The Quaker Café (27 page)

“Well, I
ain’t saying for sure. Like I said, I can’t prove a thing. And even with proof, a black person’s word ain’t worth much in this town.” 

“
LuAnne, does that man have children?”

“If it’s the one I’m thinking, yes, he does.”

“So they would be Maggie’s half brothers and sisters?”

“That’s right.”

Liz took a deep breath. “LuAnne, will you give me a name?”

“Open your eyes, Miss Liz
. Look at Miss Maggie and look around town at who she looks like, and if you get your eyes and your mind working together, you’ll know it weren’t Judge Corbett who was her daddy.”

Chapter Twenty-four

              The next week Liz took a half day off work and went to the county museum with a magnifying glass and notebook in hand. Hattie Winslow could not have been more helpful. Shoulders wider than her hips, peering through big round glasses, she padded around the room and took pictures off the wall. She laid them out on an oversize table and began to pile books alongside of everything else.

             
“What… are… you… looking… for?” she asked.

             
“I’m not sure yet,” Liz said.

             
“I… could… help… more… if… you… could… give… me… a… name.”

             
“If I had the name, I wouldn’t be looking,” Liz smiled.

             
Hattie’s claim to fame in the county was that she was a slow talker. Her deliberate use of the spoken word pertained neither to her lack of intellect nor capabilities. She simply enunciated each word that she spoke and paused before the next. Her mother had spoken the same way in order to control a stuttering problem, so Hattie’s speech pattern shouldn’t have been a surprise to those who knew her family history. Only those who didn’t know Hattie sometimes mistook her speech as a sign of being somewhat slow.

After Hattie retired as a special education teacher, she volunteered at the new county histo
rical museum. The museum reclaimed a corner grocery store across from the court house in the county seat of Maywood. It was filled with keepsakes that were deemed too valuable to discard by those cleaning out the attics of deceased relatives. The hours that Hattie volunteered to be available quickly became the hours the museum remained open. This arrangement worked out well. Other than an occasional class field trip, the museum’s visitors numbered only one or two a day. Hattie viewed Liz’s visit to get help with research as golden.

“Hattie, you’ve lost weight since I last saw you,” Liz said
as they sat down side by side at one of the larger tables. Having struggled with her own weight, Liz never passed up an opportunity to compliment anyone who could adhere to a successful diet.

“Yes,…I…thought…I…was…getting…
a…little
…heavy.

“What did you do?” Liz asked.

“Well…I…bought…a…book…and…did…what…the…book…said”

“
What did it say?”

“Not…to…eat…so…much.”

Liz smiled.
Just read the book and do…what…the…book…says.
At times answers could be quite simple. Why couldn’t she master that one task?

Liz figured the person she was looking for would be between twenty and tw
enty five years old in 1937. He would look somewhat like Maggie; tall, dark hair, slender. She knew all the characteristics might not be the same, but she had to start someplace.

“Who is this, Hattie?” Liz asked over and over again as they scanned one picture after another
. Eventually, she and Hattie started to resemble two owls who-ing back and forth, although as time ran short Liz hoped the
forth
part of the conversation would go faster.

All in all, Hatt
ie entertained her with lots of trivia about various individuals in the county. But when Liz left she was no further along in identifying the mystery man.
Buy a book and do—what—the—book—says,
remained her best insight of the day.

*****

              A week later Liz decided to take a different tack. Instead of looking for older men in their fifties who looked like Maggie, she decided to look for young children who looked like Maggie at about the same age.

             
“Where are your school annuals, Chase?” she asked.

             
“I think Mom put them in boxes in the attic.”

             
“Would you mind if I collected them and brought them over here?”

             
“I don’t care. It’s a storage problem. I’d rather the boxes stayed in their attic instead of ours, but I guess eventually we’ll need to either move them or toss them.”

             
Euphrasia seemed less enthusiastic. “I had just assumed they would stay here until your boys and their children wanted them as part of their collection of memories.”

             
“Do you want me to bring them back when I’m finished, Grandma?”

             
“No, that’s not necessary, if you think you can find an appropriate spot to keep them. Mildew’s a terrible thing, you know, and you built that house in the swamp where everything stays so damp.”

             
“I’ll bring them back,” Liz promised.

             
The first evening that Liz sat on the floor in the den, Nicholas and Evan scanned the book in fascination. They thumbed through the old annuals and found pictures of their dad and Aunt Sophie, plus the dads and moms of several of their friends. They laughed at the bowl haircuts.  Chase identified the Quaker children.

             
“There were lots of Quaker kids,” Nicholas said, his first realization of how few Quakers now lived in Cedar Branch compared to fifty years ago. “Why’s that?”

             
“People moved. Some married Baptists and Methodists and joined those churches. A few were read out of meeting for not following the testimonies.”

             
“Read out?” Evan asked. What’s that mean?

             
“Asked to leave. Not allowed to attend any more,” Liz said. This tradition had remained a curiosity to Liz, even now, although she’d never heard of Quakers practicing such a thing in recent years.

