What's Left Unsaid

by Emily Bleeker

  “I told Nancy and I’ll tell you the same thing: I do not want to be a burden. I don’t mind goin’ to bed early if need be.”

  Mamaw’s attempt at a stern voice cracked Hannah up. When she was a little girl, both Hannah and Brody knew that if they wanted a cookie, they should ask Mamaw. In fact, if they wanted anything, they knew to ask Mamaw, who was loving and overly generous with her only grandchildren. It was easy to see where Patrick Williamson had gotten his soft edge, and Hannah liked this reminder. It made her feel like the empty space he’d left behind was being filled in a way.

  “You are not a burden. I moved here to help you. Let me help,” Hannah said, her stern voice much more convincing. She couldn’t help but be a bit annoyed. Not by Mamaw, but because there was no doubt in Hannah’s mind that her mother, Pam Williamson, had blabbed to just about everyone in town of her daughter’s recent “emotional decline and hospitalization,” as she liked to call it. And now everyone who knew about her experience was treating her like a glass doll.

  “Well, as long as you are sure it’s not too much.”

  “That’s not even possible,” Hannah said, leaning in to kiss Mamaw’s cheek. She took in the smell of her delicately applied perfume. As a little girl, she’d once tried to find out what scent it was by searching through the glass bottles on Mamaw’s vanity, but all she found were label-less containers with mystery liquids, which just made everything seem that much fancier. Everything about Mamaw was beautiful, and Hannah didn’t need Monty’s stories to see that. But Mable Williamson’s ultimate beauty wasn’t her always-flawless skin, which made her wrinkles look like decorations rather than detractions, or her nails, painted a glossy version of some hue of pink or red. No, it was how she made everyone around her feel about themselves.

  That was the most selfish reason Hannah hadn’t left Senatobia yet. Mamaw didn’t need Hannah, not with Carla and Nancy and the ladies from the women’s group down at the Presbyterian church and even Charlie Davenport, her eighty-six-year-old gentleman caller who came to flirt over coffee and cake a few mornings a week. But Mamaw made her feel loved unwaveringly, and Hannah needed some of that in her life.

  “I’m sure the last thing you want to be doing when you get home from a long day at work is to jostle these old bones around.”

  “I mean, I know Mr. Davenport would offer to jostle your bones . . .”

  “Oh, now, Hannah! That’s terrible.” Mamaw laughed, not scandalized but conditioned to think she should be. She patted Hannah’s arm, her vibrant brown eyes sparkling behind her oversize glasses.

  “If by terrible you mean hilarious, then yes, it’s terrible.” Hannah grabbed a lotion bottle and a small container of nail polish from the nightstand and walked to the end of the bed. Both legs were in large plastic boots. The only way to know that human appendages were enclosed were ten petite toes sticking out at the bottom. Hannah applied a thin line of lotion to each toe like she did most nights before dinner.

  “Sometimes you remind me of my brother, Jerry. When he was in fourth grade, a little girl gave him a dime and asked him to be her boyfriend. All the other boys circled to tease him, but he wasn’t embarrassed. Instead, he shouted, ‘Hell yeah!’ and kissed the girl right on the lips. Got sent home from school for it. It was smart, though. The boys left him alone after that.”

  “Ohhhhhh, Great-Uncle Jerry was a player!” Hannah joked, gently massaging each toe individually. Nancy said it helped with circulation, but Mamaw said it reminded her of a mani-pedi.

  “Well, he was all-state in football but not till high school . . .”

  “No, Mamaw.” Hannah swapped the lotion for the nail polish bottle and unscrewed the top. “Not a football player. A player. Like, he was popular with the ladies.”

  “Oh my.” She giggled again, blushing like a teacher might come in and send her to the principal’s office for talking dirty. But then her face became still. “It’s not far from the truth, I guess. There was a rumor he got a college girl pregnant, climbed into her dorm window. She said she lost the baby in a car accident, but nobody saw her for nine months after, so Momma always thought she had the baby and adopted it out.”

