“So who will you interview?” she asked. “Did Mr. Armistead say?”
I wasn’t prepared to defend against the disapproval I knew she’d direct my way the moment I divulged who the interviewees were, so it seemed prudent to come up with another vague answer. Mama’d convinced herself long ago she wasn’t narrow-minded when it came to station or skin color, yet I’d witnessed her treatment of Dovie throughout the many years the old woman worked for our family. When Dovie was sick and missed a day, Mama took it as an affront and called her lazy. She’d dock Dovie’s pay if the woman accidentally broke the smallest item, and more than once I heard Mama talk down to Dovie for no reason other than she could.
“The letter doesn’t mention the names of the people who are to be interviewed.” I scooted my chair away from the table, ready to escape her line of questioning, and picked up my plate with half my meal still intact. “I’ll do the dishes,” I said with a bright smile. “You and Mary visit and watch the kids.”
Mary eyed me with a hint of suspicion, but neither of them protested as I cleared the table. While I ran hot water into the kitchen sink, I heard Mama ask Mary about Homer’s new job at a manufacturing company in East Nashville. I shut off the faucet to hear her answer.
“It doesn’t pay as well as his last job,” she said, her voice lowered but still loud enough for me to hear from the next room. “His daddy knows the owner and made Homer take it. Papa Whitby told Homer he wouldn’t help us anymore if Homer kept getting himself fired from perfectly good jobs.”
I turned the water on again, drowning out whatever else she had to say about her good-for-nothing husband. What a disappointment Homer Whitby turned out to be. His handsome face and winning smile were a facade for a lazy charlatan and gambler who couldn’t keep a job and who’d been linked to several women despite having a wife and three children. Homer’s daddy threatened to cut him off financially after each scandal, and Homer would promise to end his wicked ways. Yet the scenario repeated itself so many times no one—not even my poor sister—believed him anymore.
With the dishes washed and put away, I could have joined Mama and Mary on the back porch, where they watched the children play under the branches of the same magnolia tree my sister and I had played beneath. I could have, but I didn’t. Mama’s questions about the job with the FWP weren’t something I wanted to revisit, nor did I wish to pretend my sister’s life wasn’t a disaster.
I quietly went out the front door, making sure it closed without a sound, and hurried down the street to Grandma Lorena’s, relishing the cool air on my face. September in Tennessee could be finicky, with some days as hot as midsummer and others ready to usher in autumn. This evening the weather seemed to settle somewhere in the middle, making it more than pleasant.
Grandma’s cottage sat at the end of our street, tucked behind a hedge of laurel. She loved the neighborhood and hadn’t wanted to move too far away after selling her larger house—the one we now lived in—to Dad after Grandpa passed away. Mama and Grandma weren’t as close as I felt they should be, considering Mama was Grandma’s only child, but then I reminded myself I wasn’t close to Mama either. I’d never been able to talk to her the way I could with Grandma.
A light shone through the lacy living room curtains. With a soft tap on the door, I called out to let her know I was coming in. Grandma sat in her favorite armchair, a book open in her lap.
“Rena, what brings you by so late?” She glanced at the antique clock on the mantel. “I hope everything is all right at home.”
I grinned. It was only a little after seven o’clock. “I have some good news. At least, I hope it’s good.”
“Tell me.” Grandma put her book aside.
Settling on the sofa, I pulled the FWP letter from my skirt pocket and handed it to her. “Mr. Armistead gave me this today.”
Grandma took the paper and silently read through it. She looked up a minute later. “What a wonderful project. And you’re thinking about joining them?”
“I am.” My shoulders seemed to lift on their own accord in a shrug. “I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess? Why wouldn’t you? It sounds like a job right up your alley. You interviewed all types of interesting people when you worked for the newspaper. This would certainly be an answer to our prayers.”
I nodded rather halfheartedly, knowing she was right, and yet the doubts piled up.
“Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t take this job.” She leveled a no-nonsense look at me.
I bit the inside of my lip. Hadn’t I come to see her for this very purpose? To finally verbalize the answer to a question I’d never come face-to-face with in all my twenty-two years?
“Because I can’t waltz into the home of a former slave and ask all kinds of personal questions. Why would they tell me about their life? Our family owned slaves. What if they figure that out? What would I say?”
There.
I’d put to words what had been bothering me from the very moment I read the letter in Mr. Armistead’s office. My ancestors—Grandma’s grandparents and great-grandparents—owned slaves at one time. Quite a lot, from what I understood. Surely that fact alone should exclude me from a job that involved delving into the private lives of people who had themselves once been owned.
Grandma’s face took on a contemplative look. After a long silent moment, she nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Our family did own slaves. I was quite young when the war began, barely a year old. Papa had family in Kentucky, and when Nashville fell to the Federals, he took us there for the duration of the war. But I do remember going to visit Grandma Helen on the plantation. They grew tobacco and corn in those days. I don’t know how many slaves they had, but I imagine it was close to one hundred. Grandpa’s family came from Ohio and never approved of slavery, but he understood it was necessary to keep the plantation going. At least, that’s what Grandma’s family believed to be true in those days.”
“You see why I don’t feel I’m suitable to interview former slaves?” I slumped against the couch.
She scowled. “No, I certainly do not. You didn’t own slaves. It’s been seventy-one years since the war ended. No one holds your generation responsible for slavery, dear.”
That might be true, but the feeling of guilt still hovered over me. “Did you know any of your grandmother’s slaves?”
A soft smile increased the wrinkles on her face. “After the war, Mama hired Cornelia to come work for us in town. She’d been what they call a mammy, the older woman who takes care of the babies while their mothers work. Cornelia lived with us until she died, probably ten years. Grandma Helen always acted a bit peeved that she didn’t choose to stay on the plantation and work for wages as some of the others did, but Cornelia once told me the plantation held dark memories for her.”
We sat in silence as the clock ticked off several moments, both of us lost in thoughts of the past. My great-great-grandmother’s plantation had long been divided and sold, so I’d never seen the big white house Grandma remembered. It had been partially burned during the war, and she said the remodeled home wasn’t nearly as grand as it had been in its early days.