Hidden Riches (30 page)

The responses, variations on the same theme, echoed around the room before Rollings could reestablish any sort of order.

Archer, who maintained his position near the sisters, was the only one who didn't seem fazed. As a matter of fact, he smiled.

“Between Mr. Rollings here, all of the employees in his firm, and Mr. Archer over there, I think enough lawyers are present and accounted for,” Reverend Toussaint said. “Mr. Rollings, if you have some sort of paper that needs to be signed, I'd be happy to oblige right here and now to make it official.”

Archer's gaze connected with Clayton's confused one.

“Reverend Toussaint, that is, well,” Clayton said, “I was going to say that is very generous of you, but in light of what exactly is at stake here, I think I'd better amend that to say it is very preposterous of you. I don't even know you. What would make you say something like that, even if you—especially if you think you know what all of the quilt squares mean?”

“I think it is within my rights to say I want someone else to have any assets coming to me. Is that correct, Mr. Rollings?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“There is no but, Mr. Rollings,” Reverend Toussaint said. “I assign any and all profits, proceeds, money, and anything else that would or will come to me from the estate of Miss Ana Mae Futrell to Dr. Clayton Futrell. And I'll sign any papers you lawyers come up with that will attest to that.”

“But why?” JoJo asked.

“Are you sure?” Rollings asked at the same time.

“More sure than I've ever been of anything in my life,” Reverend Toussaint said.

“As you wish,” Rollings said.

“But why?” Clayton wanted to know.

“Because I know what all of this means,” he said going to the quilt.

“Eight of the blocks simply tell the story of Ana Mae's life and times here in Drapersville, the things she loved, like her cats and the children at the church school. But it's this one,” he said pointing to the anchor block in the eighth position, with the heart and the word Howard in the middle of it. “This is the one that really matters the most. Look at how the tree in this block covers everything else. I know not only who Ana Mae's son Howard is, I also know where he is.”

“Oh, for the love of God, sit down,” Delcine cried. “Howard is our mother's maiden name. She was Georgette Howard Futrell. This wild goose chase has not yielded any missing or estranged son. There's no record of any birth at the hospital or the courthouse.”

“How would you know?” JoJo said.

Smirking, Delcine sat back.

“Because I checked,” she said. “We need that money, at least a portion of it. And neither Winslow nor I was about to let some unknown entity swoop in here to lay claim to our sister's financial legacy.”

“Howard is not an unknown entity, Sister Delcine.”

The quiet words came from Reverend Toussaint, who had finally stopped staring at the quilt Ana Mae created and was now studying Clayton with an intensity that made the younger man squirm.

“Is something wrong, Reverend?”

His face suddenly radiating with a light and a joy that seemed to bubble up inside of him, Reverend Toussaint beamed and shook his head.

Across the table, Archer got up, patted JoJo on the shoulder, and then returned to his husband's side. Since Reverend Toussaint was approaching from the front, Archer positioned himself at Clayton's back. He placed a comforting and supporting hand on Clayton's right shoulder.

“What?” Clayton said, glancing over his shoulder and up at Archer.

Archer nodded toward Reverend Toussaint.

“Nothing is wrong, son,” the minister said, speaking to Clayton. “We lived our entire lives right here in Drapersville, and I never suspected, not even once.”

The older man just beamed at Clayton, positively beamed, his smile and his eyes as bright as a child's on Christmas morning.

“Suspected what?” Clayton asked.

“That I had a son. That you were my son. Howard is you, Clayton. You are Ana Mae's precious Howard.”

“S
hut the front door!”

The outburst came from Ana Mae's holy rolling best friend Rosalee Jenkins, whose eyes were wide and her mouth dropped open.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Delcine demanded jumping up. “Clay is our brother. I remember when he was born.”

“Do you?”

The quiet question came from Everett Rollings. It held the sort of intensity and seriousness that gave everyone in the room more than a moment's pause.

Delcine recovered first.

“Wh-what are you saying, Mr. Rollings?” she asked.

“Yes, what are you saying?” JoJo echoed. “Clay can't be Ana Mae's son.”

The man at the center of the pandemonium remained sitting stock-still and staring at Toussaint le Baptiste as if the man had suddenly sprouted two heads, horns, and wings.

Leaning forward and rubbing his partner's arm, Archer tried to rouse him. “Clay, honey?”

But Rosalee was up and out of her seat, pacing the room and talking to either the Lord or Ana Mae, it was hard to tell which.

“Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy,” she said, shaking first her head and then her fist heavenward. “Of all the secrets. Why? Why'd you keep it from me, Ana Mae? We were like sisters.”

A gasp sounded in the conference room then. Those who weren't wrapped up in their own mental calisthenics—trying to make sense of Reverend Toussaint claiming to be Clayton's father—turned to stare at JoJo.

“Does that mean you're our sister too?” JoJo asked Rosalee. “Was Mama hiding some other big family secret?”

“Your sister?” Rosalee demanded. “Hell, no.”

Ana Mae's best friend was beside herself, fit to be tied or both.

The profanity finally got to the preacher. “Sister Rosalee. The Lord doesn't like that language.”

