Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (43 page)

“Hi, Daddy!” She kissed his cheek and tugged at his arm.

He stared at her office door. She knew it was closed, but it was open in the playback. Paul stood in the frame, wearing the high-topped boots and tight-legged britches of the 1880s.

“Josh! I need you to run down to the drugstore. Try Hogue’s first. They don’t have it, check at Goodwyn’s. Give ‘em this.”

“Yes, suh.”

“Tell him I got somebody waitin’.”

Ria looked at her father. His eyes widened, his mouth opened a bit.
Oh, dear God.
No one else ever saw the replays. He couldn’t be seeing anything. The sooner she got him upstairs, the better.

“I’m fixing waffles,” she said, and tugged his arm again. He shook his head slightly and she held her breath. If he was seeing Paul and Joshua, if he asked, how on earth was she going to explain? He moved with her and went on upstairs.

“I’m so glad you called me,” she said, leading him into the kitchen.

“Sorry I woke you this morning, baby.”

“That’s all right. Don’t see enough of you,” Ria said, pouring the batter and closing the lid.

“No, we don’t, busy professionals that we are and all. Even when we try, something always seems to happen. Sorry ‘bout last night too, sugar.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“So since your mother’s gone, I thought maybe this morning’d be a good chance to visit. You know, just you and me.”

The light went out on the waffle iron and Ria deftly transferred the golden waffle to a plate and sat it in front of her father next to the syrup and butter.

“You’ve improved, baby,” said her father approvingly, as he took a bite of his waffle. “These taste like your mother’s.”

“It’s the buttermilk. Paul taught me. He was horrified I was using plain two percent milk. So what’s up?”

“Oh, I thought maybe we’d chat about family history. ‘Bout me, your mother, your family. When you start to realize your little girl’s big enough to start her own family, makes you think about such things. Don’t know why I never thought about it before, guess it’s ‘cause I’ve never seen you look at anybody the way you look at Paul.”

Ria poured the batter for her own waffle before turning around.

“I don’t think there’s much I don’t know about you and Mom, Daddy.”

“Now that’s the conceit of the young if ever I heard it. We were around a good while ‘fore you were ever thought about, you know.”

“Well, yes, I guess so.”

“And I guess you do know all about your mother’s family. But you don’t know beans about mine, now do you?”

Ria turned around to check the waffle light.

“No, now that you mention it, I don’t guess I do. You’ve never told me much except that you worked your own way through college and medical school. It’s like as far as you’re concerned, your life started with Mom.”

“To a certain extent it did. My background didn’t exactly jive with your mother’s. Sometimes I think your mother and me are living proof of fate. No other explanation. Me being fifteen years older than her and not movin’ in her social circles at all, well, it’s just a miracle we ever met. You know?”

“I knew you weren’t from one of the old rich families like Mom’s. So what? Never bothered Mom. Sure as heck never bothered me.”

“Yeah, but did you ever wonder?”

“Yes sir. I even asked you about it a few times when I was little but you never answered. Sidetracked me, in fact. It’s the only time in my life I ever remember you doing that. So I dropped it.”

Ria opened the iron and took off her own waffle, placing it on the table and joining her father at the small table.

“So why are you talking about it now?”

“Well, maybe I think it’s time you knew about it.”

“Wait a minute. The time’s never come before? Because you’ve never thought I was serious about anybody and now you do? Does insanity run in your family, or some congenital birth defect, or something you think I need to know if I’m planning a family? Because I have to tell you, we’re not at that stage yet. And is that why I’m an only child? Always wondered about that.”

Ria spoke lightly as she reached for the syrup, but her heart squeezed. There’d never be a family with Paul Devlin, no matter how much she wanted one. And nothing could change that.

“Heredity’s a funny thing. Some folks think you look like your mother, and most of ‘em think you look like me. And you do. But nobody didn’t know her would ever realize just how much you look like my mother.”

“I do?”

“Oh, yes. Coloring and all.”

“But my coloring’s like yours.” Ria loved her dramatic coloring. It gave her that exotic air she cultivated shamelessly. Her father looked like a descendant of Spanish
hidalgos
. Probably what first caught her mother’s eye. Sure as hell would’ve caught Ria’s.

“Yeah, it is. I’m sorry you never knew your grandmother, Ria. She was—well, I am what I am because of her. Very determined lady. ‘You’ll be somebody, Charlie. No matter what I have to do to make sure of it. I’m not my mother,’ she’d say. ‘You come first. No matter what I have to do, you come first.’ She didn’t like her own mother too much, always felt she let her down, that she could have done better by her, but circumstances being what they were, I don’t sit in judgment. Not on my mother, not on my grandmother. ‘Cause for sure, my grandmother rowed a hard row.”

Ria put down her fork. Some revelation of great magnitude was coming. She felt it. She sat and waited.

“See,” he continued, “my mother, she was alone in the world. Used what she had to get by in it. And what she mostly had was looks. Beautiful woman, my mother. Missed her time. In another place, another era, she’d have been a rich woman. Didn’t do too badly as it was, but in say, the late 1800s,
New Orleans
, she’d have been a legend.”

Ria stared. Her grandmother used what she had. Her looks.
New Orleans
. Late 1800s. Images of the French Quarter, exclusive houses catering to gentlemen of means.

“Daddy—”

“Even the name, you see. I don’t really know what my father’s name was. Don’t know who he was. Knight’s an example of that warped sense of humor seems to run down the line from me to you. She thought it made a perfect stage name, as it were, seeing as how she was a lady of the—”

“Night.” Ria finished softly. “Daddy, you are joking?”

“Baby, you don’t joke about your mama being a prostitute.”

