A Daydreamer Family
by James Michael
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
Xavier continued to search online for the next couple of hours for more information that Norma could use to scare away her captors, but, sadly, he didn’t find anything that worked better than the information on the Dukes’ daughter. Eventually, Norma began asking questions about Xavier and his future world and how a thin piece of glass could work as a phone.
Xavier explained all that he could but was wary of sharing too much about the future with her. He thought: It seems all the time travel movies I’ve seen warn me against saying too much, but then again, I am trying to save her life, so I’m not sticking to that rule too rigidly.
His thoughts were interrupted when Norma sat up, eyes wide. “I hear them!” Norma whispered with a shaky voice. “They’re coming. Xavier, I am so scared. I don’t know if this will work.”
“It’s going to work. You can do this.” The terror built within Xavier as the reality of his helplessness sank in. Then he watched as a beam of light grew on Norma’s face as the door from the kitchen opened.
“Good evening, Martha. How are you today?” Norma said with a pleasant tone.
Xavier and her had agreed that being seen as more of a good witch instead of a wicked witch would help them believe that she could give them another child. Norma explained that everyone in town had seen The Wizard of Oz a couple of years ago, so the idea of a good witch would be easy enough to swallow.
“It was a good day, witch,” Martha replied with a disgusted tone. “It will be even better once we are rid of you.”
“You know you don’t have to do this. I am not a bad witch. I can prove it to you.”
Martha barely paused to consider her words, so Norma decided to go right into the “proof.”
“I talked to Sadie. She said she loves you, and she misses you.”
As soon as Martha heard the name Sadie, her face went white. But once Norma gave Martha the message from Sadie, Martha put her hand to her mouth and ran out of the basement, sobbing.
As soon as the door closed, Norma turned to Xavier with excitement on her face. “Could you see her face? She was so scared! I think this is going to work!”
But as soon as the words left her mouth, the light returned to her face when Donald threw open the basement door and came quickly down the steps with Martha right behind him, still crying.
“What did you do to our daughter, witch?” Donald asked with hatred dripping from every syllable. Terror reflected from Norma’s face and Xavier felt scared for his friend.
“I didn’t do anything to your daughter, sir. Sadie called to me from Heaven. She wanted me to tell you that she loved you and that she missed you.”
Wham! Donald immediately smacked Norma across the face, and she fell over to the floor. Xavier looked up at Donald’s face and saw that tears were welled in his eyes. Then Xavier knelt next to Norma, trying to see if she was okay.
“Norma, are you alright? Don’t forget the ducks! Tell them about the ducks.”
“I’m okay,” Norma responded with a faint voice.
“You won’t be for long,” Donald responded through gritted teeth as he tried to hide the shakiness of his voice.
“I wasn’t talking to you, sir. Sadie asked me if I was okay.” Donald raised his hand to slap Norma again, but Norma continued. “She told me to tell you that in Heaven, she gets to play with all the ducks she wants. She is saying not to be angry. She loves you and she can’t wait to be with you again.”
Donald paused. His hand hung in the air and Norma braced herself for the next blow. A tear ran down Donald Duke’s cheek.
Martha sobbed behind him. “Oh, Donald. I think it is really her,” Martha said.
“I am a good witch,” Norma said. “If you let me go, I will give you another child.”
Donald’s expression hardened. “We don’t want another child!” Donald screamed at her. “We want our Sadie back. Bring her back to me right now, and I will let you go. That’s the only way you survive this.”
Norma, who had looked so peaceful when she offered them another child now trembled. “Sadie doesn’t want to come back. She says she’s in Heaven and doesn’t want to leave.”
Martha cried louder, and Donald, in response, grew angrier. “Fine,” Donald said, “if she doesn’t want to come back to us, we will go to her, but I am bringing you with us!”
He grabbed the rope that connected the ankles and wrists of Norma’s restraints and dragged her to the steps. Norma begged to be left. Xavier cried out for her as she disappeared up the steps. The helplessness had become too much for him to endure quietly.
Xavier remained in the basement for another hour. He tried to daydream more so that he could wait and hope that Norma would return, but the basement returned to the dirty and dark room that had always left him feeling so cold and alone. He felt even lonelier than normal, and eventually, he decided that he needed to make his way back up to the kitchen.
He opened the door slowly and let the light from the sunset widen on his face as it had on Norma’s. He began to cry as the realization grew that he would never see Norma again and that he would likely never know what happened to her.
Slowly, he made his way to the front porch where Grannie was still seated, although he noticed that she now had a glass of sweet tea and an empty plate next to her. As soon as he walked out the screen door, Grannie noticed the worry on his face.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Grannie asked. “You look like someone just shot your dog.”
“I want to tell you,” Xavier started, “but it is going to sound crazy.”
Before Xavier could start the story, he noted how she had perked up, and almost looked excited. Old people sure can be weird, but I love my Grannie, he thought. Xavier told her the whole story and about his gift. He even told her about the furniture store that he had seen earlier that morning. Despite the horrifying way that his story ended, Grannie didn’t seem upset by it at all.
