Journals of the Secret Keeper (3 page)

Willetta stood and faced the old house. She
went through the door and locked it this time. By
the time she reached the bedroom, every candle had
been blown out except for one. Willetta took one
more look at Mama Jean and blew out the last
candle. The room became pitch black and then her
eyes adjusted. Moonlight filtered through the lone
window along the side of her bed and she could see
again.
She eased between the covers and closed
her eyes.
"Etta, I'm not gone live another day," Mama
Jean's crackly voice rose above the silence.
Willetta stiffened beneath her covers. She
knew Mama Jean had more to say and so she
remained silent.
"I know your secrets baby, because I made it
my business to know them, but I'm a secret keeper
and always have been. I want you to marry Andrik.
He's the one for you."
"Mama Jean stop it! I don't have any
secrets. I was raped and then I had a miscarriage
and I worked like a slave in order to make it
through high school. I didn't want to come back
and bring shame on you and I know you aren't my
real grandmother. There! You keep more of your
own secrets than anybody else's. I don't believe in
secrets. And what are you talking about? Marry
Andrik?" Willetta finished wheezing out.
"Child, I ain't got much breath left in me to
argue with you. The journals are under the
mulberry tree in a black trunk. Don't touch it if you
don't believe in secrets. Save it for you and
Andrik's children. You'll have one that believes in
secrets. Give them to her."
"I don't believe I'm having this conversation
with you. It's crazy. The whole thing is crazy.
Whose secrets are in the journals? Why are you so
sure Andrik would even think about marrying me?"
"I love you Willetta. I always have. I ain't
your grandmother, but your little soul done always
spoke to mine. Andrik is gone see what I see. Now
I got to rest, baby. Just do what I tell you to do."
she said.
"Mamma! Mama Jean whose secrets are in
the journals?" Willetta all but screamed.
Mama Jean wouldn't say another word.
Willetta jumped into bed with her and got
underneath the covers. After Mama Jean's little
speech, Willetta wasn't taking any chances of her
dying while she was in the other bed dreaming
about fiances standing alone at the altar or tall
handsome black men saving runaway cars. Mama
Jean had always had a way of getting on her last
nerve and if ever there was a proverbial straw that
actually did break a camel's back, Mama Jean had
just delivered it.
#
Years later another journal would be written
and the beginning page would read something like
this:
I
awoke the next morning with Mama
Jean still in my arms. She was dead with a
slight smile on her lips. I didn't know whether
to scream in sorrow or laugh at her crotchety
ole ways. I had always tried to win against
Mama Jean and had always been miserably
defeated. Even in death, Mama Jean was
victorious. I fled from her control eleven years
before, only to return and submit myself once
again under the mighty hand of Mama Jean.
I climbed out of Mama Jean's bed and
went to sit on the porch. I waited on Andrik.
His timely arrival that morning marked a new
chapter in my life; one filled with many
astonishments. I soon became unwillingly the
next Secret Keeper.

CHAPTER 6
Volume 1, pg. 10 (January 1901):
"I want this
house so badly. It don't matter to me that I am
not a family member. I done cooked and
cleaned for Mrs. Williams for years. She ain't
got nobody left. I'm her kinfolk now. Her white
skin and my black skin makes no difference to
me. I made her sign the house and the land
over to me. She did it too, because I said I
was leaving if she didn’t. She in her quiet
moment; the one when you're old and nobody
comes around. Your peers are dead and all
you hear is the sound of the person taking care
of you. She needs me and I need this land."

The final car to leave the yard was
that of the coroner's. Willetta and Andrik stood side
by side in the yard. They were two strangers bound
together by the death of one old woman. Andrik's
long fingers snaked around Willetta's forearm. The
single touch screamed a silent accusation Willetta
dared him to verbalize.

"What happened, Willetta," he bit out.
"She died, Andrik," she said.
Andrik squeezed her arm and pulled. His

nostrils flared. "What did you do," he asked.
Andrik was unable to voice his suspicions.
