And Josephine was the one I went to, right after Christmas that year, when I figured out that I had missed my monthly three times.
“Sweet Jesus!” she said. We went up to her bedroom and she locked the door and she looked at me and said, “Well, Varina. This is my fault. And I feel awful about it, and I will help you the best way I know how, if you trust me.” And then we both cried and cried.
And that’s how I came to move off the island.
Josephine said the public high school for colored students in Savannah was too crowded and not very good, so she put me in a school called Most Pure Heart of Mary, which had been started by some Catholic nuns from Baltimore who wanted to give colored children in the South a better education.
Oh, I loved that school so much. I got to wear a pretty uniform with a white shirt and a plaid pleated skirt and new black-and-white saddle shoes. We had nuns for teachers, and they were strict, but sometimes they could be kind too. My favorite teacher was Sister Helen, who taught English and social studies.
The best part about that school was getting to learn. Sister loaned me her own books to read, because at that time, colored children were not allowed in the big pretty public library on Bull Street. Because of Sister, I read The Count of Monte Cristo and Gulliver’s Travels and Little Women and Jane Eyre, which was very sad.
73
Varina’s face crumpled, and her dark eyes filled with tears.
“What are you saying?” Felicia asked indignantly, her hands on her great-aunt’s shoulders. “Where would you get an idea like that? Tell her, Auntie. Tell her it’s not true. In 1942, you were what, fourteen? Just a child.”
Varina’s hands trembled as they clutched for Felicia’s. “Oh, Felicia, honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I never said nothing.” She turned and faced her niece. “You think I’m a bad person? Maybe I was. Or maybe you just had to know how it was back then.”
Felicia knelt beside her aunt. “Auntie, I’d never think anything bad about you. You’re the best, the godliest woman I’ve ever met. I would never judge you. Never. Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, you know. It’s your secret. Not Lizzie’s or mine, and especially not Josephine’s.”
“Get up off that floor now,” Varina chided, sniffling. “I guess maybe it’s time to talk about this thing. It’s been clawing at my heart all these years. Maybe now’s the time to let it out.”
She took a deep breath and folded and unfolded her hands. “Lizzie has found out my story. My secret. Josephine told you about Millie’s engagement party. And I told you while I was hiding in the bushes, I saw that man, the one Millie was supposed to marry, attack her and paw her. I told you I saw Gardiner and him fighting. But I didn’t tell you that after Millie and then Gardiner went back to the house, I was trying to sneak on home, and he caught me.”
“Who?” Felicia demanded. “Russell Strickland? What did he do to you, Auntie?”
Varina picked up the knife and began chopping the pecans again. “He dragged me back to the guesthouse, where he was staying. And he…”
“He raped you?” Felicia whispered.
The old woman nodded, continuing to chop the pecans until they were less than dust.
74
Varina
I never was what you’d call a grown-looking girl. “Skinny Minnie” is what the other kids called me. So I kept on going to school at Most Pure Heart of Mary, keeping my secret the whole time. When my belly started to pooch out a little bit in the spring, I moved the buttons on my school uniform, and then moved them again.
The crazy thing is, except for my secret, I was happy as could be. I missed my daddy and brothers and friends on the island, but I loved my new school and getting to learn about the world outside Talisa. In April, at a school assembly, Sister Helen called me up on the stage and gave me a prize for being the best student in her class. It was a little gold statue of Mary, and I got a framed certificate too.
But that afternoon, Sister asked me to stay after school. I thought maybe she had a new book for me to read, but when the other students were gone, Sister closed the classroom door, and when she turned around, she had a real serious look on her face.
I knew she had figured out my secret. I sat at my desk and I folded my hands on the top, just like all the students at Most Pure Heart were taught to do, but my hands were shaking and my mouth was so dry I couldn’t swallow, and that secret in my belly was kicking so hard I was sure Sister could see it from where she sat at her own desk. In my head I was saying that Catholic prayer we said every morning, right after we said the Pledge of Allegiance.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
“Oh, Varina,” she said, and she sighed. Her face was as white as that wimple she wore on her head that covered her hair. “What have you done?”
I didn’t say a thing. Just stared at my hands.
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
“For several weeks now, I’ve seen something different about you. I thought maybe you were gaining a little weight, and that was good, because you are such a skinny little thing. But today, on that stage, I realized, you are … that is…”
I looked up and Sister turned her head, and when she looked back at me, her cheeks were bright pink.
“I had such high hopes for you,” Sister said. “And now you are about to throw all of that away because you’ve been a wicked girl.”
What could I do? I couldn’t look at her, and I couldn’t tell her it wasn’t me that was wicked, it was that bad man whose name I would never say.
I felt something wet hit the back of my hand and realized I was crying.
“Does your employer know?” Sister Helen asked, meaning Josephine.
I nodded, but I still couldn’t speak. It was like my mouth was full of cotton.
Sister sighed. “Well, I’m afraid you will have to leave this school immediately.”
I jerked my head up then. “Leave school?” I whispered. “But graduation isn’t until two more months.”
“You will not be graduating with your class,” Sister said. “And I’m sorry about that, but Mother Superior has rules. We can’t let the other girls and boys in this school be exposed to something like this. Most Pure Heart is not a school for fallen girls like you.”
“No, Sister,” I whispered.
She drummed her fingertips on the top of her desk.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me? Some … special circumstance you’d like to tell me about?”
“No, Sister.”
“Was it a boy at this school? This is very serious, Varina, because if the boy is a student here, I will see that he leaves this school too.”
“No, Sister.”
She drummed her fingertips some more. “Would you like to see Father? I realize you are not Catholic, but perhaps a good confession and an Act of Contrition…”
I shook my head hard. That priest went around with a mad face all the time. I could never tell him what had happened to me. Besides, I was kicked out of school, so there was nothing more to say.
“May I go, Sister?” I said.
“I suppose.” She rummaged around in her desk drawer and brought out a black leather change purse. I’d seen her take that change purse out before, on the sly, when some of the boys and girls who came to school looking hungry and raggedy and didn’t have enough money to buy milk in the school lunchroom.
She walked over to me and put one hand on my shoulder as I stood for the last time beside my desk, and she pressed a coin into my hand. “For the streetcar fare,” she said.
I wanted to throw that money back at her face. I wanted to scream that I hadn’t been wicked and that I wanted to stay in school and read all the books and someday, maybe, be a teacher, like her.
Instead, I said, “Thank you, Sister. I still have your book. Would it be all right if I brought it back to you tomorrow?” Sister lived at the brick convent attached to the school.