“So I am just worried,” Xavier explained, “because I don’t know if they killed her. I just hope she’s okay.”
Grannie sat quietly for a moment and Xavier wondered if she believed any of what he had said. She finally spoke up to ask a question. “Can you show me the article you found on your phone about the Dukes?”
Xavier opened his phone and showed her the article that indicated the Dukes’ death with the picture of the car in the river. Grannie read over the article before handing him his phone back.
“You know,” Grannie started, “newspapers back in the day didn’t want to cover stories when children died. They thought it was too depressing, or at least that was why they didn’t talk about white kids dying. They didn’t talk about black kids dying because their readers typically didn’t care. I wish I could say that things have changed more than they have, though.”
Xavier’s head hung with the weight of his reality and all of the trauma that had been passed on to him through his ancestors.
“Did I ever tell you about how our family got this house, baby?” Grannie asked. Xavier shook his head no.
“Well, my momma ‘worked’ for the family that built it. The family that built it was related to a leader of the Klu Klux Klan. The man was the brother of the Grandmaster, if I remember correctly. They hated black folk, but they didn’t hate them enough not to force them to do all the work that they didn’t want to.
“My momma told me about one day the grandmaster stopped by and that she had accidentally spilled some tea right here on this front porch when she was bringing it to him. As punishment, the grandmaster told his brother that he needed to “deal” with my momma, so he tied her up and threw her in the basement.”
Xavier’s head perked up as he realized what Grannie was telling him. “Your momma worked for the Dukes? Your momma is Norma? How did she survive?”
“Slow down, baby. I listened to your story. Now you gotta listen to mine.”
Xavier sat back and rested his hands on his thighs to show he was ready to listen.
“My momma told me that a boy had come down and helped her. She said he couldn’t untie her, but he was a friend to her, and his friendship saved her life. You see, when Donald and Martha took her out of that basement, they told her that they were all going to go for a swim to go see Sadie. She knew that if she ended up in that car, she would be dead, because her friend had shown her a picture of the car in the river. So, when the Dukes brought her outside to get in the car, she had an idea and started to scream and say that she would keep screaming and get everyone’s attention about what they were doing. Donald thought he could make sure that she didn’t bother anyone, and he put her in the trunk.”
Xavier reckoned that he had the same idea as Norma when he looked again at the article on his phone.
Grannie gave him a second and then continued. “My momma always laughed when she described the look on the police officers’ face when they finally got the trunk open and saw a little black girl tied up. She said she was kicking against the lid of the trunk for only a few minutes before she heard someone recognize the sound. She said it was so odd to her that so many people would call someone that was tied up in the trunk of a car ‘lucky.’ She always told them that it wasn’t luck at all. It was her guardian angel, Xavier, who had rescued her.”
Xavier’s eyes glistened as his tears welled up, and he lunged for his grandmother. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her, releasing all the stress and worry that had built up.
“Thank you, Grannie,” Xavier praised. “I don’t know how I ever would have been able to move on without you.”
“No, Xavier,” Grannie started, “Thank you. You saved my momma and provided this house for our family. None of this could have happened without you. My momma is my best friend in the whole world and, without this house, I wouldn’t get to see her anymore.”
“What do you mean ‘anymore,’ Grannie?” Xavier asked.
“Well, you don’t think you and my momma are the only ones with gifts do you?” Grannie responded. “Why do you think I spend so much time out here on this porch?”
“I just thought you like the view,” Xavier answered.
“It is a nice view,” said a voice, and Xavier quickly turned to see an old woman sitting next to him. He looked for only a second before he recognized the eyes of a little girl behind the lifetime of experiences on her face. “Norma, is it really you?” Xavier said.
“I was so excited when the lawyers told me that the Dukes were being considered my legal guardians since I didn’t have any parents to claim me. With Donald and Martha being dead with no children, I inherited everything they owned. I sold the dealership pretty quickly, and I have been able to enjoy the rest of my life to grow up and grow old.
“I make sure to come out to this porch every evening and spill a little tea to remind myself that blessings can be born from tragedy. Thanks to the hate and ignorance of the Dukes, I have been able to live the life that my daddy had dreamed of giving me when he opened that furniture store.”
“Wait,” Xavier said, “your dad owned B.O.B.’s? I just saw y’all putting up the opening sign this morning! I yelled to him.”
“And we heard you, but my daddy always taught me that we don’t interact with daydreamers. It wasn’t until I knew my life was near its end that I decided to break that rule. And I am so glad I did. Our family is special. Everyone has the ability to learn from the past, but we are the only family that gets to talk to it.”
“I bet your daddy is proud of you, Norma,” Xavier said.
“Please, call me Great Grannie. I have been waiting so long to finally meet you. I am so proud of the young man you are.” Norma took one more look into Xavier’s eyes before standing and kissing both Xavier and his Grannie on the head. Even though they couldn’t feel her lips, they felt the love and appreciation that Norma had for her family.
“It’s time for me to get to bed,” Norma said. “And, Xavier, thank you so much for saving me. You are my guardian angel. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Great Grannie. Goodnight.”
Copyright © 2024 by James Michael