“The Lord?” Delcine squealed. “The Lord doesn't like lying and adultery and fornication and fraud and whatever else other thing you're standing over there claiming to be the gospel truth. There is no way on this earth that Clayton was Ana Mae's child. We all grew up together. We lived in the same house. Ana Mae was not pregnant.”

“Yes,” Reverend Toussaint said. “Yes, she was. And I know when.”

“Oh, my God.” Clayton dropped his head into his hands, moaning. “Oh, my God.”

Archer rounded the chair and squatted down next to Clayton, taking his partner's hands in his. He didn't know what to say, so he just held on, hopefully giving Clay the support he needed to accept this new reality.

Archer had known one of Ana Mae's secrets. As a client, she came to him, insisting on paying the law firm's exorbitant but standard rates so everything would be aboveboard. Archer had known one secret—that Ana Mae was Clayton's biological mother—and had carried it with him for the better part of a year. Keeping that knowledge from Clay had almost cost him their relationship.

While Archer knew that Clay was Ana Mae's son, even he was stunned to discover Clayton's true parentage on the paternal side.

“Oh, my God,” Clayton mumbled again.

Archer lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss on Clayton's palms.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Rosalee said. “Get a room.”

“Rosalee.”

The admonition came from Rollings, who no one noticed had left his seat.

He had apparently pressed another one of his unseen buttons that summoned bodyguards and electronics. A five foot by five foot white screen now took the place of honor at the head of the table. Rollings or his in-and-out assistant had pushed the quilt stand to the side.

Delcine groaned. “Not Ana Mae from the grave again.”

“Oh, she was very much alive when she recorded these messages for you,” Rollings said.

Clayton looked up at Reverend Toussaint. “I don't get it,” he said. “How can you be my father?”

“Hey, everybody!”

The room went dark just as Ana Mae's face popped up on the screen. She was smiling and waving from her porch again. Since she had on the same dress as the previous viewing, this message had obviously been recorded on the same day as the other.

“I have a headache,” Delcine said.

“You're not the only one, sis,” Clayton replied. Then he turned to look at Delcine, realizing belatedly that maybe she wasn't his sister, but his . . . aunt?

“If you're watching this part,” Ana Mae said, “it's because somebody there has figured it all out. If I were a betting woman—and I'm not . . . ,” she added, lifting the King James Version of the Holy Bible that rested on the round table near the glass pitcher of lemonade with fresh-cut lemons floating around inside. “. . . But if I were a betting woman, I'd say it was either Too Sweet or JoJo who figured it all out.”

“I love you, Ana Mae,” Reverend Toussaint murmured softly.

Only Clayton heard the declaration.

“Me?” JoJo exclaimed. “She thought I was smart enough to figure it out? Wow! Ana Mae had more faith in me than I have in myself.”

“Shhh,” Delcine demanded.

“. . . so that's why I'm first gonna speak to Too Sweet.”

The preacher rose, approaching the screen and Ana Mae's image on it as if she were right there in the law firm's conference room with them.

“Yes, Ana Mae?”

She leaned forward in the rocking chair and smiled.

“I never meant to deceive you, Toussaint,” she said. “We had that one magical, magical night together. And we were both so young. When I found out I was pregnant, I was scared to death. Scared to tell you, scared to tell my Mama. But she figured it out when she didn't see any evidence of my cycle coming around.”

Ana Mae paused, refilled her glass of lemonade, and took a sip. With a lace-edged handkerchief, she dabbed at her mouth, replaced the glass on the table, and then continued with her story.

“You were gonna be heading off to that camp soon. Remember?”

“Yes, I was just about to turn seventeen,” Toussaint said, more to Ana Mae than to the people in the room with him, who were intently listening and watching. “It was a pre-college camp at Fayetteville State University.”

“You were gonna go be somebody. Go to college. Do good things in the world. The last thing you needed to drag you down was a fourteen-year-old pregnant girlfriend.”

“Holy shit,” JoJo exclaimed. “Fourteen?”

She too had moved closer and, like Reverend Toussaint, remained standing while the video played.

“Daddy had been through on one of his little pop-in trips, and that's when Mama got the idea,” Ana Mae said. “Everybody knew Daddy came home whenever he felt like it, and usually left Mama pregnant with another baby. And just about the time I started to show, we went away. All of us.”

“Oh, my God.”

This time it was Delcine making the exclamation.

“I remember that,” she said. “We moved up to Portsmouth or Suffolk or somewhere.”

“Mama packed us all up and told the neighbors we were gonna stay a little closer to where Daddy was working for a while in Virginia. But Daddy wasn't there. Ever. It was just me and Mama, Delcine, and JoJo, who was practically just a baby herself.”

On the screen, Ana Mae reached down to the table and picked up a heavy cardstock fan from the Holy Ghost Church of the Good Redeemer and started fanning herself a bit with it. It had clearly been warm the day she'd recorded her message to them. Condensation formed and dripped from not only the pitcher, but the glass at its side.

“Baby girl, I think you may have been going on two about then,” Ana Mae said.

