Finding Family Page 6

  Grandpa went distant again.

  “For family … all those years of stooping to conquer. … ‘Yessir, Mr. Angus … Yessir, Mr. Smythe’ … knowing it’d be a cold day in Hell before any of them put a ‘Mister’ before my name. …For family. I needed them white men to vouch for me when I wanted to open a shop, pick up a property. Needed the word to go out that Sam Hannibal was all right—for the rabble to know me and mine not to be harassed! For family. So my children could be strong masters of themselves. Never be scattered!”

  Grandpa was awfully worked up. I feared for him. He’d never said a peep to me about slavery days and now things were just spilling out. What if it was more than he could bear?

  I was relieved to see him looking close to peaceful as he drifted back to the days after the Civil War when he was seeking and searching for kinfolk—and sometimes finding family.

  “Samuel Hannibal, formerly of Franklin County, Virginia, now in Charleston, West Virginia, looking for his sister Lavinia, who goes by Viney, once owned by Asa Meade.

  “Samuel Hannibal, formerly of Franklin County, Virginia, now in Charleston, West Virginia, looking for his brother Jacob, also called Jake, once owned by Asa Meade.”

  Grandpa’s voice grew stronger as he recited ads he had placed in newspapers, white and colored, forty years ago.

  “… looking for his sister Carrie, once owned by Asa Meade …

  “… looking for his sister Matilda, who goes by Tilley, once owned by Asa Meade …

  “… looking for his mother, Janie …”

  Grandpa searched for second kin, too. “All I knew to do was cast a wide net.”

  Some kinfolk saw an ad with their own eyes, Grandpa said. Others heard one during times set aside by preachers and teachers for the reading of colored people’s want ads.

  Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins—some sent Grandpa news of their whereabouts and plans to stay put. Others made their way to Charleston, but later fanned out. Only Uncle Jake and Aunt Tilley made Charleston home.

  Grandpa said he never heard a word about what became of his mama. My heart scrunched up. And I thought about how many of Grandpa’s truths were Aunt Tilley’s truths, too.

  “Meantime, Delia and I were making our own family.” Grandpa’s voice cracked. “Fever took the twins. Junior … too tight a taste for liquor, too much temper. Breathed his last on a filthy saloon floor …”

  When Grandpa trailed off, he had a look on his face I’d never seen before.

  A time or two right after Aunt Tilley died, I’d seen in Grandpa’s eyes sadness, sorrow, but nothing like this, like he was trapped in a nightmare.

  He was in pain.

  I felt so sorry for Grandpa. Scared for him, too. Part of me wanted to tell him to stop.

  “Junior not in the grave but a few months when I lost my Delia.”

  The way he said “my Delia” sounded like they, too, had a powerful love.

  “Joline all I had left.” Grandpa wiped his eyes as he went on to tell me how he gave my mother whatever she wanted. Pieces of jewelry. Bonnets. New bedroom suite—“Once a year even ordered her a whole crate of Chesapeake oysters.

  “Was for her I added on that library.” He had a slight smile. “Built the shelves where she wanted them, put up the wallpaper she picked out, let her purchase book after book, till all the shelves were filled like she wanted.”

  He looked at the photograph again.

  “Never could say no to Joline. …Wish I had when she begged to go up to Wheeling.”

  His hands were trembling.

  “When she come back, she couldn’t stop talking about that fella. I tried to like him when he paid a visit, but couldn’t see nothing in him but tumbleweed. Told Joline he’d never be able to offer her nothing but a hard life and a fish scale or two.”

  “Ambertine told me about my mother’s fancy for three-cent silver,” I broke in. “She gave me one.” I lifted the hem of my skirt and took the tiny coin from its pocket.

  Grandpa’s eyes softened. I wondered if he was thinking of my mother and her three-cent silver every time he gave me silver dollars.

  “Some of his letters carried one or two of them things.” Grandpa scowled. “And her carrying on like he’d sent her a queen’s diamond.”

  He couldn’t even say my father’s name. And the way he made it sound like my father wasn’t worth spit—I didn’t care if Grandpa took it as sass, I had to ask.

