Journals of the Secret Keeper (6 page)

see him now.
"Positive thinking gets positive results," he
whispered.
"What did you say," Willetta asked.
"I said positive thinking gets positive results.
You're right, Willetta. I need to get a better attitude
about this situation. I'm sorry. So, where do we
begin," he asked.
"First of all, Martha is coming to live in the
house with us. She can't stay in Mama Jean's shack,
because I refuse to stay there with her. So, she
comes with us," Willetta said firmly.
Andrik frowned distastefully at the idea. He
had no wish to be under the same roof with Martha
Thompson. But under the circumstances, he might
be the guest instead of the host. So, he nodded in
agreement.
"Secondly," Willetta continued, "Mama Jean
suggested before she died that you and I should get
married. I think we should try to appear as loverlike as possible in front of Martha. Something
Martha said makes me believe she would not be too
happy about it and since we are not brother and
sister, I want to find out why."
Andrik cringed at the thought of playing
lover to Willetta. He was attracted to her and any
acting would be on her part, not his. He was bound
more than likely to play the fool instead of the
lover.
"I'll let you take the lead in that department,"
he said uncomfortably.
"What, and make myself look like a hussy?
No way. You have to take the lead and let me
follow along," Willetta said.
"I hope you know what you're asking for. I
can lay it on pretty thick. Do you want us to be
budding lovers or old lovers," Andrik asked huskily.
Willetta once again found herself staring at
Andrik's physique. His flat stomach curved into a C
at his waist and she could almost see his pectorals
pressing against the cotton shirt he wore. Long legs
thick with muscle curved along the cushion of the
car seat and Willetta had a vision of herself in his
lap. The pulse in her neck leapt and she looked
away.
"Budding lovers would be better. Thank you
for asking," she said sarcastically.
"No problem, Lettie," he said.
Willetta laughed, "Am I Lettie now?"
"Yes. Ever since Mama Jean told me about
you, in my mind I have called you Lettie," he
confessed.
Willetta decided she liked it and told him so.
A sense of unity and calmness settled over them as
they rode in silence. Andrik was surprised at how
expertly Lettie had settled his fears and turned his
dread into anticipation and excitement. Willetta felt
a sense of belonging and took comfort in the fact
that she and Andrik's pasts were intertwined. He
was a good person and she felt no compulsion to
disentangle them. She only wanted clarity of the
twists and turns. She was sure with the help of
Martha and the journals that would be a cinch.
#
"I ain't going to that house. That's the devil's
house," Martha said stubbornly.
Andrik stared at the old woman in disbelief.
Who was she calling the devil? He looked at
Willetta and realized she was trying very hard to
keep from laughing.
"Who's the devil Ms. Martha," Willetta
asked.
Martha clamped her lips shut and refused to
answer. "I just ain't going and I don't want to hear
anything else about it."
She sat back down on the
black plastic couch in Mama Jean's living room and
kicked her house shoes off. She lifted her stiff legs
onto the couch and settled back against the pillows.
Willetta opened her mouth to speak, but
Andrik spoke first. "Lettie is staying with me. I
don't want her down here in this shack. So, if you
stay here, you'll be by yourself, because Lettie stays
with me." He grabbed Willetta's hand and held it
firmly in his.
Martha slowly sat up and placed her feet on
the floor. Her eyes widened on Andrik and
Willetta's clasped hands and she said, "Young man,
just who the blazes is Lettie."
Now Andrik was having trouble holding in
his laughter. He looked down at Willetta and said,
"She is. This beautiful woman beside me is Lettie."
He let his eyes roam lingeringly over Willetta's face
for good measure. Willetta stared back
unblinkingly into his eyes.
Martha got up and slid into her walking
shoes. She shuffled over to her walker and stuffed
her house shoes into the bag hanging from it. "Let's
go. Y'all ain't married and ain't got no business in
that big ole house by yourselves. It's the devil's
house, but the devil's work ain't got to be happening
there."
Willetta raised one eyebrow at Andrik as
Martha shuffled past them. It seemed the old
woman didn't want them together after all. Andrik
crossed his eyes at Willetta and shrugged his
shoulders. If it had not been for Mama Jean's
suggestion that they marry, they would have
wondered at Martha's disinclination towards them
as a couple, but instead they were mildly curious
about her obvious objection disapproval.
CHAPTER 13
Volume 12, pg.4 (September 1910):
"Sylvia Jean Thompson is the name we gave
the new bastard baby. She got old eyes and
look like she thinking all the time. She ain't
causing no trouble now, but them eyes makes
me thinks she plannin to be."
#
"Ms. Martha, how did you know Mama Jean
was dead," Willetta asked. They were back in
Andrik's car heading back to the "devil's house", as
Ms. Martha had called the old house on Thompson
Estate.
"Call me momma or grandma. I don't like
that Ms. Martha stuff you throwin at me. I'm old
and deserve some respect for just living this long.
To answer your question, I been in town for a
couple of months. We heard it on the scanner."
