Forever Beautiful: Generations, #1

By Suzette D. Harrison

Floretta Coleman is young, determined, and gifted. A graduate of Madame C.J. Walker's esteemed beauty school, Floretta is on the brink of a bright future with plans to explore the world after completing her studies at Oberlin College. Her long-held dreams seem within reach until one telephone call shatters everything. Her mother, Iva Rae Coleman, has died unexpectedly. Devastated, Floretta returns to the small, all-Black town founded by enslaved ancestors to lay her mother to rest and is forced to navigate the complexities of loss and family obligation. Her younger brothers need her. So does her homeless great Aunt Sis, whose misfortune was caused by a family accident. She must grapple with these responsibilities as well as her parents' unconventional relationship while being drawn to Packer Sims, a captivating horse rancher and Seminole Indian. Told against the rich tapestry of 1949 in the southern U.S., Floretta's story is one of identity, self-discovery, and acceptance. Join her journey as Floretta forges a path that is forever beautiful and uniquely her own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Suzette D. Harrison
• Release date: Jun 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798988662365

Suzette D. Harrison

Suzette D. Harrison is an award-winning author of several books that celebrate African American life and culture. A native Californian, she grew up in a home where reading was required, not requested. She credits Alex Haley, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou as her inspiration. Thanks to a culinary degree, she can be found whipping up batches of cupcakes whenever she's not busy on her next novel.

Book preview

One

Life was a traitor. And a deceiver. Three weeks ago, life spread a silken road before me— full of promise, enticing and liberating. Since then, she’d turned her two-faced, silky self away, abandoning me in the suffocating arms of death, her immortal enemy. Hopes and dreams had scurried to the bottom of a deep hole somewhere I couldn’t see or reach, leaving me harnessing tears before this hungry, open earth waiting to consume my mother’s remains.

I wanna weep and wail like crazy!

I couldn’t mourn the way my shattered heart craved, no matter the impossible grief pressing against my back like boulders and bricks. I was the great granddaughter of Profit Coleman. As a descendant of one of the founding fathers of Colemanville, conducting myself like a lady was essential to my heritage. Especially today as Mr. Saunders, the town mortician, motioned the pallbearers to gently lower my mother to her eternal resting place.

My eyes closed and my teeth clenched at the sound of the coffin’s descent.

There’d be no making a spectacle of myself, crawling into that open earth on hands and knees, cajoling my beautiful mother from that casket, begging her to please wake up and come back to us. Or reversing our roles and cradling her in my arms, forcing fresh breath into her chest and convincing her that she was too young to lay in perpetual darkness.

Death should not have come for my precious Iva Rae—a mother of three, four months shy of forty—who lived as if kindness was the cure for all the world’s ills. Yet death had; leaving me defenseless and pleading with The Almighty for a Lazarus-like miracle that was still missing.

Dammit! Even the day refuses to cooperate.

The June sky was clear, the air sweet. From atop the cemetery’s emerald green, grassy knoll, Copper Lake was visible, sparkling in the distance–a watery sanctuary of bountiful fish. Nearby honeysuckle and clusters of lavender perfumed the air beneath a sun shimmering as if heaven delighted in its newest resident.

Where were the annual summer rains that plummeted just before Juneteenth in such angry torrents, they threatened Miss Greenie’s crops and overflowed the lake so badly Miss Dimple’s house threatened to float off? I hated storms, but craved that heavy, gray rain. Wanted nature to mirror the sorrow pressing against my spine with such sharp ruthlessness I felt split in half. Instead, the cemetery’s undeniable serenity and Colemanville’s lush foliage framed our vast gathering as sweat sent a sticky trail down my black-clad back that was rounded with grief, while butterflies flitted airily, not giving a damn that three Negro children were now nearly orphaned.

My attention turned away from what I was experiencing as Caleb leaned heavily against me, as if grief had commandeered his legs, making my baby brother unable to support himself.

It’s okay…

My words were a whisper for my brothers alone. Caleb sniffled softly in response. He was only eight and bewildered by our mother’s unexpected, devastating absence. Joshua, older by two years, gripped my hand fiercely, wordlessly conveying how desperately my younger brothers needed my strength. Being barely nineteen made me painfully aware of my inefficiencies. Time hadn’t yet revealed what all we might be facing, still I questioned my capabilities, knowing Mama’s death might make me the inheritor of monumental responsibilities I couldn’t begin to manage.

I’m Iva Rae’s daughter. I can do this.

Whatever this meant.

The future was no longer mine to mold to fit my fantasies or dreams. I had others to consider. I was Mama’s only girl. The oldest. The one my great Aunt Sis claimed was too mature for her age, who regularly received her admonishments to sit my high and mighty behind down somewhere and know my place. Right then, I wasn’t grown. I was broken. Still, I costumed myself in dignity, praying my soul wouldn’t drown in desolation’s tempestuous ocean.

Crying never resurrected a body. Stop sniveling. Accept the loss and get back to living.

Summoned from school Up North and met at the train station by Granddad and Aunt Sis, her words had felt heartless. I’d controlled my sniveling, nearly choking on life’s bitter pill that was never my preference. Now, Aunt Sis’s caution felt too accurate–an unwanted shove towards acceptance. But today, laying my mother to rest, I permitted tears to trickle down my cheeks as the memory of those unfeeling words faded beneath Reverend Womack’s wobbly scripture recitation.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…

His brittle voice was thin; strong as wet paper with holes in it. I’d suggested Brother Murrell, the junior minister, officiate; but Granddad wanted Reverend Womack, and what Wyatt Coleman wanted usually happened.

