44

I TURNED TO SEE ALEX at the back door. He gave a quick wave.

“I think the mighty-fine-looking man wants in,” Bernice whispered.

I smiled to cover my awkwardness. “That’s Alex Brennan, our contractor. He’s safe, I promise.”

She opened the door. “Enter, fine sir. You have been deemed safe.”

He raised a brow. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

We all laughed, but he and I barely looked at each other. Thanks again, Stephen. I made quick introductions. “And Alex, Bernice is the wonderful woman I was telling you about who works at the Atlanta History Center.”

“Yes, I remember. Claire says you’ve been very helpful to her. I’d shake hands, but I’ve been digging in the dirt.”

“And just what are you digging for, Mr. Brennan?” Bernice asked.

“Well, I’m—”

“Wait!” I quickly gave him the zipped-lip gesture. “I haven’t shown her yet.”

Bernice looked between us. “Shown me what? The renovation?”

I grabbed her arm. “The reason I asked you to lunch today! Come with me. Alex, you’re welcome to join us.”

“You ladies go on. I’ll be up shortly.”

As we climbed the stairs, she plied me with questions about the renovation.

I gave her a quick recap. “So, basically, we’re updating all the bathrooms on the second floor, starting with the master first.” I paused on the second-floor gallery. “And to be completely transparent, I’ve been told that owner’s suite is preferred these days, but that term for a house of this era strikes me as . . .”

“Anachronistic?” She smiled.

“Exactly.”

“We’re good, you and me. Carry on.”

Appreciating this woman more and more, I explained we were working closely with the National Register of Historic Places to make sure we stayed in compliance.

She frowned. “I’d heard they removed this house from the Register.”

“Something changed that.” In the bedroom, the mirror covering the opening in the wall reflected our images. “I told you at lunch about the day I visited Stephen’s office and everything blew up. Well, when I got home and walked up here into the bedroom, I saw our wedding portrait on the dresser and . . . went a little crazy.”

I was reluctant to be completely transparent, but she’d been so with me, and I felt I owed her the same. I left nothing out.

Her eyes steadily grew wider. “You took a sledgehammer to your wedding portrait? Then to the house?” She looked at me in disbelief. “These walls are made of brick! I could have told you you wouldn’t get far.”

“But that’s just it,” I said, only then noticing Alex in the doorway. Judging by his somber expression, he’d been there for a minute or two. So now he knew pretty much everything. Deep inside me, I felt like a failure yet again. “You’re right, Bernice, the walls are usually made of brick. But not that one.”

Alex removed the mirror to reveal the hole in the wall.

Hand on her chest, Bernice stared. “This is real, Claire?”

“It’s why I wanted to have lunch with you today. To tell you.”

Her eyes misted. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Alex plugged the lamp into an extension cord and set it inside the room. I stepped in behind Bernice, and he followed.

Just as I’d done the day I discovered this space, she ran a hand along the walls, the beams, the dresser, the trunks, and the shelves where the oil lamps and assorted bowls and pitchers sat. I told her about the days I’d spent going through everything in the trunks, and how the clothing and quilt tops hung in closets across the hall. “The bottles on the shelf behind you contain what we think may be liniment of some kind.”

“We?” she said. “Who else knows about this?”

I told her that beyond Stephen and the three of us now, there was Nanci from the National Register, their board, and my friend Paige in Idaho. “Nanci had a photographer take pictures for a press release that’s coming out sometime this week.”

“Claire,” Bernice said solemnly, “this may be the most important local antebellum discovery in . . . well, in my lifetime. Including the soldier they found buried out back.”

“But there’s something else, Bernice,” I said. “Something Stephen found by accident.”

I found the crowbar and tugged the trapdoor open.

Bernice searched my face, her eyes awash with tears. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

I nodded. “That’s why Alex is digging along the back wall outside.”

“Looking for the way they got out,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said softly. “And we’ll find it.”

“Have either of you been down there?”

“No, ma’am, but I’ve got a hankering to.”

She grinned. “That’s a hankering I share, Alex.”

She knelt beside him, and he shone his phone light down into the hole, describing what he’d seen the day before.

“Amazing,” she said, the tunnel muting her voice. “I can’t begin to tell you both what this means to me.” She paused. “Claire, I need to tell you something. I started to earlier, then chickened out.”

