her, then says, “I reckon I ought to let you in, but I got a feeling Mr. Max might not like you bein’ here just now. Am I right to figure that?”
“You could be.”
“Well, then. What you wantin’ to know? Same thing Nadine ax me?”
“Did she ask whether you’d caught Max with her mother, Margaret Sullivan?”
Tallulah gives me a conspiratorial look. “Sho’ did. But Mrs. Sullivan wasn’t the first wife I seen in here with her clothes off. Or the last.”
“Did you tell Sally about it? Catching Mrs. Sullivan?”
“No, indeed. I wouldn’t have hurt Mrs. Sally for all the money in the world. Poor soul put up with more trouble than any two white ladies I ever knew. That Mrs. Sullivan was all right, too. Didn’t have no business messin’ with Mr. Max. But then . . . a lot of ’em was like that. Moths to the flame, I reckon.”
“I think you’re right.” I hate to push her, but I need to know what she knows. “Tallulah, I don’t want to get you in trouble with Max. I’m going to get right to the point.”
The maid looks wary. She probably hasn’t had many good experiences with white men who tell her they are coming to the point.
“I know Max is Kevin’s father,” I tell her.
The maid grunts down deep in her chest. “Who told you that? Nadine, I expect?”
“No. Kevin’s mother.”
Tallulah draws back her head and regards me with open suspicion. “You don’t come around this neighborhood much, do you?”
“I haven’t, no. I stay pretty busy.”
There’s a new light in the maid’s eyes, cold and judgmental. “That the only reason?”
“Why do you ask?”
“’Cause I seem to ’member you and Miss Jet bein’ an item back in the day. I wondered if maybe it’s hard for you to be around her.”
I try not to betray any emotion, but my odds of hiding anything from this woman are pathetically low. “I think it’s probably best to leave the past in the past.”
Tallulah nods slowly. “I think you’re right about that. If only we could.”
“Sometimes we can’t. As much as we’d like to.”
She looks like someone being coerced to speak against her will. “What is it you want to know, Marshall?”
“I’m not sure. Do you think Sally killed herself because she found out Max was the father of that boy?”
Tallulah looks at the ground for a while, but then she looks up and nods. “Two, three years back, I’d have told you Mrs. Sally couldn’t do that. Take her own life.”
“And now?”
The old maid shakes her head. “Those who don’t cry don’t see.”
Something about her answer pulls my mind away from the present. “When did Sally find out the truth?”
“Two, three months back, maybe. She would have seen it before, but her heart blinded her mind to what her eyes took in.” A wistful look comes into the old woman’s eyes. “The thought first struck me about the tenth time I changed that boy’s diaper. I pushed it away, or tried to, but it stuck. By the time he was walkin’ and talkin’, I knew for sure.”
“How?”
“Same way his mama knew, I reckon. Just watchin’. I’d raised Paul since he was a baby, you know that. And something jus’ told me li’l Kev hadn’t come from him. Kevin’s got Mr. Max’s blood. Got his bones, muscles . . . his way.”
“Kevin acts like Max?”
“Mm . . . I don’t mean that, exactly. He don’t have Mr. Max’s cruel way. But he’s more straight-ahead than Paul ever was. He don’t hesitate with nothing. Paul did sometimes. Still does.”
“I see.” Tallulah still looks wary to me, which tells me she’s holding something back. “I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but what do you think finally made Sally see the truth?”
“Mr. Max. He loves that boy too much. It’s natural for a granddaddy to love a grandchild, even dote on him. And that helped Mr. Max hide the truth. He was hiding one light behind another, you see? But his feelings as a father just grew and grew, until nothing would hide ’em. You can’t hide the sun behind a candle.”
Her image leaves me shaken, and even more worried for Paul. “What kind of shape do you think Paul is in, Tallulah?”
“Oh, he’s in a bad way. So sad. He never should’ve married that Jet. Or the other way ’round, maybe. She didn’t love Paul—not really. She may have wanted to, but she never did.”