  “Why were you so sure my father would never amount to—”

  “He was working in a saloon—nothing to show for himself! A dreamer!”

  “But that don’t seem fair, Grandpa. Didn’t you once have nothing—and not even a claim on your own bones?”

  Grandpa looked plumb perplexed.

  “I’m just saying that … what Aunt Tilley told me about that man Hannibal Watson giving you a trade and freedom … is all that true?”

  “All true, but—”

  “And how you did things like sweep up saloons? … And later, after your freedom day, didn’t you sleep in woods, in barns? But then got blessed to find a home where mercy abounded.” I was crying again. “Where Grandma Delia lived—a house where mercy abounded! … Is that true?”

  Grandpa nodded.

  “Then why you couldn’t let mercy abound in this house?”

  “Your father wasn’t nothing like me! I didn’t steal Delia! I did things proper!”

  Something shattered in the kitchen.

  “No cause for alarm!” Miss Ida cried out. When she flustered into the sitting room, she begged pardon and explained why she’d come back.

  “In all the commotion, I forgot to bring y’all a jar of my piccalilli to go with your supper. Then I saw a few dishes in the sink. Figured I’d wash them up right quick. Silly me let a teacup slip. But don’t you worry, Mr. Hannibal, I shall replace it.”

  Grandpa held up his hand. “No need, Miss Nash,” he sighed.

  “So long as I’m here, be happy to get supper on the table.”

  Grandpa shook his head. “No need for all that. Just heat things up. We’ll serve ourselves, take supper in the kitchen.”

  Grandpa rose from the rocker, handed me my mother’s picture and her note, then left the room. His last angry words echoed in my head.

  Your father wasn’t nothing like me! I didn’t steal Delia! I did things proper!

  What did that mean? He made my father sound like some kind of fiend, a bandit. He stole my mother?

  Why would he have to do that if they had a powerful love?

  And your ma … she’s got a power to her. That’s what Adena had said. And Ambertine had talked about my mother’s spirit—her fire. I couldn’t see her letting anybody steal her.

  None of this made sense. All sorts of things ran through my mind—like what Grandpa said happened to him when he didn’t know where I was. Quite a scare you give me. All sorts of things run through my mind.

  I saw the dazed look on Grandpa’s face when I told him I’d left for Adena’s by the tree outside my window. Then my mind traveled to that tree stump beneath my mother’s bedroom window and how Ambertine said good-bye to my mother the night she lit out from Charleston.

  From a tree like this one that used to be outside her window.

  I hurried into the kitchen.

  - - - - -

  “She ran away?”

  Grandpa was at the stove, putting a pork chop on a plate. Miss Ida was nowhere in sight, but a dish filled with piccalilli was in the middle of the kitchen table.

  “Ran away with my father, didn’t she?”

  Grandpa put greens on the plate, then a piece of cornbread. He set the plate on the end of the table near where I stood.

  The food was mud to me. I didn’t sit at the table. I stood there. Waiting.

  “She did,” Grandpa finally said, swallowing hard. After another stretch of silence, he told me about the day Aunt Tilley came to The Traveler’s Room all frantic and with a note my mother had left on her bed—“Papa, I
love you, but I can’t live without Jordan.”

  And about the telegram she sent a few days later—“Married. Will return if both can.”

  And about his fear—“No telling what hardships she might suffer, by the time she come to her senses.”

  And the telegram he sent back—“Come home. Both.”

  “They were up in Morgantown,” Grandpa said. “I later learned that little hellion Ambertine was their witness. Didn’t even know them two had kept in touch.”

  After my folks returned to Charleston, Grandpa gave my father a job, collecting rents and checking on shops.

  “Was hoping some of my stability would rub off on him, but that fella stayed restless. Even when he knew your mama was expecting—he was still jawjacking about pulling up stakes soon as y’all strong enough to travel. Some foolishness about prospects in Alaska. I start to think he more than tumbleweed. He mad. Who with a baby on the way talk wild like that?”

