Hidden Riches (26 page)

He showed the cover to all of the assembled children, and then made sure JoJo got a good look at it.

The cover was clearly drawn by someone young. Its crayon design had stick-like images of children with big smiles and colorful hair. A larger stick figure with an even bigger smile and a pouf of curly, brown-crayon hair stood behind the kids, with enormous arms wrapped around all of them.

JoJo swallowed and blinked back the sudden tears that threatened to fall again. She recognized those big arms, even when drawn in crayon. They were the very ones that so often wrapped her in big-sister love.

“That's us,” one of the kids said.

“And Granna Mae is giving all of us a hug,” another piped up to clarify, in case their visitor was not sure about the identities of the people.

“Granna Mae?” JoJo said, sending the question to Reverend Toussaint.

He smiled and nodded.

“She said all of the kids here were her honorary grandchildren. Those who did not have biological grandparents close by or just didn't have any at all could claim her. She always said she had plenty of love to go around.”

JoJo nodded and pointed toward the book cover. “Love big enough to surround all of them like on the front of the book?”

“Exactly.”

JoJo mulled that for a bit. It seemed her big sister lived a full and satisfying life here in Drapersville, a life filled with the things that JoJo had once taken for granted. And now that she didn't have them—a daughter who loved her as much as these kids adored Ana Mae, a husband she loved and who loved her, a life not encumbered by debt and regret and enough what-could-have-beens to fill a book—those were the things she wanted most.

She hoped Crystal had made a good life for herself in Laughlin. And right there, JoJo vowed to herself that she would get her daughter's address from Mr. Rollings. If Ana Mae knew it, he knew it. And nothing was going to stop JoJo from making amends with her only child.

Ana Mae had apparently died not even knowing where her own son, Howard, was. That tragedy would not be JoJo's legacy.

“Sister Josephine?”

“Huh?”

Lost in her thoughts, JoJo glanced at Reverend Toussaint.

“The story.”

Her brow wrinkled for a moment, and then she remembered what they had been doing. She gave the little reader a smile, and he turned to the first page of the book.

“Once upon a time there was a lady who loved little kids.”

The boy was an excellent reader. He and the others clearly knew and enjoyed this story.

“But the lady was sad,” Joshua said.

He then held the picture out so all of the kids on their mats could see the stick-figure image of Ana Mae with the curly hair and a pocketbook the size of a suitcase on her arm. The expression on the face was clearly a cheerless one, and there appeared to be a big tear—or what passed for a tear when drawn by a six-year-old—rolling down her face.

“Why was she sad?” JoJo asked.

“He's coming to that part,” one of the children on the floor said.

Joshua patted her hand. “Don't worry, Miss Josephine. The story has a happy ending.”

She couldn't help but smile at his youthful optimism.

Maybe the story in the children's picture book had a happy ending, JoJo thought. But Ana Mae's own story didn't. Not when she was in a casket buried six feet underground over at Antioch Cemetery. Not when her only living relatives were running all over town trying to see who could claim her wealth first.

And JoJo had been daydreaming of a life without Lester in it—permanently.

Joshua continued the story.

“The lady was sad because she had no little children to love.”

The boy kept reading and showing the book's illustrations. The story was a joyful tale.

“One day, she met a whole room full of children, and before long, the lady smiled all the time.”

At the end of the simple tale, illustrated by several young artists, the lady was happy because she had lots of kids to love who also loved her back.

Such an uncomplicated way of looking at life, JoJo thought.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” she murmured.

“Thank you, children,” Reverend Toussaint said, dismissing them.

“It was nice meeting all of you,” JoJo said. “Thank you for being such good friends with my sister.”

The children scrambled up and replaced their mats. Several of them gave JoJo a hug and whispered words of encouragement to her.

“Don't be sad, Miss Josephine. Granna Mae is with Jesus.”

“I'm glad you came to see us today.”

“I miss her so much.”

That one brought tears to JoJo's eyes. She hugged the girl closer and whispered back. “I miss her too, sweetie. I miss her too.”

And to Suzy after a big hug, “you keep practicing that ballet, okay?”

“I will, Miss Josephine.”

JoJo had not pulled into the Holy Ghost Church of the Good Redeemer's parking lot with any sort of mission in mind. But she left feeling richer for the visit.

Reverend Toussaint walked her to her car, parked next to his in the lot.

“The kids really loved Sister Ana Mae,” Reverend Toussaint said. “She spent a lot of time with them, reading stories and listening to their concerns and problems. She always used to say that just because a person hasn't lived a long time doesn't mean they don't know trouble.” He smiled wryly. “She was the closest thing we had to an in-house therapist. The kids really opened up to her, and I like to think she did the same to them in a way.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “The young people enrolled here at the Good Redeemer Academy were, in a way, her . . . ,” he paused, clearly uncomfortable.