  “Wait.” Hannah applied a quick refresher coat, screwed the top back on the nail polish, and then took out the lotion bottle. “You’re saying you don’t know? Like, no one tried to find out?”

  As Hannah massaged her feet, Mamaw shook her head subtly like she was shy about her response. “No, it was just a rumor. People love a little scandal.”

  “But what if it was true? Don’t you wonder?” Completing her nightly routine, Hannah put the container away and rubbed the rest of the lotion into her palms. She couldn’t stop wondering about things. That was part of the problem.

  “No, people try to mind their own business for the most part. And besides that, I guess Daddy didn’t want the gossip of it all. ’Cause of his business.”

  Hannah’s great-grandfather was one of the few businessmen to benefit financially from the Depression. Cotton became the only fabric most families could afford, and the Williamson family was the biggest cotton distributor in northern Mississippi and southern Tennessee. And with a warehouse just off the train tracks, Williamson and Son brought in enough money to buy a lovely house on the main square, a new organ for the Presbyterian church down the street, and care for at least two elderly spinster aunts.

  I’ll be a fantastic spinster aunt one day, Hannah thought ruefully. Then again, she was a terrible spinster aunt right now. Her older brother, Brody, had two adorable little boys she hadn’t seen since her father’s funeral. But that wasn’t only Hannah’s fault. After becoming close to Hannah’s now-ex, Brody took Alex’s departure almost as hard as she had, but his reaction was less about crying and more about “making him pay.” Hannah had too many of her own emotions to manage; she didn’t have the wherewithal to manage Brody’s too—so they hadn’t talked in four months. Truthfully, everyone was tired of Hannah’s depression and hyperfocus on Alex; even Hannah was, but that didn’t mean she could snap her fingers and make it stop.

  “But we don’t have to worry about his business. They have all that genetic testing now. There could be more Williamsons out there somewhere. We could—”

  “Now, Hannah.” She patted her granddaughter’s hand gently, her baby-soft skin contrasting her swollen, knobby joints and brown age spots. “That’s enough of that. My momma always said that you need to let people have whatever fiction makes their life tolerable. And I agree. There’s no use in churning up the past.”

  Fiction. As a reporter, Hannah had become accustomed to fighting the easy fictions people tried to act out and digging deeper into the elusive truth. It was that craving for truth that made her call Alex through the nurses’ station rather than his cell phone when he was working late, only to find out he wasn’t on the schedule. And it was what made her ask about a contact named Max, who always seemed to call at the oddest hours of the night. And in the end, it was what made her take the El home on her lunch break and find “Max” and Alex enjoying some afternoon delight. Janie and Alex had been sleeping together behind Hannah’s back for months, in her own home and bed. Before the rejection and devastation hit, there was a brief wave of relief that she hadn’t been as crazy as Alex had made her seem.

  What would her life look like right now if she’d let Alex have his “tolerable fiction”? Perhaps being with him and pretending she didn’t notice the inconsistencies in his stories or significant gaps in his timelines would’ve been worth keeping him in her life. But probably not.

  A tinkling bell rang in the kitchen, signaling that dinner was ready.

  “There’s dinner,” Hannah said, learning how to avoid awkward topics of conversation like she’d been born south of the Mason-Dixon Line. “See, once Nancy teaches me a thing or two about bone jostling, we can go back to having dinner at the table.”

  “That sounds lovely, dear.” Mamaw smiled sweetly as Hannah slipped her hand off the bed, sending a puff of gardeni
a scent into the air.

  “And maybe I’ll call Mr. Davenport for some tips . . . ,” Hannah snuck in as she hurried out of the room, Mamaw’s scandalized rebuke echoing down the hall.

  Passing Papaw’s study, Hannah thought of the folded cluster of papers still in her back pocket. She’d read them later when she was alone. Mamaw might not want to know about the secrets hidden in the world around her, and Mr. Martin might agree with her, but Hannah couldn’t help her urge to know someone else’s ugly truth—especially when it distracted her from her own.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Yes, Ma, I know. I’ll get it done,” Hannah muttered as she entered the Record’s offices and headed toward her desk. The low rumble of traffic on the 290 came through Hannah’s headphones.

