**Part 2**
The Maury County Courthouse is in the middle of the square in Columbia. Big. Brick and stone. A clock tower. Built in 1904.
When I was a girl, there was a water fountain on the second floor with a sign over it.
It’s gone now. They took it out in 1965. But I remember where it was.
I always look at the spot when I walk past.
The register of deeds is on the first floor. Down a long hallway. A wooden counter. Shelves behind it. Floor to ceiling. Full of big books.
Rosella was waiting at the counter.
She was about my age. Seventy, maybe. White. Small. Silver hair in a neat bun. A cardigan. Glasses on a beaded chain around her neck.
She saw me come in.
She took off her glasses.
“You’re Elnora,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked at me for a long time.
“I played bridge with Henrietta every Tuesday for forty years,” she said.
I didn’t know that.
“Every Tuesday,” Rosella said. “At her house. Four of us. Me and Henrietta and Lucille Bryant and Margaret Haynes. Lucille passed in 2018. Margaret’s in the nursing home on Hatcher Lane. It was just me and Henrietta the last few years. We played gin rummy instead.”
She smiled. A small, sad smile.
“She cheated,” she said.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“She did,” I said. “She cheated at checkers too.”
Rosella stopped smiling.
“She made me promise,” she said quietly. “Back in the spring. She made me promise I’d be the one to call you.”
She came around the counter.
She took me by the arm.
Her hand was small. Cool. Steady.
She walked me back.
Past the counter. Past the shelves. Into a room in the back. With long tables. Wooden. Old. Scarred from a hundred years of elbows.
On one of the tables, there was a book.
A big one. Heavy. Thick as a family Bible.
Bound in dark red leather. Cracked at the corners.
Down the spine, in gold letters:
DEED BOOK — MAURY COUNTY — VOL. 2847
She opened it to a page she’d marked with a strip of paper.
She turned the book around to face me.
She put her finger on a line.
“Read it, honey,” she said. “Read it yourself.”
I put on my reading glasses.
My hands were shaking so bad I nearly dropped them.
I looked down.
QUITCLAIM DEED
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, that HENRIETTA CALDWELL LOCKRIDGE, a widow, of Maury County, Tennessee, hereinafter called Grantor, for and in consideration of the sum of ONE DOLLAR ($1.00) and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, does hereby REMISE, RELEASE, AND FOREVER QUITCLAIM unto
ELNORA RUTHANNE WHITSETT
My whole name.
In black ink. Typed. Spelled exactly right.
Ruthanne. One word. The way Mama ran it together.
And right under it…
all of Grantor’s right, title, and interest in and to the following described real property:
That certain tract or parcel of land lying and being in the Fifth Civil District of Maury County, Tennessee, on the south side of the Hampshire Pike, containing THIRTY-EIGHT (38) ACRES, more or less, including the dwelling house commonly known as the Tenant House, the pecan orchard, and all improvements thereon, being more particularly described as follows…
There was a legal description.
Metes and bounds. Beginning at an iron pin on the south margin of the Hampshire Pike, thence South 14 degrees East 1,240 feet to a stone in the creek…
I couldn’t read it. The numbers swam.
I skipped down.
To the bottom of the page.
To a paragraph that was different from the rest.
Not typed like the legal part. Typed separately. Like somebody had added it on purpose.
This conveyance is made in recognition of the following:
That said tract was owned in fee simple by ISAAC WHITSETT, great-grandfather of the Grantee, from 1879 until 1931, having been purchased by him with his own labor;
That said tract was acquired by AMOS LOCKRIDGE, father-in-law of the Grantor, at a tax sale on the courthouse steps on March 2, 1931, for the sum of Forty-Two Dollars, after the Whitsett family was prevented from paying said taxes by circumstances the Grantor believes were not of their own making;
That the Whitsett family thereafter remained on said tract as tenants and laborers of the Lockridge family for ninety-three years without wages commensurate with their labor;
And that the Grantor wishes, before her death, to return to the Whitsett family that which was taken from it.
This land is not a gift. It is a return.
I stopped reading.
I couldn’t see anymore.
I sat down.
There was a chair. Rosella must have pulled it out. I don’t remember.
I sat down at that long scarred table in the back room of the Maury County register of deeds.
And I put my hands flat on that big red book.
And I cried.
Rosella didn’t say anything.
She just put her hand on my shoulder.
And left it there.
When I could talk, I said, “Isaac Whitsett.”
“Yes, honey.”
“That was Mama’s granddaddy,” I said. “My great-granddaddy. I never knew him. He died before Mama was born. Mama said he was a hard man. She said he lost everything in the Depression.”
I looked at the page.
“Mama said he lost everything,” I said again. “She never said where.”
Rosella sat down across from me.
“Henrietta found it,” she said quietly. “Two years ago. In 2023. In a trunk in the attic of the farmhouse. Old Amos’s papers. Ledgers. Receipts. Letters.”
She took off her glasses.
