She cut us each a fat slice. “Best peaches in the county,” she said with a grin.
“And you can’t beat the price,” I said.
Aunt Al burst into laughter again. “You’re going to fit right in, Bean.”
We sat down at the kitchen table next to Earl and dug into the pie, which was unbelievably yummy.
“How’s your momma doing?”
“She’s fine,” Liz said.
“She ain’t been back to Byler in years, has she?”
“Not since Bean was a baby,” Liz said.
“Can’t say I fault her for that.”
“Did my dad look like Uncle Clarence?” I asked.
“Different as night and day, though you could still tell they was brothers. You never seen a picture of your poppa?”
I shook my head.
Aunt Al studied the dish towel that she seemed to carry everywhere, then folded it into a neat square. “I got something to show you.” She left the room and came back with a thick scrapbook. Sitting next to me, she started paging through it, then pointed to a black-and-white photograph of a young man leaning in a doorway with his arms crossed and his hip cocked. “There he is,” she said. “Charlie. Your daddy.”
She slid the album over toward me. I almost heard the blood rushing in my head. I started to touch the photograph but realized that my hands were damp with nervous sweat, so I wiped them on Aunt Al’s dish towel. Then I bent down until my face was inches away from the picture. I wanted to take in every detail about my dad.
He was wearing a tight-fitting white T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes folded into one of the sleeves. He had wiry muscles and dark hair, just like mine, though it was slicked back the way they did in those days. He had dark eyes, also just like mine. What struck me most was his crooked grin, like he saw the world in his own special way and got a kick out of it.
“He sure was handsome,” I said.
“Oh, he was a looker, all right,” Aunt Al said. “The ladies all loved Charlie. It wasn’t just his looks. It was mainly the way he lit up the room.”
“What do you mean?”
Aunt Al eyed me. “You don’t know too much about your daddy, do you, sugar?”
I shook my head.
Charlie had been a loom fixer at the mill, Aunt Al said. He could repair anything. Had a head for it. He never got much in the way of a formal education, but he was real smart and all the time on the go. He always had to be doing something. And when Charlie arrived at a party, that was when it started.
“You got his spark, I do believe,” Aunt Al told me. But Charlie Wyatt also had the wild streak that ran in their family, she went on, and that’s what got him killed.
“I thought he died in a mill accident,” Liz said. “That’s what Mom told us.”
Aunt Al looked like she was considering something. “No, hon,” she finally said. “Your daddy was shot.”
“What?”
“Gunned down in cold blood by the brother of the man he’d killed.”
I stared at Aunt Al.
“You’re old enough,” she said. “You ought to know.”
After Liz’s dad ran off, Aunt Al explained, Charlotte left Richmond and came home to Mayfield, changing her name back to Holladay. She was feeling pretty mixed up about it all and dated around a bit. Then she and Charlie became sweet on each other. She ended up in a family way, and Charlie wanted to marry her, not just because it was the honorable thing to do but because he loved her. But Charlotte’s father, Mercer Holladay, was of no mind to let his little girl marry one of the loom fixers from his very own mill. Charlotte also seemed to feel that, as much fun as he was, Charlie was beneath her station.
Charlie was still hoping to change Charlotte’s mind when, one night at Gibson’s pool hall, a fellow name Ernie Mullens said something about Charlotte being a loose woman—to put it politely. When Ernie refused to apologize, Charlie took after him. Then Ernie pulled out a knife. Charlie whacked Ernie upside the head with his pool cue, and Ernie fell against the pool table, cracking his skull. It killed him dead. The jury decided it was a case of self-defense. After the trial, Ernie’s brother, Bucky, swore he was going to kill Charlie, and lots of people urged him to get out of town, but he refused. Two weeks later, Bucky Mullens shot Charlie Wyatt down on Holladay Avenue in broad daylight.
“Your daddy was murdered,” Aunt Al said, “because he defended your momma’s honor.”
Her Clarence had sworn revenge, she went on, but Bucky was sent to the penitentiary, and when he got out, he left the state before anyone knew about it. Aunt Al said she was glad it had turned out that way, but Bucky disappearing was one more thing that had made Clarence mad at the world.