Tallulah nods slowly. “I think you’re right about that. If only we could.”
“Sometimes we can’t. As much as we’d like to.”
She looks like someone being coerced to speak against her will. “What is it you want to know, Marshall?”
“I’m not sure. Do you think Sally killed herself because she found out Max was the father of that boy?”
Tallulah looks at the ground for a while, but then she looks up and nods. “Two, three years back, I’d have told you Mrs. Sally couldn’t do that. Take her own life.”
“And now?”
The old maid shakes her head. “Those who don’t cry don’t see.”
Something about her answer pulls my mind away from the present. “When did Sally find out the truth?”
“Two, three months back, maybe. She would have seen it before, but her heart blinded her mind to what her eyes took in.” A wistful look comes into the old woman’s eyes. “The thought first struck me about the tenth time I changed that boy’s diaper. I pushed it away, or tried to, but it stuck. By the time he was walkin’ and talkin’, I knew for sure.”
“How?”
“Same way his mama knew, I reckon. Just watchin’. I’d raised Paul since he was a baby, you know that. And something jus’ told me li’l Kev hadn’t come from him. Kevin’s got Mr. Max’s blood. Got his bones, muscles . . . his way.”
“Kevin acts like Max?”
“Mm . . . I don’t mean that, exactly. He don’t have Mr. Max’s cruel way. But he’s more straight-ahead than Paul ever was. He don’t hesitate with nothing. Paul did sometimes. Still does.”
“I see.” Tallulah still looks wary to me, which tells me she’s holding something back. “I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but what do you think finally made Sally see the truth?”
“Mr. Max. He loves that boy too much. It’s natural for a granddaddy to love a grandchild, even dote on him. And that helped Mr. Max hide the truth. He was hiding one light behind another, you see? But his feelings as a father just grew and grew, until nothing would hide ’em. You can’t hide the sun behind a candle.”
Her image leaves me shaken, and even more worried for Paul. “What kind of shape do you think Paul is in, Tallulah?”
“Oh, he’s in a bad way. So sad. He never should’ve married that Jet. Or the other way ’round, maybe. She didn’t love Paul—not really. She may have wanted to, but she never did.”
To this I say nothing. Tallulah is validating the truth of Jet’s life as she told it to me last night.
The maid tilts her head to one side and regards me with fresh suspicion. “I reckon you know who Mrs. Jet loves, don’t you?”
“Tallulah . . . I’m going to ask you one more hard question. Maybe a stupid one. But I would really appreciate an answer.”
“You done used up your time, Marshall. I need to get back to work.”
“Wait—please. I was told that Max raped Jet. That that’s how he fathered Kevin.”
Tallulah’s gaze settles on me with gentle but insistent pressure. “Who told you that?”
“Does it matter? I want to know if that’s what you believe.”
Tallulah looks down at a flower bed filled with Louisiana iris. “It’s gon’ rain this evening. These flowers need it.” When I don’t respond, she looks up and says, “I’ll tell you this. Mr. Max been with a lot of women over the years, white and black. He’s a hard-dick man. He broke a lot of hearts over the years . . . but I ain’t ever known him to force nobody. He never had to.”
How closely her words echo Nadine’s. “Maybe this time he did,” I suggest. “Maybe he had to. To get Jet to submit.”
Tallulah nods slowly. “Mayhap that’s how it was. But I ’member that time pretty good. Wasn’t but thirteen years back. Hard times in this family. Paul was takin’ pills, smokin’ that reefer. Drinkin’ every morning, passed out by dark. Mrs. Sally was having health issues. Female troubles, but worse things, too. Terrible diverticulitis. But Mr. Max? He was his same old self. Heck, he wasn’t but fifty-three back then.”
“What are you telling me, Tallulah?”
“Nothing. I don’t speak ill of nobody. All I’m saying is things had a funny feeling ’round here for a month or so.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing! I’ll swear that on the Bible. I never saw nothing untoward.”
“But you felt something.”
She shrugs her big shoulders. “Like I said . . . things just felt funny for a bit. Then they settled back down. And next thing I know, Jet had the big belly. Then she was bringin’ li’l Kev into the world. After that, it was like a rainbow coming out after a storm. Everybody got better. Whole house had a glow in it, all coming from that boy.”
The memory has lightened this woman’s heart. “And now?” I ask.
Another heavy sigh, and her lips pooch out. “This house done gone dark again. Darker than before, even, ’cause Mrs. Sally gone. Now . . . you’ve kept me too long. I need to go.” She puts her hand on the doorknob and starts to close the door.
“Did Paul ever sense anything?” I ask quickly. “This is important, Tallulah. I’m trying to avert bloodshed.”
She stops, looks back. “Paul’s smarter than people think. A lot smarter than his daddy ever give him credit for. He has a lot of Mrs. Sally in him.”
“I know that. What about my question?”
“If Paul sensed anything, he shoved it way down deep, with all the other stuff been killin’ him all these years.”
That’s the Paul Matheson I know. But what she’s suggesting about Jet goes against everything I know about her. And I know her better than anyone alive. Yet what reason could Tallulah have to lie? As I stare at the anxious maid, an answer comes to me. It’s not a pleasant one, but it’s grounded in hard reality.
“Tallulah, Max’s murder alibi rests on you. He told the police you told Sally you caught Max with Margaret Sullivan. You and I know that’s not true. If the police ask you that question . . . what will you tell them?”
She sighs heavily, then looks at my feet. “I don’t know. One thing’s for sure, nothing I say gon’ help Mrs. Sally now. She’s with Jesus. Long past these earthly travails.”
“But you’re not. Do you feel you owe it to Max to protect him?”
She looks up, and I see harsh truths written in her lined face. “Owe him? Boy, that’s like askin’ me why I still work for Mr. Max, when he coulda killed Mrs. Sally.”
I don’t even blink as I stare at her. “Will you answer me?”
Tallulah closes her eyes, then shakes her head with a sadness that has a centuries-old provenance. “This be where I stay at, Marshall. Who else gonna give me my own house to sleep in? Bills paid, water paid, ’lectric paid. Health insurance, even. I got no choice, have I? Body my age? You know that.”
There it is. Odds are, Tallulah wouldn’t tell me Max raped Jet even if she’d seen it with her own eyes.
“I’ll tell you somethin’ else for free,” the maid goes on. “You ain’t helped Paul none. I always thought you were a good boy. Your mama and daddy were good folks. But this ain’t right, what been goin’ on these past months. If Jet don’t know better, then you ought to. If you had sense, you’d marry that Nadine before somebody smarter does it first. Now, I gots to go.”