Ria said nothing. She couldn’t. She was too busy imagining the scene taking place within the walls of the huge
Stanton
two story mansion off
Ingleside Avenue
if her maternal grandfather had ever heard this story.

“Now, in my mother’s defense,” continued Dr. Knight, “women have used their bodies to survive for years. Lots of times, they had no choice about it. I sort of have a sympathetic view, you know. And I never saw that much difference between all the arranged marriages the so-called good families used to set up and prostitution. Now, my mother, she had the looks to marry money. And even in this day and age, you got girlfriends fell conveniently in love with money, don’t you?”

Ria nodded.

“And my mother, I guess she’d have done the same if she could have, but she had this other little thing to deal with too. Made that a little difficult. Back then, anyway, wouldn’t have been that big a deal now.”

Ria’s thoughts spun in a circle.
New Orleans
. The French Quarter. The dark and exotic Creole culture, the Quadroon Balls.

“Daddy—”

“Her mother was white, her father a mulatto. I don’t know much about that, I don’t think she did either. Or if she did, she preferred to forget it. Her mother worked in the textile mills, which means she was an old, old woman at a very young age and died way before she shoulda. My mother watched what it did to her, and she’d have done—well, I guess she did do—whatever she had to to stay out of them. And to keep me out of them. ‘Bout all I know is that her father, that would be my grandfather, was real well-educated, all things considered. A preacher, in fact. Ran sort of a mission church. And he met my grandmother when she ran away from her husband, which event shortened his life considerable. ‘Pears her husband didn’t take real kindly to a ‘nigger’ giving his wife sanctuary. This being the turn of the century, you know, guess maybe you can figure the rest of it out.”

“Oh, my God,” said Ria softly. The walls of the
Stanton
family home her mother grew up in wouldn’t still be standing if her grandparents had any idea. “Mom knows all this though, I’m sure?”

“Hell, yes, all of it. Though we had a mutual agreement might be best her side of the family didn’t know any it. I didn’t give a damn who knew personally, still don’t, but they’re your mother’s people, she loves them. No sense looking for trouble.”

“No sense at all. And surely you don’t think Paul would care?”

“Not in the slightest. I liked him, baby. Liked him a lot.”

“So why’d you decide, after all this time, to tell me now?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have. Probably wouldn’t have thought about it. It really doesn’t have a lot of immediate significance to me, you know. And then I met Paul.”

“And we just agreed it wouldn’t matter two hoots in hell to him.”

“Oh, I know! I just thought he’d find it real interestin’. Didn’t your mother tell me he’s a writer?”

“Yes, but I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”

“And he’s from out of town, right?”

“Yes, sir. Mobile.”

“But I’d take a big bet his family’s from here. Some of it, anyway.”

“No, sir. They weren’t.”

“Sure about that?”

“He is. I asked him.”

“Well, maybe he just hasn’t stumbled on it yet. Lots of folks don’t know much family history anymore. And if he didn’t know the name, I don’t reckon he’d connect.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Knocked me for a loop when I first saw him. You notice me staring?”

“Well, yeah, but I thought you were just inspecting. Knocked you for a loop how?”

“’Cause just last week your mother got in one of her moods and was sorting out the old picture albums. You know, the
real
old pictures. Pretty much all of ‘em from her family, of course, and it’s been so long since I looked at ‘em, I wouldn’t have remembered or noticed—and anyway, I don’t have but a couple and one of ‘em is a group shot, what’d they call ‘em? The tin-type pictures, you know what I mean. Has a man in it named Paul Devlin. He was a doctor in town, back in the late 1800s. And I swear, your Paul is his exact double. So much so, I’d have sworn the minute I saw him he just had to have family connections somewhere.”

Ria’s eyes widened.

“And you have this picture why? Of this, who’d you say, Dr. Devlin? How do you know his name?”

“Because.” Dr. Knight reached inside his jacket and pulled something out before he continued.

“Like I said, your mother’d just been reworking the real old pictures last week. And she had the albums out when I got home, guess she was showing Paul your baby pictures. Didn’t get to the real old ones, I don’t guess. Good thing, probably. Like I said, I don’t know much about my mother’s people and what she knew, she didn’t like to talk about it. But she always saved this. Said it meant a lot to my grandmother, it was the only picture she had of my mother’s father. I told you, Knight’s a misnomer. Just a stage name. The name my mother grew up with was Devlin.”

He held out his hand, showing an old, old photograph. Ria looked at the pictured group, the beautiful young woman, the laughing young man, the solemn younger boy. An unconventional grouping for the time period and she knew the date, just as she knew the people in the group.

“My grandfather as a young boy. I told you, remember? He was very well-educated for the time period and his coloring. His half-brother made sure of it. ‘Bout the only thing I do know about my mother’s family. That her father’s name was Joshua Devlin and his half-brother’s name was Paul.”

Dr. Knight watched Ria closely. “Now, at first, when I saw your young man last night, I just thought, fancy that. Coincidence is really the damndest thing. Boy has to be a Devlin descendant from somewhere down the white side of the line. This picture’s real old and faded out some but the resemblance is just downright uncanny, don’t you think? And I thought, seein’ as how your mother said he was doing research for a novel, you both might get a real kick out of this.”

Ria struggled to regain her equilibrium. She tried to speak but her voice stuck in her throat. She cleared it and tried again.

“Daddy, that’s really thoughtful of you,” she finally said, holding out her hand for the picture. “Can I keep this to show him tonight?”

“Unh, unh, unh!” said her father, holding the picture out of her reach. “Not so fast. Like I said, I really just thought y’all would get a kick out of it. But things have changed a little bit.”

“They have? How?” Ria asked, remembering with sinking heart her father’s face as he stared at Paul and Joshua before climbing her stairs.
Doomed
, she thought to herself.
I’m doomed.