Lost Souls Recovered, page 37
“Your mama’s going to be okay.”
Theo hugged her tightly, kissed her on the cheek. “Pa invited me over for dinner this coming Sunday. Said something about he’s going to tell me about the flasks.”
“We want the whole family over. There’s a lot we’re going to talk about.”
After Sunday dinner, the children gathered in the living room, and John began to discuss the days of yore. He started with his precious mother. After talking for twenty minutes or so, he pointed to Anne’s portrait and said, “That’s why I had this commissioned years ago.”
“Why does she have that funny-looking smile?” Willie asked.
John explained and Willie asked, “She smiled like that?”
“That’s what I recall, son.”
“Pa, why did you leave Richmond?” Bessie asked.
He told them about how he hated Madame Billingsly, how she died, and why he stole the flasks. “But I let the hate go a long time ago.”
Tilla held the flasks and said, “These are the flasks.” She handed them to Pearl first, saying, “Y’all look at these.”
As the flasks were passed from sibling to sibling, Eunice asked, looking at John, “Do you know what the clues are?”
About five years ago, when money had grown a little tight, John had taken the flasks to have them appraised by a man he met at Moulton and Leaves. He thought they were sterling silver but wanted to be sure. The appraiser told him the flasks were indeed made of sterling silver, and they were worth a “decent grip.” When John asked about the letters on the flasks, the appraiser told John that AU means gold and AG means silver on the periodic table. John thanked the appraiser and put the flasks in the bag. While walking home, a dog gave chase, and John dropped the bag.
He had carried his gun with him just in case the appraiser or anyone else tried to take the flasks from him. John tossed the bag aside and stood and pointed the gun at the dog, who, upon seeing the gun, turned around to look for other quarry. John picked up the bag and returned home, where he stored it in his shed. He didn’t care about the flasks and didn’t even look inside the bag when he stored the bag in the shed. It happened again—the flasks were causing more trouble, this time in the form of a menacing dog.
“Yes, I know something about them. I’m guessing TB stands for Tyrone Billingsly and LGB is for his wife.”
He didn’t tell the children or Tilla that he had the flasks appraised, and that the flasks could perhaps draw a decent sum, and that gold and silver could be located on the Billingsly’s property. He didn’t want anyone to try to push him in the direction of selling the flasks or making an effort to steal gold and silver that rightfully belonged to Billingsly. He was in possession of stolen property—God saved him once and he wasn’t going to chance it again.
“What are you going to do with the flasks?” Tilla asked.
“I don’t know. But they’re not mine.”
“Pop, you ever try to go back to find your mother?” Charlie asked.
“No, son. Before I met your mama, I met Cousin Riley in Mount Hope. I had to stay to learn more about him.”
“Who’s Cousin Riley?” Charlie asked.
“Well, son, he’s Junior, your Uncle Riley.” John then explained how he met Cousin Riley while trying to fulfill his mother’s wish by finding Cousin Riley’s father.
John later added: “And when I met your mama and we had you and you …” he said pointing at his children. “I had to take care of my family.”
Maggie put down her pencil and notepad and asked, “Pa, why did it take you so long to make it to Mount Hope?”
After explaining the places he stayed, the people he met, the times he nearly lost his life, Maggie said, “Pa, we heard that you had a problem with a white man who threatened you about some article in the newspaper.”
The article was sitting in his lap. “That’s right, it was all over this article. You kids can read the article yourselves.” He went on to explain the confrontation with Chester White and how it ended.
While holding the flasks, Charlie asked, “Pa, can I have these?”
“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with them.”
“Mama,” Charlie said, “can we hear about your family?”
“Next time, baby.”
53 — Fall, 1928
John and Tilla sat on the front porch in their rocking chairs shaded from the noonday sun. John swirled his lemonade, and Tilla knitted a sweater.
Fourteen-year-old Charlie, the lone remaining child at home, walked out the front door and said, “I’m going to Fred’s house. Be back for supper.”
