Orphea Proud (16 page)

“This isn’t one of those,” she said. “This is a real love story. She loved him and he loved her, too. That was my father’s father, you see. And my father told me all about it. Gabe and Babe, that’s what they called him, liked to read, liked to garden, both good-looking. They got married even though they weren’t supposed to, with a preacher and everything.”

“How?”

“Beats me, but they did it. Got the marriage certificate on record in town.”

“Get to the part about the body stealing,” Ray prodded.

Her eyes twinkled. “So, Gabe Proud and Jameson Grimes—Babe’s first name was Jameson, Babe was just his nickname—well, they got married and had a family. But when Babe Grimes died his sister came to claim his dead body. ‘You had him in life, but you will not have him in death,’ she said.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“Handed down.”

“Tell us the rest,” said Ray.

Aunt Cleo smoothed out the quilt. “This Grimes sister and her husband took my grandfather Babe to be buried. They put him in the white cemetery. Daddy was a teenager at the time. They wouldn’t allow Grandma Gabe to go to the funeral. But they allowed his son to go. But when he left, they shut these iron gates on him.

“ ‘We let you come to the funeral, Eugene Proud, but don’t think you’re ever coming back in here again!’

“ ‘But that’s my daddy!’ said Eugene. ‘I got to visit his grave to pay my respects.’

“ ‘Don’t step foot in here, young Proud. If you do, you and all your family will be mighty sorry!’ ”

“So, your father never went back?” I asked.

“He never did,” Aunt Cleo said sadly. “In those days, that was serious stuff. Worst case, he could have been shot if he went back through those gates.”

“That makes me mad,” said Ray. “I don’t want to be a Grimes, if they’re that mean.”

“Doesn’t matter how mean they are now,” I piped up. “Now nobody can keep you out of a cemetery because of your race. We have laws.”

“Minnie and I can’t go through those gates,” Aunt Cleo said quietly.

“Why not?” said Ray. “Mama will give you a ride to town. You can go visit your grandfather’s stone on a Saturday sometime.”

She shook her head. “Minnie will not hear of our going. I’ve begged her. During my own father’s lifetime, he couldn’t go through those cemetery gates. He was afraid; he had been threatened. He made me and Minnie promise him that we would go visit our grandfather’s grave for him. Our daddy asked us that just before he died. I promised him, Orphea, that I would do it. And Minnie promised him, too. But Minnie is still afraid. No matter what she promised, no matter how times have changed, she won’t walk through those gates.”

“But what can I do?”

“Go find the grave. Go to town. You and Ray can do it. The white cemetery is just over by the big grocery store. Pay respects to your ancestor for your aunt Minnie and me. Tell him he doesn’t have to hover anymore.”

A shiver went through my body. “He hovers?”

“We feel his presence sometimes. He’s been waiting a long time for his family to come visit him. If you go to the cemetery, his spirit will be at peace and pass on.”

“I’ll do my best, Aunt Cleo.”

“Thank you, Orphea. Whatever you do, don’t tell Minnie.”

“Lola, if you pass by the paper factory, tell the straw man that we’ve been waiting on him for nearly a month!” Aunt Minnie yelled.

“Don’t forget to pick up that thread for me, Orphea,” Aunt Cleo cried out. “And some peanut brittle from the candy store, bunion pads from the pharmacy, and some bakery bread and pickles! Tell them to put it on our account! See you later!”

“See you later!” I called with a wave.

It was another Saturday and Ray and I were going into town with Lola. Owning a general store didn’t prevent my aunts from being out of practically everything. Ray wanted to linger in every store—it had been so long since he’d been to town. The candy store
took forever. I told Ray I’d buy us a treat with my money. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted chocolate with pecans or marshmallows. We ended up buying some of each. Then we hopped into the car with Lola again and headed for the five-and-ten, where Lola bought Ray some art supplies and I got myself a black-and-white composition book. I’d been writing so much that my journal was all filled up. Then we made our way toward the cemetery, the “white” one where my Grimes ancestor was buried. Though we hadn’t told Aunt Minnie, we had let Lola in on our plan. She was happy to help.

“It’s time the old ladies put that story to rest. It seems to weigh heavy on them. Besides, Jameson Grimes is Ray’s ancestor, too. Locating the grave would be nice for us all.”

Lola knew just where the “white” cemetery was. She let me and Ray off at the grocery and pointed us in the right direction. “Just around the corner from the parking lot. You’ll see some shiny brass gates. Meantime, I’ll drop in on the straw man.”

Within five minutes of leaving her, Ray and I came upon a modern-looking graveyard. The gates were wide open. An office was right off the entrance. Through the glass door we could see a lady in a flowered dress sitting behind a computer. She smiled and motioned us in. Though she looked middle-aged, she had a perfectly smooth face. In my mind, I called her Mrs. Peach Face.

“Help you?”

“Yes, please,” I said. “We’re looking for the grave of a Jameson Grimes. Would have been buried here about eighty years ago.”

Her little face lit up. “One of the old ones!”

“Our relative.”

She looked at Ray, and then looked at me. “Related to both you and him?”

“Well, that’s what my aunts say.”

