Faith's Reckoning, page 24
MISSISSIPPI 1999
Faith lifted a photograph from the page of her scrapbook and gazed at the faded faces of Brother and her sisters, grouped into two neat rows from eldest to youngest. The edges of the picture were yellowed except for the ends tucked into the gray corner mounts. The black and white image captured the mostly bare branches of a maple tree Maudie had planted shortly after they arrived from Alabama. The tree was nearly twenty feet tall, and Faith estimated the photograph must have been taken when she was a freshman in high school. She ran her fingers lightly over the surface of the picture, then turned it over to find her mother’s penciled note – “Christmas 1937”. She thought of the care that had gone into making this scrapbook, a gift Maudie gave to each child on her eighteenth birthday. Faith slipped the corners of the picture back into the mounts and remembered what had been happening then. Brother would have graduated from Georgia Tech the year before and must have been in flight school. He and Justine were married, and Justine was working in Hattiesburg while he did his military training. The Wiggins girls were also living in Hattiesburg, immersed in various stages of their education from college to grammar school.
Faith picked up the next photograph on the page. She and Delsey stood side by side, her arm around Delsey’s waist. She was wearing the same dress as in the previous picture. Delsey’s posture was stiff, and Faith thought her own smile looked a little sad. As she lingered over the picture, her memory came into focus. It was the day after Christmas, just before Delsey, Plessy and McLeod moved to Washington, D.C. She remembered standing in the kitchen with Delsey after dinner, hearing the words ‘He was beaten for nothing more than the color of his skin’. Her youthful notion that Jesus loved all the little children of the world had suddenly met the harsh reality that men did not necessarily feel that way. At age fourteen, she had begun to see that the world was ruthlessly divided into Red and Yellow, Black, and White.
Faith always felt closer to Maudie than to her father, but her distrust of him settled into a fixed place after the night she saw him burn Fletcher’s blood-stained clothes. Two days later, when they learned of Plessy’s injury, she had tried to talk to Maudie about what she had seen. But Maudie stopped her, stunned into silence. She said all they could do was pray for Plessy to be healed. But Faith wasn’t satisfied. She knew that Fletcher had something to do with Plessy’s injury. She wanted to tell Delsey but was afraid. Faith had squirmed uncomfortably each night as she knelt by the bed. She needed to do more with her hands than lift them in prayer. But what could a fourteen-year-old girl do? If she pushed Maudie to confront Hardee, she figured the fight would break them for good. The dilemma was too much for her. She decided she would give her life to helping people, regardless of where they came from or what they looked like.
Faith had wanted to become a doctor but quickly learned that the world was also divided into what was possible for men and what was allowed for women. After much advice from teachers, friends, and family about how ill-suited the temperament of women was for the rigors of medical school, she decided to enter the field of nursing and enrolled in a program at Charity Hospital in New Orleans at the age of eighteen. She ended up specializing in pediatrics and went on to a career in international nursing. In the end, she had found her own way to love all the children of the world. But she had never been able to reconcile what she had seen the night of November 1, 1937.
At the back of the scrapbook was a manila envelope stuffed with letters. Most were from Delsey to Maudie, a correspondence that continued for over thirty years after Delsey and her family moved to D.C. Faith had read through them long ago, having learned that McLeod settled in Clarksdale. One of the letters was postmarked July 22, 1972, and it was addressed to Faith.
Dear Faith,
Thank you for your letter letting me know of Maudie’s passing. I had suspected that her time was near when she wrote to me in April. She said the recent heart attack had left her too weak to get out in her garden. I knew she wouldn’t be long for this world if she couldn’t wander among the jasmine and gardenias. She wrote in that last letter about what a comfort you were to her, not only as a loving daughter but also as a skilled nurse. ‘Who needs a doctor when I have Faith?’ she said.
Plessy and I are doing well but feeling our age. He retired from the NLRB last year after working there for thirty-four years. They eventually promoted him to assistant legal counsel some years after he finished law school. He graduated in 1954, having taken night classes after McLeod started high school. Other than some rheumatism, he feels healthy, thank the Lord. It does keep us from traveling down to see McLeod as much as we would like.
