“Yes. You wrote his name in Chinese. Shang.”
I watch the way hearing the name tears at her face, causesthe delicate planes to tremble. She covers her mouth. Her wedding band draws my eye, a worry bead for her adultery.
Mr. Q was right. She had an illegitimate daughter.
But it was not Caroline.
My head begins to swim, and my knees give way, but Mrs. Payne collapses on the floor, one step ahead of me.
Thirty-Three
The sharp odor of smelling salts rouses me from my deadened state. Etta Rae helps me into a seated position on the floor of the study. “Wh-what happened?”
“You fainted. Both of you did. You were only out for a few minutes. How are you feeling?”
My head throbs, but nothing feels broken. On the outside, at least. Mrs. Payne comes into view, propped up a few feet away with her back against the desk, her hair slipped from its knot. “I’ll be okay,” I say, not bothering to hide my anger.
Mrs. Payne lifts her gaze to meet mine, but the effort is too great. “It was for the best,” she whispers hoarsely. The similarities are undeniable. Our bony fingers, our bumpy shoulders, even our widow’s peaks, and the pearl at the center of our upper lips. Apparently, we even faint alike. More pieces tumble together: her yearlong melancholic spell, during which she left to live with her parents in Savannah; the story about the filly she was forced to give up, the one she named Savannah Joy. Jo is a bastardization of Joy. A bastard, like me.
Shakily, I rise, despite Etta Rae’s protests. It’s not clear to me why the woman’s here, only that Etta Rae has always been here. Her lips purse, and a prick of regret dulls her light brown eyes.
Mrs. Payne still doesn’t look at me. I sway, pummeled by emotions that leave me breathless. Anger, hurt, shame, each takes its turn on me, bruising me deep in my core. The truth is worse than I imagined. In all my years here, she has been watching me grow with no more regard than for a thickening meadow. Each glance was a denial; every word, a rejection. Her gaze skitters over my pebbled-goat-leather boots, perhaps noticing for the first time how my toes have stretched them to the breaking point.
My mother didn’t leave me. She abandoned me. Women like her do not, cannot form affinities with people like me, not if they wish to remain on the top branch. They are knots that slip out easily with the barest of tugs.
Etta Rae pulls over a chair and helps Mrs. Payne into it. Caroline bursts into the study. “Maid, you forgot the utensils. What’s going on here? Mama, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
No one answers. Caroline glares at the housekeeper, as if prodding her to explain, but Etta Rae’s lips remain closed. Caroline blows out a frustrated breath.
When four winds meet, there is only silence.
Mrs. Payne’s eyes plead with me to understand. And though I know well the fences that corral us into our designated squares, I also know there are the chains we are born into, and those we choose to wear.
I take off my apron and set it on Mrs. Payne’s desk.
“No.” Caroline snatches it back and pushes it toward me,but when I don’t take it, she drops it and grabs my arms. “Don’t go. What did you do, Jo? Why is Mama crying?”
Etta Rae glances at Mrs. Payne, who gives her the barest nod. “Let your sister go, child,” says Etta Rae.
She knew, too. Shame takes another jab at me. Who else? Has the world conspired against me?
“My sis—” A soft gasp releases from Caroline’s mouth. “Oh my God.” She gapes, searching my face for the truth, but the truth is in the details we both missed while she was gazing in the mirror and I was looking away.
I descend the staircase for what I know will be the last time. A sob builds in my chest, but I bar it from leaving. Dignity can only be surrendered, and when it is gone, we are like the snail who has lost its shell. All it can do is find the nearest leaf and hope it’s not parade day. At least the snail never need care who its parents are.
The front door fights me, and the paved stones of the driveway scheme to trip my feet. The jangle of an approaching carriage pulls my attention. A vehicle painted a distinctive cabbage green with gold lettering sets off an alarm bell in my head. I conceal myself in the shade of a magnolia, watching the carriage swing into the Paynes’ driveway. What would Crump’s Paints be doing in this neighborhood? The Paynes do not buy discount paints, even if their house needed a touch-up, which it does not.
The passenger pushes aside her curtain, and I catch sight of her heavy-lidded eyes, her thin nose, and the withered rind of her mouth. Something icy chills my stomach.
Mrs. Crump is here because of me. I recall the way the woman looked at me when Nathan suggested Lizzie findanother escort, as if I were to blame. Lizzie must have told her my secret, and now she is here to expose me, the troublemaker. She does not know I have nothing to lose now.
If only the same could be said of theFocus.
I hurry away, barely noticing Sully’s streetcar until it is rolling briskly past me withclangsthat make my ears ring. The ever-present reek of sewage strangles the scent of the magnolias and overwhelms my sinuses. Too much morning light pours into my eyes. Yet Peachtree rolls along as always, heedless of the pain coursing down its veins.
My thoughts race. Leading the pack is the question of how my parents met. Old Gin said Shang was a groom, too. Maybe he’d even worked at the Payne Estate. Did Shang know about the baby he left behind? I imagine the man, two hands taller than me but not much wider, a shadowy figure shaking dice in his loose fist, a maverick who desired more than his earthly allotment. A bitter fluid burns my throat, and tears fill my eyes. I grip my damask bag to me like it is the only thing that might keep me anchored to this world.
And what about Mr. Payne? How did she hide a pregnancy from her husband? A deep-enough pocket can hide many things, and just as her husband is ruthless, Mrs. Payne is shrewd. And sometimes the eye sees what it wants and skips over what is in plain sight. Mr. Payne had the biggest house on Peachtree Street, the most successful mill in Atlanta, the belle of the ball for a wife, a son,anda daughter. Why fix what was not broken?
