Juanita nodded. “Yes, baby. Five years ago.”
He wanted to ask a million more questions, but he couldn’t. He was beginning to feel a dangerous, grudging respect for the older woman that unnerved him. It was too risky, too hard, too confusing. He was almost thirty-five years old, mere months away from most likely becoming a governor, yet he was afraid to find out how his nana had died and how his mother had lived. Not wanting to know. Dying to know.
He felt a familiar wave of nausea, but this time he made for the front door. “Air,” he said. “I need air.”
She was about to say something, but he pulled the car keys from his pocket. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I need to make a business call.” And before she could respond, he was on the front porch and down the stone steps and getting into his car. He backed out and drove down the gravel road past her house, not turning around to see if she was watching him. He went down the road as far as he could to ensure that he was out of sight, to where she couldn’t even see the dust cloud his car made, and then he stopped. The heat of the afternoon assailed him, and even though his windows were down, he turned on the air-conditioning. He listened to the quarrels of the birds, heard the buzz of a bee hovering near the front of his car. Beyond this, silence, the green fields still and sleepy on either side of him. He rested his forehead on the wheel and shut his eyes. He thought of calling Katherine, but he knew that would only delay the inevitable. There was only one person in the world who could answer the questions churning in his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Anton debated briefly whether to call on the home phone but decided not to risk Delores answering. And so he dialed his father’s cell phone, hoping that William would not pick up, as he sometimes did when his dad was resting. His wishes were answered when David answered on the second ring. “Hi, son,” he said. “How’d the stop at the retirement home go?”
Shit. He’d forgotten that David had a copy of his campaign itinerary. “I didn’t go,” he said.
“Why not?” David asked sharply. “We need those folks to show up at the polls.”
“I’m not there,” he said. “I’m out of the state, actually.”
“What do you mean?” He could hear the impatience in David’s voice and then a forced levity. “You and Katherine go away to the city for a quick rendezvous or something?”
“I wish.” He took a deep breath and then said, “No, Dad. Actually, I’m in Georgia. Sitting on a dirt road in the middle of a field.”
There was a slight pause and then David said, “What’re you talking about?” There was the slightest quiver in his voice, but Anton heard it—fear, dread, calculation—clear as a church confession.
He gripped the phone tighter, his breathing now shallow. “I’m in Georgia, Dad. Sitting outside her house. Visiting with her.”
Another pause, brief but infinite. “I see.” A sigh. “How’d you find her?”
Anton was about to explain about the letter—how he’d distrusted her immediately, how he’d flown south to shut her up. And then he thought, I don’t owe him this. The explanations need to flow in the opposite direction.
“I found her,” he said simply. “And she told me . . . the whole story.” He heard David make a sound, but he kept talking. “And she showed me the photograph. And the check that Mom made out to her. She never cashed it. Did you know that?”
He heard David’s gasp. “Listen. I don’t know what shit this woman has been saying. I . . . She was your birth mom, dammit. So I decided to help her out. Get her situated.”
“You gave five thousand dollars to a drug addict, Dad? What were you trying to do? Kill her?”
“Anton. I won’t be talked to in this manner. I won’t. Now, listen, whatever you want to ask, you ask me straight. Like a man.”
Despite his anger, Anton felt a grudging admiration for the old man. Even after the heart attack, David was steel, pure steel. “Okay, then. How’d you manage to sneak her out of prison for that impromptu meeting?”
There was a painfully long silence, and for a wild moment Anton wondered if his father had hung up on him. He was about to say “Hello?” when David said, “I’m not doing this, Anton. I’m not subjecting myself to answering every charge that this woman is leveling at me.”
Anton heard the admission of guilt. “Dad,” he said, incredulous. “You could’ve lost your law license. You could’ve gone to jail. It wasn’t just immoral what you did. It was illegal.”
“Immoral? You’re going to give me morality from a woman who locked you up in an apartment for a week?” David scoffed. “Or have you forgotten that cold, hard fact, Anton? What we rescued you from?”
Somehow, the word “rescue” stung. It objectified him, made him feel like a charity case. “I didn’t ask you to rescue me,” Anton said gruffly. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but—”
“Son.” The distress in David’s voice was genuine. “Where are we going with this? Hell, how did we get here? I don’t want your gratitude, goddammit. I didn’t do you a favor. I . . . we . . . I love you. I’ve never regretted a second I’ve had with you. Never taken it for granted, either.”
Anton had not known it was possible to have so many conflicting emotions slash at you at once and still be able to breathe. He heard David’s distress and it tore at him. He loved the man at the other end of the phone, worshipped him. He was close to Delores in ways that he wasn’t with anyone else. Pappy was the only grandparent he had known, the only death he had mourned. But there was another claim on him that he was now aware of. He couldn’t ignore this fact. And try as he might, he couldn’t leave out the racial element. She was a poor, unsophisticated black woman who had been railroaded by a bunch of powerful white men. One of whom happened to be the man who had made his entire life possible.
“Anton,” David said. “You still there?”
“I’m here.” He gulped hard and then asked, “Did Mom know?”
“Of course not. She knew what I told her. And I’d prefer to leave it that way.”
Anton nodded, relief coursing through his body. “So she wrote the check because . . . ?”