She was dressed in a long black frock dress, looking quite the school marm. My anticipation on meeting her was electric. I had longed to know her since my mother hinted at her mysterious, powerful life shortly before her own death.
"My mother, your granddaughter, threw away your letters. I believe, she was afraid to let me see them," I told her as if this attmept at an apology would open a door that had been locked for so long.
"It's alright, child. There were always too many secrets. Secrets between me and your grandmother and such sad silence inside her after she lost Jon. Then the secrets began again with your mother. Sweet Jessie Joan...I think her's were actually well intended. I think she thought that anything extra and different would send her mom over the deep end of her grief. It almost took her, you know..."
Wow, so much so quick and I still didn't know a thing about her. Willamena Jarret. My great-grandmother. Willie Jarret they all called her. I've only seen the one picture of her in that long black dress and hat, covering most of her identity up as she stood beside another woman under a tree. No one knew who that woman was or would tell. But my mother did tell me that the letters she threw away were between Willie Jarret and another woman.
"Did you love this woman, grandmother? Tell me about your business and what was the nature of your marriage to a man no one seem to know?"
"Robert Turner and I became fast friends as teenagers in Macon, Georgia back in early 1915. He was very handsome and somewhat shy. Me? Not a shy bone in my body. It looks as if your mother got some of my genes and you, love, got more of my sweet Jessie's shy blood.
Although perhaps you and I are more connected in another, special way. Where was I? Robert Turner was an ambitious young man, although he lacked the initiative, the drive to finish most things that he started. I think the thing that made us most alike and combatible was a curse to him, a burden and yet to me was my second self."
"But," I prodded, "you were both successful business owners, were you not?"
"Yes, in a way. But I always had to get him going, and he could have been so much more. You see, we loved each other early on and needed one another for a myriad of reason, romantic love one of the least. He needed me to give him a safe guard as I did him and he needed my drive to keep the demons he chose to see at bay.
We both housed a love for our own kind that was simply unacceptable at the time. I loved my sweet Virginia since I was 19. A gentle, quiet woman with the running strength of the Black Warrior river. She kept me grounded and with my sights on heaven with a love that I believe you have been fortunate enough to express, receive and celebrate. I envy you that and am glad, my child, that it has come to pass."
"I wish I could have read your letters to Virginia," I lamented. "But then, I know how private those things are and I'm sorry that my mother and aunt were able to."
"Hush, now. Your mother was the good and decent person you've always known her to be. When she read the delicacy of my letters she respectively put them away from anyone else without finishing them herself."
"Were you able to be happy, Willie Jarret?"
"I was...I was so happy. Robert was my best friend and we found a way to support each other. I think he had several lovers but sadly was never able to bring himself to accepting that part of himself fully. It was harder for men, almost impossible. For me, it was easier. My work with Botega Dress Shop, took me to New York with Vogue and I met many other women like me that I early on learned how to balance my life. The only thing, I always regretted was the demand for the secrets...for look at how Robert was separated from his family...your family and how secrets built upon secrets that eventually became things of their own, causing distrust in so many, like you."
"It's okay, Willie Jarret, it's okay. I'm learning the balance."
She touched my face and slowly disappeared down the walkway away from my door into the mist.
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