She stroked my hair. "I meant to tell you when you were old enough to understand, but the timing never seemed right. You left us before I had a chance."
"Gladys sent me away. No evidence, no crime," I said; resentment for the Bitch still harbored in my soul.
The words seemed to hit Valerie hard; she pulled back to her chair and wiped her eyes. "I think Mother was afraid you would find out and misunderstand. She wanted to shelter you from the truth. Send you out into the world to be your own person, not someone shaped by the secrets and lies of this family."
That statement didn't hold reality for the person I knew as Gladys. "Who else knows?" I asked, wondering how many people kept the undisclosed truth.
"Walterene, Ruby, and Father," she answered. "Ruby and Walterene confronted Mother with their suspicions, but held the secret safe. That's why I worried when you found Walterene's diaries. She mentions it and says how much she and Ruby wanted you as theirs; in fact, over the years, they helped raise you as much as I did, as much as Mother did."
"I didn't see anything about me in the diaries," I said.
"I took them last Sunday before Edwina and Roscoe came over." She rubbed her eyes, weary from the conversation.
"Edwina and Roscoe are talking to the police about the man who hurt Ruby and threatened me." I briefly explained how the phone calls and attacks focused on getting me out of town to avoid hurting Vernon 's campaign. I wanted to get back to us, not allowing the stupid antics of family business politics to swerve the discussion away from the words we had avoided for twenty-five years.
"I hate them," Valerie stated with a flat tone. She looked back to me. "If you didn't see the diaries, how did you find out?"
I tried to explain as simply as possible. "I read about Mr. Sams. Walterene thought Papa Ernest and Vernon had been part of the lynching."
Valerie rubbed her forehead and stared at the floor as I talked.
"Daniel didn't know what I wanted to research at the Observer archives, but thought it had something to do with the family. He did some digging, talked to a few people-specifically, to his brother who was a year behind you in school. I saw Daniel's notes saying you left school the year I was born." The pain I saw in her face almost kept me from venturing the next question. "I wasn't a child of a high school sweetheart, was I?"
"No," she mumbled.
Fear seized my mind. The truth and shock of who my mother was led to the dread of discovering the identity of my father, and from the secrecy and pain of Valerie's pregnancy, I could only assume I was a product of rape. Brutality, cruelty, violence, and aggression resulted in my creation. My eyes watched her, posing the question of who the fiend had been.
"No." She shook her head. "Derek, you know enough."
Anger stirred in me again. "Val, we got this far; there's no going back. You owe me the truth. Was it rape?"
She bowed her head letting her dark hair hide her face; her thin body slumped in the chair. For the first time I considered how much we resembled each other; as brother and sister, the fact seemed natural, but as mother and son, I wanted to know why my genes coded me so much a Harris. Papa Ernest had raped his daughter, producing Vernon; could Dad have done the same to his daughter? The thought struck me as ridiculous as soon as it snapped within my brain; the gentleness and kindness of the man I called my father, and Valerie's devotion to him, cleared him in my mind. But Dad wasn't my father, he was my grandfather; the question of my biological father persisted. "Val, who?" I couldn't call the man "my father." The phrase evoked love, tenderness; this man was a rapist, a child molester; he had raped a fifteen-year-old girl. "Who did it?"
Sobs shook her shoulders. She mumbled something.
I kneeled at her feet, holding her hands in mine as she had done to me a few minutes before. "It's all right. He can't hurt you now. Who was it?"
She said the name again.
I couldn't believe it. "No!"
"Yes," she cried, " Vernon, Uncle Vernon raped me!"
Hate boiled in me. "Why is he not in jail? Did the Bitch cover for him? I can't believe she can even look him in the eyes."
Valerie cried, "No one knows. I never told anyone. Mother never knew." She gasped for air between sobs and words. "She thought it was some boy from school. I couldn't tell her the truth. I was too ashamed."
"You never confronted him?" Anger tore at my soul, but I tried to be compassionate, to consider her feelings. Surprised she had kept me and not gone through with the abortion, I couldn't imagine the fear and loathing she must have for the entire family. Gladys supported Vernon 's every decision, in the company and for the whole Harris clan. The star and head of the family, he commanded everyone. How could she have pointed to him? No one would have believed her.
"Derek, please! I want this to stay buried," she pleaded. "It's history. Nothing can be done now."
I glanced at the clock: eight fifteen. "Let's go." I pulled her hand to help her out of the chair. A movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention; Ruby stood in the doorway crying. She had heard it all. "We're going to see Gladys," I told Ruby.
I PULLED UP to the door of the Dilworth house; Valerie sat unmoving beside me. The front porch lights were on, and Dad, Gladys, and Grandma sat in rockers under the breeze of ceiling fans sipping their after-dinner coffee. Gladys stood when she saw me.
Opening the car door for Valerie, I helped her out. The worried look on Gladys' face as she watched Valerie's stumbling steps told me she knew the secret was gone. "Gladys, we need to talk," I said as I climbed the stairs with Valerie.
She didn't say a word, but rushed to Valerie's side to help her into the house. Dad and Grandma began to follow, but she said something to make them stay outside. She led Valerie into the back sunroom, away from the presence of Grandma and Dad. "What have you done?" Her accusing eyes slashed into me.
Valerie between us on the couch, I shot back, "Found the truth. The truth you hid. Lies you made up to save yourself embarrassment. You're a bigger bitch than I ever thought possible."
"Don't talk to me like that," Gladys seethed. "Leave Valerie here and go."
"Stop it!" Valerie woke from her daze. "Stop it, both of you." She got up and grabbed onto a chair from the table to support her weight, then dropped into it. "We're all we have. I'm sick of the snide remarks and digs you take at each other." She focused on Gladys. "Mom, Derek knows."
"What?" She jerked to attention so fast I thought her thin body would snap like a twig. "Knows what?"
Valerie took a deep breath and braced her hands on the table. "And he knows who his father is."
Gladys looked to me, then back to Valerie; her body still stiff and alert. "Some no-account boy from Myers Park," she turned to me, "that your sister couldn't say 'no' to."
I watched Valerie as she shook her head from side to side.
"What do you mean?" Gladys asked. "I thought it was that Watkins boy who played football with Tim. That's what you told me."
"I never said who it was. You assumed." Valerie's arm trembled from the stress of pressing her hands on the table. She released her grip on the tabletop and crossed her arms in front of her as if to help protect herself from what she was about to say. "One night, when I stayed over at Margaret's, Uncle Vernon told us we were making too much noise, so he made us sleep in separate bedrooms."
"Mike?" Gladys jumped to the conclusion it was Margaret and Mark's brother.
Valerie ignored her and continued, "It happened only once. At first, I hoped and prayed it had been a nightmare." She watched Gladys perched on the edge of the cushion. " Vernon," she began, but Gladys jumped to her feet.