Willetta had a thousand questions rushing
around in her brain, but for the life of her she
couldn't settle down enough mentally to ask them
one at a time in an orderly fashion. Nothing made
any sense. She was thankful Andrik wasn't having
the same problem.
"Who were you staying with in town and
why haven't I seen you around here visiting Mama
Jean?" he demanded.
"Well, ain't you just full of questions," Ms.
Martha smirked.
Andrik hit the brakes and the car slid a few
feet and swerved perilously close to a ditch before it
stopped. Red dust from the rocky road wafted past
leaving a dusty film on the windows of the car.
"Neither one of us have ever seen you
before. Willetta just came home yesterday after
spending the majority of her life in Atlanta, Georgia
with a foster family. You step out of the weeds of a
cotton field in the middle of nowhere saying you're
her grandmother and that Stanley Thompson is your
son, but not my father. The one and the same
Stanley Thompson who treated me like crap as far
back as I can remember. I'd say both Willetta and I
have every right to ask as many questions as we
want. You either answer them or prepare for a ride
back to that bathroom you were using," Andrik
barked.
His voice raised an octave or two with every
sentence. His chest was heaving and one long
finger was pointing ominously at the old woman in
the back seat.
"Well, you sho don't handle surprises too
well. Lordy be! But seein as I know who you came
from, I sho ain't surprised. Let's get on to the devil's
house and I'll tell you what I can. You ain't gone
like none of it, but I always did think secrets was
evil. Half the family hate them secrets and the other
half hordes them like money."
Ms. Martha reached one scraggly hand
through the seats and settled it on Andrik's shoulder.
She patted his shoulder and made a "tut-tut" sound.
Willetta got tickled, but felt it prudent to squelch it.
Andrik looked mad enough to toss both her and Ms.
Martha out onto the gravel road.
#
Andrik's anger threatened to simmer out of
control. He felt the old hag was making fun of him
and laughing behind his back. He didn't like her
and she didn't like him. He felt it clear to his bones.
It chilled him and made him wonder what ugly
truths the past held. He was reconciled in his heart
that Stanley Thompson had not been his father. He
had certainly treated Andrik like another man's
child. Andrik wondered who his real father was and
was he even alive. It made his gut churn to think
that the only forthcoming answers would be from
the hateful old woman in the back seat of his car.
How could she possibly be Willetta's
grandmother? She and Willetta looked nothing
alike. Willetta was kind and refined. This woman
was hard and vulgar. She had no loyalty and no
appreciation for family. Why else had her son been
taken from her? Why else had Mama Jean never
mentioned her, even when she knew she was dying?
Andrik thought about the dark and mean ways of
his father and knew that all that had gone wrong on
the inside of Stanley Thompson could be rightfully
blamed on Martha Thompson. Willetta's great
grandmother had not been able to save him.
It was
a blessing that Willetta was lost from them or she
may have turned out like Stanley and his mother.
#
Willetta knew she would have answers. It
was just a matter of getting the journals and reading
them. There were so many of them. She
instinctively knew there was a race on. She felt an
urgent need to read the journals quickly and find out
as much as possible.
Martha Thompson's presence
lent another edge to her uneasiness and she knew
the secrets that Mama Jean had guarded until death
were important and would make a difference. She
also knew that Martha Thompson, although being
her grandmother, was not a nice woman. She most
certainly was not a grandmother. She was just an
old woman who had made too many bad decisions
to turn it around. Willetta decided to listen to her
with her mind, but never with her heart.
#
Ms. Martha Thompson stepped foot in her
childhood home for the first time in thirty-five
years. She hid her amazement at the changes, and
followed Andrik up the stairs to her assigned room.
She grumbled the whole way about how she was
too old to be climbing stairs that went straight up.
"You changed everything else. Why didn't
you put some better stairs in here," she complained.
Andrik kept walking and ignored her. She'd
caused him to lose control once and that was the
only chance she would have. She had gotten too
much pleasure out of his anger. He couldn't
dispense that much energy on someone as lowly as
Martha Thompson.
"The first bedroom here belongs to Willetta.
You can have anyone of these bedrooms along this
hallway. The other side belongs to me," he said
haughtily.
Martha's eyes dilated as she straightened her
old back. She looked up into the dark face of the
young man towering over her. Something akin to
hate flashed across her face and Andrik stepped
back.
"There's an old fight still left in me, but the
one I should be fightin is dead. I ain't blamin you
for nothing, but if you want me to use you to take
up where they left off, that's fine. Otherwise, be
real careful what you say young man, cuz you don't
know what happened here. Just remember you
three generations behind me and four generations
behind my grandma and grandpa who lived here
first. This ain't no more your house than it is mine."

