“How are things on the island?” Brooke asked. “Is Varina feeling all right?”
“Varina still gets a little blue, but Felicia just jokes her out of it, and once she takes her over to see how her house is coming along, she’s all smiles,” Shug reported. “Your mama called to say she’s sending a roofing crew over to Shellhaven next week, and Louette hasn’t been that happy in months. She says I’m too old to be getting up on rooftops, and I can’t disagree.”
“Have you seen much of C. D.?”
“He comes around. That shoulder’s still bandaged up, but I see him out walking most days. That man’s like a cockroach, you know? Can’t nothing kill him.” Shug cast her a sideways glance. “How about you? You gave us all a scare that day. I saw that blood all over you, and I could have sworn you’d been shot too.”
She touched the bandage on her cheekbone. It seemed to be healing, and the headaches had also subsided. “I guess I’m almost as tough as C. D.,” she said.
He nodded his approval. “Good to hear.”
*
Lizzie was waiting at the Shellhaven dock, behind the wheel of the blue VW. “You look almost human,” she said as Brooke climbed into the car.
“Thanks. I’m feeling better every day. Everything good over here? How’s your research on the magazine article coming?”
“I’ve got enough material for ten articles, or one book. Josephine and Preiss had an amazing life. Quite the partnership. Their correspondence is so sweet. It makes her seem like a real person. Almost. I’ve even found old records dating back to the plantation days. So what have you been up to?”
“I’m finally ramping up my campaign to stop the state from condemning Josephine’s land. I’ve been reaching out to the county commission and our state representatives, asking for a meeting so I can make my case. Also, we’re going to have Josephine’s funeral on Saturday.”
“I heard. Louette’s been in a frenzy, getting the house spiffed up. And Felicia and Varina are here, getting started on their baking. I get a sugar buzz just walking past the kitchen. Are you really having the service in the African Methodist Episcopal Church at Oyster Bluff?”
“It’s what Josephine wanted.”
“Is that why you’re over here today?”
“Not really. I need to talk to C. D.”
“He’s keeping kind of a low profile. Has he been pestering you about his inheritance?”
“He’s called me once or twice. The thing is, I’ve got news.”
“Do tell,” Lizzie said.
“The sheriff found the report on C. D.’s DNA testing in Gabe’s car.”
Lizzie pulled the VW around to the back of Shellhaven and parked. “And?”
Brooke held out the copy of the report. Lizzie read it carefully.
“As you can see, there’s zero evidence of a DNA match with Josephine,” Brooke said. “He’s going to be devastated.”
Lizzie was too busy reading to reply. After a few minutes, she looked up at her friend. “Did you read the whole report?” she asked. “Even the fine print?”
“Not really. Why?”
Lizzie thrust the report at Brooke, stabbing at it with her finger. “Check out this part right there.”
Brooke squinted at the print, reading it once, and then again, and finally a third time.
“Holy shit.”
“Right? Are you sure you want to give the whole report to him? Maybe you should just tell him there’s no match and leave it at that.”
“No. He’s got a right to know. He’s waited his whole life for this. This report might not have the answers he wanted, but he deserves to know something.”
“Do you have to go see C. D. right this minute?” Lizzie asked.
“No. He doesn’t even know I’m coming.”
“Good. I know Varina’s going to want to see you.”
71
Felicia was taking a cake from the oven, a dishtowel tied around her waist for an apron and a scarf wrapped turban-style around her short-cropped hair. Varina sat at the kitchen table, chopping pecans. Both the women’s faces were shiny with perspiration.
“Oh, Brooke girl!” Varina cried. “Come here and let me see what that rascal did to you.”
Brooke and Lizzie sat at the table on either side of Varina, who gingerly touched the bandage on Brooke’s cheek. “I’ve got some salve I want you to start putting on that thing,” she said. “You do that every night, and you won’t ever have a scar on that pretty face of yours.”
Felicia mopped her own face with her apron. “Auntie has become a conjure woman since moving back to Oyster Bluff. You watch out, or she’ll bury some chicken bones at midnight and put a spell on your enemies.”
Varina took a playful swipe at her great-niece’s hand. “This one here thinks because she has a PhD, she’s smarter than her elders.”
“Varina,” Lizzie said, her voice unexpectedly serious. “You know I’ve been going through Josephine’s old papers, working on a magazine article. I found something I don’t understand, and I wanted to ask you some questions, if that would be okay.”
Felicia shot her friend an inquisitive look, but Lizzie brushed it off.
“I’ll try,” Varina said cheerfully. “I might be an old, old lady, but I still remember a lot of things. What can I help you with, baby?”
“I found an old letter from the fall of 1942 to Josephine from a Catholic priest in Savannah. His name was Charles Ryan. The letter is sort of a progress report for a baby boy named Charlie. It says the couple who took the baby can’t continue to care for him anymore, so he’s decided to take the baby to the nuns at St. Joseph’s. That was an orphanage in Savannah. It closed a long time ago.”
“Oh?” Varina said with interest. “Well, I know Josephine used to give money to those orphans. She had a good heart, and she did a lot of good things, but she didn’t want people to find out because then they’d think she was weak or silly.” Varina set her knife on the cutting board. “But now, if this is about that crazy C. D. saying Josephine is his mother, you just need to stop with that foolishness. Josephine never had no baby. And I’d know, because I was living with her and working for her back then.”
“I believe you,” Lizzie said, her voice soothing. “But I think, maybe, the person who had a baby was you. Can that be true, Varina? Were you the one who had a baby?”
72
Varina
The first year after the war started, Josephine went to my daddy and asked could she take me with her to Savannah so I could go to a real school. Josephine told him I was so smart, I should go to a school in Savannah so I could make something of myself. But the real reason was that I had a big secret I couldn’t tell anybody about.
Josephine was the only person in the world who knew. And I only told her because I was scared. And ashamed. So ashamed.
My mama died right after I was born, and I never had any sisters, so there wasn’t anybody to explain women’s things to me. The first time I had my monthly, when I was thirteen, I thought I was bleeding to death. That’s when Josephine sat me down and explained things. She was the one who taught me how to take care of myself when I got my monthly.
Josephine was the only person I’d told about that bad man grabbing me at the party for Millie. And I never would have told her at all, except that night when it happened, afterward, when everybody was asleep or gone, I came creeping up into the house as quiet as I could to try to wash him off me because I couldn’t go home and let my daddy and brothers know what that man had done to me. When I came out of the bathroom, Josephine was standing there. And after I told her, she took me upstairs to her bathroom and let me take a hot bath. My beautiful new pink dress was torn and dirty, so she gave me some clean clothes to put on and she took that dress and burned it in the fireplace. And then she drove me home in her daddy’s Packard. And I promised not to tell nobody.