“She called me,” she said. “On a Tuesday. Before bridge. She said, Rosella, I need you to look something up for me. In the old deed books. 1931.”
“I found it,” Rosella said. “Deed Book 287. A tax sale. March 2, 1931. Thirty-eight acres on the Hampshire Pike. Owner of record, Isaac Whitsett. Purchaser, Amos Lockridge. Forty-two dollars.”
She shook her head.
“Henrietta came down here herself,” she said. “Ninety-two years old. With a walker. She sat right where you’re sitting. She read it.”
“What did she say?”
Rosella was quiet for a long time.
“She didn’t say anything for a while,” she said. “Then she asked me to go get her the tax records. From 1930. Before the sale.”
She looked at me.
“Isaac Whitsett had paid his taxes,” Rosella said. “In 1930. In full. There was a receipt. In the county collector’s book. Signed by the collector.”
I stared at her.
“Then how—”
“The 1931 assessment,” Rosella said, “was raised. On just his land. Just his. Tripled. In one year. Nobody else on the Hampshire Pike had their taxes raised that year.”
She swallowed.
“The county collector in 1931,” she said, “was a man named Horace Lockridge.”
“Amos’s brother,” I whispered.
Rosella nodded.
“Henrietta found a letter,” Rosella said. “In the trunk. From Horace to Amos. Dated January of 1931.”
She reached into her cardigan pocket.
She took out a piece of paper. Folded. A photocopy.
She unfolded it. She put it on the table in front of me.
Old handwriting. Slanted. Faded. Hard to read.
Amos —
The Whitsett n— won’t sell. Says it’s his granddaddy’s land and he’ll die on it. I’ve raised his assessment. He can’t pay it. It’ll go on the steps in March. Be there with forty dollars. Nobody else will bid.
— H.
I couldn’t look at it.
I turned it over.
“Henrietta read that letter,” Rosella said, “and she didn’t speak for a week. Not even at bridge. She just sat there with her cards.”
She put the letter back in her pocket.
“Then she called her lawyer,” Rosella said. “In Nashville. A woman named Patricia Odom. Not the family lawyer. Not the one the boys use. Her own.”
“She asked me your middle name,” I said slowly. “At Christmas. Over coffee. She wrote it on a napkin.”
“She wanted it exact,” Rosella said. “On the deed. She said, If I’m going to give it back, Rosella, I’m going to spell her name right. Somebody in this family spelled a Whitsett name wrong on purpose once. On a tax bill. I won’t do it again.”
“When?” I said. “When did she sign it?”
Rosella turned to the next page.
At the bottom. Signatures.
Henrietta Caldwell Lockridge.
Shaky. Old. But clear.
Witnessed: Patricia A. Odom, Attorney at Law.
Witnessed: Carlton A. Lockridge.
Notarized: Rosella M. Haynes, Notary Public.
Recorded: April 11.
I stared at it.
Carlton A. Lockridge.
“Carlton,” I whispered.
“Carlton drove her,” Rosella said. “From the farm. In April. He carried her walker up those courthouse steps. He sat right there.”
She pointed at the chair next to mine.
“He signed as a witness,” she said. “He read every word. The tax sale. The letter. Isaac Whitsett.”
She looked at me.
“He cried, Elnora,” she said. “Sixty-eight years old. A retired banker. He sat in that chair and cried like a little boy.”
I sat there.
Mother’s gone. We won’t be needing you.
He didn’t even ask me in.
“Why?” I said. “Why would he—at the back door. With the check. We won’t be needing you. Why would he do that if he knew?”
Rosella looked at me for a long time.
“Did you look behind him?” she said. “In the kitchen?”
I thought about it.
Thurston and Bertram. Leaning on the counter. Drinking out of her good china.
Thurston with his boots on her chair.
Bertram laughing.
“His brothers,” I said.
“His brothers,” Rosella said. “Who didn’t know. Who still don’t know. Not yet.”
She leaned forward.
“Elnora,” she said. “Thurston has a contract. With a development company out of Franklin. To sell the whole Lockridge farm. Three hundred acres. For a subdivision. Four hundred houses. They’re calling it Pecan Hollow.”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“He signed it in July,” Rosella said. “Before Henrietta passed. Contingent on her death. He was so sure he’d inherit.”
She tapped the deed book.
“The contract’s for three hundred acres,” she said. “Including the thirty-eight with road frontage. The thirty-eight with the pecan grove. Where they were going to put the entrance and the clubhouse.”
She looked at me.
“Those thirty-eight acres,” she said, “haven’t been Lockridge land since April.”
“If Thurston had seen you at that house,” Rosella said, “the morning after the funeral, packing up Henrietta’s things, he’d have asked you about the tenant house. He’d have told you to clear out of the lane. He’d have had a lawyer at your door that afternoon.”
She shook her head.
“Carlton was getting you away from them,” she said. “Before they figured it out.”
I looked down at my pocketbook.
I opened it.
I took out the check.
Three hundred dollars.
Signed Carlton A. Lockridge.
