A Family Circle of Secrets

A nasty burn churned in Clancy's belly. He sure didn’t want to tell Moma about Daddy. He was afraid this could break her but there was things only she could tend to. For one thing, she would want to care for his Daddy's body with tenderness. The joining of Roland and Bess many years ago was a love story they had told their children many times. It was one they loved to hear.

Ever since they had lost his brother, R.J., Moma had a grief even God couldn't comfort. Clancy knew, from the time he was "knee high to a grasshopper", you didn't question our Heavenly Father. But this just didn't seem fair. Daddy had been in a cloud of sorrow all his own so they didn't seem to be able to comfort each other.
It had only been two months since Roland Junior's death.

Clancy's knew there was something strange about R.J.'s death.
'What the hell? It made no sense. R.J. had been driving that tractor since he was a kid. They all had. He knew the land, sun or black night, all the places where danger lurked. An accident? R.J. been seeing that Linde girl. Wasn't he thinking right?'

Clancy opened the door that already had a black wreath on it. The inside was dim with just a light by Daddy's recliner. It had a table with his pipe and tobacco waiting for him. An afghan Moma had made laid across the back. Clancy could smell cornbread cooking in an iron skillet coated with Crisco. Moma would mash it up with buttermilk for herself and Daddy mixed it with pole beans.

Bess sat slumped on the thread worn sofa with her spit cup on the floor. Her face was a map of wrinkles for all the roads she had traveled. It seemed that most were sorrow filled where she hung on by the grace of God. Her mouth was sunken because she couldn’t afford dentures. She was sixty-six but felt a hundred.

Bess knew her children and could feel the heaviness in the air around Clancy. She looked up at her precious boy. Her eyes were pleading with him.

"Don't you be tellin me nuthin more to tear at my heart, son."

Clancy walked over to sit next to her. He gently pushed the gray curls from her cheeks.

She knew.
"Daddy's gone to be with R.J.?"

"Yes, Moma, Daddy must have had a heart attack," his voice cracked. He had to stay strong for her. "He was alone. I tried to help... but he was stiff as a board. Don't think he suffered none."

She began to keen and it sounded like an animal caught in a trap.
Clancy covered his ears. She opened her soul up.

She screamed, "Lord! How could you be so mean? Why would you take a good man?"

She knew she was actin like a rattlesnake that's had it's food stolen. She never gets the darkness with God. But this was more than anyone should have to stand.

Clancy figured Daddy had been shoveling hay when he felt that elephant on his chest. It looked like he threw up. He might have tried to scream but no one was around. When Clancy came by, he was stiff and blue. Clancy knew he was past doing any resuscitation. He had been dead for a couple of hours. Clancy had training as a paramedic.

Bess reached over and clutched Clancy's hand. She let her mind travel to a place where she could rest easy.

On the mantle Roland had made a wedding picture frame. Bess was only sixteen, wide innocent eyes and a head full of dark curly hair. Her smile filled the frame.
Back then she had dreams. She saw her and Roland in a nice home, new with that pine smell, her furniture was some of her Moma's and some Roland made. She had a hope chest with dishes, homemade sheets with needle pointed birds, even Grandma's wedding ring quilt.

She knew her life could be better then her mother’s because Roland Buck talked “big plans". They'd be walking down the dirt lane behind the church. Roland was quiet and serious looking.

"What ya thinkin bout, Roland?"

"Just bout gettin the hell otta this town, Bessie. It's smotherin me."

"But ya don't know nothin but farmin. What else is there?"

"I can learn mining. It pays a whole bunch more money."
He was blowing smoke rings.

Bess had been asking God to give Roland another answer cause mining was dangerous. Each of them had buried members of their families in the mines. Usually the bodies were left there. Sometimes they waited for days for answers. The towns' people and even other counties showed up to help. The men with equipment and the women with food; the preachers and people were all prayin'.

Roland and Bess had only known hard work in their short lives. They knew farming and to make children to help them farm. The land didn't belong to their family. They were sharecroppers for the Lynde family and didn’t know how to break the cycle.

It was time to care for her beloved. Bess went to the barn with a pan of soapy water and a washcloth. She would wash her husband and then dress him in his best clothes. Country folks preferred to care for their own.

