***
It was our last night in Jean Ville and I was in my bedroom packing when I heard the back screen door slam. I was ready to get back to New York and to Rodney; ten days was a long time to be away from him.
I heard murmurs on the back porch and could tell two people were talking. I peeked through the curtains that covered my window and saw Tootsie in one rocking chair, Lilly in another.
I didn't mean to eavesdrop but I felt protective of Lilly and didn't know what Tootsie might tell my little girl. I sat in the chair in the corner of my room where I could hear the conversation as Tootsie began telling Lilly about the Ku Klux Klan raid on our house when I was twelve and how they left our home on and marched to the Quarters.
"Your grandfather, Bob Burton, still lives in that house and he's a crotchety old man, he is." Tootsie laughed and I couldn't hear Lilly's response.
The Past is the Past
Present day by Tootsie
It started long before you was born. Long before your Mama, Susie, was born, even before Marianne. Bob Burton knowed my daddy, Catfish.
One day Mr. Burton—he was young then—he come to the Quarters to axe could Catfish get him a hog at the slaughterhouse and butcher it. I was in the field picking corn and Mr. Burton come out there and axe me how old I am. I say I was about fourteen, give or take, and he say I was the prettiest thing he ever saw and we start to walk in the field and got lost in the rows, the tall corn stalks hiding us from view.
One thing led to another and he start to come visit me when Catfish was at work. My Mama was sick at the time and she died soon after, so me and Mr. Burton would go to the fields or, if it was raining, to the barn. Next thing I know I'm expecting a baby and I tell him and he say he don't know nothing about no baby and he quit coming around for a long time.
Marianne was born, and when she was about four or five months old, Mr. Burton come to the Quarters and axe could I go help his wife. She just had her second child, and that was Susie, and the Burtons had a boy who was three and Mrs. Burton couldn't handle it. So my sister Jesse kept Marianne and I went to the Burtons’ house every day and did what I could so the kids would eat and have clean clothes and take they naps and stuff.
Then a year later Mrs. Burton—she tole me to call her "Miss Anne"—well, she have another boy and few years later another one. So I stayed on to help and Mr. Burton took that to mean he could come around to the Quarters again and see me. And that's how I come to raise your mama and how Marianne come to be your aunt.
I waited for Lilly to say something, ask a question, make a comment; but it was quiet and I became nervous and caught myself twisting a strand of hair tight against my scalp. Maybe this was too much information for my daughter, I thought. Then I reminded myself that Lilly was fifteen and she'd been through what most people don't endure in a lifetime. I had to trust Tootsie's wisdom.
Okay now where was I—yes, the Klan. They was a bad bunch who tried to keep coloreds and whites apart back in the 1960s and ‘70s, and even before that. They thought it was their job to enforce what they called the Jim Crow Laws, which was rules the Southern whites made that said Negroes couldn't drink water at public fountains or use public restrooms or eat in restaurants or stay in hotels. It was bad in those days. Yeah, it shore was.
Tootsie stopped talking and I heard Lilly inhale. I wanted to look through the curtains to see if she was okay but was afraid to break the spell. I knew Lilly had questions; this was foreign to her, information about the Klan and Jim Crow and Southern bigotry.
Let me back up. Your mama, Susie, met my daddy Catfish when she was about six or seven. That was in the '50s, and the Klan was there then, too. Susie and her brothers caught a big ole snapping turtle and they stopped Catfish one day to give it to him and Susie and Catfish start to talk. Over the years Catfish would stop and talk to Susie when she was playing in the yard and he was walking home to the Quarters.
He had to walk right in front the Burton house to get home, and Susie would wait for him. When he retired and quit walking in front her house, she stole off to the Quarters to see Catfish. After that it come to be a regular thing. Susie would come visit Catfish and Catfish would tell Susie stories. And that's how she come to write that book with all them stories Catfish tole her.
Well, when Susie come to the Quarters to see Catfish, that's when she met Marianne. They got to be friends right away but they had to hide it because, remember, coloreds and whites couldn't be friends of no kind. One day Susie was on Catfish's porch and Bob Burton drove up and come in my house to see me and Susie seed what was going on and that's when she knew Marianne was her half-sister.