Somehow they seemed ludicrous and he
subconsciously knew they were unfounded. But he
was at a loss as to how to control his simmering
anger and grief. Mama Jean meant the world to
him, but she had not wanted him in her final hours.
She'd wanted this traitorous woman standing before
him. The one who ran away and never came back.
His hand tightened around Willetta's forearm.
"Let me go," Willetta demanded.
Andrik removed his hand, but stepped closer
to Willetta. This time he didn't get in her face. He
stood his full height and looked down his nose at
her.
"You need to tell me every single thing that
happened after I left last night."
Willetta took a deep breath and exhaled.
She knew how to be patient with bad tempered men.
Andrik was hurting and he was taking it out on her.
The best thing to do was to remain silent. Her lack
of response would surely bring him to his senses.
"Do you need something to drink, Andrik,"
she asked kindly.
"Don't start asking me what I need. You
have no idea how dangerous that territory is for you
right now," he growled.
Willetta backed away. "I didn't ask you
what you needed. I asked if you wanted a drink,"
she said.
"I distinctly heard the word 'need' come out
of your mouth," he said. "Should I tell you what I
need, Willetta? What I haven't had since I got back
to this stinking depressing place," he bit out.
Willetta ran to the porch and through the
screened door. "If you come through this door, I
swear I'll hurt you Andrik."
Andrik stood in the yard and watched the
screen door. He couldn't see Willetta through the
screen, but he could hear the fear in her voice. She
was afraid of him and she had every right to be.
Thoughts of their conversation the night before
washed over him and he felt sick. What was he
doing? She had told him openly and honestly that
she had been raped and here he was fanning her old
fears.
"Willetta, I'm not going to hurt you. I don't
know what's wrong with me. I better go on back to
the house. Your keys are in your car."
Andrik turned and took long quick strides
back to his truck. He was more ashamed than he
had ever been in his life. He wanted Willetta, but
never by force. He had never threatened a woman
in such a way before. Even grief stricken there was
no excuse for doing it, especially to Willetta of all
people. The incident left him unnerved and
depressed. He climbed into his truck and sped away
as if demons were after him.
#
Willetta breathed a sigh of relief. Thank
God for thinking men. Obviously Andrik was a
thinker and had some control. She saw the horror
on his face and recognized it for what it was, when
he finally realized how stupid he was acting. She
knew firsthand how fatalistic the combination of
testosterone and stupidity could be. One of her new
mottos was to steer clear of it. Andrik's quick
retreat had instantly redeemed him. She knew she
had no real reason to ever fear him. So, her
thoughts slid back to Mama Jean.
The date was September the fifteenth, twothousand and seven. According to the coroner,
Mama Jean had passed away in the early morning
hours between three and four. She was seventy-five
years old. Willetta remembered the year of her
birth, nineteen thirty-three. It was written
somewhere in a Bible.
Willetta thought about the black trunk
buried beneath the mulberry tree. She opened the
screened door and stepped onto the porch.
Shielding her eyes against the settling sun, she
scanned the yard to the right. About hundred feet
away stood the mulberry tree. Its trunk was twisted
and misshapen. It seemed stooped over like an old
man and with its naked branches and absence of
mulberries the tree looked dead.
Willetta jumped off the porch and walked
barefooted over to the tree. "Well, ain't you a sight,"
she breathed. "I sure hope I don't end up looking
like you reading about other folks business and
holding it all in." She put her right hand against the
bark of the tree. Chips of bark crumbled beneath
her palm and fell away, but the tree was warm. She
didn't know if it was warm with life's blood or from
the sun.
Willetta looked at the ground. There were
no telltale signs of anything buried beneath. The
grass wasn't broken. She frowned. Surely Mama
Jean didn't expect her to get a shovel and go digging
all around the tree looking for a black trunk. She
got on her knees and crawled around the trunk of
the tree. There was nothing there.
She kept
crawling in wider circles until her knee landed on a
rock. It hurt so badly, Willetta fell onto her back
and just squeezed the knee against her chest for a
minute. She felt around on the ground for the rock
and was shocked to find an old tarnished handle.
