Read Online The Truth Hurts by Nancy Pickard - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nancy Pickard
Ads: Link
thing then, you know, like today practically every grandparent leaves a video for their grandkids to hear about their lives. Everybody’s got memoirs and albums and such. But your folks were too young and too busy for that, and I kind of wonder if they couldn’t leave any written words for you because they knew they couldn’t tell the truth, not all of it anyway. Anyway, they turned—whatever they said—they took a chance of getting their friends in trouble and most of us had already lived through near all the trouble that we or our families could stand.
“When your father came back to the car he looked sad and grim as death, but he wasn’t crying and he didn’t say a word to me. I didn’t talk either, as I recall. What was there to say by that time? We drove back fast to pick up your mother, and when she got in the car, she insisted on me staying up front with your daddy. Lyda, your mama, she got in back and sat there rigid as stone, staring out the car windows. I’ll never forget. I thought she looked held together by nothin’ but sheer will. I think for a little while she was mad at your daddy, mad at him for being the child of Communists, mad at him for not protecting her and you, mad because he couldn’t keep their fate from coming down on them like it did.
“The three of us, we rode silent out of Sebastion.
“I was past being scared, I guess.
“Eventually, I don’t recall where, I sensed your mama move. I turned my head to look at her and I saw her placeher right hand on your daddy’s right shoulder. She scooched up to the edge of the backseat until she could lay her head against the back of his driver’s seat, with her hand pressed down on his shoulder. Your daddy, he tilted his head back, as if he wanted to lay it against her head, but they couldn’t quite reach. But they drove like that for a long way, with nobody talkin’.
“They let me out at a safe house. Safe for me, not for them, I thought. I shook hands with both of them. Your mother, she said, ‘Thank you, Hubert,’ and your daddy told me to watch my rear end, and then I stepped out of the car and watched them drive away.
“I never saw either of them again.”
He grimaces, looks me in the eye. In my ears, his rendition has sounded like the memories of a conflicted man who can’t quite make up his mind whether my parents betrayed him, or not. One minute, in the telling, he’s portraying Michael as a loving father; the next minute, he acts as if I’m pulling memories out of him that are even more bitter than they sound on the surface. But what he says now is unambiguous. “Later, after I heard what they done, I was glad of it. I been glad never to see them again.”
“But you must have asked, didn’t you? Didn’t you ask my father what was going on? I mean, you left his baby in a motel, you hurried back to get my mother. You must have wanted to know—”
“Yeah, I did, but like I said, he told me I was better off not knowin’.”
“What did you think was happening?”
“Well, I figured some ol’ cracker white boys had found out your mama and daddy was helpin’ Negroes and they was out to kill ’em for it. It seemed like a logical explanation to me. And if that was the case, your daddy was right—it was surely better for me, the less I knew.”
“What if that wasn’t the case?”
He shakes his head again. “That’s why I get so confused when I tell about it. I get mixed up between telling it how it felt to me at the time, and telling it like it really was.”
“But how do you know?”
Hubert looks at me as if I’m the backward child of those parents. “Because they was on the crackers’ side, that’s how. That’s what Mister Clayton found out. We all know that now.”
Lyda looked as shocked as any of them when the car came back up the driveway less than twenty minutes after leaving for the motel. Nobody had expected it to go that quickly.
Michael left the engine running, with Hubert sitting inside
“When your father came back to the car he looked sad and grim as death, but he wasn’t crying and he didn’t say a word to me. I didn’t talk either, as I recall. What was there to say by that time? We drove back fast to pick up your mother, and when she got in the car, she insisted on me staying up front with your daddy. Lyda, your mama, she got in back and sat there rigid as stone, staring out the car windows. I’ll never forget. I thought she looked held together by nothin’ but sheer will. I think for a little while she was mad at your daddy, mad at him for being the child of Communists, mad at him for not protecting her and you, mad because he couldn’t keep their fate from coming down on them like it did.
“The three of us, we rode silent out of Sebastion.
“I was past being scared, I guess.
“Eventually, I don’t recall where, I sensed your mama move. I turned my head to look at her and I saw her placeher right hand on your daddy’s right shoulder. She scooched up to the edge of the backseat until she could lay her head against the back of his driver’s seat, with her hand pressed down on his shoulder. Your daddy, he tilted his head back, as if he wanted to lay it against her head, but they couldn’t quite reach. But they drove like that for a long way, with nobody talkin’.
“They let me out at a safe house. Safe for me, not for them, I thought. I shook hands with both of them. Your mother, she said, ‘Thank you, Hubert,’ and your daddy told me to watch my rear end, and then I stepped out of the car and watched them drive away.
“I never saw either of them again.”
He grimaces, looks me in the eye. In my ears, his rendition has sounded like the memories of a conflicted man who can’t quite make up his mind whether my parents betrayed him, or not. One minute, in the telling, he’s portraying Michael as a loving father; the next minute, he acts as if I’m pulling memories out of him that are even more bitter than they sound on the surface. But what he says now is unambiguous. “Later, after I heard what they done, I was glad of it. I been glad never to see them again.”
“But you must have asked, didn’t you? Didn’t you ask my father what was going on? I mean, you left his baby in a motel, you hurried back to get my mother. You must have wanted to know—”
“Yeah, I did, but like I said, he told me I was better off not knowin’.”
“What did you think was happening?”
“Well, I figured some ol’ cracker white boys had found out your mama and daddy was helpin’ Negroes and they was out to kill ’em for it. It seemed like a logical explanation to me. And if that was the case, your daddy was right—it was surely better for me, the less I knew.”
“What if that wasn’t the case?”
He shakes his head again. “That’s why I get so confused when I tell about it. I get mixed up between telling it how it felt to me at the time, and telling it like it really was.”
“But how do you know?”
Hubert looks at me as if I’m the backward child of those parents. “Because they was on the crackers’ side, that’s how. That’s what Mister Clayton found out. We all know that now.”
Lyda looked as shocked as any of them when the car came back up the driveway less than twenty minutes after leaving for the motel. Nobody had expected it to go that quickly.
Michael left the engine running, with Hubert sitting inside
Similar Books