Alex gestured. “Would you prefer I leave?”

“No, no,” she said. “You both should know that for more than thirty years, I’ve headed a group dedicated to telling the stories of slaves who worked on plantations in this area. The internet is making our work easier, and we’re finding all kinds of new information. But according to my family’s oral history, we trace one of our relatives back to one of two specific mansions in this area.”

A shiver of excitement stole through me. “The Thursmanns’ being one of them?”

“Yes. After researching every record and county document we could get our hands on, plus listings in family Bibles, we’re fairly certain my great-great-great-grandfather was a field slave either for the Thursmanns or for the Bulloch family up in Roswell.”

“No wonder you seem so enamored with this house.”

She ran a hand along one of the shelves. “I feel a connection to this place that I don’t to Bulloch Hall. That’s why it saddens me that you’ll be selling.”

“Selling?” Alex looked at me.

Bernice grimaced. “I’m so sorry, Claire. I spoke out of turn.”

“No, it’s fine. Alex is aware that Stephen and I are struggling.” He looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else just then. “Alex, Stephen and I are getting a divorce. So we will be selling the house, probably after the first of the year.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. On both counts.”

The compassion in his voice moved me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I need to get back out there and find that passageway.”

“If you don’t mind, Alex,” Bernice said, “I’ll check your progress as I’m leaving.”

“Don’t mind at all. Bring a shovel.”

“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

His laughter had a way of lifting the burden inside me. Yet I was grateful he’d gone back downstairs. I could hardly wait to show Bernice Charlotte’s journal.

I headed toward my bedside table. “There’s one last thing I want to—”

“Be careful, my friend.”

I turned back and read caution in Bernice’s expression. Her meaning soon became clear, and defensiveness shot up inside me. “He’s just a friend, Bernice. And our contractor. That’s it.”

“All I’m saying—and I’m saying this with love—is that if there is any hope of you and Stephen working things out . . .”

“I know you mean well, Bernice. But there’s nothing—”

“Claire. You two had a moment back there. Even I felt it. And your expression when you watched him leave . . .” She stepped closer. “Believe me, I know what it’s like to lie to yourself. I did it until it nearly took me—and my marriage—over the brink.”

Hot tears rose in my eyes. “My marriage is already over the brink.”

“Not yet, it’s not. You can still forgive him, Claire. You still have a choice.”

“I can’t. I’ve tried. I don’t have it in me. I know God could give me the strength. But the hard truth is, I don’t want to be married to a man who’s proved he can’t be trusted.” I fought for a breath. “If I can believe him, he cheated only once. But it’s not just about the sex. It’s him giving his heart to someone else. I can’t live with that, Bernice. God may yet punish me for my decision, but I believe he’s given me a biblical out. And I’m taking it. And please hear this the way it’s intended: You were on the other side. You don’t know what it’s like to be the one betrayed.”

She didn’t move, yet it was clear I’d wounded her, and that severed something deep inside me. “Bernice, I’m sorry. I—”

“No, you’re right. I don’t know that side of it.” She wiped away tears. “But you’re wrong about one thing.”

I braced myself.

“God is not like you and me,” she continued. “He doesn’t treat us like we deserve to be treated. And certainly not like we treat each other.” She briefly closed her eyes. “Early in our marriage, Asa and I tried to have children, but it didn’t happen. After Douglas was born, I got pregnant again. Three times. And three times, I miscarried. I told Asa it was my fault, that God was punishing me.”

Her heartache was palpable.

“Asa said something to me I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Baby, do you think the very one who sent his only son to die for your sins would pile all that trash back on you, just so he could punish you?’ Asa looked at me with love so deep, I thought I’d drown in it, and said, ‘Don’t you see how that makes no sense? How that would cheapen his son’s sacrifice? No, Nettie,’ he said. ‘God is better than that. He—’”

“Wh-what did you just say?”

She stared. “You mean about how God’s—”

“No. You said a name.”

She smiled. “It’s just a nickname from my childhood. Daddy and Mama named me after his great-great-grandmother. Her name was Bernice, but everybody called her—”

“Nettie,” I whispered, shuddering.

“Claire, you’re white as a ghost. What’s—?”

“Bernice, you need to sit down.”