Leigh (9 page)

I
’m more worried about you and Leigh than Frank and Leigh,” Chloe declared.

“What does that mean?” Bette put down her fork with a snap.

“Leigh is living in different times than you did. The Depression and then the war coming on—you had to knuckle under, put
aside your private feelings, private wants. But Leigh is living in a time of fast change and prosperity like I did. My life
in 1917 was like night and day compared to my life in 1921. Women got to vote. We cut our hair. We shortened our skirts and
went dancing at speakeasy nightclubs.”

The radio announcer fielded discussions of possible funeral arrangements for the president.

“What has this got to do with Leigh?” Bette clattered the skillet onto the burner.

“Leigh’s time is going to be like mine, not like yours. It’s another boom time, and now the Negroes are going to get the vote
back for the first time since the Reconstruction. It seems like in America, we have these times that come through like gangbusters,
ripping things apart, and what’s been accepted
for decades and decades changes overnight. Leigh suits her time.”

Bette stared at her for a moment and then deposited a large scoop of Crisco into the pan. “I can’t disagree with you about
prosperity and things changing, but life is the same generation to generation. You fell in love and got married—”

“And you fell in love with Curt, who hurt you dreadfully. That’s what drives you to be so overprotective with Leigh, isn’t
it? That’s why you sent her to that strict girl’s school.” Chloe had wanted to say this for a long time. She’d held her peace,
but no more. Leigh was in danger. “You thought you’d control what boys she came into contact with and that they’d be very
few. You’re afraid she’ll fall in love with someone who will end up hurting her.”

“Why shouldn’t I be concerned?” Bette countered. “She’s much too young to be writing to a young man
six years
older than she is.”

“I’ll have to agree with you there. But what other young men has she met? You’ve shut her off from the natural way of things.”

Bette swirled the pan, making sure the melting shortening coated in the skillet. “She will have plenty of time for boys after
she finishes high school.”

Chloe went on as if Bette hadn’t spoken. “I agree Frank is much too old for her. But you can’t stop young men from coming
into your daughter’s life. Leigh is lovely, and she will be stunning in just a few more years. Frank would have to be made
out of stone not to find her attractive.”

Bette tapped the spoon on the side of the skillet. “So you agree that he’s trying to fix his interest with Leigh?”

“I don’t think he has any intention of marrying or even dating Leigh.”

Bette frowned at her. “You can’t mean that.”

* * *

“I thought
you’d
understand,” Leigh said.

“I understand a lot,” Aunt Jerusha replied. “I’m almost ninety years old. I didn’t go through those years with my eyes shut
tight. I know that many a Negro man has gotten lynched for doin’ less than writin’ a white girl a letter.”

The TV screen beckoned to Leigh. They were replaying Robert Frost reading a poem at JFK’s inauguration. She turned back to
Aunt Jerusha. “But lynching is a thing of the past.

“Only nine years past.” Jerusha pointed her cane at Leigh. “1954—that poor Chicago boy got lynched for just sassin’ a white
woman in Mississippi.”

“Why does everyone try to make this something it isn’t?” Leigh extended her hands, palms up, pleading her case. “I’m not in
love with Frank. We’re just writing letters.”

“Peddle your papers somewhere else, young lady.” Jerusha’s mouth puckered up. “Frank is a man, not a boy. You’re a pretty
girl, and he’s got eyes in his head. There’s a touch of wildness in him. He come by it honest with that mother of his.”

“You don’t like his mother because she’s white?”

“You know that?” Aunt Jerusha frowned.

Leigh nodded. “I met her at the start of Dr. King’s march. Frank said his parents divorced when he was twelve.”

“That’s right.” Jerusha began rocking her chair, creaking on the wood floor. “Frank Two never should have married her. Not
just because a mixed marriage sets a man and woman up for extra pain and some real nastiness. I never liked Lila. I’ve always
thought she married Frank Two just to shock people—not because she really cared about him as a person. And when she divorced
him, she was happy to leave Frank Three
with our family. She didn’t want to raise a mixed child. Oh, no.”

