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.