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ON THE DRIVE OVER TO Tuxedo Boulevard, Miss Jessup told Jack and DuBose that she had visited Pearl. “She told me what she done, with the baby and all.”
“You know the man who raped her?” asked Jack.
“I do now. And he’ll be gettin’ his, I can tell you that.”
“Miss Jessup, you have to let the law—” began Jack.
“The law?” she parroted back to him. “Exactly what do I got to let the law do? No, let me say it ’nother way. What you think the law gonna do, Jack Lee? Pearl went to the police. She couldn’t do that if he a white man ’cause she be the one endin’ up in jail. But they won’t even go after a colored man who raped a colored woman. Now if it were a white woman, the man would already be in jail or most likely dead. That why he went after Pearl in the first place. Some men bad all the way through, don’t matter the skin color.”
Jack eyed the woman in the rearview mirror. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that you took care of my sister while my mother was... away?”
“’Cause she asked me never to speak of it, so I didn’t. When she come back home she was not in a good way. But she told me to go and so’s I went. But I got on with Ashby ’cause your daddy told him I did such a good job with Lucy.”
“But my mother acted like she didn’t even know you all these years.”
“She didn’t know me. People got to want to know somebody before that happens, and the will just wasn’t there with your momma. Hell, on my side, too. See, I just don’t get along with white folks for the most part. I’m too old and seen too much.” She paused. “But your momma is a tough one to figure. I know ’bout her and your daddy helpin’ out Black folks at his work. Sometimes when I look at her I see a white woman ain’t got no time or will for folks like me. Other times....” She shook her head.
“What?” said Jack anxiously.
“Other times seems like I’m lookin’ at somebody not that much different from me. Now, with what happened to poor Lucy, I think, well, maybe your momma’s lookin’ at the world a little different. Losin’ somebody that way, it changes a person. Makes ’em see what really counts, and what doesn’t.”
DuBose said, “Have you lost... anyone, Miss Jessup?”
“White man got two of my boys. And my oldest girl, Wanda, she got real sick down in Alabama when she was young. Ain’t no colored hospital where we lived. Tried to get her in the white hospital, but they wouldn’t even let me bring her in the back door. She died right outside the buildin’ where they had all them doctors and medicine that maybe coulda saved her.”
Jack said softly, “I’m so sorry.”
“Just the way it was. Still is, for the most part, all these years later.”
“But not forever,” interjected DuBose. “Things are changing.”
Miss Jessup smiled sadly at her. “Girl, you for sure doin’ God’s work. But when I be dead, and even when you be dead, I don’t see it bein’ much different. Do you?”
Tears glistening in her eyes, DuBose said, “I want to believe that it will be different. I have to believe it will. If just to get myself out of bed every day, Miss Jessup.”
The older woman nodded. “It’s why I’ve gone to church all these years. Said lots of prayers, most not answered. Now, they say Jesus is white, but others say he come from part of the world where they ain’t no white folks. So I say, what’s that about? But I keep prayin’. He’s my god, too, after all.”
She looked up ahead and clutched her purse. “You drop me at the corner there, Jack Lee. Don’t you come down the road. Daniel and his boys are out. It won’t be good for you, and my chest’s too heavy from cryin’ to do much yellin’.”
As she got out Jack rolled the window down and said, “I’m sorry I never asked about you and your family when I was a little boy. And I’m sorry so many years went by and I never spent any time with you.” Tears trickled down his cheeks.
She patted them dry and said, “You take care ’a yourself and that gal over there. I can’t do much no more, and you got your people to answer to. But that lady, well, maybe she got a shot. I’ll go to church tomorrow, before Ashby, and pray for her. And you.”
Jack watched her walk slowly to the home where she would most likely die. He hoped it would occur peacefully in her bed and many years from now.
CHAPTER 59
LATER THAT WEEK JACK AND DuBose finished their sworn witness statements, then went around and had them signed and notarized by all the people they had spoken with. Sam Randolph scrutinized his carefully before making one small handwritten correction and initialing it. Tyler Dobbs just signed his without reading it.
“How’s the damn dog?” he asked DuBose in a surly tone.
“Doing just fine.”
“Then I shoulda kicked it harder.”
They worked until one in the morning. When their eyes would not stay open anymore, they turned off the lights. Queenie lay by the front door, while Jack went to the couch, and DuBose headed upstairs.
It was around two in the morning when Jack felt something touch him. Whoever it was nuzzled his arm, and then he felt warm breath on his face.