“Her what, Reverend Toussaint? I'm trying to understand this part of my sister's life. It's important to me . . . to understand, I mean.”

He nodded. “I can comprehend that,” he said. “Try to remember, though, that you all—you, Delcine, and Clayton—well, you all just weren't here. Sometimes I, well, I just got the impression that you all had shut her out of your lives even though the one thing she loved more than anything in the world was you all. Whether deliberately or by accident, all of you left her. And all I know is that there was something like a hole in Ana Mae. And these children here, these precious little ones, filled up that hole in her. They were her adopted family. She called them her grandchildren of the heart.”

He looked pained to have to say it, but it was something JoJo had already come to realize.

A boy, about eight, ran over to where they were standing. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Did you get permission to leave the building, Dwight?” Reverend Toussaint asked sharply.

“Yes, sir. Miss Graham said it was all right just for today to come out. I needed to see you.”

“All right then, son. What can we do for you?”

The boy, whose hair was in mini-dreadlocks, thrust a piece of paper at JoJo. “I made this for you, Miss Josephine.”

Bewildered, JoJo accepted the proffered item. “What is it?”

“It's a picture,” Dwight said. “I just drew it for you. I signed it too, just like Granna Mae told me to do on all my drawings.”

JoJo's gaze fell to the lower right corner of the page and saw in neatly printed magic marker or Sharpie, DWIGHT HENDERSON. His signature was followed by the year.

“I don't want you to be sad, Miss Josephine,” the boy said. “So I drew you a picture of Granna Mae. See,” he said, pointing a small brown finger to a figure high up on the page.

It was then that JoJo grasped the entire image, which included a large building, grass, cars. Dwight was clearly the artist who created the cover of the picture book about Ana Mae. It was of the same stick-figure-ish woman featured prominently, except this time she was flying in the sky above a large church and school, the big purse still hanging on her arm and a grin as wide as the one on the picture book. A flowing white and purple robe replaced the floral dress. But the most important addition in the image was wings.

He'd drawn Ana Mae as an angel looking down on the Good Redeemer Academy.

J
oJo Futrell's visit to the Good Redeemer Academy sparked a long-forgotten memory for Reverend Toussaint. Not a man who dwelled in the past, he had no reason to believe his life would be better for the road not taken. He had done a lot of things as a younger man that, if he did not quite regret them, he would not do again, not since giving his life over to the Lord Jesus Christ. But JoJo reading that book with the children somehow brought one thing back.

Not sure he even trusted his memory on this, instead of going to his car Reverend Toussaint made his way from his office at the Holy Ghost Church of the Good Redeemer and to the now darkened multipurpose classroom. The children and teachers of the Good Redeemer Academy were gone now, and the large room, without their boisterous energy, seemed curiously barren.

For a moment, he stood in the doorway just staring, but not seeing the colorful mats stacked in a corner, the motivational posters on the wall, the shelves with neatly stored games and athletic equipment.

Instead, Toussaint le Baptiste saw the past . . .

“See, when I put this right here, it'll be a sign for everyone who sees it that my heart is taken.”

“For sure?”

“For sure,” he told the girl standing right next to him.

Her smooth brown skin beckoned his touch, and it was all he could do to keep his hands off of her—for now. The summer day, hot and humid with the stickiness that accompanied Southern heat, might have been unbearable except for the exquisite company. The girl—his girl—at his side.

Well, he hoped she would be. Maybe after today.

Sheathing the pocketknife he had used to carve their initials in the old oak tree, he slipped it back into the pocket of his blue jeans. The dungarees were new, ordered from the Sears, Roebuck Company catalog. He'd worn them hoping to impress her.

It worked.

She'd said he looked mighty handsome.

But she, she took his breath away, the only girl who knew that what they said about him wasn't really true—mostly.

As they stood before the tree, an ancient live oak just on the outskirts of town, he took her hand in his.

“A kiss to seal it?” he asked.

Her shy smile encouraged and emboldened him.

It also caused the erection in his jeans to swell even more. He wanted her, but he didn't want to move too fast or do anything that might scare her off. She was special to him in so many ways.

Lifting their clasped hands, he placed them over the heart and the initials he had painstakingly carved into the tree's thick trunk. And then, leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers.

The rockets going off in his head had nothing at all to do with the Fourth of July fireworks exploding behind and overhead.

When he finally pulled back, she was smiling at him.

They gazed into each other's eyes for what seemed an eternity before turning to the tree. Slowly their hands traced the outline of the heart and the initials within it before pulling away to reveal the tribute carved there.

“What did you find?” Clay said, sprinting to where Archer stood in Antioch Cemetery. “Is it Howard?”

