“It’s not home, but I did my best to make it feel like I had some home here with me,” the lady said.
I turned to look at her and she stood over by the door. “It’s lovely,” I told her and I meant it. This was nothing like the boring white bare walls I had imagined a room here to look like. I wondered then what room eleven looked like inside. If Gladys had decorated it.
“You are the spitting image of Honey when she was your age.”
“You knew Gran when she was my age?” I asked her, suddenly very interested in what she had to say.
She let out an amused laugh and nodded. “Indeed, I did.” She then took a step toward me ad held out her hand. “I see you have no idea who I am. I’m Wanda Sellers. I was Honey’s eleventh grade literature teacher then years later, I became her friend.”
I placed my hand in hers and the soft skin of her palm was cold as we shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Sellers. I’m Henley Warren.”
Wanda released my hand and nodded her head. “Yes, I remember the day you were born. Your momma had left town and your grandmother was beside herself with worry. But Lord she was so proud of you. The pictures were always in her purse and she wouldn’t let a soul pass her by without showing off her granddaughter to them.”
I hadn’t known that about Gran. My memories of her were sparse until I was about six years old. My mom started leaving me with her some during the summers.
“I often wished my mom had raised me here,” I told Wanda.
Wanda gave me a sad smile. “Perhaps your life would have been different. The path you were given is yours to walk. Wishing for a different path only hinders your success on the path you are on.”
She even spoke like a literature teacher. “Yes, I guess it does.” I took the album from under my arm. “Gran left me a list of some things she wanted me to do for her around the time she got sick. She thought, well, she wanted to be sure if she didn’t survive Covid that I would handle things for her. This is on the list,” I said as I held the album out to her. “She wanted me to give this to you.”
Wanda took the album from me and held it in her hands for a moment before walking over to the rocking chair and sitting down. I stood there and watched as she opened it so very slowly, as if she already knew what was inside and thought it was something to be cherished.
She studied each page carefully before turning it. I wasn’t sure if I should stay or go, but then I decided I would stay until she looked up and acknowledged me again. I wanted to tell her goodbye. After the fourth or fifth page, she sighed and smiled then lifted her gaze from the photos to meet mine.
Her smile was teary and I wondered what it was that made her so sad about the album. The ladies in it were younger than she was and she couldn’t have been on the trips with them. Which made this all the more interesting.
“Thank you for making sure I got this. I didn’t know she had these photos,” she told me, but it still didn’t explain why she cared about pictures from a trip my gran had taken with other people.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad they mean something to you,” I said, not willing to ask her questions and invade her privacy. If she had wanted me to know she would have shared it.
“Oh yes,” she said, smiling fondly at the photos in her lap again. “Honey always knew of my love for Nancy. She never judged me or condemned me for my ways. Even when she was a young girl in school, I think she knew about my secret affair,” she chuckled softly.
To keep my jaw from falling open in shock was a feat I deserved an award for. I stared at Wanda as she looked on at the pictures. I wasn’t sure what to say or if I had understood her correctly. She was in her mid-eighties. She had to be. Her room looked like something decorated by every southern grandmother at the Baptist church.
“Nancy wasn’t as young as your mother. Don’t go judging me there. She was in her second year of college when I met her. I was fresh out of college and had my first real job teaching school. She had the most beautiful blonde hair and those dimples when she smiled. I think I fell in love with her the moment I met her. She loved me too, just not enough,” she said sadly and glanced up at me.
“I too often wonder about the road I wished I had been given. The road that doesn’t judge so harshly and allows you to love whomever you choose. I didn’t have that road and neither did Nancy. She could never openly love me. She cared too much about what others would do and say. She was fragile. Although she never married either. I believe it was because her heart was taken and always would be.” She paused then and I swallowed past the lump forming in my throat.
The world had been cruel to so many in the past. It still was at times, but things were changing. They had to… so people like Wanda could love freely.
“Nancy passed away five years ago. She had cancer. Although she had no children, she had a multitude of friends and family who loved her. She had her church and I believe that was what was most important to her. I understood and accepted it, but I loved her dearly.” Wanda held up the album. “And now I have pictures. I had none but that one,” she pointed to a faded polaroid photo of a girl that looked to be about my age smiling at the camera. It was in the most elaborate frame in the room, making it the most cherished photo in the room.
I quickly glanced at the other pictures and wondered who the children and the couples were if she had no husband or children of her own. The photos showed a life fully lived. It appeared as if she had led one of happiness.
“I may not have had a husband or children, but I taught school for over fifty years. I have more children than any one person could want. There were many I grew close to and I have ten godchildren and one great-godchild. Your mother is one of the ten. The day she was born, I gave her a silver spoon with her name and birthday carved in the handle. Then when you were born, I knitted you a pink blanket-”
“With white flowers,” I finished for her. I still had that blanket. I had loved it dearly.
Wanda smiled at me and nodded her head. “That’s the one,” she confirmed. “I made my path the best that I could. That’s what matters in the end. You don’t get another path. Never forget that.”
I moved then. I walked over to Wanda and bent down and hugged her. I felt robbed that I hadn’t known her until now. “Thank you,” I whispered and her hand came around and patted me on the back.
“Thank you, Henley Warren.”
I let her go and stood back up. “I wish I had gotten to meet you before now.”
She smiled. “Oh, child, you have met me before. I made you cheese and marshmallow sandwiches while you played in the sprinkler in my yard.”
The memory of the redheaded lady with her polka dotted dress serving my gran ice tea on her back porch while I played in her yard came back to me. “That was you?” I asked then, wondering how many years it had been.