“This is my distant cuz,” Ray boasted.

Mrs. Peach Face turned to her computer and keyed something in. “I’ll look up the name.”

“Ray and I just found out that we were cousins recently,” I couldn’t help chiming in.

“And y’all found each other? This kind of thing is happening more and more. Different branches of the same families connecting up. Rest a spell. I’ll see what I can find for you.”

Ray and I busted open the candy. Mrs. Peach Face lit on her computer like a flea on an elephant, finding Jameson Grimes’s location before we could finish the chocolate with marshmallow.

“He’s way around the back of the hill, in the old part of the graveyard. Best way to reach it is to walk around the corner. You’ll see another set of gates. But it’s just as easy to climb over the wall.”

“Thank you.”

“Good luck.”

We found him! Walked around the corner and up the hill. The second set of gates was black, just like on Aunt Cleo’s quilt. The gates were choked shut with
weeds and wildflowers. So Ray and I hopped the stone fence and started looking. It took a little while, because for some reason Jameson Grimes was in a plot with some people called Gallitan. At least, all the other stones in the plot had the name Gallitan on them except his. It took Ray’s eagle eye to find him.

“How come he’s in with the Gallitans? The rest of the Grimeses are over there under the cherry tree.”

“Who knows? But this is his marker. It says Jameson Grimes on it.”

Unlike the fancier stones in the Gallitan plot, Great-great-grandfather Grimes’s marker was stubby and plain, without a verse or fancy lettering.

“Just wait until we tell Aunt Cleo and Aunt Minnie!”

“Ain’t supposed to tell Miss Minnie,” Ray reminded me.

When we got home and I gave Aunt Cleo the news, she smiled so hard I thought her face would break open.

“The lady who works in the office was nice to us,” I told her. “You can go to see the grave yourselves. Lola says she’ll drive you!”

“Drive Cleo where?” I hadn’t seen Aunt Minnie behind the soda fountain.

“I asked Orphea to find Grandpa Babe Grimes’s grave,” Aunt Cleo said bravely. “And she and Ray did!”

Aunt Minnie’s mouth dropped open. “In the white cemetery?”

“I don’t think it’s a white cemetery anymore, Aunt Minnie.”

“My father was told never to enter those gates.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Lola will take us to town, Minnie. If the children could walk through the gates, we can, too. Please, we promised we’d pay our respects.”

Aunt Minnie finally gave in.

The following Saturday, Lola drove us back into town, this time with my two aunts. Mrs. Peach Face was in the cemetery office. I found out her real name—Mrs. Graves! Weird, right?

“These are my aunts. They own a store on Proud Road.”

Aunt Cleo and Aunt Minerva nodded shyly.

“Proud Road! Used to go up there as a girl. Had a nice apple orchard.”

“That belonged to our family,” Aunt Minnie said. “Afraid it’s grown over these days.”

“Oh, used to be a lot of timber up that way when I was a girl,” Mrs. Graves went on. “A little bitty store almost on top of the mountain.”

“That’s us!” Aunt Cleo said, grinning with pleasure.

“Well, your niece knows where the grave is.” Mrs.
Graves smiled at Ray and me. “Such a nice human-interest story—having the cousins find each other. My daughter writes stories for the newspaper.”

“Do tell,” said Aunt Cleo. “Well, our niece writes very good poetry.” I’d never read her any of my poems, but she’d asked what I’d been writing in my journal.

“Such a coincidence,” said Mrs. Graves. “And is your cousin also a writer?” she asked, nodding in Ray’s direction.

“He’s a painter,” Aunt Minerva boasted. “A right smart one! I ain’t seen any of his picture-type paintings, but I do know he paints houses well.”

“He paints beautiful horses!” Lola chimed in from where she’d been standing back near the door.

“I’ll have to come up that way and pay y’all a visit,” said Mrs. Graves.

After all the formalities, we drove around the corner. Ray and I had to get the iron gates unstuck to wheel in Aunt Cleo. So we pulled up the weeds and wildflowers. When the gates were unchoked, we opened them wide enough to push the wheelchair inside. Then Ray, Lola, and I lifted it up to carry Aunt Cleo over the markers, because the aisles were so narrow. When we set Aunt Cleo down in front of Jameson Grimes’s tombstone, Aunt Minnie was still outside the gate.

“Come on, Miss Minnie,” Lola called.

She shook her head no.

“Why not?” I ran over.

She cupped her hand to my ear and whispered: “Scared …”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “What are you scared of?”

“Been afraid of these gates all my life. Those people told my father not to come in here. Besides, my legs are wobbly.”

“Take my hand. I’ll walk with you. You’ve come all this way. You should see the grave.” She took a small step, then walked through, holding on to my arm.

Once they were there, my aunts didn’t want to leave. There were prayers to say, and they wanted to catch up on old times with their grandfather, especially Aunt Cleo.

“We finally came to see you, Grandpa Babe,” she cooed. “We would have been bringing flowers all these years but they wouldn’t let us. But Minnie and I will be coming from now on. Say something, Minnie—”

“Say what? He’s dead.”

“You never know, his spirit might be listening. You could say a word or two.”

“About what?”

“Anything that might be of interest.”