Grandmother's Secret

Her mother couldn't face the task and her uncle refused to help so Eloise was stuck with cleaning out her grandmother's house so it could be sold. Her uncle had gone so far as to say that he didn't need anything from "that woman" when she was alive so why would he want anything of hers now.

Her uncle left for the military before Eloise was born and he had never returned. She only knew how to contact him in case something happened to her mother.

Eloise wasn't sure where to start. Her grandmother had lived in this house for over 60 years. There was so much stuff to sort. Her grandmother left no specific provisions about what object went to whom.

The easiest way to start seemed to be pick one room, clear it, and move out from there so Eloise decided to start with her grandmother's bedroom. It would contain the most personal items and if she could get through that, she would be strong enough to tackle the other rooms. Many of the clothes were so outdated that they would have to go into the trash. Even a vintage shop would not want them. Trash bags and boxes in hand, Eloise went to work.

Her grandmother had been a maid in hotels for many years and being on her feet all day had made her very particular about her shoes. She bought the best quality she could afford and kept them neatly in their boxes with sachets to help them dry properly at the end of the day.

As Eloise pulled the boxes from the shelf, one felt lighter and it rattled. That wasn't like her grandmother. She sat down on the edge of the bed to open the box.

Inside was a small, slim black book that said National Republic Bank of Chicago in gold lettering on the outside. Opening the book, there was one entry. A deposit had been made in grandmother's maiden name on June 20 but 62 years ago. That wasn't long before her uncle was born. The amount was $10,000 which would have been a fortune ack then. There had never been a withdrawal made from the account.

If this money was in the bank all this time, then why had her grandparents worked so hard and lived so meagerly while raising two children? How much money was there after the interest compounded for 62 years? It was a shocking find and begged a lot of questions. Did Eloise's mother and uncle knw about it?

In the same box, Eloise found another small book covered in pretty blue and pink flowers. The diary initially included the musing of a young woman in her grandmother's precise handwriting. It was full of hopes, dreams, and promise for the future as her grandmother had lived it in the small rural Alabama community in which she grew up. It was full of tales of fun and laughter.

However, the story began to take a darker turn as her grandmother wrote of taking a maid's job at the home of a prominent lawyer in town. The work was hard and the lady of the house expected nothing short of perfection. Eloise's grandmother only found it bearable because the couple had a son close to her age and he was nice to her. They laughed and he told her about stories of his school and parties she would never attend. He even occasionally held her hand while they were talking.

Then came the darkest day of her grandmother's life. She had tripped coming down the stairs and twisted her ankle. Her friend helped her up and to a chair. His father walked into the room just as the son ran his hand over her ankle and leg to check for damage. The father assumed something else entirely was happening and snatched Eloise's grandmother out of the chair by her wrist and dragged her into his study.

After he slammed the door, he pushed her face first onto the desk. As he lifted her skirt, he said "so you want to feel the touch of a white man." What happened next was painful, violent, and confusing. She didn't understand what she had done wrong or what was happening. Where the humiliation came was when she told her mother and grandfather, but they said to be quiet because no one would believe her over the lawyer. They made her feel like nothing and they made her go back to work the next day.

After two months, it was obvious that something was wrong with her because she no longer had her period. She couldn't talk to her friend but maybe she could talk to the lady of the house. The conversation must have gone badly because Eloise's grandmother never wrote in the pretty book again. There was a letter tucked into the book. It read:

You should be so ashamed of yourself for being unmarried and in a family way. How dare you lay down and spread your legs to be defiled. Whether the child is my son's or mine, I never want anyone to know that your black bastard may be related to our family. I have made arrangement for you to travel to Chicago where you will be met by our former gardener. There is money in the bank there. You can kill the thing or keep it but never come back to this town.

That answered the question of the money's origin. Was the child her uncle? If so, the money should really be his. Would he even take it? If this story was his, it explained the strained relationship with his parents. Grandmother must have seen the bank account as blood money and couldn't make herself access it.

Eloise reached for the phone and called her uncle. They needed to talk. She couldn't tell her mother before talking to her uncle.