She wrapped her hand around it and pulled.
It
didn't budge. Willetta got up off her back and onto
her knees again. This time when she pulled it lifted
and the ground around it lifted too. Willetta was
stunned. She had just uncovered a coffin-sized hole
in the ground that had obviously been made years
before her time and possibly before Mama Jean's
time.
Mama Jean's warning sounded off in her head,
"Don't touch it, if you don't believe in secrets."
Willetta dropped the handle and ran back to the
porch. She was alone and afraid. Mama Jean was
dead and all her secrets were buried beneath the
mulberry tree. Willetta knew without a doubt that
she was not ready to spend the night alone in Mama
Jean's house. She jumped in her car and drove as
fast as she could the fifteen miles to the Thompson
Estates.
CHAPTER 7
Volume 2, pg. 3 (December 1901):
"Its cold
outside. Ain't much for me to do but wait til
summertime. I don't know if this land is really
mine or not. Ain't nobody been around asking
questions. It's been four months since Mrs.
Williams died. I'm glad them white folks didn't
like Mr. and Mrs. Williams. That's gone make
this situation much easier for me. What I need
now is a real smart wife. I need somebody
who can help me hang on to this house and
this land."
#
When Willetta pulled into the drive she was
aware of many changes. There was no longer a
gravel road leading to the house, it was paved with
dark concrete. Trees neatly lined each side of the
narrow road. The road, itself, curved around to
reveal a huge iron gate. The gate was at least eight
feet tall and could not be breached by man or
animal with its pointed iron spikes. Willetta could
see the luxurious landscaping through the black iron
bars of the gate.
The house itself had even changed. It no
longer had the look of a two-hundred-year-old
Victorian monstrosity. The soft yellow paint,
updated windows, and security-controlled entrance
gave it a modern edge. The face of rural
Mississippi had been completely wiped away. The
sight was inviting and uplifting in a way Willetta
was at a loss to explain.
She eagerly rolled down her window to push
the receiving button on the black box at the entrance
of the gate.
"Whose there?" Andrik's voice sounded
through the intercom.
"It's Willetta, Andrik," she said.
There was a moment of silence, before the
gates slid apart. Willetta drove through. Her eyes
ate up the view. Trees, bushes, and flowers of
every sort strategically covered the expansive front
yard of Thompson Estates. It was a garden. For a
moment, she forgot about her fears and simply
enjoyed being in the middle of the richest kind of
beauty there ever was.
Willetta parked her car in front of the threecar garage, which was a new addition as well. Her
eyes went wide in amazement at the changes. She
couldn't help but remember how Mr. Thompson had
kept the place. The house had always been white
and sterile looking. The yard never had flowers or
bushes, but the tall pecan and oak trees had always
been there. The old cars and equipment were gone
from the front yard. There were no longer patches
of grass missing and burnt away from tractors and
trucks being parked upon it. The grass was deeply
green everywhere. Willetta felt an urge to roll in it.
"What's the matter, Willetta," Andrik came
from the side of the house. His face was guarded.
He wore a white T-shirt and Khaki pants. He was
barefoot. He stopped a couple of feet away from
Willetta and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"I can't stay at that house. I'm scared. I
know it sounds silly, but I just can't stay there," she
said.
Andrik stared at his feet as his thoughts
rushed forward. What did she want from him?
He'd only just met Willetta yesterday. The tie that
brought them together was gone and he'd made a
fool out of himself just an hour ago. Surely, she
didn't want to stay with him. Her unpredictability
unnerved him and made it hard to think when he
was around her. The last thing he'd expected was
for her to show up here.
"Willetta, what do you want me to do," he
asked.
Willetta turned around and looked at the
huge house. "I would think there would be room
enough for me to stay here until I can go back down
the road. Is that too much to ask, Andrik," she said.
"No, of course not. I just didn't think you
would be comfortable being alone with me," he said
nervously.
Willetta shrugged, "You told me you were
not going to hurt me. I took your word for it. You
seemed sincere."
