I looked up at him as he talked on the phone. Did his brother really think Valerie had an abortion at sixteen? The math ran through my head, making the room spin. "Daniel." I shook his shoulder to get his attention.
He put his hand over the receiver and asked, "What?"
"I have to go." I stumbled, almost knocking over a pile of papers. "I'll call you tomorrow."
"But…" he started as I ran for the stairs.
I DROVE TO Valerie's condo off Park Road. Her parking space was empty. "She's home every night of the week, except when I have to talk to her." I gritted my teeth. Betrayal gnawed at my soul. Valerie. Ruby must have known, too; Walterene surely knew; probably the whole family kept the secret from me. I sat in the parking lot, staring at her brick townhouse, willing her to drive up. After about thirty minutes of waiting and turning over reasons in my mind, I pulled out and drove back to Ruby's house.
I turned the corner at Sedgefield Road and saw Valerie's white Honda Accord next to Ruby and Walterene's American-made cars. Sweat broke out on my lip. I wasn't prepared to see her. I had thought so, but now I knew I couldn't face her, couldn't face my fear. I didn't really want to hear why. A thousand encounters with Bert Carter, or with Gladys the Bitch, seemed better than what truths Valerie held for me.
Chapter Twenty-six
THE TRUTH, A bitch who pulled no punches, needed to be confronted. The Truth would never let me back into the world I knew before, although that's exactly where I wanted to be. Calming my breathing, I got out of the car and went into the house. Valerie and Ruby stirred pots and cut vegetables in the kitchen. The sight of them chilled my body; the Truth slid her icy fingers up my spine. I shivered. "Hey, I'm back," I announced.
Valerie came into the den and hugged me. "Are you okay? Ruby told me what happened."
My cold clammy hands shook as I pulled away from her embrace. "Yeah, it's been a bitch of a day." I reached behind me to find the chair and lowered myself into it. The sum of Kathleen finding me in Mark's bedroom, being attacked by Bert Carter in the park, realizing Edwina and Roscoe were behind the harassment, and now this, didn't add up to a red-letter day. My mind and body ached as if one more life-changing event would turn me inside out-and what I knew was inside, the betrayal and anger, would not please anyone.
"Are you sure you're okay? You're pale as a ghost." Valerie wiped her hands on a dishtowel she had tucked in the waist of her jeans, then felt my forehead.
I jerked away from her touch. How could she have lied to me all these years?
"Maybe you need to lie down for a little while," Ruby offered from the kitchen. "Have you eaten?"
"No," I mumbled.
Valerie still stood in front of me, staring as if she didn't recognize the person who sat before her. "Derek, what's wrong?"
"Well, everything." I said, the tension in me ready to explode. My head throbbed; my heartbeat felt like it rattled the walls of the house; what little food I had digested during the day tried to creep up my throat. I couldn't play the game, now that I knew. "Valerie, why did you leave high school your sophomore year?"
The blood drained from her face as she cast her eyes toward the window, then stared at the floor. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself; frozen intime, maybe memories flooding back, her body didn'tmove. Finally, the trance broke, and she reached for the remote control and clicked off the television, then, with trembling hands, sank into the chair next to mine.
In the kitchen, Ruby turned off the stove and covered a pot, then sneaked back toward her bedroom. Valerie and I settled into the silence and solitude of the den.
I watched Valerie wipe her eyes with the dishtowel. My breathing shuddered my whole body. Trying to calm myself again, I focused on the vase of roses on the coffee table and how the breeze from the ceiling fan fluttered their jagged leaves against the unforgiving thorns jutting from their stems.
A deep sigh signaled Valerie's intent to say something to break the silence. Her reasons deserved to be heard; hopefully, they could make up for the hurt I felt. I wiped the sweat from my upper lip and dried my hands on my jeans, braced for what she had to say.
"Mother and I went to New York to stay with Uncle Earl," she began. "You never met him, but he was the youngest of Grandma's brothers. Our intent was to take care of my pregnancy."
The word hitme hard. I fished my pack of cigarettes out of my jeans, tapped out two, lit both, and handed one to Valerie. I inhaled deep, letting the smoke fill my lungs and the nicotine absorb into my system.
After a quick hit on her cigarette, she continued, "Uncle Earl took us to a doctor he knew, but in the waiting room, knowing what I was about to do, I couldn't. Mother and I cried all night." Valerie glanced up at me, tears spilling down her cheek. "We all knew adoption was out of the question, but a family member could raise the child. Walterene and Ruby popped into our minds first, but the questions from the neighbors and other family members would be too intrusive. Uncle Earl offered to help me with the baby; he always wanted children. The prospect of raising a family in the Village seemed appealing to me at the time. I imagined staying on with Uncle Earl, and together, teaching this child about art, music, life, but Earl was almost sixty and not in good health, and I knew I couldn't manage the city and raise a child alone. That night, Mom decided she would take the baby and raise him as her own son."
I noticed the long drooping ash at the end of my cigarette and tapped it into the ashtray between us. Avoiding direct eye contact, I nodded to keep her going.
"Afraid of the stigma, we decided to stay in New York until you were born."
The finality of hearing her saying "you" brought tears to my eyes that I swiped away with my hand.
"And," she continued, "tell everyone Mom was pregnant, not me." She didn't look up at me, but I saw the tears trickle down her face.
"Mother did come back to Charlotte for weeks at a time during my stay. She wore maternity clothes and had Dad prepare a nursery Tim never knew what was going on. I came home for Christmas starting to show, but covered my secret with bulky sweaters. I told my classmates I attended a private school focused on art, which I did. I can't begin to tell you how scared and happy I was during that time, walking the city streets with Uncle Earl, the gallery visits, the lectures at NYU, the occasional dinner party, and the theatre every Saturday afternoon."
I stole a glance at her faint smile of the memory.
She puffed on her cigarette in thought; the tears had stopped. "You were the most popular baby in the Village. Uncle Earl knew everyone, and they were so accepting of a pregnant teenager." She slipped out of her chair and kneeled next to me, holding my hands in hers. "Derek," her pleading eyes searched mine, "I'm sorry I never told you. A secret so covered with lies soon becomes the truth to everyone involved."
Sorrow for the life I never knew, the life I didn't have with my real mother, the possibility of how things might have been, teemed within me as if the grief would churn my heart into pieces. We held each other and cried. I wanted to say how proud I was that she kept me, how thankful I was for having her in my life, how I didn't hold anything against her for her decisions. Tears streamed down my face. "I love you, Val." I couldn't say any more; sobs of pain for me and for her took over my body.