Page 71 of Under the Tulip Tree
My thoughts whirled, trying to understand what was happening. Who was this man? I stared into his green eyes a long time before a thought so alarming yet so clear stole my breath away, and I stumbled backward.
“No.” I shook my head. It couldn’t be.
I wanted to run from the room, to flee what I suddenly knew was true, but I stood where I was, staring at the boy who’d witnessed the attack that left me maimed.
“Who are you?” I whispered as my entire body trembled.
Everything else in the room faded while I waited to hear the name I’d tried a lifetime to forget.
“Burton Hall.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
We sat silent in Frankie’s tiny living room. Alden’s and Jael’s stunned expressions surely matched my own at the shocking turn in the story.
“Oh, Mama Fran,” Jael breathed, tears flooding her eyes.
Frankie simply nodded, yet she didn’t appear as upset as I might have imagined. Surely retelling this portion of her story was as painful as experiencing it that long-ago day.
A dozen questions tumbled through my mind, but I didn’t voice them. I glanced at Alden. He must have understood my silence because he tightened his own lips and gave me a small nod.
We waited until Frankie was ready to continue, all the while my heart aching for her then and now. The war had changed her life in so many ways, many for good. Sam, Illa, freedom. The future must have looked far more promising than frightening to the young woman Frankie had becomeby then. So why did she have to come face-to-face with the son of her worst enemy?
“I never thought I’d hear the name Hall again.” Whether she meant to or not, Frankie tucked her deformed hand beneath her good hand, protecting it as she must have done a thousand times over the years.
“He remembered you,” Jael said, anger in her words.
“He remembered. I don’t think either of us wanted to, though.” Her lips pursed. “As soon as he spoke his name, all the memories of that terrible day flooded my mind. Miz Sadie’s wild eyes. The pain that shot through me. Burton’s indifference while he watched his mother beat me. I’d tried so hard to forget it all, and there he was, bringing it all back up, like vomit.”
“What did you do?”
Frankie gave a humorless laugh. “What I’d been doing all my life. I ran. I ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out of that hospital. I had me no idea where I was going. I just ran. When I finally stopped, I stood in front of Sam. He took one look at me and knew something bad had happened. I fell to my knees on that hardwood floor and sobbed. All Sam could do was hold my hand, but I could hear him praying too.”
She sighed. “I figured the men in the room thought I was crazy, but when I finally calmed, the looks of sympathy and understanding are ones I’ll never forget. No doubt every one of them had times when they faced their greatest fears, but on that day, it was my turn.
“I stayed on the floor next to Sam’s bed until the sun had long been tucked behind the hills. Miz Illa came and tried to talk to me, but I wouldn’t listen. What does a white woman know of this kind of pain? It was late before I finally dragged myself up, stiff, sore, and completely spent. My stomach was empty, but I couldn’t eat a thing. Sam hadn’t said a word to me the whole time I lay in a heap on the floor. He just held my hand and prayed.”
Prayed for what? I wondered. The damage had already been done. It would have been better if God had prevented her from meeting Burton in the first place.
“When I finally sat up and looked at him, he had tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘Frankie,’ he said, ‘if I could, I’d take this cup from you. But you gotta drink it yourself.’”
“What’d he mean, Mama Fran?” Jael asked.
Frankie gave a sad smile. “He meant I was gonna have to go back and face Burton.”
Jael gasped. “No.”
But Frankie nodded. “I knew Sam was right, but I’d been fighting it.”
“Why would you need to go back? That man didn’t deserve the kindness you’d already shown him. He didn’t need another chance to hurt you.”
Frankie considered Jael’s venomous words.
“Maybe not, baby girl, but it wasn’t for him that I went back. It was for me.”
The ward was dark except for a pitiful circle of light coming from a lantern just inside the door. My heart raced, and I feared it was loud enough to wake the sleeping men. I stood a long time staring into the room. I couldn’t see Burton, for it was too dark, but I knew he was there. The same boy who’d stood by while his mother forever damaged my hand and my spirit. I could still picture him as he’d been that day. A sandy-haired boy on the verge of manhood, more curious than concerned at the beating of a six-year-old child.
“I can’t do this,” I breathed into the chilly hallway.