Andrik looked up. His eyes met Willetta's
and neither one spoke for a moment. Andrik was
relieved that she wasn't afraid of him, but he still
wasn't sure if inviting her to stay was a good idea.
It would just be the two of them. It was bad enough
that they were the only two people around for miles
and miles on this dark back road of Marks,
Mississippi. Clarksdale was thirty minutes away
and the next country road with homes on it was
about forty minutes away in the opposite direction.
They were isolated.
He knew what this sort of isolation
eventually did to a person. When he was a boy
every girl in the rural territory had been pregnant at
least once by the time they reached sixteen. There
just was not much else to do. He didn't want them
to fall into each other's arms out of simple boredom,
but he knew it could happen and most likely would.
"I was sincere, Willetta, but I don't think it's
a good idea for you to stay here with me. I can get
a hotel in Clarksdale until the funeral is over with.
I'm sure by then you'll be ready to go back to
Atlanta," he said.
"I'm here to stay. I can't go back to Atlanta
right now," she said.
"Stay? Why can't you go back to Atlanta?"
he asked. Something was up. Had she done
something illegal?
"That's my business and you can get that
look off your face. The police are not after me. It's
for personal reasons that I refuse to go back," she
said.
Andrik remained quiet. She had definitely
said that she couldn't go back and now she was
saying she refused to back. She was hiding
something.
"Why are we standing outside? The yard
looks wonderful. Let me see what you've done to
the inside of the house," she said. Willetta wanted
to change the subject.
Andrik didn't have to know
everything about her. She wasn't sure she wanted to
ever tell him that she had left a man standing at the
altar. That somehow seemed cowardly and immoral
even to her. Yes, she would keep this one secret.
Andrik let himself be distracted, because he
was excited about the changes to the house. He was
glad she had known the before and could appreciate
the after. He and Willetta went through the double
oak doors together and he watched with extreme
pleasure the surprise and wild appreciation she
showed for the many changes he'd made to
Thompson Estate.
CHAPTER 8
Volume 3, pg. 1 (February 1902):
"I
met this woman today when I went to town.
She is real pretty and smart like. She got off
the train and walked right up to me. She
wanted directions to the Negro schoolhouse.
Her name is Etta Tucker. She came all the
way from South Carolina to teach school. She
sure is pretty and sure is smart. I hope she
ain't attached."
#
"I came over here to keep from being alone.
It's being alone that makes me afraid right now,"
Willetta admitted.
The tour of the house ended at the most
luxuriously screened-in back porch Willetta had
ever seen. The swing she and Andrik shared was
custom made. It was made of threaded bamboo and
could easily fit four people. It was suspended from
a very high ceiling by thin strands of entwined
bamboo. Soft downy pillows of an assorted range
of colors were thrown about loosely upon the
massive swing. The circumference of the seat of
the swing was so wide that even Andrik's feet
barely dangled. Willetta's legs stretched straight
ahead and she was ultimately comfortable. It was
more of a swinging daybed than an actual swing.
A soothing breeze lifted from the cotton
fields, drifted through the screens, and touched
Andrik and Willetta.
"She wouldn't have wanted me to leave you
down there alone," Andrik admitted. All Mama
Jean had talked about the past six months had been
Willetta. She'd made him responsible for this
woman he didn't know. Mama Jean's pleas had
reached a level of desperation until he had relented
and summoned Willetta home the only way he
knew how. Now Mama Jean was really dead and
something had spooked Willetta.
"We have a few things to decide about
Mama Jean's burial arrangements. So, we can just
spend the next few days sorting all that out. Maybe
you'll be ready after the funeral to go back to the
house," he said kindly.
"I don't plan on staying in Mississippi
indefinitely," Willetta said. "But I am going to take
it slow and do a little reflecting before I decide what
my next step will be."
"Do you really hate Mississippi so much,"
he asked.
"I'll answer that after my soul-searching is
done. Right now I don't know how I feel," Willetta
admitted.
Willetta wanted to tell Andrik about the