Saddened, Leigh worried her lower lip. Maybe, just maybe, Jerusha would give her some information. She began tentatively,
feeling her way. “Frank told me things that first night when I met him and we walked to the creek.”

Cocking her head, Jerusha studied Leigh’s face. “What things?”

“He said our families are related by blood.”

Jerusha’s face became grim. “He should never have talked about such things to you. You’re a young, innocent girl.”

Leigh felt no surprise. Frank wouldn’t have misled her. “It’s true then?”

“It was different times. Slavery times.” Aunt Jerusha looked out the window as if seeing something besides the barren trees
outside. “My parents were slaves, you know. And I grew up when the fear of lynchin’ was always there, always waitin’.”

“Why did your family stay here after the Civil War then?” The TV announcer now discussed plans to transport the president’s
body back to Washington, D.C. by air.

“This was our home. And moving north doesn’t change the color of your skin. The Carlyles weren’t as bad as some, and my family
was house slaves. It was better than workin’ in the tobacco fields. But nothing was easy in those days. No matter what color
you were born, life was hard. No electricity, no hot runnin’ water, no indoor plumbin’, no radio, no phones, no cars or tractors
or washin’ machines. Men and women—white, black—worked themselves into early graves. And after the Civil War, money was scarce,
and the KKK was ridin’ high.”

Leigh sat down. Sometimes her grandmother would talk about the Carlyle family, her grandmother’s family, the ones
who built Ivy Manor, but never about this side of the family history. “It’s true then? We are related?”

“I do mean it. Frank will never date Leigh.” Chloe edged closer to Bette. “Frank suffered when his parents got divorced and
his mom left him to be raised by his father’s family. Do you think he’d do the same thing to his own children?”

Bette looked away and began dredging the chicken through the flour mixture. “Then why is he writing to my sixteen-year-old
daughter?”

Chloe looked down at the highly polished, gray-speckled linoleum floor, praying for wise words. “It’s hard for Frank. He has
an edge to him because of who he is. Minnie wrote me, he recently went against his family and entered the military. I think
he’s done that because he wants to find someplace where he’ll be judged for himself alone—not because of who he’s related
to, not because of his race. I don’t know if he will find that in the army or not. I hope—for his peace of mind—that he does.”

Bette slipped the first piece of chicken into the hot oil, and it began to sizzle and spit. “What has this got to do with
Leigh?”

Chloe drew back from the stove. “Leigh is special. She doesn’t look at people with any prejudice. She’s open and accepting.
And the two of them shared a special experience, going to the march together. You’re the one who forced that to happen.”

“You mean because I was concerned about my daughter’s safety?” Bette asked in a snippy tone, continuing to add chicken to
the skillet.

“If your stepfather and I thought it was safe to go, you should have backed down and let Leigh go with us.” Another
thing Chloe had held back from saying. “Then it wouldn’t have been Leigh and Frank alone. It wouldn’t have been Frank becoming
Leigh’s hero for taking her to be a part of an historic event.
You
are going to have to learn when to bend, or your relationship with your daughter will be damaged forever.”

“So it’s my fault Leigh is attracted to Frank, and I should just let them go on writing letters.” Bette bristled in concert
with the snapping oil.

“Yes, that is exactly what I’d prescribe for this situation.”
Listen to me, Bette. “
The more you try to control Leigh, the more she’ll pull away from you and the more rebellious she’ll become until she finds
herself making terrible choices just because she’s so busy fighting you.” Chloe took hold of one of her daughter’s arms. “Stop
it now, Bette, before you cause real harm to your daughter and your family.”

“Yes, we share blood relatives. Another thing they didn’t have in slave days was that new-fangled birth-control pill,” Aunt
Jerusha said dryly.

