Kindred Secrets
"One of the musicians pointed at me out and whispered: That’s her right there. The one with the red hair."
Sundays were spent at church and afterward, guests would come for food and honest conversation with my grandfather, who was the head deacon. My job was to keep the ice tea flowing and stay out of the way of adult conversations.
People would pull up and honk in the driveway. Daddy Lynn leaned forward in his recliner to see who it was, would rise up and step onto the porch to welcome company inside. The air would be fresh with the smell of mimosa tree flowers from the side of the house, near the barbed wire fence and vegetable garden, which stretched out in slightly crooked rows. Even at nightfall, guests stopped over for a quick talk with Mr. Lenious. Wednesdays were prayer meetings, Thursdays were choir rehearsal, and Saturdays, the ushers prepared the church for Sunday services. That was the nature of life next to a church.
When Momma moved us to Clarksville, I was in elementary school where classes were easy because my sister already taught me to read. I was in fifth grade when integration happened and I was curious about the mix of students. When I entered junior high, I became more active at church. I recall one Sunday, a popular gospel quartet came to Macedonia to play. During a break in the music, I stood at my usher post near the door observing the older ushers talking and sharing freshwater with the musicians. One of the musicians pointed at me out and whispered: That’s her right there. The one with the red hair.
I was somewhat younger than my siblings and often spent time helping Mom make jams, jellies, and shell peas and work around the house, but one summer I was excited because I had a conversation on the phone with our dad. He invited me to California. I was finally going to put a face to the name on my birth certificate. The man who greeted me at the airport was tall and slightly bent, and Dad drove a long, red Cadillac. During my time in Stockton, we stopped at several houses and visited the coast and when meeting people I was introduced as his daughter. That next school year my what-I-did-this-summer essay was full of colors, the ocean, and flavorful stories. I was a freshman that year, new to high school. I often passed the main hallway to enter the cafeteria and noted that when passing the office area, the clerk would shoot me a stern, unfriendly glare that I assumed was the usual look to make sure no rules were broken.
There are times in life when a child learns parents are flawed. My brother Charles was the catalyst for one such revelation. We were always fighting each other and one day in the heat of a spat, I yelled: you didn’t get to see Daddy like I did, and he spat back the words, James Stillwell ain’t your daddy, that n-word that shows up and talks to Momma all the time – That’s yo daddy.
Before DNA tests. Before 23&Me. Before Ancestry.com. Depending on one’s point of view, people kept chaotic, damaging secrets. Imagine growing up and you are the one who does not know the secret that everyone knows but does not tell you because it’s a secret? You feel the looks, pointing, and conversations, but you did not know what they knew because it is secret. My birth certificate says James Stillwell, but everyone knows it should say Frank Johnson. The family who kept me safe and taught me about Jesus. The teachers who taught me at school. My half-siblings. That year, the clerk looked at me and knew that I knew the secret.