The Truth Is the Light by Vanessa Davie Griggs Page A

More like, they just let the baby die. It was a mere rumor he’d heard circulating throughout the community, mind you, but he felt it was pretty credible. He said Pearl had been the one to deliver the baby. If I wanted to know the truth, she would know and could tell me. That’s when I went looking for Pearl, but she was already looking for me. She said it wasn’t safe for me to be there. She got me to make a big show of leaving so anybody who’d possibly heard I’d come to town would think I’d just as quickly left. Pearl then hid me out at her place. She told me the whole story of what happened that day and the little bit she knew about the time afterward.”
    â€œOkay,” Knowledge said, “hold up for one minute, Gramps. I think I need something to drink.” Knowledge started for the kitchen. “Does anybody else need anything?” Both Zenobia and Clarence shook their heads. Knowledge came back with the strongest beverage his mother had in her house—a can of soda—and sat down. “Okay, Gramps. By all means, please . . . continue.”

Chapter 14

    I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
    â€”Psalm 118:5

    G ramps continued on with the story. “Pearl told me Heath, that was Sarah’s half-brother, instructed her to let my baby die. I can’t tell you how my heart sank when I heard Pearl’s words. A poor, innocent child and that monster wanted Pearl to kill her.”
    â€œSo Pearl let the baby die?” Zenobia asked in a quiet resolve.
    â€œPearl said Sarah was out of it. She didn’t know what was going on. Pearl didn’t know what she was going to do to save my baby, but she told me she was prepared to do something. As it were, Pearl told me that Grace, Sarah’s mother, stepped up to the plate. She said Grace took my baby”—Gramps wiped his eyes again—“and carried her to this other woman, a colored maid, who just happened to be in the house when she went in labor and had also just delivered her baby earlier. Grace told this woman—her name was Mamie . . . Mamie Patterson—that instead of one baby, she’d delivered two.”
    â€œThat doesn’t even sound plausible,” Knowledge said.
    â€œWhy not, Knowledge?” Clarence asked. “Back then it would have been easy to pull something like that off.”
    â€œWell, did they?” Zenobia asked. “Did they pull it off?”
    â€œYes. Pearl said she recorded Mamie’s delivery as a twin birth. The plan was to protect the baby from folks like Heath until it was safe to disclose the truth, the truth that Sarah wasn’t told but instead tragically made to believe that her baby had died. But then soon after that, Victor Senior took sick and died. And Heath and his brother, Victor Junior, were in charge of running things. And the first thing them two did was send Sarah away. Claimed she’d lost her mind and needed to be institutionalized.”
    â€œSo why didn’t her mother do something to stop it?” Zenobia asked.
    â€œBecause she didn’t have any power,” Gramps said. “According to Pearl, she didn’t even know where Sarah had been sent. That’s how they kept Grace in line. But she did what she could. And that little evil devil Heath . . .” Gramps stopped as he shook his head. “I just shouldn’t have left. If I’da stayed instead of leaving, things might have . . .”
    â€œDaddy, you can’t go back and change things. That’s what you used to tell me all the time: Whatever is . . . is. We deal with what is,” Zenobia said.
    â€œI know. But every time I think about all the bad things that happened, I just find it hard to forgive myself. I feel like it’s all my fault because I wasn’t there to protect them.” Gramps wiped his eyes again with his handkerchief. “I should have been