Leigh was shocked in spite of herself. The nuns at school had lectured them all repeatedly about the sin of birth control—but
without any reference to human biology, and without ever mentioning the word
sex.
And sex was a subject her mother wouldn’t discuss, either. When Leigh was eleven, Grandma Chloe—not her mother—had explained
to her about her monthly flow and all about how babies were made. “Do you know how we’re related?”

“I don’t know everything. After all, we were slaves here for almost a century before emancipation.” Jerusha kept rocking.
“But I know for sure my father was an illegitimate son of your… let’s see… great-great grandfather, the daddy of
your grandmother’s mother, Miss Lily Leigh. You’re named for her.”

Leigh let this sink in as she recalled framed photos and tintypes of her ancestors that sat on the mantels and decorated the
walls of Ivy Manor. “Does Grandma Chloe know about this?”

“I think so, but we never talked about it.” Jerusha gazed at the TV screen.

“You haven’t? Why not?”

The older woman shrugged. “Why? Can we do anythin’ about who we’re related to? Your grandmother is a good woman. And she had
a rough childhood with those two fightin’, good-for-nothin’ parents of hers.” Jerusha looked grimly satisfied, as if she’d
wanted to say that for a very long time. “What saved Miss Chloe was she was raised by my mother, Patty, and your great-grandma
Raney, two good women. Miss Chloe had a few years where she lost her way, but when the Depression happened, she come home
and made sure no one was turned off the land.”

This didn’t interest Leigh. The announcer murmured that they’d have a retrospective on JFK’s life later. Leigh was sick of
her mother always telling her how hard life had been during the Depression. Was being poor as hard as living with the atom
bomb hanging over everyone’s heads?

“Now I think you should do my grandson right. Stop writin’ him. You’re a very pretty girl and sweet like your grandmother.
It’s easy to see why Frank would take a shine to you. But it’s not gone to do him any good. You could make him a target of
bad things, real bad things.”

“What things?” Leigh folded one leg under her and suddenly the sting of hunger hooked her.

“I already mentioned lynchin’, but even if it didn’t come
to that… people can be plenty nasty and they’d go after him not you.”

“But—”

“Enough talkin’. Have you called to let your family know you’re here?”

“No.” Leigh felt weighed down. Her mother prying and now the assassination. What an awful day. She’d heard about carrying
the weight of the world, but this was the first time it had been real to her.

“Go, then.” Aunt Jerusha waved Leigh toward the backdoor. “Use the phone in the kitchen up at the house and then make us a
snack. I’m hungry.”

“How can I let her go on corresponding with Frank?” Bette demanded.

“She’s going to do it anyway. You may think you’ve put a stop to it, but she’ll find a way. Unless you want to quit work and
follow her around every day of the week, she can still go on writing to him without your finding out.” Chloe didn’t want to
say that Bette was reminding her of her own mother, who had burned Chloe’s letters from her first love—a futile gesture that
had pushed Chloe into rebellion. “You know I ended up running away from my parents.”

Bette looked uncertain for the first time. “I thought that your running away was just because you and my father wanted to
marry before he left for the war.”

Chloe made a sound of irritation. “That and the fact that my parents didn’t want me to marry someone they hadn’t chosen for
me. They wanted to control me, keep me theirs alone.”

“I don’t want to do that.” Bette worried her lower lip. “I just don’t want her to make a disastrous mistake.”

“Bette, we liked Curt,” Chloe appealed to her. “He was a good man. How could you or your father and I have predicted how your
marriage would turn out? No one but God knows the future. No matter what precautions you take, your daughter will grow up
and she’ll make her own choices, her own mistakes. I’m just worried that you will push her into such a state of rebellion
she will do things she ordinarily would not do.”

“Thank you, Chloe,” Ted said, entering the kitchen. “That’s been my point all along. Leigh is pretty, smart, and has so much
personality. Whatever she decides to do, she’ll be a success. Bette, you try to control her too much. You’ve got to let go.
Or you will bear a bitter load of guilt.”