stared Rutherford directly in the eye, saw his pupils widen in alarm, watched his face turn a dangerous crimson, stopping at the line of his thick salt-and-pepper hair. "I'm Emma." She stepped a bit closer, lowered her voice an octave then leaned toward him with her face just inches from his. "The resemblance is shocking...isn't it...Dad?"
A tremor of remembrance fluttered along Emma's spine. She blinked, shook her head to dispel the images of that night and settled on David's astonished expression. She glanced away. "After I threatened to go downstairs and address the media with my story he had one of his assistants escort me to his private suite in the hotel. I blackmailed him. I told him I wanted two hundred thousand dollars to keep my mouth shut, to disappear for good. Something I must have heard on a television show. He agreed to meet me and give me what I'd asked for. I went to his apartment on Park Avenue the following day...."
"You're early."
The well-modulated voice came from the recesses of the room. Emma turned toward the sound, momentarily startled.
Rutherford appeared like an apparition from behind a door she hadn't noticed upon her arrival. His dark suit elegantly covered his long, still lean body. He purposefully crossed the room in measured strides to stand behind his desk. He pulled open the drawer and extracted a brown envelope, then dropped it with a thud on the desktop.
Cautiously Emma moved forward, back straight, head held proudly aloft. She stood directly in front of him. It was then that she noticed his haggard appearance, nothing like the well-groomed, self-assu
red man of the night before, even clothed in what was obviously an expensive, handsome suit. His eyes were red-rimmed with half-moon shadows underscoring them, and there was a faint outline of stubble coating his angular jaw. The smooth control he'd previously exhibited was replaced by short, almost stilted movements, like a person forced to concentrate on every action.
"There's your money. Take it and go. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"I want the truth. I want answers."
"You want money. You want to ruin my life, my reputation, with your lies and accusations. If that money will make you go away, then so be it."
"Ruin your life?" she stammered incredulously. "Your life? Do you have any idea how you've ruined my life?" She stepped closer. "Look at me. Take a good look at me. What do you see? A woman who has spent all of her life not knowing where she belonged, not fitting in, having everyone around her whispering things about her--her mother. Do you know what it feels like to not to know who you are--why you are? Do you know what it feels like to have your own mother look at you with emptiness and shame, the one person in the world who is supposed to love you without question? Look at me, damn you to hell! This is what you've done." She pounded her finger at her chest. "You've ruined my life!"
Emma pressed her lips together, drew herself up and took the damning envelope from the desk. Without another word or a backward glance, she walked stiffly toward the door.
"I never meant...to hurt your mother. Never."
Her steps faltered then settled. Her head rose a notch and her shoulders straightened. For the beat of a heart, she stood there, let his words reach down to that dark tortured place in her soul, and finally there was light. She dropped the envelope at her feet, opened the door and walked out....
Emma's soft sobs brought David to her side. He pulled his chair next her hers and drew her against his chest, rocking her gently as her cries shook her petite body. He let her cry as his own tears of regret and loss burned his eyes and scorched his cheek.
"She was a wonderful child," he said to Emma much later as they sat together on the porch, dusk gathering around them. "Always had a smile and was the joy of our lives. Voice as beautiful as her grandmother's." He smiled at the memory. "We both wronged Cora, me and you both. I spent the rest of her life trying to make it up to her. You have the same chance with Parris before it's too late." He dug in his pocket and took out a slip of paper. "This is where she's staying in New York, with that young fella that came here for her when Cora passed." He handed it to her.
She took it from him, her gaze thankful. "They were lucky to have you in their life." She stood up slowly.
"I can drive you back to town."
She smiled softly. "I think I'll walk." She leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Thank you." She turned to leave.
"This is always your home, Emma."
She nodded once and began her walk.
As David watched her walk away he prayed that the dark secret that haunted this family for generations would finally see its long overdue end.
Chapter Eighteen
Leslie finished up in the kitchen and turned out the lights. It had been a long day. Her mother was more cranky than usual, which had totally drained Leslie, emotionally and physically. All she wanted to do was catch the last of the news and crawl into bed. She shuffled out to the living room and turned on the television. Taking her favorite spot on the couch she caught up with the events of the day.
Another dateless Saturday night, she mused as the broadcaster talked about the grand opening of another night spot in Manhattan. At least it was over on the East Side, she thought, as she watched the stars emerge from their cars, pose for the cameras and stroll in under the pop and flash of lights. She nearly leaped out of her chair when she spotted Clinton with Allison glued tightly to his arm walking down the red carpet. They both smiled and waved as if Celeste never existed.
"Well, I'll be damned. He sure didn't waste any time." She wondered if Celeste was watching, and started to reach for the phone to call her, but knowing Celeste she had better things to do on a Saturday night than watch other people have a good time, especially her ex. She pointed the remote at the screen and watched it go black.