  “But, Grandpa, if he was going to take us both to Alaska, why did he leave before I was born?”

  Grandpa hung his head. “He was here when you was born.”

  “But Aunt Tilley said—So was he here when my mother …?”

  “He the one seen her take her last breath.”

  “Did she live to, to hold me much?”

  “Lived to hold you, lived to name you.”

  “Delana’s not my true name?”

  “It is. But nothing to do with Martin Delany. You half my Delia … half your father’s mother. Ana.”

  Grandpa sat down at the kitchen table.

  I sat down across from him, my mind a whirlwind.

  “Joline wasn’t in the ground a week when he start talking about moving on. With you. Wasn’t going to let that happen! Couldn’t lose you, too! Whatever it took—whatever I had to do.”

  I thought back to Grandpa as a boy sweeping saloons and doing whatever else he could to save up freedom money. And what he said to me every birthday.

  Save your money, Delana. Don’t spend it on trifles. Save for something dear.

  I was horrified. “He sold me to you?”

  Grandpa shook his head. “He bought you a future.”

  I was on my feet. “Bought me a future?” What in the world did that mean?

  Grandpa wouldn’t look at me. When he finally spoke, he still avoided my eyes. “Told him if he let you be mine, if he leave and never come back … when I go, everything—house, money in the bank, properties—all of it fall to you. He could go to Alaska—to Heaven, or Hell—knowing his daughter set for life.”

  Slowly, Grandpa rose, walked over to the kitchen window overlooking the back porch. “Had Lawyer Sanders draw up the papers. Had him put in, too, that if your father ever come within a mile, he’d make you a pauper. I wouldn’t even leave you a fish scale.”

  The clock’s ticktock was the only sound.

  “Why you had to make it forever, Grandpa? Couldn’t you give him a chance? Keep track of him—see if he turn stable? If he did, then … you could’ve given me back when you got tired of me.”

  Grandpa spun around, bewildered.

  “Give you back? … Tired of you? Delana, you all that’s left of my legacy.”

  I didn’t know what it meant to be a legacy. All I knew was it had been a long time since Grandpa treated me like I was at all dear to him.

  “Is my father still alive?” I didn’t plead. I demanded.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Is that the truth, Grandpa?”

  “God is my witness, Delana. I do not know if your father still walks the earth.”

  “If he does and I find out where and go within a mile of him, will you cast me out?”

  - - - - -

  “Delana.”

  I had run out onto the back porch. I had been balled up in the porch swing for I don’t know how long when Grandpa called me from the kitchen.

  I wished it was colder. Cold enough to freeze to death.

  The second time Grandpa called my name he was in the doorway looking bone-weary, his voice strangely soft.

  “Something for you to see. Up in your room.”

  Eleven

  The rug beneath where the attic ladder lets down was littered with splinters and bits of plaster. In my room, near the foot of my bed, was a dusty carpetbag.

  “Most of her trinkets and keepsakes … in that there bag.”

  Grandpa was downstairs, likely in The Traveler’s Room, before I even moved.

  I wished I could roll back the days. Wished I had screamed when Ambertine took her hand from over my mouth. She would have skedaddled, never come near me again. Or when she gave me a choice—

  If you fear me, I will leave. If not, hear me out, Delana, and with the knowing part of your soul. …Your choice.

  Instead of “Stay,” I should’ve said “Go!”

  Then my life would’ve been like always. Me just standing by, waiting to be told what to do and with nothing to fear but closing my eyes when dragonflies were near.

  Decide what you want, Delana.

  A vanity set—mirror, brush, comb. These were the first things I lifted from the dusty carpetbag, so much of me hoping that even without my own firsthand memories—even without knowing the sound of her voice or how sly or brightly she smiled—maybe I could get to know her, feel her … have some of my mother come to me by getting to know her things.

  Next, a jewelry box. Every piece silver. Eardrops. Stickpins, one topped with a maypop.

  There was also a neck chain and three pendants—a heart, a shell, a crescent moon.

  From a black leather change purse, I counted out thirty-three three-cent silver.