"Marianne and Susie are sisters?" Lilly's voice was riddled with surprise. It was the first time she had responded and I wanted to be with her, to put her in my lap and rock her. This was a lot of information. But I made myself trust Tootsie and I sat and listened.
"Shore are," Tootsie said. "And that makes Marianne your aunt and all those children in the Quarters is your cousins. Girl! You got lots of cousins because Rodney related to lots of folks, too, so you have cousins on both sides." Tootsie took a breath and the rocking chair rocked back and forth and I could hear Sissy and Marianne talking softly in the kitchen. I wondered what Lilly was thinking when she didn't respond.
So anyways, I think Susie met Rodney at the gas station his daddy owns over at the Y, where Main and Jefferson Street come together north of town. Anyway, Rodney would come to the Quarters when Susie was here and they got to be friends, maybe fell in love way back when they was teenagers.
When Susie found out the colored school didn't have no books for the kids to take home and that those children at Adams High School shared some ole torn-up books, she start to box up all the thrown-out books at the white school and sneak them here to the Quarters.
The Klan must have found out about Rodney and Susie. See, back then, a colored boy couldn't even look at a white woman. He had to cross the street if one start to walk his way and he had to keep his eyes down looking at his feet. Well, the way I hear tell, Rodney ran into your mama somewhere in public and he touched her, maybe just put his hand out to stop her, and someone saw him do that and they went after Rodney's daddy, and almost kilt him. They hung him up in a tree in his own front yard and burned his house to the ground.
The only thing saved him was Rodney. That boy stood as tall as he could and reached his arms up over his head for his daddy to stand in his hands until Bo and Sam got there to cut Ray out of that tree. Fact that he didn't die was a miracle.
There was a pause and complete silence. I peered through the curtain but I could only see the back of Lilly's head, which was hanging a little low, and her shoulders were slumped. "Honesty," Rodney kept reminding me, was how we needed to live, so I let Tootsie continue, uninterrupted.
“I'm telling you all this so you know how much your mama and daddy loved each other and how hard they fought to be together so they could raise you.” Tootsie took a deep breath.
The Klan and Susie's daddy made sure that didn't happen. You see I think your Mama quit seeing your daddy because she thought she had to protect him and his family from the Klan. But she never stopped loving him. I believe she brought you into the world because if she couldn't have Rodney, she could have a part of him; then she saw she couldn't have you either. If her daddy had found out about you back then I don't know what would have happened.
Before she left for college, Susie would come to the Quarters all the time, maybe every week; and she would come whenever she was home from college to visit Catfish and to see Marianne. Catfish loved Susie like his own granddaughter and he felt protective for her.
Catfish used to sit on his porch in the evenings and tell me and Marianne how special Susie was. He'd repeat some of the things she said to him, and he'd say, "Now ain't that smart. That girl, she so smart."
And he thought she was beautiful and he worried some boy would take advantage of her. When she start to see Rodney, Catfish had a long talk with that boy. He was about sixteen or seventeen and Catfish sat him down and say, “Boy, you keep your zipper zipped when you around Susanna. If I hear you take advantage of that girl I'll make you sorry.” Catfish would talk to Rodney about respecting Susie and told Rodney he needed to take care of her while she was growing into a woman and not take advantage like lots of boys do with girls. Catfish, now he was protective of Susie. He shore was.
I listened to Tootsie talk about how much Catfish loved and protected me and felt pride in the relationship he and I had formed. I remember Rodney telling me that we should wait until I was at least eighteen to have sex, and we did wait. I had no idea that advice came from Catfish. Catfish never told me he loved me, although I always felt it. I would tell him I loved him and he'd say, "Run off now and leave me be. You done wore me out." And he'd laugh.
Catfish was my inspiration, but I didn't know he'd also been my protector.
“Yeah, chile” Tootsie’s rocker went back and forth. “You got quite a mama there. And quite a daddy, too. I know it took a long time for you to know who you are, but now that you do, you should see that you truly special. I wish Catfish was here to know you. He'd love you just like he loved your mama. Yeah, I miss Catfish. You would have loved him…
Lilly didn't say a word, and I sat in my chair and listened to the rockers move back and forth and felt my heart beat hard against my ribs.