Sighing heavily, she heaved herself off the couch, stuck her feet in her slippers and headed for her bedroom. She stopped, as always, at her mother's door for the last bed check.
Her mother's frail body was silhouetted by the night-light that glowed like a halo above Theresa's head. The blanket that covered her slowly rose and fell in time to the soft snores. Leslie stood there for a moment in the quiet, in the dark, thinking of the times when she was a little girl and she'd come to her mother's door eager to tell her about her day, and Theresa would say, not now Leslie, I'm exhausted. Go to bed, it's late. And she'd leave brokenhearted with so many things on her mind. Day after day, night after night, until one day she didn't try anymore. And over the years, the stories, the questions, the hurts, the need to know things--girl things, mother/daughter things--congealed into this tight ball that sat in the center of her stomach growing day by day until it erupted that night in her mother's apartment.
Leslie wrapped her arms tightly around her body, her lips squeezed shut as she fought back the cry that battled to escape. It began like any other time she and her mother got together. She'd stopped by that Friday night as she always did--the daughterly thing--to check on Theresa. She was never sure why she made it her Friday night ritual. Theresa never seemed to appreciate it, but Leslie couldn't stop herself, as if she hoped that maybe "this Friday" things would be different.
She'd called ahead as usual to find out if Theresa needed anything. After stopping at the local grocer for the usual fixings for a salad and some Italian bread, Leslie arrived at her mother's apartment on Lenox Avenue. She'd lived in the same apartment for Leslie's entire life. The building was rent-stabilized, and in today's economy, Theresa was barely paying five hundred dollars for a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Harlem. She would proudly tell anyone who asked that they would have to "sandblast me out of here, 'cause I ain't never leaving."
Leslie smiled to herself, thinking of her mother's favorite line as she stuck her key in the door. The mouthwatering aroma of homemade spaghetti sauce greeted her just like every Friday night at her mother's. It had turned into an unspoken tradition between them.
She found Theresa in the kitchen, stirring the sauce with one hand and sprinkling in the ingredients with the other.
"Just put the stuff on the table," she said without turning around, without a hello. "Then you can butter that bread."
Leslie sighed, shrugged out of her coat and took it to the hallway closet, stopped off in the bathroom to wash her hands then returned to the kitchen.
To the casual observer, mother and daughter working side by side, preparing their traditional Friday night dinner, would evoke the perfect scene of domesticity. It wasn't.
Leslie jammed the knife into the bread, slicing through it. Her breathing for a moment was short and tense until she forced herself to relax as she listened to her mother remind her that she looked like she was gaining more weight and she really needed to make an appointment with her hairdresser for a touch-up.
"I'm never having kids," she suddenly blurted out.
"Probably a good thing."
"Is that how you feel about me, you wish you hadn't?"
Theresa held up her spoon in warning. "Don't start with me tonight, Leslie. I'm not in the mood for another one of your 'woe is me' pity parties."
Leslie gripped the knife, her rage boiling in concert with the pot of sauce. "I always wondered what man could find a woman as cold as you warm enough to sleep with."
It happened so fast she couldn't have reacted in time to ward off the powerful slap that sent her reeling back against the refrigerator.
Theresa's dark eyes bored into Leslie, the muscles of her face twitched as they stood facing each other in a silent war that had gone on for decades and finally the first drop of blood was
spilled.
"I despise you," she said from a place so deep and dark inside herself that the voice was unrecognizable. "You've spent your entire life making mine miserable, belittling me, ignoring me. I may as well have grown up alone for all the good you ever were to me! Why did you have me if hate me so much? Whhhyyy?" she screamed. "Do I remind you of him, some horrible time in your life that you'd rather forget so you spend your life punishing me?" She pounded her chest as tears streamed down her face. "Do you know what you have done to me, you selfish, evil bitch!" She lunged toward her, wanting to smash her face in, when suddenly Theresa's eyes widened in alarm. Her mouth opened but there was no sound. Her body stiffened before she collapsed on the kitchen floor.
For several moments Leslie stood there with the knife still in her hand, not able to put together what she was seeing. She stared at the knife. There was no blood. The pot boiled over as thick red sauce ran unchecked down the stove.
"Ma..." She stepped closer. Theresa didn't move. Leslie's heart was beating out of her chest. She dropped to the floor beside her mother. "Ma!" She shook her. Nothing. She pressed her head to her chest. She was still breathing. Leslie leaped up. She needed to call someone. Emergency. Her mind went blank and for a moment she turned in a circle, not remembering where the phone was in a house that she knew like the back of her hand. Finally, her wild gaze landed on the phone. She snapped up the phone on the wall and with shaky fingers she pressed in 911, all the while staring at her mother lying motionless on her kitchen floor.
And all she could think about on the way to the hospital that night, with the shrilling sirens crashing through the night, was that if Theresa died they'd never have their Friday night dinners and she would never have the chance again to get her mother to love her.
