Nell and Lady: A Novel

by Ashley Farley

  Nell cast her eyes down and silently debated whether to confide in her adopted mother, finally deciding against it. Lady had made it clear that Nell’s presence in their lives was causing problems in her relationship with her mama. She had only two more years of high school, and then she’d be off to college.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Miss Willa. May I please be excused? I’m not hungry.” Without waiting for an answer, she gathered her plate and Lady’s and took them inside.

  Bernice was waiting for her in the kitchen, a self-satisfied smirk on her lips. “Miss Lady’s right, ya know? It’s not fitting for a black girl to live in a white woman’s house. You’re not a member of this family no matter how much you think you is. I knew your mama well. This ain’t what she would’ve wanted for you.”

  Nell elbowed Bernice out of the way of the sink. “Funny thing, Bernice,” she said as she rinsed the dinner plates, “I never heard my mama mention your name once.”

  “See there! That hoity-toity attitude of yours ain’t gonna get you nowhere. Time you learned your place in life. Your place is right here in this kitchen.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Bernice.” Nell stored the plates in the drying rack and turned to face the old woman. “God gave me a good brain, and I plan to use it. I’m gonna make something of myself. I’m gonna rise above all this.” She held her arms wide. “That’s what my mama wanted for me. You know how I know? Because she told me so a thousand times.”

  Nell grabbed her book bag and raced upstairs to her room. She spent the rest of the night studying for an algebra test, doing her best to block out the sound of Lady’s loud music vibrating the wall between their rooms. For the first time since Lady’s birthday party, she didn’t cry herself to sleep that night. Nell had been fooling herself to think she belonged in this house. Daniel and now Bernice had put her in her place. Their words had been a wake-up call, not a reminder of who she was but of who she wanted to become.

  After a series of nasty arguments, Willa finally relented and allowed Lady to spend the summer on Sullivan’s Island with Mindy. Nell was thrilled to see them go. She needed space without Lady hovering over her, her scrutinizing gaze always watching her.

  Nell spent her nights that summer babysitting for children of members of her church and her days candy-striping at Roper Hospital. She volunteered with a girl from her school whom she’d known but had never considered a friend. Like Nell, Angie aspired to be a nurse. In their free time, when they weren’t researching nursing programs at the public library, they were exploring the many wonderful cultural opportunities the city had to offer. Nell and Lady shared a history, one that was not of their choosing but of their circumstances. But Nell’s friendship with Angie was based on the many things they had in common. Nell had always kept her school and home lives separate. She’d never considered inviting any of her black friends from school to her house. Not only was it too complicated to explain why she lived with a white family, she was also embarrassed by their wealth when most of her schoolmates were underprivileged. But on a sweltering afternoon in early August, when Nell and Angie were strolling along the seawall and found themselves at the end of her street, she invited Angie to come over for a glass of sweet tea.

  “Wow! You live here? Your parents must be rich,” Angie said, marveling at the house as they walked up the sidewalk to the back door.

  “Not my real parents.” Nell held the door open for her friend. “Come on in. We’ll get some tea and I’ll explain.”

  Because the inside of the house was ten degrees hotter than outside, they took their tea to the piazza where overhead fans offered relief from the heat while Nell told Angie about her mother dying and how she’d come to be adopted by the Bellemores.

  “You’re fortunate to have a wonderful family to take care of you, but I can see how it might feel weird,” Angie said.

  “And getting weirder by the minute.” As the afternoon wore on, Nell confided in Angie about her growing resentment toward her situation. “It’s hard to live in a white girl’s world, Angie. Is it wrong of me to want out?”

  “Not at all,” Angie said. “But look at the bright side. You only have two more years of high school to endure. And you don’t have to worry about paying for college.”

  “That’s very true.” Nell doubted she would’ve had the chance to even go to college if her mother were still alive. “Thanks for listening and for being so understanding.”

  “You can tell me anything. That’s what friends are for.”

  Nell had never felt comfortable confiding her innermost feelings to any of her other friends. Even Lady. Especially Lady. When they were children, Lady and Nell had told each other everything, but that sharing of secrets had changed over the years. As with most things in their relationship, Lady had to be in control, the center of attention. Now Lady did most of the talking and Nell the listening.

  Nell’s stomach was growling for dinner when Willa arrived home from lounging beside the pool at the yacht club a few minutes later.

  The girls stood to greet her. “Willa, I’d like you to meet my friend Angie.”

  Willa extended her hand to Angie, but she didn’t meet her gaze, let alone make idle conversation like she did with Lady’s friends.

  “Do you mind if Angie stays for dinner?” Nell asked Willa. “I was thinking about making BLTs.”

  Willa’s face beamed red. “Not tonight, sweetheart. I’m awfully tired. Let’s wait and do it another time.”

  “I totally understand.” Angie snatched her bag up off the table. “My parents are expecting me at home for dinner anyway.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Angie.” Nell walked her friend to the edge of the porch and watched her scurry down the sidewalk to the street. She waited until Angie was out of sight before spinning on her heel to face Willa. “That was rude. You never treat Lady’s friends like that.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude, honey. I’m sorry if I came across that way. This heat has me all outta sorts.” Willa waved her hand in front of her face, fanning herself. “We’ll invite your friend over for dinner later in the week when we have more time to prepare.”