  For twenty-five years Hannah’s parents made the commute into the city together, her dad dropping his wife off at her law firm before heading into his office at Columbia College on Michigan Avenue. Now that Pam Williamson had to make the trip alone, she’d fallen into a predictable pattern of calling every weekday morning at 7:30 a.m. or on her ride home at 5:30 p.m., seeking out a virtual companion for her drive. Hannah only picked up maybe 20 percent of the time, which likely meant she was a terrible daughter.

  She felt for her mother and the loneliness of widowhood, but Pam didn’t act lonely or sad when she talked to Hannah. No—most conversations were thirty-minute treatises on all the things Hannah needed to change in her life, with follow-up emails and the occasional spreadsheets that had been the norm since Hannah was two and enduring potty training.

  “Larry Norris said he’d put a good word in for you. I know it’s not the same as the Trib, but it’s all online, so you could work from home. Once Mable is up and moving again, you could come back to your room here. Or Brody said you could use their guest bedroom until the baby comes. Try out California for a bit, maybe?”

  “I said I’d fill out the application, but I have a job here with a newspaper—”

  “You have a job at the Tate County Record, Hannah. They don’t even have a website, and the Facebook page hasn’t been updated since you got your first period.”

  “Ma!” Hannah clicked down the volume in case Dolores could hear from across the room. “I’m here now. I gotta go.”

  “Fine. Just make sure to turn in that application today. I don’t want to offend Larry. Plus, he has a son who is around your age. Just went through a divorce and is having a hard time, like you did with Alex. Maybe you’d like to talk—”

  “Bye, Ma.”

  “You gotta get on with your life sometime, Hannah—”

  “GOODBYE, MA,” Hannah said with an extra punch and then hung up the phone.

  Hannah plopped down in her office chair and dropped her messenger bag on the floor. For the first time in nine and a half months, she’d shot out of bed in the morning, anxious to get to work and find more distraction like she had the day before. She wasn’t going to let Pam Williamson, powerhouse attorney and helicopter mom of the century, ruin all that.

  Waiting for the screen to wake up, she noticed the pile of file boxes that’d been left by the top of the basement stairs last night was missing. Terry had likely put them in the basement as promised. Hopefully, he hadn’t touched anything else. The filing system was chaotic and random, but if Hannah could find the rejection box she’d spilled, hopefully she’d find more of Evelyn’s story.

  Last night, after Carla had gone home, Mamaw slept soundly in her room with the hum of cable news on to help her sleep, and Hannah finished drying the last dishes from dinner. Carefully, she stowed them on top of their tower in the cupboard, pulled the plug in the sink, and wiped her hands on a dish towel with a sense of satisfaction.

  Before Senatobia, she’d never taken much to the domestic side of life. Meal planning and laundry folding weren’t just boring necessities like they were for most people. For Hannah, the tentacles of her lingering depression made them feel like soul-crushing wastes of time. But here, when the night was quiet and the last suds of Lemon Sparkle were gurgling in the drain, Hannah almost understood how a homemaker’s life could bring moments of fulfillment.

  But the odd calm of domestic bliss was fleeting. She flicked off all the lights in the front room except for the one over the sink, then tiptoed down to check on a safely snoring Mamaw before finally returning to Papaw’s study. She’d been away from her phone for a three-hour eternity. Whenever she hadn’t looked at that screen for a chunk of time, she’d pick up the device expectantly, knowing anything could be waiting for her. A call from her mother, an email from her former boss saying they made a mistake, or even a “like” on Instagram from Alex.

  Her lock screen was empty except for one Facebook notification. When Hannah touched the prompt, a picture popped up that made her heart thump. It was one of those Timehop memories showing images that were posted on that date some years earlier. This one was from three years ago when she and Alex had gone on a cruise to the Bahamas. Hannah was slender and glowing white in a modest bikini, and Alex was finely toned and bronze in his trunks. He was holding her up in the waves, both frozen in laughter. They’d played in the water like children that day, collected seashells, and dove headfirst into waves. They’d made love that night in their bungalow, and Alex said her skin tasted of the salt from the ocean that coated their bodies in a fine crystalline film.