*
Rodney was waiting at baggage claim when we arrived at Kennedy International and we took a cab to Manhattan to our condo. When we entered the lobby, the concierge called me over to the desk and handed me a long, white box with a satin ribbon tied around it. I looked at Rodney who shrugged his shoulders as if to say "I don't know anything about that."
I wasn't surprised to find six long-stemmed white lilies in the box when we got up to the apartment. I put them in a vase of water on the dining room table and made myself a mental note to discuss the lilies with Rodney when we were alone.
We spent Christmas in New York where Lilly was able to be with Joe and his family, and Rodney and I had some private time together. The lilies kept arriving, one every other day and our “house in the sky,” as Lilly called it, was always filled with the fresh flowery scent. Rodney said he knew nothing about them, even after I pressed him about how they were delivered to me over the past two years, no matter where I was.
"They came to our house in Brooklyn Heights. They'd arrive at Marianne's house when we stayed there. After I bought the house on Gravier Road they'd be waiting for us when we arrived in Jean Ville, and the florist would deliver one at least every other day. After we moved into this apartment, they were delivered here. Whoever is sending them knows where I am—which house and city. It's spooky and I always thought it might be you."
"I wish I could take credit, Susie. Sorry." He kissed me on the cheek and I looked away, wondering who the heck kept sending these lilies.
While Lilly was with Joe, Rodney and I revisited all the places we had gone when I was eighteen and he'd come to visit me—the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, the coffee shops in Soho, the delis in Greenwich Village, the ferry to Ellis Island. We also spent time alone in the apartment, ordering meals from the restaurants downstairs and languishing in bed most of the day before Christmas Eve. We talked about where we would live after we were married and Rodney reminded me he'd promised his brother, Jeffrey, he'd go back to Jean Ville and practice law with him and Sarah.
I told him I was afraid Jean Ville had not kept pace with the rest of the world as far as bigotry and prejudice. I said I didn't think we'd be safe, maybe Lilly wouldn't be safe, in our hometown.
What is it about hometowns that beckon people back after years of living away? Rodney had not lived in Jean Ville in seventeen years—seven years in college and law school and ten years in the army. He’d become accustomed to military life, where discrimination was almost nonexistent, so he couldn't imagine that our town hadn't kept up with Civil Rights.
I knew Jean Ville wasn't ready for a mixed-race couple. I saw it in my dad's reaction when I told him who I was going to marry. I read it on the faces of my white friends like Cindy and Sylvia and their parents, too. I was deathly afraid of what might happen to Rodney or, even worse, Lilly, if we lived there as a family.
In the time I’d had my little house on Gravier, I’d experienced backlash from my white friends and my own family members, simply because of my relationship with Marianne and Tootsie. Bigotry was still active and rampant in Jean Ville, Louisiana.
I urged Rodney to consider living in New York for Lilly's sake. Finally, we compromised.
I agreed we would get married in Jean Ville so our families and close friends could be at the wedding, and I promised we would spend the summers on Gravier Road where Lilly could be with her cousins and Rodney with his family.
Rodney agreed we would live and work in New York during the school year and he would work with Mr. Milton handling my accounts. Meanwhile, Lilly would complete her three years of high school and I would finish my second book about Catfish and his stories.
“After Lilly graduates from high school we can re-assess whether it’s safe to move back home,” I promised. That seemed to make both Rodney and Lilly happy.
Lilly returned from Joe’s house on Christmas Eve. The three of us had a private party where we exchanged gifts, then we attended midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
On Christmas morning, a huge box of white lilies arrived.
*
Rodney retired from the army in May and the three of us went to Jean Ville as soon as Lilly got out of school the first of June. We had lots to do to pull off a wedding at St. Alphonse’s Catholic Church by the end of the month. Rodney said he would stay with his family until we were married because they missed him and wanted to spend as much time as they could with him. Anyway, my house on Gravier Road was small and would be buzzing with activities meant for girls like Lilly, Sissy, Marianne, and me as we planned and executed the wedding.
