The High Tide Club

“Good. I know Varina’s going to want to see you.”

71

Felicia was taking a cake from the oven, a dishtowel tied around her waist for an apron and a scarf wrapped turban-style around her short-cropped hair. Varina sat at the kitchen table, chopping pecans. Both the women’s faces were shiny with perspiration.

“Oh, Brooke girl!” Varina cried. “Come here and let me see what that rascal did to you.”

Brooke and Lizzie sat at the table on either side of Varina, who gingerly touched the bandage on Brooke’s cheek. “I’ve got some salve I want you to start putting on that thing,” she said. “You do that every night, and you won’t ever have a scar on that pretty face of yours.”

Felicia mopped her own face with her apron. “Auntie has become a conjure woman since moving back to Oyster Bluff. You watch out, or she’ll bury some chicken bones at midnight and put a spell on your enemies.”

Varina took a playful swipe at her great-niece’s hand. “This one here thinks because she has a PhD, she’s smarter than her elders.”

“Varina,” Lizzie said, her voice unexpectedly serious. “You know I’ve been going through Josephine’s old papers, working on a magazine article. I found something I don’t understand, and I wanted to ask you some questions, if that would be okay.”

Felicia shot her friend an inquisitive look, but Lizzie brushed it off.

“I’ll try,” Varina said cheerfully. “I might be an old, old lady, but I still remember a lot of things. What can I help you with, baby?”

“I found an old letter from the fall of 1942 to Josephine from a Catholic priest in Savannah. His name was Charles Ryan. The letter is sort of a progress report for a baby boy named Charlie. It says the couple who took the baby can’t continue to care for him anymore, so he’s decided to take the baby to the nuns at St. Joseph’s. That was an orphanage in Savannah. It closed a long time ago.”

“Oh?” Varina said with interest. “Well, I know Josephine used to give money to those orphans. She had a good heart, and she did a lot of good things, but she didn’t want people to find out because then they’d think she was weak or silly.” Varina set her knife on the cutting board. “But now, if this is about that crazy C. D. saying Josephine is his mother, you just need to stop with that foolishness. Josephine never had no baby. And I’d know, because I was living with her and working for her back then.”

“I believe you,” Lizzie said, her voice soothing. “But I think, maybe, the person who had a baby was you. Can that be true, Varina? Were you the one who had a baby?”

72

Varina

The first year after the war started, Josephine went to my daddy and asked could she take me with her to Savannah so I could go to a real school. Josephine told him I was so smart, I should go to a school in Savannah so I could make something of myself. But the real reason was that I had a big secret I couldn’t tell anybody about.

Josephine was the only person in the world who knew. And I only told her because I was scared. And ashamed. So ashamed.

My mama died right after I was born, and I never had any sisters, so there wasn’t anybody to explain women’s things to me. The first time I had my monthly, when I was thirteen, I thought I was bleeding to death. That’s when Josephine sat me down and explained things. She was the one who taught me how to take care of myself when I got my monthly.

Josephine was the only person I’d told about that bad man grabbing me at the party for Millie. And I never would have told her at all, except that night when it happened, afterward, when everybody was asleep or gone, I came creeping up into the house as quiet as I could to try to wash him off me because I couldn’t go home and let my daddy and brothers know what that man had done to me. When I came out of the bathroom, Josephine was standing there. And after I told her, she took me upstairs to her bathroom and let me take a hot bath. My beautiful new pink dress was torn and dirty, so she gave me some clean clothes to put on and she took that dress and burned it in the fireplace. And then she drove me home in her daddy’s Packard. And I promised not to tell nobody.

And Josephine was the one I went to, right after Christmas that year, when I figured out that I had missed my monthly three times.

“Sweet Jesus!” she said. We went up to her bedroom and she locked the door and she looked at me and said, “Well, Varina. This is my fault. And I feel awful about it, and I will help you the best way I know how, if you trust me.” And then we both cried and cried.

And that’s how I came to move off the island.

Josephine said the public high school for colored students in Savannah was too crowded and not very good, so she put me in a school called Most Pure Heart of Mary, which had been started by some Catholic nuns from Baltimore who wanted to give colored children in the South a better education.

Oh, I loved that school so much. I got to wear a pretty uniform with a white shirt and a plaid pleated skirt and new black-and-white saddle shoes. We had nuns for teachers, and they were strict, but sometimes they could be kind too. My favorite teacher was Sister Helen, who taught English and social studies.

The best part about that school was getting to learn. Sister loaned me her own books to read, because at that time, colored children were not allowed in the big pretty public library on Bull Street. Because of Sister, I read The Count of Monte Cristo and Gulliver’s Travels and Little Women and Jane Eyre, which was very sad.

73

Varina’s face crumpled, and her dark eyes filled with tears.

“What are you saying?” Felicia asked indignantly, her hands on her great-aunt’s shoulders. “Where would you get an idea like that? Tell her, Auntie. Tell her it’s not true. In 1942, you were what, fourteen? Just a child.”

Varina’s hands trembled as they clutched for Felicia’s. “Oh, Felicia, honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I never said nothing.” She turned and faced her niece. “You think I’m a bad person? Maybe I was. Or maybe you just had to know how it was back then.”

Felicia knelt beside her aunt. “Auntie, I’d never think anything bad about you. You’re the best, the godliest woman I’ve ever met. I would never judge you. Never. Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, you know. It’s your secret. Not Lizzie’s or mine, and especially not Josephine’s.”

“Get up off that floor now,” Varina chided, sniffling. “I guess maybe it’s time to talk about this thing. It’s been clawing at my heart all these years. Maybe now’s the time to let it out.”

She took a deep breath and folded and unfolded her hands. “Lizzie has found out my story. My secret. Josephine told you about Millie’s engagement party. And I told you while I was hiding in the bushes, I saw that man, the one Millie was supposed to marry, attack her and paw her. I told you I saw Gardiner and him fighting. But I didn’t tell you that after Millie and then Gardiner went back to the house, I was trying to sneak on home, and he caught me.”

“Who?” Felicia demanded. “Russell Strickland? What did he do to you, Auntie?”

Varina picked up the knife and began chopping the pecans again. “He dragged me back to the guesthouse, where he was staying. And he…”

“He raped you?” Felicia whispered.

The old woman nodded, continuing to chop the pecans until they were less than dust.