“Wait,” Tilla said. Charlie turned around, and Tilla looked up at him. She saw John’s mahogany skin color and her narrow nose in him. The thought of Claude surfaced in her mind. She reached for his hand, and he put his hand in hers. “I love you, baby. Supper will be ready when you get back.”
Tilla released her grip and Charlie pivoted and ran off the porch.
A small block of wood sat on the floor next to John. He finished his drink, picked up the block of wood, and removed his carving knife from his shirt pocket.
“What are you making now?” Tilla asked.
Looking at the wood with an artisan’s eye, he said, “Something inside is begging to be set free.” He started hewing, something he started ever since Kelly taught him to make frog gigs in Greenville, South Carolina. About ten minutes later, Tilla shattered the silence, saying, “I wonder how Minnie Pearl is doing.”
“Who?”
“The medicine woman from Birmingham who saved Eunice’s life and delivered her baby.”
John nodded.
“Where’re you going?” John asked Tilla as she rose from her chair.
As she had done too many times to count, she was set to go hither and thither to search for her missing boy. With time, she began to recover her soul that had been rended by Claude’s disappearance. She didn’t know Claude’s whereabouts, but the good Lord did. She asked the Lord to take good care of Claude, and having received promise from the Lord that Charlie was safe with him, her soul began to repair itself, like a starfish grows another leg after losing one. She’d continue to look for Claude, though, just in case the good Lord made him available to her.
She knew that John could never feel the depths of her pain; only a mother could. Someone like Ann, who surely felt it when she lost her husband when he was sold to another slave owner; when her twin eight-year-old daughters died of disease; and when John left home at seventeen. Someone like Fannie, who lost her fourteen-year-old daughter. Someone like Minnie Pearl, who lost her ten-year-old son.
“I’m going to look for Claude.” She put her knitting project on the chair and took her first steps on her ritual journey.
John stopped her in her tracks. She turned and faced him. They hadn’t talked about it for over twenty-eight years. “Tilla, you remember the time capsule we buried on church property?”
“Yes, darling. What about it?”
“You never told me what you wrote.”
“That’s because we made a promise back then that whatever we wrote would remain a secret until someone dug it up.” Until then, her note would be between her and God.
Tilla turned and walked down the steps.
Money crawled to John and looked at him with a rueful roll of his rheumy eyes, seeking permission to go with Tilla.
“Go ahead, you old hound.”
With creaky legs, Money leaped onto John’s lap, licked his face with slobbering chops, and trotted to catch up with Tilla.
A half hour later, the clouds gathered and blocked the sun.
Weems’s yapper caught John’s attention. Mr. Weems was on his way with the mail.
“How you doing, John?” Mr. Weems asked.
“No use complaining, Mr. Weems.”
Weems removed a bundle of mail and handed it to John. He told John that two letters did not contain his address, but because the letters were sent to the post office, and they contained John’s name and city, Weems told someone at the post office he knew John and would deliver the letters to him.
“The missus okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine.”
The yapper barked as to tell Mr. Weems it was time to move on. “Okay, boy.”
“How long the dog been following you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A while, I suppose. Don’t know what I’d do without him.”
Another yap, and Weems nodded to John and left as the first rain drops appeared.
John shuffled through the mail and stopped at the sight of the name Edgar Billingsly from Richmond in the sender’s corner. His stomach knotted, and bile rose to the back of his mouth. He took a swill of lemonade, and the bilious taste went away. He thought of his narrow escape from Billingsly at Sloss Furnace many years ago and wondered whether he was still alive. If not, perhaps another Billingsly wanted the flasks. He’d gladly hand them over and finally receive absolution.
He carefully ripped off a slender piece of the right side of the envelope. Holding the envelope to his mouth, he blew into it, inflating it, and with a slight shake the letter fell into his lap.