Instead of answering, Archer just waited for Clayton to reach his side.

“Oh,” Clayton said when he looked down. Reading the first headstone and then the one next to it in the adjoining plot, his demeanor changed from excited anticipation to somber contemplation. “Oh,” he said again.

Archer lifted a hand to Clay's shoulder to offer a measure of comfort. But his hand failed to connect as Clayton squatted low for a level view of the gravestones.

For long moments, Clayton didn't speak at all. Archer, silent as well, gave him the room to grieve.

“Mama said Daddy died the way he lived. On his own terms,” Clayton finally said. “Only he would pick a leap year day to die.”

“What's the reference to being a wanderer?” Archer asked.

Clayton rose off his haunches, smiling a little, but not with mirth.

“Daddy was what we today call a player with a capital P, or what I suppose Rosalee and Ana Mae would call a Mack Daddy. I was sixteen, about to turn seventeen when he died. I was pissed because he lived his life leaving Mama and cheating on her.”

Shaking his head in disgust, Clayton said, “They had some kind of understanding. Basically it went like this: Whenever he showed up, she understood he'd be around until he left again. She welcomed him home like he hadn't been gone for six months or a year. He once went three whole years without us seeing hide nor hair of him. No postcards saying, “Hi, thinking of you.” No birthday greetings, and forget about Christmas. I never did understand why she allowed him to do that to us, to her.”

“Because she loved him,” Archer said.

Clayton snorted.

Taking a few steps to his mother's marble headstone, he ran a hand over the smooth stone, caressing it as if he were drawing comfort from her presence even now.

“I remember this kid, everybody called him BoBo because of the cheap shoes he wore. Anyway, he was picking on me, making fun. He said my father only stayed around long enough to knock up my mom before he disappeared and went back to his real family. I was so pissed. I told him what Mama had always told me. That my Daddy hadn't abandoned us. He was out working in a place far away, like the father on ‘Good Times.' And like a fool, I believed her, and I wanted BoBo to know the truth.”

“What happened?”

“He laughed in my face. Called me a faggot who believed in fairy tales. Then he beat the hell out of me.”

They were quiet for a moment, Clayton reliving the pain and Archer hurting for him.

“I knew Mama would never tell me the truth, so I asked Ana Mae about it,” Clayton eventually said.

“What'd she say?”

Clayton smiled and gave a little half laugh. “She told me that Daddy loved us and Mama in his own way and that he provided for us in his own way.”

“Pretty cryptic for the straight-shooting Ana Mae. What did she mean?”

“I asked her that,” Clayton said. “But she just smiled at me and shook her head.

“When he died, Delcine refused to come home for the funeral. She was either still in college or had just graduated, I can't remember which. JoJo and I said if she didn't have to go, we didn't have to go either. But Mama was tore up to pieces over his death. Ana Mae sat us both down and told us no matter what we thought about Daddy, we needed to be there for Mama.”

“So you went.”

Clayton nodded. “And I spent the whole service looking around at the other women crying their eyes out. I wondered which one of them and her kids were my father's other family. How many half brothers and sisters I might be sitting with in that church and not even knowing. I'd never forgotten what BoBo said.”

“You shouldn't torture yourself over the lives your parents lived,” Archer said. “They made their own choices, ones that might not seem reasonable to us right now, but decisions that made sense to them in their own minds and time. They made their own choices, Clay.”

Clayton's gaze met his partner's, and this time his laugh held good humor, even though it may have included a tinge of the self-deprecating variety. “That's the same thing Ana Mae told me.”

Clayton and Archer left the cemetery with a bit more information. Three plots away from where Georgette and Russell Futrell lay buried they found the gravesite of the mysterious Howard. The stone had no first name and no last name, just Howard, 1979–2005.

Since Clayton was planning to drop Archer off at the inn and then to go back out to see Jeremy Fisher again, he was behind the wheel of their rental.

“Well, at least we got that Howard thing solved,” he said. “He died at twenty-six. Young. And the right age to be Emily Daniels's much younger lover. The nephew I never knew I had.”

“Hmm,” Archer said.

“What?”

“If that was Ana Mae's son buried there, why was he so far away from the rest of the family? Your parents were right next to each other.”

“Oh, he was with family,” Clayton said. “That whole area, about ten graves on each side, was family—older cousins, mostly Mama's generation, a couple of aunts, and their husbands and their kids. We didn't really know them. A lot of them had moved away from North Carolina. They went north to New York and Philadelphia for jobs and better lives. But they wanted to come home to be buried.”

“When I die,” Archer said, “please cremate me and spread my ashes in the sea, preferably off Carmel.”

Clayton gave him a look. “Don't even play like that, Archer. We are going to live forever.”