  Hannah dropped her phone.

  That was the past. Laura, her therapist of the past several months, said Hannah had to stop reliving every good minute of her relationship, or she’d never move on. “Relationships are made from the hard moments, not the good ones,” she’d remind Hannah, trying to guide her back to the reality of the broken trust and fidelity that characterized her relationship with Alex. But so far she didn’t want to move on, she just wanted to go back in time.

  Back in time.

  This article was exactly what she needed to help her stop thinking about Alex. Hannah retrieved the folded typewriter paper from her back pocket. It was flimsy, with little tears forming down the crease lines as she unfolded the pages and settled onto the floor. The typewritten words were difficult to read, and Hannah had to turn on the light on Papaw’s desk to make out all the words. She started again—from the beginning—realizing that the letter was addressed to her boss’s father.

  Editor in Chief Montgomery Martin

  The Tate County Democrat

  3556 Bedford Ln

  Senatobia, MS 38668

  May 19, 1935

  Dear Mr. Martin,

  Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. When I told my friend Marion my story, she said that it was a real good story and, being from Senatobia herself, said I should tell it to you, and maybe it could be in the newspaper like the stories I read there sometimes.

  My name is Evelyn . . .

  Hannah rushed through the familiar first paragraphs, where Evelyn introduced herself, and picked up where the unread section began, flashing back to when the writer of the article had woken up in the hospital with her father and sister by her side. Hannah felt the same flip in her midsection that she’d felt when she picked up the article accidentally. The promise of a tell-all was always exciting to a journalist, and the first few lines of this article read like the opening to a true-crime podcast she would have binged on during her commute to and from the Tribune building. She kept reading, intrigued.

  Myrtle wailed in the background, “Who did this, Evey? Who did this?” but I couldn’t remember what had happened, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the bright lights, scratchy sheets, and the heavy sensation in my lower body. Daddy patted my arm.

  “Don’t worry, baby, you’ll be all right,” he said. I wasn’t used to seeing tears on my daddy’s face. But lying in that bed, I hated that I was the reason for his tears.

  “Daddy, do you forgive me? Do you love me?” I whispered in response to his chant, wanting to make it better, to remember what happened.

  “Sure, we love you,” he said. “Close your eyes
now, and try to sleep.”

  Hannah’s breath hitched at the tender recollection of Evelyn’s father sitting by his little girl’s bedside, the roles reversed in her own family only a few months ago. Hannah holding her father’s hand each night as he fell asleep, trying to memorize the feeling of his fingers in hers. To think that he felt and heard her, even in the last few days of his life when he could barely open his eyes, touched Hannah.

  I listened, but in the darkness, I slipped too far back in time—into childhood days when my momma was alive. Momma wasn’t just beautiful. She also knew things no one else did. I remember when she was carrying Daddy’s fourth child and hiding her newly swollen figure under aprons and tented dresses. I sat by her side in the living room with Daddy staring like he always did and with me sitting with a sewing needle in my hand for the first time.

  “Daddy, these quilts will keep my babies warm when I am gone,” Momma said, dreamy like a fortune-teller.

  “You’ll keep your babies warm, Ava,” Daddy mumbled back, half paying attention to her.

  A few months later, Momma stood in the kitchen, showing me how to peel and preserve peaches while Daddy read the newspaper at the table. Momma kept cutting but started talking to Daddy without looking at him.

  “This fruit I’m canning will keep my babies from hunger when I am gone,” she said.

  Daddy dropped the newspaper, staring at Momma like she was speaking the Cherokee she’d learned from her momma’s side.

  “You’ll keep your babies from hunger, Ava,” he said, maybe angry, maybe sad.

  And in November, my baby brother was born. Momma didn’t leave her bed after that, and one night, Daddy called us all in to say good night. I was the oldest at eight. Myrtle was next to me at six, a brunette, very much like Momma with the sweetest disposition on earth. Vivian, also of the brunette type, was four years old and the prettiest of us three girls.