Dear John,
I trust this missive will find you. It’s time that we meet. Mama once mentioned that you might be in Mount Hope, Alabama. She trusted that you’d make it there someday. She doesn’t remember too much now. She stays with Jenette and me and the kids.
The more he read, the heavier the letter felt. He looked away, and his hands fell to his lap. He picked up the letter, and tears trickled from his eyes when he read that a man named Herbert was Edgar’s father, and that Ann told him that Herbert had been shot and killed when Edgar was a toddler.
John’s mind slowed to absorb that he had a brother, a brother who was a college professor. John immediately harkened back to Atlanta University where Dean Fairbanks offered John the opportunity to attend the university. He wondered what his life would have been like if he had. There’d be no Tilla, who was everything to him.
He’d take Tilla with him to meet his precious mother. Junior would go, too. There’d be much to talk about even if she didn’t talk. He’d do all the talking; he’d tell her that he never gave up hope that he’d see her again. He’d tell her that he was on his way to see her in 1893, but news that Tilla was carrying his first child derailed his plans. He’d tell her about his large family, his newspaper business, the general store, her grandchildren.
The smile on John’s face vanished as he looked at the sender’s address on the next envelope. The name was unfamiliar: Erich Gottschalk from Birmingham, Alabama.
This time it had to be about the flasks; it just had to be. He swallowed hard, forcing the bile back down his throat. He picked up his glass of lemonade and finished it. The brackish taste quickly disappeared.
He wasn’t as gentle with this envelope. He ripped it open and immediately started reading the letter. As he lip-read the letter, he wondered how the sender had found him. He folded the letter and put in back in the envelope, contemplating what and when he’d tell Tilla.
He picked up his project and resumed carving. But the letter gnawed at him, and he removed it from the envelope again.
He read aloud a passage from the letter as though to convince himself it was real:
Before she passed away, Mother (Gretchen Gottschalk) told me that you are my father. I am a physician living in Birmingham. My twin brother lives in Cullman. I would like to meet you some day. My kids have been asking about their grandfather.
In the space of a few minutes, he had gained a brother and two sons. He could handle the discovery of his brother, a saint who had given him concrete information about his mother. Two more children was something else.
Money barked a few times to announce he was on his way home with Tilla. Always eager to return to John, he was several paces ahead.
John stood and walked to edge of the porch. He looked up; the gray skies frowned. He put the mail in his pants pocket and sat down. Money dropped to John’s feet.
Thirty seconds later, Tilla picked up her knitting project and sat down.
As she had said on countless returns from her search, the refrain was the same: “No sign of Claude.”
“Tilla.”
“Yes, Darling.”
The sky’s frown intensified; a thunderclap roared and shook the house. Tilla rose quickly and placed her right hand over her heart. John popped up from his seat. As they got up to go inside, a strong wind blew over their rocking chairs. Money took shelter under the porch.
Tilla stepped inside first. John quickly closed the door and looked out the window. Their chairs were floating in the air. He turned around, reached for Tilla’s right hand, and kissed it. Gazing into her tranquil eyes, he said soberly, “I’ve got some news to tell you.”
The End.
Acknowledgments
My gratitude to those whose knowledge, faith, wisdom, kindness, and patience helped Lost Souls Recovered come alive: Darryl Atwell, Heidi Ashley, Lovie Debnam, and Hayley McClaren.
About the Author
As an amateur genealogist and certified family historian, Eric Walker was impelled to write his debut novel Lost Souls Recovered when he discovered the richness of family stories through research of historical documents and those told to him by relatives.
As he read historical documents and talked to relatives, he’d envision a way to bring to life in fiction form many of his ancestors who lived a hardscrabble life and who worked to overcome hardship. He believed the written word could unlock doors as well as the imagination and unite our spirit through our visions. He is working on a second novel involving land loss in the early post-Reconstruction era. He is a lawyer and lives in Ohio.
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Eric Walker, Lost Souls Recovered
