Lisa and I began walking across the lawn to the house. The day was finally beginning to cool off a bit, but I was still perspiring after a few steps.
“Are the white kids from the neighborhood?” I asked.
Lisa laughed and I was stunned when she put an arm around my shoulders. “Honey,” she said in a voice I hadn’t heard her use before, “I’m related to every one of these folks, one way or another. Our history goes back a long way. There were white big shots who had black women on the side, or forbidden love that couldn’t be out in the open, or rape, maybe. Who knows? A lot of powerful men and powerless women over the generations. It all adds up to a rainbow of hues in a black family.” She dropped her arm from my shoulder and immediately seemed to shift back to the distant Lisa I had come to know.
The outside of the house had a choppy appearance, as though it had been added onto time and time again over the course of many years, but when Lisa and I walked inside, the warmth of the smooth wood floors, the low ceiling, and the chintz curtains gave me a homey feeling, as if we were stepping back in time. The rap music faded into the distance, and inside, the main noise came from the chatter of aproned women preparing huge trays of food and the hum of a window air conditioner.
Lisa walked with me from room to room, introducing me to what seemed like an endless series of cousins and aunts. One of the gray-haired women hugged Lisa and said, “How’re you doing, darlin’? I know you missin’ your daddy.”
“Fine, Auntie,” Lisa said. Returning to my side, she led me into a sitting room where several women sat close together on a sofa on either side of a small, shriveled woman with nearly white hair and coffee-colored skin. The little woman looked up when we entered the room.
“Dodie!” she exclaimed to Lisa, reaching toward her with frail-looking arms that protruded from the ruffled, loose-fitting sleeves of her pink blouse.
Lisa moved forward, taking the old woman’s hands.
“No, Mama Nelle,” she said, bending low. “It’s Lisa, remember? Dodie was your big sister.”
“Lisa! ’Course! Jesse’s little girl.” The woman’s gaze went past Lisa to me. “And who’s this?” she asked, her large dark eyes intent on me from behind tortoiseshell glasses.
“This is Morgan Christopher,” Lisa said. “She’s stayin’ with me for a while. She’s an artist like Daddy—like Jesse—and I thought she might enjoy meetin’ Jesse’s family and seein’ where he grew up.”
Mama Nelle reached for my hand. Hers was cool, the skin as soft as the cotton I used on the mural.
“Hi, Mrs.…” I said.
“Mama Nelle,” Lisa said.
“Mama Nelle.” I smiled at the old woman who seemed reluctant as she let go of my hand. She turned her gaze again to Lisa.
“Did Jesse come with you?” she asked.
Lisa pulled up a straight-backed chair for me in front of the woman, then another for herself. “No, honey,” she said, sitting down, patient sadness in her voice. “Jesse passed a few months ago, darlin’. Remember?”
“Oh, yes, I recall.” Mama Nelle looked at me again as I sat down. “You knew Jesse?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I wish I had,” I said. “I knew his work. His paintings. They’re amazing.”
“How you know Lisa?”
“I’m working on restoring a mural in the art gallery…” My voice trailed off, unsure how much Mama Nelle would know or understand of what I was saying, and the old woman frowned as if trying hard to follow me.
“Mama Nelle,” Lisa said loudly, “remember Jesse wanted to have an art gallery built in town?”
“Yes, I ’member.” Mama Nelle nodded. “He talked ’bout it for years and years.”
“Well, Morgan is in town to restore an old mural Jesse wanted in the gallery. It has views of old Edenton in it.”
Mama Nelle looked toward the window, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Miss Anna’s mural?” she asked the air.
I caught my breath. In the chair beside me, I thought Lisa did the same. “Anna Dale’s mural,” I said. “Is that who you mean? An artist named Anna Dale painted it in 1940.”
“I loved Miss Anna,” Mama Nelle said. Her face had broken into a smile. She turned to the woman next to her. “Do you ’member her?”
The woman shook her head. “I wasn’t born till 1950, Mama,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t go makin’ me older than I already am.”
“How amazing,” Lisa said under her breath to me. “I had no idea she might know the artist.” Lisa raised her voice again. “You’ll have to come see it when it’s finished, Mama,” she said to the old woman. Then she nudged me. “Let’s go and—”
“Can I stay and talk with her a while longer?” I asked.
Lisa looked at her watch. “For a while,” she said. “We can’t stay too long. I have a world of calls to make yet tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, and as Lisa headed back toward the kitchen, I turned my attention once more to Mama Nelle. The women on either side of the old woman gave me looks of caution.
“She don’t remember much of anything, honey,” one of them said quietly. “Don’t put much stock in what she say.”
I gave them an “okay, fine” smile before riveting my gaze on Mama Nelle.
“How did you know Anna Dale?” I asked.
“Who?” Mama Nelle responded.
“You were just saying you remembered Anna … Miss Anna. The mural painter?”
“The mural, yes. In the big barn.”
“Big barn?”
“Where she done paint it.” Mama Nelle lifted her trembling arms into the air again, wide apart. “Was like a … a big white garage wit’ big ol’doors,” she said.
“The warehouse!” I said, remembering the photograph and article Oliver had shown me from the paper. “You’re right. She painted in a big warehouse. Can you tell me what she was like? Miss Anna?” I didn’t feel as though I could come right out and ask the old woman if Anna had been crazy.
“We had to be very quiet,” Mama Nelle said. She lifted a shivering finger to her lips. “Shh.”
“You had to be quiet while she painted?” I asked. “So she could concentrate?”
“No, not then,” Mama Nelle said. “We couldn’t let nobody know nothin’ ’bout her.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I tol’ you, honey,” the woman born in 1950 said. “Half of what she say these days don’t make no sense, so don’t worry ’bout it.”
I barely heard her, my attention on Mama Nelle. “Would you like to see a picture of the mural?” I asked her, leaning to the side so I could pull my phone from my jeans pocket.
“Her eyes ain’t so good,” another of the women warned me.
I swiped the screen of my phone until I reached one of my first pictures of the entire mural. I held it up in front of Mama Nelle.
“What’s that?” Mama Nelle asked.
“A picture of the mural Anna Dale—Miss Anna—painted,” I said. “Though it’s been in storage and is very dirty. Probably very different from when you last saw it.”