Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

Rebecca was the only woman yo’ pa put it to, you’re wrong. I hear tell there were at least a dozen others.” Fedora sounded so sure.
    “I don’t believe you.” Eula stared at her sister-in-law.
    “Everybody in Lawnover knows the truth of it ’cept you. Kept it from you because you’re his daughter.” Fedora took her arms from around Eula’s shoulders and folded them in her lap. She stared down at her hands.
    “Does Tillie know about Hettie?” Eula managed.
    “Not yet, praise the Lord.” Fedora looked at Eula with hollow eyes. “Wiley George don’t have a colored woman yet, far as I know, but he will. It’s the way of a Southern man. It ain’t nothin’ you done or didn’t do, Eula. You just been lucky that it took Alex twenty years to find him a black woman. All men do it, and it’s just somethin’ we wives have to get used to.” Fedora let the words come out of her mouth like there was no other way to it in all this world.
    “Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll ever get used to it. I’m leavin’ Alex. I’ll go to Kentucky with Bessie.” She shrieked her agony when Fedora’s second blow landed across her mouth.
    “Ain’t gonna be none of that. You ain’t disgracin’ this family. There’ll be no Kentucky. Ben Roy won’t have it no other way.” Fedora was on her feet, towering over her again.
    “No.” The sobs finally came. “I’ll never stay with Al…that bastard.”
    “Oh, yes, you will. You’ll bear it the way the rest of us have. You ain’t never gonna mention none of this to Alex. Is that clear?”
    “The hell I won’t. I’m gonna kill Alex if I don’t leave him first. I’m…” Her sobs drowned the words in her throat.
    “No, you ain’t. Now, this woman’s gone, but if he takes up with another, you’re gonna pretend that you don’t know nothin’ ’bout it. Like you barely know her name. You ain’t never gonna say a cross word to Alex, because if you do, it’s only you who bears the hurt, not him.” Fedora stooped and picked up the empty glass from the carpeted floor. She marched to the sideboard and refilled it. Wiping the rim, she handed it to Eula.
    “I don’t think I can do that…”
    “Oh, you’ll learn how quick enough.”
    “And if I can’t? If I complain out loud to everybody who will listen about what…what Alex done to me?”
    “They’ll take you for a fool and a disgrace.” Fedora reached for the whiskey bottle. “Not a disgrace to your husband, but a disgrace to every married white woman who ever lived in Lawnover. If you complain that yo’ husband is cheatin’ on you with a nigger, then you’re telling everybody in all of Montgomery County that a colored woman is the same as you. That she’s as good as you. That she’s even better, because she’s got yo’ man. Eula, you can’t do that.” Fedora took a deep swig from the bottle.
    “He said he lo…loves…her. He said he loves a…nig…” The word ripped out of her gut.
    Fedora lowered herself slowly to the settee. “That’s why you can’t never complain. Not to nobody. Different if it was another white woman he said he loved. Then you been wronged fair and square, and you can cry and scream all you want. Everybody will come to yo’ side. But when it’s a colored woman, it just can’t be the same. White men ain’t supposed to love black women over us. My Lord, if we acted like that was true, there wouldn’t be no sense to this world.” Fedora patted her shoulder. “Never you mind, Ben Roy will make sure you never have to hear those words out of Alex’s mouth again.” She slipped an arm back around her shoulders. Her voice was full of sorrow.
    Eula saw the floor coming up to greet her again. Fedora grabbed her hand and squeezed her wedding ring.
    “You feel that?” She dug the too-tight ring into Eula’s skin.
    “Umm.”
    “You feel that ring on yo’ finger, Eula Mae? You’ll always be the wife. Let that be yo’ comfort. He may be in her bed every night. He may even tell her that he loves her and mean it with all his heart. But that black woman will never have what you have. God and the law will always see to it that you come first.”
    “What do I care ’bout bein’ first with the damn law. What do I care ’bout bein’ first with God? What about his heart? I need to be first in his heart.” The tears ran down her cheeks and onto her shirtwaist. “I want Alex to say those words to me…that he loves me. Only me.” Eula pulled at the bodice of