“But what about Honor?” I asked. “What about Jilly? Does Honor think he’s … does she know he’s alive?”
“Yes, she knows,” he said. “The plan is for her and Jilly to follow him, soon as I can figure a safe way to get them there.”
“Could she take the train?” I asked. “Or a bus?
He smirked at my ignorance. “Those trains are full to the gills and there ain’t no room for a colored gal and her child,” he said. “Even if there was, she’d be in the Negro car with the colored soldiers drinkin’ it up and talkin’ about how they got lucky on leave.” He shook his head. “I know all about that ’cause I used to be one of them. I wouldn’t let her do it. And the bus? That’d be worse.” He looked at me, raising his eyebrows. “You have any idea what that’s like?” he asked. “Sitting in the back, if there’s any seats at all. Having to get out every time you come to a new state line ’cause you’re colored. Fight for a seat on the next bus if you can get on at all, because all the seats are already filled with white folks. No place willing to feed you when you stop in a town. They can’t make that trip out there alone.”
“Could you possibly drive them?” I asked, although I knew it would take forever with gasoline rationed.
He shook his head. “Negro man driving ’cross the country?” he asked. “It wouldn’t be safe for me to try.” He looked past me, scratching his cheek, and I thought he was imagining something I couldn’t possibly comprehend. “Colored folk have a way of disappearing on the road,” he said. Then he looked squarely at me, the slightest smile on his face. “He left you that C gas sticker for a reason,” he said.
“Me?” I was shocked. “I can’t possibly!”
“Can’t you?” he asked. “He left you his car too.”
“What if we had a flat or…”
“I’ll get you another spare,” he said. “And a copy of the Green Book.”
“The green book?”
“It tells you safe places you … Honor and Jilly … can get food and a room for the night. The sundown towns to steer clear of.”
“What’s a ‘sundown town’?”
“Places where she and Jilly wouldn’t be safe after sundown.”
“Oh,” I said. “Once we were out of the South, though, they’d be okay, right?” I couldn’t believe I was actually considering this.
He shook his head. “You read the Green Book, you’ll see. You’ll do it?”
“I’m needed here right now, Zeke,” I said. The trip would take weeks. I thought of Vincent. He was here and I was now free. I didn’t want to leave.
“Hank had faith in you,” he said.
“What about Adora? How can Honor leave her?”
“I’ll take care of Mama,” he said. “Right now she thinks Hank is dead, but she’s good at keeping secrets. She’d like knowing Honor and Jilly are safe with him, wherever they are.” He looked toward the tree stumps, rubbing his jaw with his hand, thoughtful. “Maybe in time me and Mama can go out there too,” he said. Then he shook his head, letting out his breath as though he knew he was getting ahead of himself. “We got to just take things one step at a time,” he said.
I thought of the money Hank had been socking away in the armoire. Had he been saving for his escape long before I came on the scene? “He hid money in our room,” I said. “Was this his plan all along?”
“He was savin’ up, but he didn’t rightly know what he was savin’ for except to have money for Butchie and Jilly. He couldn’t use factory money. Miss Ruth kept a tight grip on that, goin’ over the books with a fine-tooth comb. He had to find another way to get money.” He clamped his mouth shut, and I knew he thought he’d said too much.
“The money has something to do with the gasoline rationing coupons, doesn’t it.”
He hesitated. “Everything to do with it,” he said finally. “But you don’t need to know. It’s better you don’t.”
“Yes, I do need to know,” I said. “He owes me that. He owes me the truth.”
He ran his hands over the steering wheel and a few seconds passed before he spoke again. “They were counterfeit, those coupons and stickers,” he said finally. “He printed them at the factory, then he’d sell them to some local people, and Lucy would take them to … I guess you’d call them middlemen. The middlemen would buy a slew of ’em, raise the price and resell them.”
“Lucy!” I thought of the manila envelope she’d wanted to deliver to someone across the river the day of the accident. Then there was that cryptic note Teddy Wright had left for Henry. “Was Teddy Wright involved?” I asked.
Zeke gnawed his lower lip as he decided how much to tell me. “Teddy was the eyes and ears in the police department,” he said finally. “He let Hank know if the police were gettin’ suspicious, which didn’t happen for a long time. Lately, with those agents comin’ ’round, Hank knew it was time to get out.”
“What about you, Zeke?” I asked. “How did you fit in?”
“I had nothin’ to do with it,” he said sharply. “Nothin’, ’cept that I knew too much. But he was making the money for Honor and the kids. I kept that in mind.”
I stared at the field of tree stumps in front of us. I thought of the many thousands of dollars I would have to live on for the rest of my life. I thought of how much Henry loved Honor. How he’d spent most of his life having to love her in secret. I thought of how he had freed us both.
I looked at Zeke. “All right,” I said, a shiver of both excitement and fear running up my spine. “I’ll do it.”
MARCH 10, 1945
83
From the open window of the Cadillac, I waved to Adora and Zeke where they stood on the porch of Adora’s house. They smiled and waved back, but I knew Adora’s happy expression masked her tears. I’d stayed in the Cadillac keeping the heat on, while Honor and Jilly walked to the car, lugging their suitcases, Jilly clutching her doll Nursie in her free arm. I hadn’t wanted to be in the house for the good-byes. It would have been unbearable to witness that scene.
I got out of the car to open the trunk.
“Hi, Miss Tess!” Jilly said, trying to lift her small suitcase over the bumper.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, taking the suitcase from her and slipping it between my own suitcase and one of the spare tires.
I rested my hand on Honor’s back as she slipped her suitcase into the trunk. “How are you holding up?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” She smiled at me to let me know she meant it.
I closed the trunk and the two of them got into the backseat, Jilly clambering in on her hands and knees. They called out their good-byes, Honor’s voice not betraying the mix of emotions she had to be feeling. She was leaving her family and Hickory, heading across the country on a long uncertain journey toward a future she yearned for but hadn’t dared to imagine.
I turned to look at my passengers. “All set?” I asked.