“Yeah,” JoJo said. “There's about eighteen months between me and Clay. But I don't remember any of this.”

“You were too little,” Delcine said. “But I remember. After a little while up there, Mama said we, Ana Mae and I, were getting a little pudgy, and she told us we needed to diet a bit. But you weren't pudgy, Ana Mae. You were pregnant with a baby. It all makes sense now.”

“Shh, we're missing what she's saying,” JoJo said.

“. . . so I hope you bear me no ill will after all these years,” Ana Mae was saying, still addressing her long-ago lover. “Mama said it was for the best, and . . . well, it seemed like the right thing at the time.”

“Oh, Ana Mae.”

“Clayton, honey, I hope you don't hate me for the way we deceived you.”

Ana Mae paused for a moment, using her hankie to dab at her eyes. “It was . . . it was a deception that kept you close. I could be your sister-mama. Teaching you and loving you while we both grew up together. It was an easy lie for Mama. Folks here in town were used to Daddy's comings and goings. I think half of 'em thought he had another family somewhere else. And he probably did, for all I know.”

“Oh, dear God.” That was Delcine.

“But why not just tell me. Sometime. Anytime along the way. Even when Mama, er”—Clayton looked around—“even when my grandmother died, why still keep up the lies?”

“It was easier,” Reverend Toussaint said.

And as if she'd anticipated the question, on the screen the Ana Mae they all knew answered the same question. “By that time, by the time Mama died, I mean, it was habit. Delcine was gone, JoJo was gone, and Clayton, honey, you were so miserable in North Carolina that by then I knew telling you would just be pointless. For all that it mattered to the world, I was just your big sister. That's the way it needed to be.”

She paused for a moment, wiped at her eyes again, and said softly. “I'm so sorry.”

“She was always there for you, Clay,” Archer said quietly.

“There as my sister, not my mother.”

“Did it really make a difference?” Archer asked. “You were well and truly loved. And she helped you in every way she could. Didn't you tell me she sent you money the whole time you were in college?”

Clayton nodded. “Envelopes with little notes. Ten dollars here, and ‘I'm so proud of you,' scrawled on a piece of paper. A twenty there with a little clipped comic from the newspaper or a flower pressed from her garden.”

It was Clayton who was crying now.

A box of tissues appeared on the table. Archer thanked Rollings and then plucked a couple out of the box to press them into Clayton's hands.

“Oh, my God,” he said.

“What?”

Clayton looked around for Rollings. “Did she pay for my medical school?”

Rollings nodded. “Part of it.”

“I got these ‘scholarships' from some North Carolina group that I'd never even heard of. I figured it was something I'd applied for and forgot about. I wasn't about to turn down any money with all the loans I had.”

“The Granam Foundation,” Rollings supplied.

“Yes,” Clayton said. “That's it. I could never find any information about it, though. No address or phone number. No one to thank.”

“The what?”

“Granna Mae,” JoJo said on an almost whisper. “It was all right there. Right in front of us.”

“What is a granamay?” Delcine demanded. She did not at all like being kept in the dark, and there were so many secrets being revealed right here and now that were making her plenty angry.

“Ana Mae,” JoJo said. “The kids at the church school called her Granna Mae. She was their adopted grandmother. All of them.”

“And after the lottery ticket thing happened, she set up a foundation to supply scholarship aid for students at the Good Redeemer Academy,” Reverend Toussaint said. “She felt guilty about buying the ticket in the first place and wanted to make sure its proceeds went to worthy causes.”

“Like The Haven and the kids and Jeremy Fisher,” JoJo said.

Rosalee and Reverend Toussaint glanced at each other, but neither said anything.

“Granam,” Archer deduced, “is an acronym of sorts, a combination of Good Redeemer, maybe even Good Redeemer Academy and part of her name, Ana Mae.”

“. . . so that's my story,” Ana Mae was saying on the screen.

“Mr. Rollings, could you rewind please? We missed a lot of that.”

“Well, I'll be god-damned,” Rosalee said. She'd apparently finally managed to get herself together. “Eddie Spencer called it.”

“Rosalee!”

“Will y'all stop saying my name like y'all all ain't never heard a swear word? This is all just too much for me to take. Ana Mae had and kept more secrets than the CIA.”

“Still waters run deep,” Reverend Toussaint said.

“What did Eddie Spencer call?” Mr. Rollings said.

Rosalee flushed, clearly guilty of something. “Well, there were, uh, some wagers going on over at Junior's. This whole Ana Mae treasure hunt thing, it's all a lot of people are talking about. There hasn't been this much excitement in Drapersville since those hippies accidentally set fire to the general store that Eddie Spencer's mama used to run back in the day.”

When she said hippies, she cast her gaze in Rollings's direction again.

“I still don't get it,” Clayton said.

“Neither do I,” Delcine chimed in.

“What was the point of the deception?”

“I believe I can answer that,” Mr. Rollings said.

“Me too,” Rosalee said. “I found it in the old newspaper files over at the
Times & Review.
They got all the papers from way back to the very first one.”

“Sister Rosalee,” Reverend Toussaint said, with a note of caution in his voice that no one in the room missed.