Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,68
complain.” I’d called Mama Nelle’s daughter Saundra to arrange a time I could come over. Unlike Lisa, Saundra seemed to welcome the idea.
“Mama loves having people to talk to,” she said. “And not too many actually listen to what she says anymore. Come on over!”
Saundra greeted me at the front door dressed in yoga pants and a gray tank top. Inside the house, she offered me a glass of wine, which I turned down, of course, accepting a bottle of water instead.
“Listen,” she said, before taking me to see her mother. “How is Lisa doing? I worry about her.”
I was surprised by the question, surprised she asked for my opinion when, truth be told, I was really a stranger to the family. I hesitated long enough that she filled the silence.
“I know she’s under the gun with the gallery and work,” she said. “And still grieving over Uncle Jesse. She adored her daddy and took such good care of him. When I get frustrated taking care of my mother”—she nodded toward the hall, toward Mama Nelle, I supposed—“I remember how devoted Lisa was to Uncle Jesse and it keeps me going.”
“Hopefully everything will work out all right with the gallery and she can relax,” I said. I hoped that for both of us.
“I’m sure it will.” Saundra nodded in the direction of the hall again. “Let’s go see Mama,” she said, and I followed her out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into the small den where I’d visited with Mama Nelle on her birthday. The old woman sat on the sofa in the same spot I’d found her that day, although now that she was alone, no longer flanked by her relatives, she looked unbelievably tiny and inconsequential, swallowed up by the sofa’s fat cushions. Across the room from her, a talk show blared loudly from the TV.
I could have sworn the old woman’s face lit up when she spotted me. Her eyes shone behind her glasses and her lips curled into a smile.
“Do you remember Morgan?” Saundra asked her mother as she turned off the television. “She came to your birthday party?”
“I ’member.” Mama Nelle patted the sofa next to her. “Set down, girl,” she said.
As Lisa had done the night of Mama’s birthday party, I opted to move a straight-backed chair in front of the old woman so that we could easily see each other, and Saundra winked at me.
“Have a good visit,” she said. “You holler if you need anything.”
“Mama Nelle,” I began once she and I were alone, “when I was here the other day, we talked about an artist you remembered from when you were a little girl. Anna Dale. Do you remember talking with me about her?”
“Miss Anna.” The old woman lifted a finger to her wrinkled lips. “Sh. Have to be quiet about her,” she said.
“Why is that?” I asked, softening my voice. “Why do we have to whisper about her?”
“Everybody’d get hurt. Even me.”
“Even you?” I frowned. She was losing me. Or maybe I was losing her.
She nodded.
“How will you get hurt if we don’t whisper?” I wondered if there was something she didn’t want Saundra to hear.
“The po-lice might come,” she said.
“Oh.” I sat back. Lisa had been right. I was wasting my time.
I’d brought two pictures with me in a manila folder, and with a less than hopeful sigh, I took them out now. Leaning forward, I handed the old woman the first picture, and adjusted the lamp on the nearby table so that the light fell in a circle on the grainy image from the newspaper.
“Can you see this picture?” I asked. “Do you recognize—”
“Jesse!” she said, her gnarled finger touching the image of the black man.
“I don’t think so, dear,” I said, shocking myself when the word “dear” came out of my mouth. I’d never used it before in my life. “Jesse would only have been a boy back then. This is from 1940.”
“It’s Jesse,” she said stubbornly. “Seventeen. Eighteen. My big brother.”
I took the picture back from her and looked hard at it. Could she be right? The black man could possibly have been a teenager. The thought excited me. That might explain how the mural came to be in Jesse’s possession. He was somehow connected to it. Somehow involved in its creation. I set the photograph on her lap again. “Do you know who the white boy is?” I asked, wondering if by some miracle that boy was still alive and clearheaded.