  As much as she preached equality, Willa was the last person Nell thought would be unwelcoming to any of her friends, regardless of race. Willa never mentioned having Angie to dinner again, but as the summer came to an end, she began to drop subtle hints encouraging Nell to socialize more with her other friends, the white girls she and Lady had grown up with. The girls who, she was beginning to realize, were never her friends.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  LADY

  Lady’s hands trembled as she struggled to light a cigarette on her way out of the hospital parking lot just after her encounter with Nell. Their confrontation had brought back all the anger, hurt, and sorrow from long ago. As if she weren’t worried enough about her mother’s health, terrified, in fact, that she might lose her. She felt horrible about what had happened to Nell on her sixteenth birthday. How scared and alone she must have felt. If only she’d confided in Willa, she would’ve gotten her some help. But then things would’ve turned out differently, and Lady wouldn’t have Regan. And Lady refused to feel guilty about that.

  Taking a right-hand turn onto Halsey Boulevard, she merged onto Lockwood and punched the gas pedal. She craved a drink in a very bad way.

  Regan had called an hour ago to check on Willa. “How is she?”

  “About the same. She’s mumbling and moaning, but she hasn’t said anything intelligible. Her fever’s still pretty high, though.”

  “I can come stay with her tonight if you need me,” Regan had offered.

  “Thanks, sweetheart, but you’re where you need to be. I’m fine to stay here. You finish your studying, and then get some supper and a good night’s sleep.”

  “I may spend the night with Janie if that’s all right with you. I don’t really want to sleep at home alone.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Lady had said. “I will feel better with y
ou at the Jensens’. Tell Janie hello, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

  Regan had already come and gone by the time Lady arrived home. She packed a suitcase for her mother and an overnight bag for herself. She stopped in the kitchen on her way out and filled her flask with vodka. To take the edge off, she took a swill from the bottle before screwing the lid back on and slipping it into her purse.

  She drove slower on her return to the hospital. She contemplated grabbing some snacks from the convenience store and then decided that booze was the only sustenance she needed. At that time of night, she had no trouble locating a parking place near the elevators in the garage.

  Her mother’s condition remained the same, but the nurses had changed shifts, and the night nurse named Crystal, a woman with jet-black hair and eyes as dark, whose abrupt manner intimidated Lady, was finishing her assessment.

  Lady set Willa’s suitcase in the corner out of the way and waited for Crystal to leave the room before removing some of the items she’d brought from home. She smeared Vaseline across her mother’s cracked lips and massaged cream into her dry hands. She opened Pride and Prejudice to the dog-eared page and settled into the lounge chair beside the bed to read. After forty-five minutes, her thirst got the best of her and she retrieved her flask from her purse. She made up the sofa with the blanket and pillow she’d brought from home. Propping herself against the pillow, she stared out the window at the twinkling lights of downtown Charleston, allowing herself to relax after a harrowing day.

  Her mind turned back to her showdown with Nell in the parking lot. Unleashing her wrath on her old friend had released decades of pent-up emotions. She’d stood up to Nell with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, and through that strength, she’d gained confidence. She patted herself on the back. Well done, Lady.

  She brought the flask to her lips and, thinking better of it, withdrew it without taking a sip. Vodka was not what she wanted. Nor what she needed. What she no longer craved. She untangled herself from the blanket and crossed the room to the bathroom, setting the flask on the edge of the sink. She splashed cold water on her face and dried it with a scratchy brown paper towel. She took a good hard look at herself in the mirror for the first time in years. And didn’t like what she saw.

  You don’t have any control of whether your mama lives or dies, Lady Bellemore, but you have control over you, she whispered to her reflection. You control your health, at least to some extent. You control your weight, what you eat and drink. She unscrewed the lid on the flask and poured the vodka down the drain. You control your wardrobe and skin care. You control how you spend your days. You control your future. You’re only fifty-three years old, a youngster compared to your eighty-one-year-old mama. You could live twenty or thirty more years. But you’ve got to make some changes. Take back control of your life. Stop going through the motions of life and live.

  Dropping the empty flask in her purse on the way back to the sofa, she stretched out and made herself as comfortable as possible on the stiff cushions. For the next few hours, she dozed off and on, acutely aware of nurses coming in and out of the room to check vitals and reposition Willa when her blood oxygen dropped. The hall finally grew quiet, and Lady fell into a deep sleep. She had a nightmare about her sixteenth birthday, a surreal and twisted account of the party where Daniel raped Nell and a baby girl named Regan with Booker’s face was born nine months later.

  Lady woke around daybreak to the shrill of alarms and a team of nurses swarming the room. She rushed to her mother’s bedside. “What’s happening?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Crystal said, elbowing Lady out of the way.

  Lady rounded the bed to the other side and inserted herself between two kinder-looking nurses.

  “Her fever has spiked,” the nurse on the right said. “The antibiotics don’t appear to be working.”