As she went about it, she talked to Roland, her dearest friend. She was also confessing to him because she had betrayed him by lying. Surely now he knew that.

"Did I do the right thing, love? R.J. came to me.. said he done got Sally Lynde in the family way. I screamed at him. Couldn't he keep his wick dry a little longer or take an already plucked girl? I told him I could cause it to go away, but they wanted a baby. Silly dreamin."

Roland looked so handsome laying there, just like their wedding day. She saw past the gray hair, lined face and slack jaw. She saw the strong muscle bound man she married. The one with arms that looked like they could wrestle a bear when he was chopping wood. He held her so close at night and she knew nothing could happen to her. The dark hair on his chest tickled her and when he climbed on her, he was so gentle.

For the first month he would ask about it.

"Am I hurtin ya, dahlin? I can slow down."

"It's fine, feels snug, like God made us to fit together."

Now, it seemed he was listening and he couldn't complain about the tears falling on his chest. She went on to unburden her heart. The night was closin in and the casket would need to be closed.

Bessie's Granny had always said, “Getting old ain’t for men. Only women can handle it!”

Bessie was keeping a secret that would shock the family.

He was only sixteen and his life had been snatched from him when the tractor turned over. Bessie knew the reason and it was best kept to herself. It would serve no purpose now except heart ache for the ones living.

R. J. always came to his mother for her advice and now she felt like she had killed her son for saying what she thought to him.

“God almighty, please forgive me. I was just trying to get him out of this mess he made. He has always been a good boy. Helping others and spreading your Word, I seen him witness to others. Remember that when judgment comes, he just took communion”.

She had asked God to accept him in Heaven although he had done wrong.

The Buck family had sharecropped the land belonging to the Lynde family for years. There had never been any trouble except fist fights when the men had indulged in too much moonshine.

The Buck family lived in the house rent free and ate from their own garden. They were given so much a month for clothing and extras. At the holidays, they had a turkey and a Christmas bonus enough for something new for each of the seven children. After all these years it was still “Sir and Madame Lynde”. Some traditions never changed even though they were all white. There was a class difference.

Roland had worked hard for fifty years on this land. R. J. had been a surprise baby when Bessie gave birth at fifty. After three boys and three girls, they decided to name this boy Junior. They had buried one girl from the fever at three.

She continued to talk to Roland, pouring her heart out to this man she had loved.

"So I told our son, the Lyndes will run us off the land with nothin. You will go to jail. You won't marry her or be round that baby. They will punish her by their meanness. I told him to ask her to run away with him. Roland, you know they would do that to our boy, right? I said to him to get an answer from her and we'll do what we can to help you."

" R. J. nodded his head. I hugged him and tole him we loved him."

"Oh, Roland, he loved her like we did. I saw them tears of pain he'd have to live with. I'm sorry I never told you this but if I had, I'd be sure that's what caused this here heart attack. Then they marry her off to that Robert Sexton the very next day..... a man old enough to be her Daddy. This broke our boy's heart. This ole man will raise our grandchild."

"You know why R. J. drove the tractor over those rocks, no lights until it was over for him. I knew why and it breaks my heart. All cause he felt like he had no reason to live without her."

Bessie kissed her husband. "You and R.J. can talk about this. That comforts my heart, darlin."

Bess sure was glad angels walked on the side of innocent ones. That will protect her grandchild.

She came back to the house. She made a list of people to tell and things to do.

She pulled her Clancy over to her.
"Do somethin for me, son. I'm goin wrap somethin up tight. Make sure Sally Lynde gets this package, ok?"

Bess said what she had been thinkin, "'They're cuff links R.J. gave Roland with initials on them. She will know I know about their secret love and R.J.'s baby. She'lll call on me... bring my grandbaby."

Now Clancy knew. Such a waste of two young lives came from unnecessary anger over the difference in people. A road ahead where all is new; each step is further away from pain and despair. He remembered his Daddy talking about having a dream.

Roland used to talk when the two went fishing, "You gotta have a dream son. Then you follow it".

Clancy noticed that for the last ten years he never heard Daddy talk about a dream again. By then Daddy seemed happy but dog tired. He came in from the fields stooped over and rubbing his back.

Clancy would have to find his own dream and path for happiness. He packed a bag and when the time was right, he would leave this place of sorrow.




By Kathie Stehr
Edited May 2012