Our son followed in his father’s footsteps and went to Howard Law School. He is now a civil rights attorney in Clarksdale, as well as an accomplished musician. He still plays that Stella you found for him in 1942.
I’m well enough and considering retiring from teaching next year, although I still love the kids. You may remember that I always wanted to study under Mary McLeod Bethune in Florida. As it turns out, I came to know her through the D.C. community. Though I got my degree at Howard University, like the rest of the family, she has been a guiding light to me after all.
I am so happy to hear from you, Faith. Of all Maudie’s girls, you are the most like her. Recognizing that we are all God’s children and equal in his eyes. I still remember you coming down to the Southern Railway depot with Maudie to see Plessy off to D.C., bringing him a loaf of banana bread. You were so respectful to him.
I hope to hear more from you and will let you know the next time we are coming to Clarksdale. Would love to see you in the flesh.
Love, Delsey
It was sometime the next year when Faith finally got a chance to see Delsey during a visit to Mississippi. It was a balmy spring day, and everything was in bloom, as if Maudie were making her presence known. Plessy and McLeod had gone fishing to give the women some time alone. Over coffee, Faith broached the subject she had wanted to talk about all these years.
“Sounds like your nursing career has allowed you to travel the world,” Delsey said, lifting the cup to her lips.
“Yes, I feel blessed,” Faith replied, “But I was ready to come home, especially after Mama’s health began to fail.”
There was a natural pause in the conversation. Faith took a sip of coffee and summoned her courage.
“Delsey, there is something I have wanted to say to you for a long time. An apology really.”
Delsey was wise enough to remain silent, letting Faith find her words. Faith swallowed hard, then began.
“The night that Plessy was beaten, I heard a knock at our back door. I got up and walked down the hallway. Voices were coming from the kitchen. Daddy was talking to someone and when I peeked around the door, I saw it was Fletcher Moody. He was frightened and covered in blood. He said something like ‘He didn’t know why he did it. That he thought the sheriff was after him.’ Daddy helped him wash up. He burned the bloody clothes and gave him something to wear. I’m sure Fletcher was the one who beat Plessy. I have always felt horrible that I didn’t tell the police. Or that I didn’t tell you. I am so sorry, Delsey.”
“Sounds like you have been carrying this around for a long time.”
“I have and as time passed, I wondered if I would just hurt you more by telling you, now that justice cannot be served.”
Delsey looked down at her hands, the knuckles knobby, fingers curled with age. She rubbed the back of her left hand and stoked the fingers gently.
“You know as well as I do that justice was never going to be served,” she said.
Faith was silent. She had no response.
“I suspected you knew something because of the questions you asked when I came by after Christmas to tell Maudie we were moving to Washington, D.C. I also knew you were a young teenager and caught up in a storm too big for you to navigate. Truth is you could have made it worse by going to the police. Could have unleashed a lynch mob. I’m not saying you are guiltless, but at the time I think you were powerless.”
“Well, I am sorry, nonetheless.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
The awkwardness lingered until Delsey suggested they go for a walk.
“How about we walk for a spell, and I will tell you the story of how Plessy and I came to live our dream.”
The two women kept up a monthly correspondence that mirrored that of Maudie and Delsey. A deeper connection emerged as they shared the stories of daily life. After Plessy died in 1978, Faith decided to leave her estate to Delsey. Here was her chance to attempt reparations. She had the Will drawn up. Now that Delsey was gone, the estate would go to McLeod.
Faith closed the scrapbook and put it in the ‘Sylvia’ pile at one end of the table. Outside, bluebirds and cardinals were chirping their urgent mating songs, announcing a new sun risen as they built their nests. A warm morning breeze fluttered the curtains of the kitchen window. Faith bent over to pull the next cardboard box from beneath the table. She blew a fine layer of dust off the top. ‘Textbooks’ was printed in large black letters, the faintest scent of permanent marker still present. Only a few weeks earlier she had sorted through her study, having boxed most of its contents. She was now past the sorting stage and into the getting rid of stage. This was not a task to leave for Sylvia.
