Pete was suspicious.”
Florry exhaled and asked for a glass of water. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and breathed heavily for a moment or so. She closed her eyes and continued. “Anyway, Pete got very suspicious. He went to Memphis and hired a private detective, paid him a lot of money, gave him photos of Liza and Dexter Bell. At the time there were three doctors, if you call them doctors, I’m not sure really what they were, and they’re probably still in business, but, they, well, they, uh, did abortions.”
Stella nodded stoically. Joel took a deep breath. Florry kept her eyes closed and plowed on. “Sure enough, the private detective found a doctor who recognized them from the photos, but he wanted a big bribe. Pete had no choice. Paid the guy $2,000 in cash, and he confirmed that on September 29, 1943, he did the deed for Liza.”
Joel grunted, “Good God.”
Stella said, “Well, that explains Nineva’s story about the day Mom and Dexter spent in Memphis.”
“Yep.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know that one,” Florry said.
“There are so many,” Stella said. “Keep going and we might circle back to it.”
“Okay. So, needless to say, Pete was devastated. He had the proof of her betrayal, and not just a little fooling around, but a full-blown pregnancy that got aborted in the back room of some low-end clinic in Memphis. He was furious, devastated, and felt thoroughly betrayed by the woman he had always adored.”
She paused and wiped a tear. “This is so awful. I never wanted to tell this story, never.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Aunt Florry,” Stella said. “We can deal with the truth.”
“So he confronted her?” Joel asked.
“He did. He picked the right moment, and ambushed her with the proof. The result was a complete and total breakdown. Nervous breakdown, emotional breakdown, call it whatever the doctors want to call it. She admitted everything: the affair, the abortion, the infection that wouldn’t go away. She begged for forgiveness, again and again. In fact, she never stopped begging for forgiveness, and he never offered it. He never got over it. He’d come so close to death so many times, but he kept going because of her, and you. And to think that she was having fun with Dexter Bell was more than he could stand. He saw John Wilbanks. They went to the judge. She was committed to Whitfield, and she did not resist. She knew she needed help, and she had to get away from him. Once she was gone, he tried to go about his business, but he reached a point where that was not possible.”
“So he killed Dexter,” Stella said.
“Not a bad motive,” Joel said.
There was a long heavy silence in which all three tried to focus. Joel stood, opened the door, walked to the courtyard, poured a glass of wine, and brought the bottle back with him. “Anyone?” he asked. Stella shook her head no. Florry appeared to be sleeping.
He sat down and took a sip, then another. Finally, he said, “And I guess there’s more to the story.”
“A lot more,” Florry whispered with her eyes closed. She coughed and cleared her throat, propped herself up again. “We all knew Jupe, Nineva’s grandson. He worked around the house and the gardens.”
“We grew up together, Florry, and played together,” Joel said.
“Right, he left home young, went to Chicago, came back. Pete taught him how to drive, let him run errands in his truck, treated him special. Pete was very fond of Jupe.”
She swallowed hard, took another deep breath. “And so was your mother.”
“No,” Joel grunted, too stunned to say anything else.
“It can’t be,” Stella said.
“It was so. When your father confronted your mother with the proof of the abortion, he demanded to know if it was Dexter Bell. At that awful moment, she had to make a decision. A choice. The truth or a lie. And your mother lied. She could not bring herself to admit she had carried on with Jupe. It was unthinkable, unimaginable.”
“How did it happen?” Joel asked.
“Did he force himself?” Stella asked.
“He did not. The night your mom died, she obviously knew what she was about to do. I did not. I was with her and she was at the end. She talked and talked and told me everything. At times she seemed lucid, at times out of it, but she never stopped talking. She said that Nineva got sick with something and stayed at home