             
“They would kick them out for good?” Nicholas asked.

             
“Well, never for good. They always hoped that the individual would change their ways and return and ask for forgiveness or bring their new family into the fold of the Quaker faith.”

             
“Doesn’t look like their plan worked too well,” Nicholas noted dryly looking at the picture. “There were a lot more Quaker kids back then.”

             
“You’re right. It didn’t.” Liz agreed.

             
“I wouldn’t wear those plain clothes,” Evan announced.

             
“You’d have to if you lived back then,” Nicholas said.

             
“No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do it.”

             
“Then you’d be read-out or eldered,” Nicholas said, referring to the traditional custom in some meetings when the elders called a member forward in order to reprimand unacceptable behavior.

             
“They wouldn’t,” Evan reasoned sensibly, for he was aware of how many times he’d worn his jeans and Tar Heel T-shirts to meeting.

             
“You’re correct, they won’t now.” Chase agreed.  “It’s been a very long time since I recall anyone being eldered.”

             
Eventually Chase and the boys lost interest. Liz sat with a pile of books in the middle of the floor. Not until three nights later did a thought occur to her. She called Maggie.

             
“Maggie, how old were you when you got that streak of gray in your hair?”

             
There was a laugh at the other end of the phone. “What on earth brought that up?”

             
“We’re sitting here looking at some of Chase’s old school albums and I noticed you didn’t have that streak when you were little.”

             
“I would hope not. You noticed I had hair then, too,” she said. “I think it first started to change my senior year in high school. In college it became really prominent. I was afraid all my hair would turn gray, but only ever that one streak. I dyed it for a few years and then just let it go.”

             
Liz hung up and started looking at pictures of all the senior girls in every annual. It took her a while, but she found what she was looking for; a pretty girl in a loose fitting brown dress with a touch of white on one side of her bangs. She didn’t look particularly like Maggie, but her older brother in seventh grade compared to Maggie in seventh grade could have been brother and sister. Liz denied the similarities at first. She continued to compare other pictures, but kept coming back to those two. The eye simply refuses to see what the mind won’t believe.

             
“Chase,” she said when she climbed into bed that night. “When did Sophie start dying her hair?”

             
He wrapped his arms around her and snickered, “She wouldn’t appreciate you knowing that. She’s very proud of her long dark hair.”

             
“I’ll bet when she got to Chapel Hill. Grandma wouldn’t have approved.”

             
“You’re quite the detective,” Chase said as he nuzzled her neck. “What else did you figure out?”

             
“That I married the best looking guy in the class of ‘61.’

Debbie stood at the door to Liz’s office. “Your father-in-law is here.” 

Normally Liz’s first thought would have been that he made the thirty mile drive to Westtown to see someone in the hospital, and had stopped by to have lunch
. This day was different. Liz knew in the pit of her stomach that this visit was not about lunch.

             
“Grandpa Hoole,” she took both of his hands in hers and stood on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. “It’s always good to see you over here in my neck of the woods. Someone you know in the hospital?”

             
“Thought I’d stop by,” he said. His face was strained, and a deep crevice of lines on his forehead met in the tip of a V at the ridge of his nose. He’d been pulling at his eyebrows again, a fidgeting habit when he worried that Liz saw repeated in Chase and two of her boys. It made him look as if he’d gotten a bad eyebrow wax at a two-bit salon.

             
“Debbie, hold my calls.” Liz closed the door to her office and pulled two chairs away from the desk so that they could sit at an angle to each other. “Would you like something to drink, Grandpa? Water or coffee?”

             
“No, honey, not now.”

             
“Are you feeling okay?

             
“Well…”

If Liz had learned anything at all from Quakers, it was to sit patiently and give people time to reach
clearness. The fact that he’d come at all spoke volumes. As Liz sat, she also realized why Grandpa had chosen to speak to her in her office. Not only was it away from Cedar Branch, but her work environment required confidentiality.

             
“I’m very concerned about Maggie,” he finally said.

             
“We all are.”

             
“I have reason to believe that I might be able to help her.” He shifted slightly in his seat, took a deep breath and looked directly at Liz. “There’s a possibility that I might be a match for her bone marrow.”

             
Liz felt an overwhelming desire to flee. Whether more for him or for herself, she did not want her image of this gentle Quaker giant who devoted his life to his family and community to be altered in any way. There was still a possibility she had guessed wrong about Chase and Maggie. Deep down she didn’t want Grandpa to confirm her suspicions. She hastily interjected, “Grandpa, that is extremely generous of you, but they wouldn’t allow you to be a bone marrow donor because of your age.”

             
“That’s why I’m here, Liz. If I’m right, I want you to find a way for them to let me be the donor.”

             
“Grandpa, it’s probably pointless. They would just never do it. It’s a difficult procedure to endure. At your age it might endanger your own life.”

             
“So be it.”

             
There was a pause. “I just don’t know what to say, Grandpa.”

             
“Don’t say anything.” He lowered his head and closed his eyes.

She folded her hands in her lap in silence
. Grandpa broke the silence sooner than she expected.