“Odd,” she thought, opening the box, “that these books have a longer shelf life than me.”
It wasn’t a complaint, simply hard to imagine. The promise of the miraculous medicine, STI571, had not proven true for her. Although Faith had achieved a complete remission with the medicine, the effects had waned. She had a relapse after five months and was now on hydroxyurea to slow the progression of the leukemia. She still felt well most days, which is why it seemed odd to wonder where these books would be when she was gone. Gone where? She could not imagine feeling any less alive, wherever that might be. The phone rang, interrupting her musings.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hey, Aunt Faith, we’re just leaving New Orleans,” Sylvia said, her voice a strange mix of excitement and exasperation. “We’re a little late getting off.”
“What do you mean, late? It’s only ten o’clock,” Faith replied. “You know it’s less than two hundred miles, Honey.”
“I know, but Mom wants to go through Hattiesburg. It could take all day.”
Faith paused before responding.
“There’s no need to rush, Sylvia. Let Gracie have her wish today, OK? Whatever it is,” she said. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
“OK, you’re right,” Sylvia replied, the edge in her voice softening. “I’ll just enjoy the day, wherever it takes us.”
“That’s my girl. See you when you get here.”
“Love you,” Sylvia said.
“Love you, too.”
Sylvia had taken her New Year’s conversation with Faith to heart and made an effort to reach out to Grace. She had suggested they make the Easter trip to visit Faith together after Grace visited her in Austin first. Grace had initially resisted, and Sylvia considered dropping the matter. But after calling Faith in February to tell her she wasn’t sure about coming to Jackson at Easter, Faith insisted.
“She resists everything at first, Sylvia,” Faith had said. “Don’t take it personally. It took me a year to pry her away from your father for a five-day trip to the Grand Canyon. Some people are just more timid than you and me. Don’t give up. I really want to see you both, OK?”
Sylvia did not give up. She offered to make all the arrangements for her mother to come stay with her for a week in Austin before they drove to Mississippi. And she agreed to pay for the trip. As a final enticement, Sylvia had promised a weekend in New Orleans, a city that held special significance for Grace for reasons Sylvia didn’t understand. Grace finally relented and Sylvia sent her a round trip ticket from New York to Austin, arranging for her sister, Sophie, to shepherd her mother to and from LaGuardia airport. Grace arrived in Austin in remarkably good spirits and the first three days together had been fun as they meandered the old mission trails around San Antonio. But that was over a week ago. They had begun to wear on each other’s nerves.
This morning, Sylvia wanted to get an early start and head up Interstate 55, the fastest route to Jackson. She was in a hurry to get to Faith’s. Grace asked if they could go through Hattiesburg instead, have lunch there near the old train depot. Maybe they could see if the Trading Post was still standing. They sat in the car in the parking lot of their hotel off Jackson Square in the French Quarter, having not yet settled on which way to go. Sylvia clicked her cell phone closed after talking to Faith. Grace overheard the conversation and hoped they were headed to Hattiesburg. She opened her purse, rummaging around for something. Sylvia turned toward her mother and noticed the growing translucence of her skin, the deeper set of her eyes.
“Now where did I put my reading glasses?” Grace asked, as they hung from chain around her neck.
Sylvia tapped the glasses gently.
“Oh, my Lord, I think I’ve lost the little bit of mind I had left,” Grace blushed.
“Hattiesburg?” Sylvia suggested, nodding toward the east as they approached Interstate Highway 10.
“Oh, yes!” Grace replied.
They were quiet for most of the thirty-minute drive to Slidell, skirting the east shore of Lake Pontchartrain before crossing the eleven-mile Twin Spans bridge. As a little girl, Grace had accompanied Hardee on business trips to New Orleans. Each time they reached the old Watson Williams Bridge he would designate her as lookout for the manatees that often migrated from the Gulf of Mexico through the Rigolets strait into the estuary called Lake Pontchartrain. His raucous praise when she spotted the wayward sea cows was one of her most treasured memories. It was Grace who spied the small pod of dolphins diving off to the left as they now approached the north shore of the lake.