Marianne picked us up at the Baton Rouge airport and when we got to Jean Ville she took Rodney to his parents’ house on Marshall Drive.
Just before dark, Rodney drove up in my driveway in his dad’s car with Jeffrey, Sarah, and their two kids.
Lilly was in the backyard with Anna. I was in the garage apartment with Marianne and Sissy when I heard the car and looked out the front window. I saw Rodney get out, stretch, and head towards my front porch. I opened the window and yelled at him that I was upstairs and would be right down.
Lilly came running around the house and jumped into his arms as if she hadn't seen him in a month. It was hot and humid and I got a whiff of tar rising from the pavement on Gravier Road as I ran down the stairs.
Sissy and Marianne followed me to the front yard and I introduced everyone, including Rodney, Jeffrey, and Sarah, to Sissy. Sarah introduced us to her two children, Ward and Amber and was reasonably nice. I remembered how she’d made me feel as though I was invisible the only other time I'd met her.
Lilly and Anna took the kids to the backyard and pushed them on the swings while the rest of us went inside. Rodney put his arm around me and pulled me close before we followed the others into the house. We stopped on the porch and he whispered in my ear.
"When can we be alone?" He kissed me and I blushed before we walked into the living room. The others disappeared into the hall, Sissy and Marianne were showing Jeffrey and Sarah around the house. Rodney took advantage of their absence and kissed me again. "I love you, Susie."
“I love you, too.” I kissed him back and whispered the words into his mouth and he gasped.
"We came to take you and Lilly to meet my folks," Rodney told me as the others walked by towards the back porch. "My parents are excited to know you and, especially, to meet Lilly."
"So they're okay with all of this?" I looked at him as if I didn't believe him. "Honestly?"
"Honestly! They are ecstatic." He kissed me again and wrapped his arms around me.
We all went onto the back porch that spanned the rear of the little house and talked for a few minutes then called to Lilly, Amber, and Ward to join us in the front driveway.
Sissy and Marianne saw to it that Chrissy and Anna got home to the Quarters while Lilly and I went to the Thibaults' house with Rodney, Sarah, Jeffrey and their kids. Jeffrey drove while the kids sat on Lilly's lap in the back seat, loving on her and playing patty-cake. I sat between Rodney and Lilly and I bent towards her ear and whispered, "Happy?" I watched her face light up and she nodded several times and said, "Very."
The Thibaults were waiting for us on their front porch and came to the car before we could get out. They hugged Lilly and me, then Mrs. Thibault took Lilly's hand and led her up to their porch swing and patted it so she would sit right next to her grandmother. I heard Mrs. Thibault say, "My other grandchildren call me Mamaw. Does that sound okay to you?" Lilly was smiling with her whole face as she nodded, "Yes."
Mr. Ray put his arm around my shoulder as we walked up the steps and he said, "Welcome to our family. It's taken a while, but we made it, right?"
"Right," I said, and I looked at Rodney and winked at him. He smiled at me and winked back and I knew it was… right.
*
We got married at St. Alphonse's Catholic Church on South Jefferson Street on the 30th of June. The pastor, Father Remy, was from the Philippines and had no problem with the race issue. He counseled us and ordered Rodney's annulment papers from the Diocese of Phoenix.
A Catholic Church annulment is based on proof that a couple should never have been married in the first place. Rodney and Maria both had post-traumatic stress after Vietnam and weren't in a position to make such a decision at the time, so the annulment was mostly a matter of paperwork that Rodney initiated soon after his divorce was final.
I didn't expect half the crowd of people who attended our wedding. My mother and John came from Houston. She was decked out in a long, mint-green dress and enough jewelry to sink a battleship. All four of my brothers were there with girlfriends I didn't know, all dressed in mini-skirts with low-cut tops that showed their cleavages.
Tootsie wore a long, purple dress and brought Joe Edgars, her current beau, Marianne’s sisters, and their husbands or boyfriends. Marianne's aunts and uncles and their children came and filled the pews on both sides of the aisle. A number of Rodney's friends and football teammates from high school came, some wearing their old letter jackets in solidarity. It was charming.
