Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,55
passed a few months ago, darlin’. Remember?”
“Oh, yes, I recall.” Mama Nelle looked at me again as I sat down. “You knew Jesse?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I wish I had,” I said. “I knew his work. His paintings. They’re amazing.”
“How you know Lisa?”
“I’m working on restoring a mural in the art gallery…” My voice trailed off, unsure how much Mama Nelle would know or understand of what I was saying, and the old woman frowned as if trying hard to follow me.
“Mama Nelle,” Lisa said loudly, “remember Jesse wanted to have an art gallery built in town?”
“Yes, I ’member.” Mama Nelle nodded. “He talked ’bout it for years and years.”
“Well, Morgan is in town to restore an old mural Jesse wanted in the gallery. It has views of old Edenton in it.”
Mama Nelle looked toward the window, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Miss Anna’s mural?” she asked the air.
I caught my breath. In the chair beside me, I thought Lisa did the same. “Anna Dale’s mural,” I said. “Is that who you mean? An artist named Anna Dale painted it in 1940.”
“I loved Miss Anna,” Mama Nelle said. Her face had broken into a smile. She turned to the woman next to her. “Do you ’member her?”
The woman shook her head. “I wasn’t born till 1950, Mama,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t go makin’ me older than I already am.”
“How amazing,” Lisa said under her breath to me. “I had no idea she might know the artist.” Lisa raised her voice again. “You’ll have to come see it when it’s finished, Mama,” she said to the old woman. Then she nudged me. “Let’s go and—”
“Can I stay and talk with her a while longer?” I asked.
Lisa looked at her watch. “For a while,” she said. “We can’t stay too long. I have a world of calls to make yet tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, and as Lisa headed back toward the kitchen, I turned my attention once more to Mama Nelle. The women on either side of the old woman gave me looks of caution.
“She don’t remember much of anything, honey,” one of them said quietly. “Don’t put much stock in what she say.”
I gave them an “okay, fine” smile before riveting my gaze on Mama Nelle.
“How did you know Anna Dale?” I asked.
“Who?” Mama Nelle responded.
“You were just saying you remembered Anna … Miss Anna. The mural painter?”
“The mural, yes. In the big barn.”
“Big barn?”
“Where she done paint it.” Mama Nelle lifted her trembling arms into the air again, wide apart. “Was like a … a big white garage wit’ big ol’doors,” she said.
“The warehouse!” I said, remembering the photograph and article Oliver had shown me from the paper. “You’re right. She painted in a big warehouse. Can you tell me what she was like? Miss Anna?” I didn’t feel as though I could come right out and ask the old woman if Anna had been crazy.
“We had to be very quiet,” Mama Nelle said. She lifted a shivering finger to her lips. “Shh.”
“You had to be quiet while she painted?” I asked. “So she could concentrate?”
“No, not then,” Mama Nelle said. “We couldn’t let nobody know nothin’ ’bout her.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I tol’ you, honey,” the woman born in 1950 said. “Half of what she say these days don’t make no sense, so don’t worry ’bout it.”
I barely heard her, my attention on Mama Nelle. “Would you like to see a picture of the mural?” I asked her, leaning to the side so I could pull my phone from my jeans pocket.
“Her eyes ain’t so good,” another of the women warned me.
I swiped the screen of my phone until I reached one of my first pictures of the entire mural. I held it up in front of Mama Nelle.
“What’s that?” Mama Nelle asked.
“A picture of the mural Anna Dale—Miss Anna—painted,” I said. “Though it’s been in storage and is very dirty. Probably very different from when you last saw it.”
Mama Nelle frowned. “Jes’ a big ol’ blur to me,” she said.
“Let me see it,” the 1950 woman said, and I held the phone in front of her.
The woman laughed. “That’s a big mess, that’s what that is. How you expect her to make anythin’ out of that?”
I looked at the picture myself. I supposed to someone not accustomed to seeing the damaged mural every day, it did look a mess. To me, though, it was becoming a source of fascination.