“Daddy always loved the manatees that swam up this way,” she said. “Called them the Siren Sisters.”
“When did you and Grandpa come to New Orleans?” Sylvia asked.
“When I was little, shortly after Brother left for college. I think he was lonely in a house full of girls. Whenever he came home with the trailer loaded up with salvaged steel, I knew it meant he was going on a delivery run. I’d sneak out of the house and hide under a blanket in the front seat of the truck. He’d wait until we were past the edge of town before he would pat the blanket and say ‘What’s this? A stowaway? Well, it’s too late now. I’ll just have to take you with me, Gracie.’ Sometimes we’d camp out on the lake before heading back in the morning.”
Sylvia had never heard this story before. She was hungry to know more about her mother’s life growing up, about Faith and the rest of the Wiggins. She wondered if her mother knew that Faith was leaving her money to McLeod Walker. Sylvia was struck by the rich family history in these stories, a history she had kept at arm’s length for years, a history living and breathing beside her right now. The detour through Hattiesburg turned into a gold mine of memories, helping to paint more of the picture that Faith had sketched about growing up in the Wiggins’ home. Grace remembered Delsey Walker, her kindness, and her sweet scent but she did not remember much else: no details of a life outside the Wiggins world. Grace mostly recounted her own carefree childhood, doted on by older sisters and cushioned by popularity at school.
After lunch at a café near the refurbished train depot, Sylvia drove her mother by the Trading Post, which was now an abandoned ramshackle warehouse. They wound their way through narrow streets of paved-over bricks that showed beneath patches of crumbling asphalt. The old house on Sixth and Main was gone, sold to the Baptist church years ago. At least that sale had allowed Hardee and Maudie to retire. Grace’s high school, consumed in a fire a few years back, was a burnt-out shell of red brick. Two stone archways still stood along the east wall, the words “Boys” and “Girls” chiseled on their facade. Grace flowed with stories as they parked the car and got out to walk around the old schoolyard: stories of sororities and boyfriends, cigarettes, and papa’s stolen whiskey. It was a side of her mother that Sylvia had never imagined, a bit of a bad girl tucked behind the skirts of her proper Southern manners. A warm curiosity grew as she listened to the tales.
Sylvia’s aunts had all settled close to home. Claire and Delta lived within a mile of their old neighborhood, having married childhood sweethearts. Although there wasn’t time to visit them today, they were planning to come to Faith’s for the weekend. Ava was in a convalescent home in Jackson, having outlived Cecil. Emma never married and had gone on to veterinary school, settling in Vicksburg. Hannah had ventured the farthest away, marrying a fellow from Mobile, Alabama. Sylvia felt a connection to this place, some sense of ancestral longing or familiarity. Then Grace would mention how she preferred the Colored people in Mississippi to those in New York because they were humbler here. And Sylvia would cringe, repulsed by the entrenched racism that was also part of her legacy.
By the time they left Hattiesburg it was late afternoon. A few miles out of town, on old Highway 49, Sylvia reached for the dash to retrieve her cell phone. She hit the speed dial for Faith’s number. After ten rings, she got the answering machine. She figured Faith was running some errands since they had left it open as to when she and Grace would arrive. When they were on the outskirts of Florence, Sylvia called Faith again. This time the answering machine sent her heart into a race of worry.
“She’s not answering,” Sylvia said to her mother.
“Oh, don’t worry, Honey. Faith has always been able to take care of herself. I’m sure she would have called if anything were wrong.”
“I don’t know about that Mom. She is not as strong as she was. You’ll see. Problem is she’s still as stubborn.”
As they turned onto the gravel road leading to Faith’s house, Sylvia strained to see if the old pickup was parked off to the side of the house. She knew that Faith would have left the space under the attached carport for the Miata. Magenta redbuds and the white crosses of blooming dogwoods nodded in the breeze as they approached the house. The truck was gone but Sylvia saw a note taped to the back door as she pulled under the porte cochere. She parked and jumped out of the car to retrieve the note.
