“I need to go,” she said. “If we get there late, I won’t get any of the M amp;M cookies before service.”
He pushed to his feet. “You go ahead,” he said. “Tell your momma I’ll call her when I get home.”
Lily grabbed her bonnet from the floor and hurried out of the store. He walked out behind her. Channing and Kyla were in the front of a silver Lincoln idling at the curb. Grandma Alice was waiting for him to leave so she could lock the door.
She gave him a final stern look and grunted a goodbye. She ushered Lily into the backseat and got in beside her.
The Lincoln pulled away. Lily waved from the back window. He stood on the sidewalk watching until the car disappeared.
Chapter Forty-seven
The air smelled of lilacs. The smell was so strong he stopped to look for the source, but the bushes beneath the windows of the Law Quad were still brown and bare. He walked on, the sun warm on his back.
Daphne Mayer was coming up the street carrying a cardboard tray of four coffee containers as Louis rounded the corner onto Main Street.
She saw him and smiled. “You got my message.”
“Almost didn’t,” Louis said. “I’m flying back to Florida tonight, so I thought I’d stop by.” He lunged for the door. “Sorry! Let me get that for you.”
He followed her inside. The place had been transformed since his last visit, most of the boxes restacked against a wall and the bar cleared. Some of the old cocktail lounge’s booths had been turned into desks, topped with computers. Three young black women greeted Daphne, gave Louis a glance of curiosity, and went back to their work.
Daphne delivered a coffee to each of them and came back to Louis, holding the fourth cup. “Want to split it?” she asked.
Louis shook his head. “No, thanks.”
“Mr. Coffee died this morning, may he rest in peace,” she said. “And nothing gets done around here without a lot of caffeine.”
Louis tried not to let his impatience show.
She sensed it and set her coffee down on the bar. “I guess you want to know why I called.”
“Your note didn’t say what this was about,” Louis said.
“I know. Because when we first found this, we weren’t sure it would be helpful to you,” she said. “Wait here.”
She went over to speak to one of the students, who handed her something. She came back to Louis and held out a slender book. The red leather was faded to brown, the edges rounded with wear. There was no title.
“Go ahead, open it,” Daphne said. “But be careful. It’s very fragile.”
Louis took it. The spine gave a gentle crack as he opened to the first yellowed page.
THE NARRATIVE
OF
JOHN LEPELLE
A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BRANDT STATION EPISODE
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
“Brandt is the name you were looking for, right?” Daphne asked.
Louis nodded. “Where did you get this?”
“I’m not sure,” Daphne said with a sigh. “I’m ashamed to say we didn’t even know we had it until yesterday. Brenda was logging some titles into the computer, and this was just stuck in a box of textbooks. She was the one who realized it was a slave journal.”
Louis was looking at the name. John was the name Amy had spoken under hypnosis. Then it struck him: she had also said “lapel.” Could he have heard her wrong?
He looked up at Daphne. “I know I can’t take this with me-”
“You’re welcome to read it here,” she said. “You can use one of the desks in the back.”
She led Louis to a corner booth. He was about to open the journal when Daphne tapped him on the shoulder.
She held out a pair of thin white cotton gloves. “You’ll have to wear these, I’m afraid.”
“No problem.” Louis smiled slightly as he slipped on the gloves. He put on his glasses, opened the journal to the first page, and began to read.
THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN LEPELLE
A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BRANDT STATION
EPISODE
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
IN THIS YEAR OF OUR LORD 1894
There are many things that are best left buried. The hurts men inflict upon each other, the evils that are witnessed and endured, these things can erode the heart until a human being can no longer go on. To keep silent about the past is sometimes the only way to survive. And survive is what all God’s creatures must do. But there comes a time when the silence becomes an acid that eats away at the soul. There comes a time when a man must face his past and be silent no more.
I have never told this story before. But it is a true story that needs telling for those who came after me, for those who came before me, for those who, unlike me, were not able to fly away. I tell this story only now because I am far nearer to the end of my life than the beginning and this has weighed heavy on my heart. I tell this story only now because I have been blessed with a long life lived in freedom, safe and loved in the bosom of my family. I tell this story now because my life was possible only because another life was sacrificed.
The journal was handwritten in faded blue ink in a large cursive style that looked as if the author lacked a steady hand. Louis wondered how old John LePelle had been when he wrote it.
He turned the page. The next ten pages were devoted to John LePelle’s early life as a slave in Louisiana. At thirteen, he was taken with his mother and sister to New Orleans to be auctioned off at the slave market. Given clean clothes and advised to “look lively and smart,” they were paraded before customers in a yard. Separated from his family, he worked as a field hand in Natchez. It was a life of brutality, terror, and small graces. Twice he tried to escape, and twice he was captured, the second time paying by having his right foot crushed in a vise to prevent him from running again. He was nursed back to health by a house girl named Fanny, whom he took as his wife. When John was twenty-two, they had a son whom they called Abram.
My back was striped with scars, my foot so damaged that when the cold came I could barely walk. But I saw myself a blessed man. I stood by the bed of my beloved wife as heaven placed in her arms a pure soul, in an infantile form, a new being, never having breathed earth’s air before, never having felt the earth’s goodness or its