Martha's voice had taken on a raspy whisper
that reminded Andrik of the witches who cast spells
in the scary movies he had seen as a child. His
intense dislike for the old woman became mingled
with fear. He turned abruptly away from her
piercing stare and descended the stairs in search of
Willetta.

Willetta slipped into her car immediately
after Andrik and Martha entered the house. She
drove as fast as she could back to Mama Jean's
house. She parked her car sideways in front of the
dead Mulberry tree.
It took her no time at all to
find the handle and lift it.
This time she didn't
hesitate. She gingerly got to her knees and in the
gray light of late evening peered into the deep
interior of the old handmade casket. There were
books of all sizes, shapes and colors. Books from
different people from different time periods.

Willetta had a college girlfriend who always
read the last two pages of a novel before she began
reading it. Willetta always felt this was grossly
disrespectful to the author and showed a disgusting
lack of depth. She was neither disrespectful nor
shallow. So, she fished out journals from the
bottom of the casket. The black ones made of
leather had to be the oldest ones. She got every one
of them out. There were twenty-five in all. They
were not of regular size. They were smallish
measuring about four inches in length and two
inches in width.

The name on the inside covers indicated the
journals were written by William Thompson.
According to Ms. Martha, this must have been her
great great grandfather. Willetta was instantly
enchanted and intrigued.
She dusted herself off
and lovingly placed the journals in her trunk in the
spare tire case that held no spare tire.
She quickly
lowered the door to the journal grave and got back
in her car. She gripped the staring wheel tightly as
raw anticipation threatened to make her faint dead
away.
CHAPTER 14

Volume 13, pg.1 (December 1910):
"Willetta crawled into Etta's quilt trunk and
went to sleep. Etta didn't see her and put all
them quilts from the clothes line on top of the
child. Our Willetta aint gone never wake up no
more. Them covers just smothered the life
right out of her. My heart is broke and Etta
look like she done lost her soul. Sylvia Jean
lookin like she waitin on us to explain
somethin."

Martha Thompson listened to the wind swell
against the cursed house she was sleeping in. Vows
were made for breaking, because she had sworn
years ago never to step foot in this house again and
here she was. She had turned the light off
immediately upon donning the dressing gown
Willetta gave her. She didn't want to see the walls
that had held her mother captive for so many years.
She didn't belong here anymore than her son or her
mother had. But once again the old house acted like
it had arms. Long arms that reached out and
grabbed you and pulled you back in for a crushing
hold.