Sycamore Row

sank into the lush leather of the rear seat and admired the well-appointed interior as they headed for the square. Charley talked nonstop, drove slowly so the locals could admire his car, and within minutes brought up the idea of a wildly profitable funeral home he wanted to buy on the South Side of Chicago. Portia glanced at Phedra, who glanced at Clarice. Charley caught them in the rearview mirror, but never stopped talking.
    According to his mother, who was now sixty-eight and in good health with a fine memory, her branch of the Rinds family lived near the rest of them, and at one time made up a sizable community. With time, though, they joined the great migration and headed north in search of jobs and a better life. Once they left Mississippi, they had no desire to return. Those in Chicago sent money back to retrieve the ones left behind, and over time all the Rindses had either fled or died.
    The funeral home could be a gold mine.
    The little restaurant was almost full at noon. In a spotless white apron, Claude worked the front while his sister handled the kitchen. Menus were not needed. Daily specials were sometimes scrawled on a chalkboard, but for the most part you ate whatever the sister was cooking. Claude served the food, directed the traffic, worked the cash register, created more gossip than he filtered, and in general ran the place with a heavy hand. By the time Charley and the ladies settled into their seats and ordered iced tea, Claude had heard that they were all related. He rolled his eyes at this; wasn’t everyone related to Lettie these days?
    Fifteen minutes later, Jake and Lucien ambled in as if they had just been passing by. They were not. Portia had called Lucien thirty minutes earlier with the heads-up. There was a decent chance Charley could be a link to the past, to the mystery of the Rinds family, and she thought Lucien might want to meet him. Introductions were made, then Claude sat the two crackers off to themselves near the kitchen.
    Over grilled pork chops and mashed potatoes, Charley continued to tout the dazzling benefits of the mortuary business in “a city of five million,” though the women were losing interest. He’d been married but was now divorced; two kids, living with their mother; he’d gone to college. Slowly, the women extracted the details as they thoroughly enjoyed lunch. By the time the coconut cream pie arrived, the women were completely ignoring him and trashing a deacon who’d fled with another man’s wife.

    Late in the afternoon, Portia arrived at Lucien’s home, for the first time. The weather had abruptly turned raw and windy and the porch was out of the question. She was intrigued to meet Sallie, a woman seldom seen around town but well known nonetheless. Her living arrangement was a source of endless condemnation on both sides of the tracks, but it didn’t seem to bother either Sallie or Lucien. As Portia had learned quickly, nothing really bothered Lucien, at least nothing related to the thoughts and opinions of other people. He ranted about injustice or history or the problems of the world, but was happily oblivious to the observations of others.
    Sallie was about ten years older than Portia. She had not been raised in Clanton and no one was quite certain where her people were from. Portia found her to be polite, gracious, and seemingly comfortablewith another black female in the house. Lucien had a fire going in his study, and Sallie served them hot cocoa there. Lucien spiked his with cognac, but Portia declined. The thought of adding alcohol to such a comfort beverage seemed almost bizarre, but then Portia had long since realized that Lucien had never seen a drink that could not be improved with a shot or two of booze.
    With Sallie in the room, and commenting occasionally, they spent an hour updating the family tree. Portia had taken notes of things Charley had said: important things like names and dates, and throwaways like deaths and disappearances of people who were not related to them. There were several strains of Rindses in the Chicago area, and another bunch in Gary. Charley had mentioned a distant cousin named Boaz who lived near Birmingham, but he had no contact information. He also had mentioned a cousin who’d moved to Texas. And so on.
    Sitting by the fire in a fine old home, one with a history, and sipping hot cocoa made by someone else, and talking to such a noted rogue as Lucien Wilbanks, Portia at times couldn’t believe herself.