Odell’s daddy and stepmother were devastated. I hadn’t seen them in several months and they’d looked sickly and decrepit back then. Now they looked even worse. They hadn’t been able to get in touch with the brother and sister Odell had practically lost contact with who lived in Birmingham, or any other relatives. “I’m going to miss my boy. He didn’t come see me but once or twice a month for a few hours at a time, but I enjoyed every one of his visits,” Lonnie sobbed to me. I was glad nobody else heard his comment. They would have most definitely questioned me about it. Odell had so many people believing that he visited his daddy overnight almost every Friday and Saturday, most of Sunday, and sometimes a few hours during the weekdays, every week for years.

I got a lump in my throat when I saw the four-page program. There were so many philosophical quotes on it, you would have thought Shakespeare had written it. Somebody had submitted a corny poem that mentioned how sad it was that Odell had never fulfilled his dream to be a father. I shuddered when I thought of how all these well-meaning people would react if they knew about Betty Jean and Odell’s three sons. Nobody would ever know about them, if I could help it.

I lost count of all the folks who went up to the pulpit to praise Odell. They described him as honest, God-fearing, generous, and loved by everybody he met. I didn’t get upset about how he’d duped them, because he had duped me more than anybody else. A white farmer Odell used to work for came with several members of his family. During a break in the lengthy service, he gave me a hug. “Joyce, I wish I could have got to know you. Every time I went into the store and chatted with Odell, he talked about how lucky he was to have a wife like you. I know God will help you bounce back from this unspeakable tragedy with your faith intact. Odell had done what God sent him to do, so it was his time to go. And, keep in mind that you were his whole world. You kept him grounded and humble,” the distraught man told me. His comments made my stomach churn. So many other folks said things along the same lines, but I didn’t believe it.

If I had been half the woman Odell had made everybody think I was, Betty Jean would never have been in the picture in the first place. Since nobody knew about her, she had no way of knowing Odell was dead. If she had shown up, it might have been another double funeral because I probably would have dropped dead.