  There were letters, too. One bundle, tied with a bright green ribbon, was from Miss Bertha Mason in Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Morgantown, Gallipolis, New Orleans.

  Another batch—blue ribbon this time—was from other people. Some names I recognized as family.

  No letters from Jordan Burkett.

  Had Grandpa known my father’s letters by sight? Or maybe he had Aunt Tilley sort them out so he could burn them or tear them up in a thousand tiny pieces. Making my father disappear. Like he did on my mother’s gravestone.

  Joline Burkett—not Joline Hannibal!—that’s what it should say. Just like, by rights, my name wasn’t Delana Hannibal.

  I was Delana Burkett.

  Had Grandpa destroyed every trace of my father? I wondered as I skimmed through a packet of articles from the Daily Gazette, the Christian Recorder, and other newspapers. Some articles had people’s names underlined. None my father’s, so I didn’t even read them.

  Only one clipping got my full attention. It was from the Wheeling Intelligencer. September 23, 1891.

  Your mama had this picture taken years ago when she was up in Wheeling …

  Sure enough, this clipping was a memento from what my mother called her first “on my own.”

  FITTINGLY OBSERVED.

  _________________________________

  The Celebration of Emancipation

  Day a Success.

  _________________________________

  B. K. BRUCE’S ELOQUENT SPEECH

  Enthusiastically Received by a Fine Audience, and he Talks Sound Sense—The Parade Attractive and Imposing, and the Town Generally in Holiday Garb.

  The day was “bright and warm,” said the newspaper, and “by 10 o’clock the streets were thronged with colored and white.”

  The parade—it went on and on. Mayor, chief marshals, police, a hook and ladder truck, a wagon of little girls representing the states of the union, a brass band, even twelve horsemen, along with streams of hacks and buggies all decked out.

  I conjured up my mother among all these proud paraders. I saw her in a glorious pearly white dress and a glamorous hat—with lace and purple maypops. She was smiling, laughing, cheering, with her friends Bethany and Miriam, all three waving hankies or flags.

  Maybe when her buggy passed the saloon, my father was
standing outside. She caught his eye and he threw off his apron and joined the parade.

  Reading on, and hoping to see mention of my mother’s name, of my father’s, I imagined my mother and her friends hurrying—running—to the fairgrounds, and my father following fast behind them, then getting as near to her as he could during the oration of the Honorable Blanche K. Bruce.

  I knew him. After Hiram Revels, Blanche K. Bruce was the next of the race to be a United States senator. Aunt Tilley had a special affection for Mr. Bruce. Like her and Grandpa, he had come through slavery in Virginia.

  Mr. Bruce was in a print above the fireplace in the parlor.

  “Heroes of the Colored Race.”

  In the center, most prominent, was Mr. Bruce, Frederick Douglass, and Hiram Revels.

  During our visits to kinfolk, when Aunt Tilley and I reached the fireplace, she didn’t only greet family on the mantel. She looked up and spoke to the Heroes of the Colored Race.

  “Good day, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Douglass, Mr. Revels,” she’d say, then salute other men in the print. “Father Abraham … General Grant … Mr. Brown.”

  “Heroes of the Colored Race” probably hung in the very same spot when my mother was a girl. Seeing Mr. Bruce in the flesh must have been such a special treat for her.

  I imagined her getting all choked up when he spoke about the pride and purpose of Emancipation Day, saying how it should be as dear to us as the Fourth of July. “Kindred anniversaries,” he called them. “The one marks the birth of a nation and the other of a race.”

  Right there, I got all choked up. But it wasn’t over memories of yearly celebrations in school and church of the twenty-second of September 1862, when Abraham Lincoln announced he’d soon set people in slavery free. Nor was I remembering festivities in honor of the first of January 1863, when Lincoln sent out to all creation the Emancipation Proclamation. What had me about to cry had nothing to do with Father Abraham at all. But with Grandpa.

  How he savored that rabbit stew we had every first of August. His freedom day.

  No kin with him to celebrate back then.

  I thought about Grandpa again when I read what Mr. Bruce said to the crowd about the need for colored to work hard and have property.