her. But now she turned back to me with renewed urgency.
“He was not a bad man, Evelyn. He was just being a man. He was gentle with me. And I was willing though I knew he’d be moving on to another job when the hotel was finished. But I thought we had more time. Then one day, the hotel was done and he was gone. The place looked like a palace. When I went in and asked about him, a woman at the counter sneered down at my old dress and the cotton stuck to my sleeves, opened a big ledger, and said, ‘There is no Mr. Mullins here.’ ”
I leaned back in my chair, wondering if Momma’s mind was going. Why would she want me to know about her sex life? She’d already told me she was not a virgin when she married. I glanced at the photo of me and Addie.
She continued without pause. “I cried and cried. I mended my little broken heart as best I could and accepted your daddy’s invitation to his family reunion. Ben and I’d been discreet. The hotel had been empty. I’m sure no one saw me coming or going when I went to his room. But someone must have seen us when he walked me to the store. Your daddy was suddenly a lot less shy. Even before Ben left town, Robert had started coming by almost every day.
“Pretty soon—just a week or two after Ben left, your daddy was already hinting about us getting serious. I didn’t encourage him but I didn’t discourage him either.
“One evening, he strolled up the street with a handful of flowers he’d picked. While I waited for him on the porch, it suddenly hit me that I had not had my monthly since Ben Mullins left town.
“We walked down past the grinding mill to the bridge—our usual evening stroll. I was trying not to cry and he kept asking me what was wrong. I told him about Ben and me. His face was awful—shocked, disappointed, hurt. ‘I’ll find the bastard!’ he said. ‘Find him and kill him!’ Then I really started wailing, crying about how my daddy would kill me. Bastard kids just did not happen then. Women in that kind of trouble married the daddy or they got out of town.” Momma stopped, smoothed the covers. When her eyes met mine, I realized with a start that she was waiting for me to say something. She wanted forgiveness.
“Momma, did you get rid of the baby?” I whispered.
“Good Lord, no! I didn’t even know that was possible then. This was nineteen twenty-five, Evelyn. That was you on the way! What I’m trying to tell you is that Ben Mullins is your father, not Robert Roe.”
I stared at the bedspread, feeling what she said flush through me. I couldn’t move.
“Your daddy is your daddy, Evelyn. He raised you. He was back the next day asking me to marry him. I didn’t have to run off like Addie’s momma. You were able to grow up here and know my people. Robert never again mentioned Ben to me or to anyone else that I know of and he claimed you as his own, never treating you any different from your brother and sisters.”
She took my hand in both of hers, pulling me out of my daze. “I’m so sorry, Evelyn. For years I was so ashamed, so grateful to your father.” She cried, her fragile shoulders shaking, her face pale. I held her and we rocked gently.
Then she wiped her eyes. “I took your daddy for a husband though I didn’t love him, not at first. But by the time you were born, I was crazy for Robert Roe. It was a fuller love, a woman’s instead of a girl’s love. That’s why Joe came so soon after you.” She stroked my hair. “Good thing you looked like me and had the McMurrough’s red hair.” Her hand stopped at my temple. “Evelyn? You understand what I am telling you?”
Her hair, dimmed lately to the color of pale straw, framed her face. Suddenly, I saw her face as a young woman’s again, her hair a brilliant copper as when she’d once swept me up out of the creek and held me, dripping wet, in her extended arms. She’d looked at me then as if I was a stranger, unknown to her. Then the awful wailing as she held me close. For decades, I’d thought that moment was about me,