“I knew it.” Herbie said with I-told-you-so glee.
Hillary had finished her wine and was getting more out of the fridge. “You see why I needed you here, Boise?”
“I’m still not clear.”
“I’ll crystallize it for you, Detective,” Herbie said, sarcastically. “This man knows something and to keep quiet, he wants us to give him money so he can pay off another gambling debt he’s incurred. Our mother was paying him and now that she’s dead, he wants us to keep paying. Understand?”
“Is it important that this information remain private?” I asked.
Hillary swung around with a bottle in hand. “Oh yes, very important.”
“Hill, what’s to stop him from doing it again? He’s got a problem. He kept our mother paying for the rest of her life. He’ll do the same to us.”
She stood next to the open refrigerator. “Do you think Junior will ever forgive us?” she asked, panting like a gazelle fleeing a lion.
“Forgive what?” Those two words cascaded through the room as all four of us turned in unison. Junior had asked them.
“I thought you were gone for the night?”
“Papa, don’t change the subject. What won’t I forgive?”
“This is not your concern,” Herbie uttered impatiently. “Leave now.”
Junior didn’t move. The boy and the father stood, one in hall-darkness and one in kitchen-light. After a moment, Junior stepped out of the hall and into the kitchen, joining the rest of us.
I felt as out of place as an oboist auditioning for a reggae band. Part of me wanted to go, to let them work whatever this was out, but the other part, the part that had once witnessed a police beating with equal parts disgust and fascination, wanted to be right here.
“Boy ho boy, you just like ordering everyone about, don’t ya?” Daryl said, his twang rising alongside his outrage.
“Who are you?” Junior said.
“Never mind who he is,” Herbie said. “I told you to leave. The adults have to work some things out.”
Hillary emitted a sound, like a bird choking. She slumped to the floor, leaning against the cold bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Crazily, I thought about what a waste of energy keeping the door open like that was.
“He’s Daryl Evans,” Hillary said.
Junior blinked rapidly. “Evans?” He turned to Herbie. “Isn’t that my mama’s last name? Gertrude Evans. The one who left you?” He turned to Daryl. “Are you related to me?”
Hillary piped up again, but this time her whining had been replaced by what can only be described in retrospect as years of repressed pain and silence, voiced in a single sentence.
“No, he’s not related to you because that woman is not your mother.”
Junior’s face remained impassive. “What are you talking about, Aunt Hill?”
“Shut your mouth, Hillary. I’m warning you. Shut your mouth!” Herbie headed toward his sister. Daryl and I stepped in front of him.
“How dare you!” Herbie yelled at both of us, but he stopped. He was not imposing despite his height.
Hillary sniffled once, then rose to her feet. She put her glass of wine on a shelf in the refrigerator and shut the door.
“Hillary! Stop!”
Daryl shoved Herbie into a chair and we stood over him while Hillary walked over to Junior.
“I’ve wanted to tell you this forever. I’ve wanted to be true to you.” She now held Junior’s shoulders.
“You can’t take this back, woman. Once you let this out.”
Daryl leaned over the thin, distinguished man, put his hands around Herbie’s neck and whispered, “Stop talking or so help me God, I’ll stop ya. Just gimme a reason, little man.”
Herbie’s adam’s apple bobbed once and fell still on top of Daryl’s thumb. Daryl released him and said, “Now tell it to him straight, Hillary.”
“He’s gotten to be your father, but you’ve been told by all of us for years that Gertrude was your mother and she abandoned both of you. That’s a lie. She agreed to it at first, but couldn’t live with it, so she left. And she was right to leave. It’s unendurable to live with a lie this large. I believe it’s killing me, or I’m killing me because I can’t live with it anymore either. If leaving would make it go away, I’d do it. But that won’t work. Only one thing can make this pain stop. I have to tell you.” She looked down as if scanning her soul for the right words. Finally, she just said it. “I’m your mother.”
Herbie put his face in his hands and shook his head back and forth. “That’s not true. Junior, don’t listen to her. She’s lying to you.”
A tension left Junior’s face then. A lifelong yearning banked away into the abyss as he took in what we all knew to be truth once voiced. The truth that his parents had been right here all along and somehow, deep down, we’d all participated in the lie, because the truth was too stunning, too real.
Chapter 34
The next morning Daryl Evans and I cruised to the airport. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Daryl said. “Herbie’s right, I owe some people money, and they ain’t the most patient folks this side of the Mississippi. I thought the Francine gravy-train would go on and on. Then, she disappeared.”
“Was it all a lie?”
He licked his lips and spit into a bush. “You mean was I really working for Francine and keeping an eye on Junior? That was true. She’d said since she was paying me, to make it look real, I should actually work for her so nobody asked no questions.”
“Francine trusted you even though you were squeezing her?”
“Trust might be a bit strong, but Francine had the dough. That broad was tough. I’d call her a realist. She blamed herself for what her kids done, for how they felt about each other. Turns out she was even more scared of the truth about them than them.”
We loitered under the awning outside the terminal. Taxis dropped off travellers and sped away.
Talking