Mr. Michel, the hospital administrator for whom I'd worked after I graduated from college, and his wife were there. Dr. Switzer and Miss Irma, and Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Ben Moss, and his wife Miss Rita came and sat on the bride's side. Even Sylvia and Ken Michaud were there and she smiled at me and winked when she saw me standing in the vestibule waiting to walk down the aisle. Several of my girlfriends from high school were there with their husbands, but lots of them didn't come, which wasn’t a surprise.
Joe showed up with his wife, Bridgette. He came into the bride's room off the church’s entrance foyer with a long, white box tied with a blush-colored satin ribbon. He kissed me on the cheek and walked up to Lilly and handed the box to her. When she opened it the unmistakable fragrance of lilies filled the room and she gasped. Three long-stemmed blush-colored lilies for our Lilly were lying in the white container. Joe looked at me and winked.
Lilly, Marianne, and Sissy were my bridesmaids and wore long, chiffon dresses in a bluish-gray color. Lilly handed Sissy and Marianne one of the long-stemmed lilies to carry, and kept one for herself.
My two sisters walked down the aisle and Lilly kissed me and was about to follow them when the church door opened and I turned around to see my dad walk into the vestibule.
"May I walk you down the aisle?" Daddy was wearing a tuxedo that smelled of dry-cleaning fluid. He had showered and shaved and had on black wing-tipped shoes, laced up, with black socks. I hadn't seen him dressed in anything but khakis, T-shirts, and flip-flops in several years and was shocked by his appearance. Then it hit me that this was my dad, Bob Burton, and he was offering to give me away—to a black man.
He handed me a long, white box tied with a white satin ribbon. He looked at me with a sideways sneer as I set the box on the small table near the front door and pulled on the ribbon, then lifted the top of the box. A dozen long-stemmed white lilies lay side-by-side and atop each other inside the box. They were pure white, with green leaves, and they smelled like new life, forgiveness, and redemption.
I gasped, lifted the flowers from the box, and held them in my arms like a newborn baby.
I grabbed him around the neck to hug him, pressing the lilies between us. Yellow pollen from the stamens powdered the front of Daddy's black tuxedo jacket and I used the hankie that Marianne had given me for something borrowed to wipe it off.
Lilly turned around to help and we started laughing. Even Daddy thought it was funny.
The weight of a dozen lilies was too much, so I put all of them in the box except for three, which I carried across the crook of my left arm and tucked my right arm through Daddy's.
We had been delayed walking down the aisle but no one seemed to care.
The look of surprise on Rodney's face when he saw my dad as we walked toward him was erased when he looked at me. His smile told me everything; and I knew this was the best decision of my life.
When he and my dad shook hands, Rodney reached with his left hand and squeezed my dad's shoulder.
"Thank you sir," Rodney said loud enough for me to hear. "You've made your daughter and me very proud today."
"You take care of her, Son." My dad grinned, which was as close to a smile as I'd seen on him since my mother left. I turned to look at her and there were tears running down her cheeks.
Rodney turned towards Jeffrey, his best man, and when he turned back to face me he was holding a long-stemmed, white lily. He laid it across my arms with the others.
I don't remember the ceremony, just the glow I felt throughout my body when it was over.
After we were pronounced man and wife, Rodney kissed me and we turned toward the congregation. The organ played Ode to Joy by Beethoven as we walked back down the aisle, our guests standing and smiling as wide as we were.
I remember thinking I was the happiest I'd ever been in my life.
We walked out into the bright sunlight through the huge double doors of the church and turned to kiss each other. Out of the corner of my eye and I noticed a pickup truck move very slowly, then stop in front of the church and a flash of sunlight hit a metal object that stuck out of the passenger window.
It all happened so fast.
I didn't hear anything—no shots, no sounds, nothing but Lilly's screams as my life turned to slow motion and I was pulled to the concrete where I landed on my back with Rodney on top of me, his face on my face.
I felt a stream of liquid run down my cheek as if tears were draining from my eyes. I noticed the stream was red and was flowing from Rodney's face onto mine.
It was surreal.
I remember thinking about Lilly. Was she okay? And I remember wondering, How could this be happening?
Then I blacked out.
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