  Fear gripped Lady’s chest. “What does that mean?”

  “That means we try some new antibiotics,” the nurse on her left said. “We’ve paged the doctor on call. He’ll be here shortly.”

  Lady returned to the sofa and sat down, burying her face in her hands. Please don’t die, Mama. I need you here with me. You’re the strongest person I know. Show me that strength now.

  As she watched the nurses work, her mind drifted back to her nightmare. She remembered most of it in vivid detail, but there was something important about her dream she couldn’t recall. She sensed that this thing, whatever it was, was vital to her reaching a resolution in her relationship with Nell.

  As the conversation between the nurses grew urgent, Lady regretted her decision to pour her vodka down the drain. While giving up the booze was the right choice for her, she questioned her strength to see it through.

  Unable to bear it any longer, she ran out of the room and down the hall to the chapel she’d noticed during her comings and goings. A row of wooden benches, three deep, was arranged in front of a small table that served as an altar, holding a vase of fresh flowers and a guest book. Relieved to find the tiny room empty, she sat down on the front bench and bowed her head in prayer. She prayed with every emotion she possessed, like she hadn’t prayed in years. She turned her anguish over to God, asking him to grant the doctors the knowledge and skills to save her mother’s life.

  When she lifted her head again, she was surprised to find an elderly black woman sitting beside her. She’d been too lost in her prayers to notice she’d entered the chapel.

  “Someone you love in trouble?” the woman asked.

  Lady stared at her brown eyes, dark skin, and full lips. She wasn’t in the habit of confiding in strangers, but something about this woman seemed vaguely familiar. “My mother,” Lady answered in a soft voice.

  “Cancer?” A dimple near the right side of the woman’s mouth gave the impression she was smiling despite her serious expression.

  Lady nodded. “Lung cancer. She has pneumonia. I’m not sure she’ll make it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, folding her arthritic hands in her lap. “Does she know you love her?”

  Lady thought this an odd question, and it bothered her that she wasn’t sure of the answer. “I think so.”

  “Now is not the time for uncertainties. Your mama needs to feel your strength.”

  Lady fought to keep her voice steady. “That’s the problem. I’m not strong.” The strength she’d experienced only hours ago had vanished.

  The woman raised a penciled eyebrow. “According to whom—you?”

  Lady nodded. “And my mother. She’s never actually said it, but I know she thinks it.”

  The woman shifted on the bench, angling her body toward Lady. “Do you have children of your own?”

  “Yes,” Lady said. “I have a seventeen-year-old daughter.”

  “Are you proud of her?”

  Lady squirmed, uncomfortable under her piercing gaze. “Of course I’m proud of her. She’s my daughter.”

  “Just as, I’m sure, your mother is proud of you.”

  There was so much about Regan for Lady to be proud of. She was intelligent, ambitious, good hearted, and good natured. What was there about Lady for Willa to be proud of? Alcoholic. Unemployed. Divorced.

  The woman continued, “You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for strength. Ask Jesus to walk at your side, and he will hold your hand through whatever lies ahead.”

  Lady had come to the chapel to beg God to save her mother’s life. Sure, she wanted more time with Willa, but if she was honest with herself, she was terrified of being alone. According to this woman, she’d approached the situation all wrong. Whether her mother lived or died, having faith in the Lord would give her the strength to persevere—through whatever lies ahead. Did that include the arduous months of detox and the challenges of starting a new life? Lady thought that was asking too much for someone who had so little faith in herself, let alone in the Lord. She’d once considered herself a devout Christian. She’d gone to church ne
arly every Sunday of her youth, but her faith had waned over the years with each hard knock life had given her.

  She stared down at her lap, afraid to meet the woman’s eyes for fear she might discover her a fraud. When she looked up again some minutes later, the woman had departed the chapel as quietly as she’d come in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  NELL

  Nell stole away from her floor during lunchtime on Tuesday to visit Willa. Throughout the night and the long hours of the morning, she’d pondered all Lady had said to her in the parking lot the day before. And she realized just how much pain the choices she’d made all those years ago had caused the only real family she’d ever known.

  Exiting the elevator on the fourth floor, she walked toward Willa’s room, bracing herself for another confrontation with Lady. But Willa was alone in her room, a tiny frail woman fighting for her life. Nell approached the bed. The monitors showed a rapid heart rate and elevated blood pressure, signs that she was still running a fever.

  “Hey there, Miss Willa. It’s me, Nell. I’m so sorry you’re having such a tough time. Your family . . . Lady and Regan are counting on you to get better. I have some things I need to get off my chest. I’d rather talk to you when you get better.” On second thought, what if I don’t get another chance? Nell took Willa’s hand in hers. “Oh heck, I might as well say them now, since you can probably hear me.”

  She took a deep breath to steady her voice. “I’m sorry for breaking my promise to visit on Saturday. I had to work at the last minute, but I have no excuse for not calling to let you know I wouldn’t be coming. This is years . . . no, decades overdue, but I came here to apologize for cutting you out of my life. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. You were a generous and loving mother to me, and I slammed the door in your face.”

  Nell stared out the window as she gathered her thoughts.