I turned it over.
On the back, where you endorse it, there was something written. In pencil. Very small. In the corner. I’d never looked at the back.
Don’t cash this. Go see Rosella. — C.
I drove home with that deed book’s copy on the seat beside me.
Rosella made me a certified copy. With a raised seal. It cost twelve dollars. She wouldn’t let me pay.
“Henrietta paid in advance,” she said. “In April. She said, She won’t have twelve dollars that day, Rosella. Trust me.”
I didn’t cry this time.
I drove slow. Eight miles under the limit. With both hands on the wheel.
The deed on the passenger seat.
And the check with the pencil on the back.
I didn’t go home.
I went to the Hampshire Pike.
I turned in at the Lockridge gate. I drove past the big white farmhouse on the rise. Thurston’s Range Rover was in the circle drive. And Bertram’s Cadillac.
I didn’t stop.
I drove down the gravel lane. Past the barn. Past the pond.
Down where the land dips toward the creek.
To the little white tenant house.
Nobody had lived in it since Mama died in 1992. Mrs. Lockridge kept it up. She had the roof redone in 2010. Painted the porch. Kept the power on. Every Friday, after our coffee, she’d send me down the lane to open the windows and air it out.
Keep it ready, Elnora, she’d say.
I thought she was just being particular.
I parked in front of it.
I got out.
I walked up the porch steps. The third one still creaks. It creaked when I was a girl.
I sat down on the swing.
The pecans were coming in. September. The trees were heavy with them. Green husks splitting open. Brown nuts dropping in the grass.
Forty-one trees.
Isaac Whitsett planted some of them. Mama told me that. She said her granddaddy planted the first row by the creek in 1885. With seedlings he walked to Nashville to buy.
I never knew he owned the ground he planted them in.
I sat on that swing.
The chains creaked.
I looked out at the pecan grove.
At thirty-eight acres of land.
Mine.
No.
Not mine.
This land is not a gift. It is a return.
Isaac’s.
Odessa’s.
Ruth Anne’s.
Mine.
Alfreda’s.
Ours.
I was still on the swing at four o’clock when the Range Rover came down the lane.
Fast. Gravel spitting. Thurston at the wheel. Bertram in the passenger seat.
It skidded to a stop behind my Buick.
Thurston got out.
His face was red.
He was holding a phone.
“Elnora!”
I didn’t get up.
He came up the porch steps. Two at a time. Bertram behind him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Thurston said. “This is private property. You don’t work here anymore. Carlton paid you off.”
I looked at him.
At his boots that had never seen a cow pasture. At his Range Rover. At his phone.
“I just got a call,” Thurston said. “From my developer’s lawyer. In Franklin. He ran a title search. On the farm. For the closing. Next month.”
His voice was shaking.
“He says there’s a deed,” Thurston said. “Recorded in April. Thirty-eight acres. On the Pike. With the pecan grove.”
He held up the phone.
“He says it’s in your name,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
Thurston stared at me.
“That’s—that’s not possible,” he said. “Mother would never—that’s fraud. You did something. You got her to sign something. She was ninety-four. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
Bertram was nodding behind him.
“Undue influence,” Bertram said. “That’s what it’s called. We’ll take it to court. We’ll get it voided. Any judge in this county—”
“She knew what she was doing,” a voice said.
From the lane.
We all turned.
Carlton.
Walking down the gravel. From the big house. In his gray sweater. Slow. His hands in his pockets.
He’d been there the whole time. In the farmhouse. He must have seen the Range Rover tear down the lane.
He walked up to the bottom of the porch steps.
He stopped.
He looked at his brothers.
“She knew exactly what she was doing,” Carlton said. “I was there. I drove her to the courthouse. I carried her walker up the steps. I sat next to her while she signed it.”
He looked up at me.
“I witnessed it,” he said.
Thurston turned around.
“You?”
“Me,” Carlton said.
“You knew?” Thurston said. “Since April? And you let me sign a contract for the whole farm? In July?”
“I told you not to sign it,” Carlton said quietly. “I told you to wait. You said, Mother’s ninety-four, she’ll be gone by Christmas, what’s the difference.”
What’s the difference.
Thurston’s face went white.
“Patricia Odom has a video,” Carlton said. “Of Mother. Recorded the day before she signed. Forty-one minutes. A doctor from Vanderbilt examined her on camera. Asked her the date, the president, her children’s names, her birthday. Asked her what she was signing and why.”
He looked at Bertram.
“She answered every question,” Carlton said. “She did the crossword on camera. In ink.”
“Then she told the whole story,” Carlton said. “Isaac Whitsett. The tax sale. Horace’s letter. Forty-two dollars on the courthouse steps.”
He looked back at Thurston.
“And at the end,” he said, “the lawyer asked her if anyone had pressured her. If Elnora had asked for this.”
He looked up at me.
“Mother laughed,” Carlton said. “She said, Elnora? Elnora has never asked anybody for anything in her whole life. That’s the problem.”