Even Daddy consented.

My father and grandfather’s legendary animosity had coalesced into agreement on that singular topic. Albeit temporarily.

They’ll be fighting again faster than the dirt falling on our beloved’s coffin.

My gaze monetarily shifted from the mourners lining up to drop handfuls of dirt atop Mama’s casket to the man standing proudly, quietly on the opposite side of Joshua.

Dr. Everett Mercer. Forty-two years of age. Seemingly out of place in this sea of Colemanville citizens bearing beautiful black, brown, caramel, and cafe au lait-colored faces. My father respectfully held his fedora, exposing the thick, dirty blond waves crowning his head. Mourning had diluted what little color his complexion held, accentuating its paleness. He was kind. Handsome. An outstanding physician who’d invested in and owned so much within the town he’d been dubbed The King of Colemanville. He was a man who spoke of equality despite whites here, Coloreds there, separate and unequal kinds of racism. Perhaps his healing skills, his treating all with dignity, allowed my mother to silence her morals and be a white man’s kept woman.

Might as well have spit Joshua and Caleb out, they look so like him.

Glancing at my brothers wasn’t necessary to know they were our father’s replicas— Joshua, nearly white-looking, Caleb sepia-toned, but fairer than me. Both tall. Slender. Blue-gray about the eyes. Mild-natured yet determined. They excelled academically. Socially. Unlike myself, they had no shortage of friends and bore no evidence of sharing my unsavory sentiments towards our parents’ marriage-less union. That could change as they aged, but right then they benefited from naivete.

Miss Floretta…

Unpleasant considerations disappeared beneath the magnetic depths of the recognizable voice instantly commanding my attention. I ignored the inappropriate electricity skittering across my midsection and turned to acknowledge the mourner waiting, like Daddy, hat in hand.

His hat-holding was where the similarities began and ended.

Hard-bodied. Intense. Full about the lips. Smoky eyes the color of tobacco leaves. Impossibly good-looking. A plethora of beaded and leather cord necklaces about his neck, one featuring a pendant that looked like, but wasn’t, a cross. The suit jacket straining to contain his muscularity had seen better days with its frayed cuffs and unfashionable cut. Even so, it was neat as it could be for a man whose wife had left him. I lied to myself, claimed he smelled like his prized stallions simply to minimize the power of his presence. He was both open and enigmatic, the long braid cascading down his back a symbol of his Black Seminole heritage. Taller than my father, more comfortable with horses than other men, he seemingly blocked out the sun’s existence.

Packer Sims.

Horse rancher. Father of one. An abandoned husband. He was mesmerizing. Intoxicating. The kind of man a woman could make trouble with. Thankfully, I was smart enough to need nothing from him other than his moving off into some other woman’s atmosphere.

Two

M s. Iva was a great woman. You have my condolences.

His voice rolled like quiet thunder. His words were brief, but heartfelt. Their soft sincerity tempered any gruffness, made the scar slashing his left eyebrow less intense.

Thank you, Mr. Packer. He wasn’t but seven or so years older than me, but formality helped squash the butterflies in my belly acting ignorant simply because he was within my orbit.

He wasn’t like boys my age. Immature. Foolish. Packer Sims was what my cousin Tippy called a Mister-Mister-Man-Man. The kind of creation who could make a God-fearing woman forget her religion.

The wagon’s beautiful.

I pushed my mind away from fascinated foolery and pulled my gaze from the whisky-deep intensity of his to take in the conveyance that had transported my mother from First Jubilee A.M.E. to the cemetery. At the edge of the graveyard stood six horses hitched to a wagon, long tails swatting occasional insects, but otherwise virtually motionless. Even in stillness they were powerful, magnificent. Their dazzling white coats were matched in radiance only by the white roses from Miss Greenie’s flower farm decorating their manes and the wagon, transposing it from simple to Cinderella’s carriage. The product of Sims Stables, their equine brilliance bore evidence of generations of prize-winning breeding. Thank you again for offering it… and your horses.

Anything for Ms. Iva.

Mama had been kind to him and his son, sending meals from Miss Dimple’s diner when his wife, Miss Rudie, hightailed it out of town a few years ago and never returned. According to Aunt Sis, Miss Rudie found greener pastures that didn’t require her working in any. Apparently, life as a horse rancher’s wife wasn’t to her liking.

She don’t know what she’s missing.

I rebuked myself, disgusted with such errant thoughts. Today was not a day for thinking about any man. Especially Packer Sims. Please give Peanut my best.

Invoking Caleb’s playmate and Packer’s seven-year-old son was my only recourse when he stood there, staring intently. Thankfully, it proved enough to nudge him into motion and set myself free. He nodded and continued down the line, acknowledging my grieving family, allowing me to breathe.

Packer Sims, why you gotta call me Floretta versus Flo like everyone else? All unnecessarily formal.

Only Mama called my name more formally when she was upset with me about something. That was when I became Floretta Eve. Eve. The original woman. And the derivative of Everett, my father. Now, Mama couldn’t speak my name and Daddy was my only parent. This new existence without her hadn’t fully set in. The notion scared me to death, conjuring up a fresh cascade of tears I struggled to suppress.

Flo… baby, you holding up okay?

I stopped tracking Packer to face the woman stopped before me, accompanied by a small but sweet cloud of women my mother considered precious. Ermaline Dimple James and members of the DOLLs were a lovely sight despite their sorrow at Mama’s passing.

Nearly all of Colemanville had gathered to pay proper respects to one of the town’s darling daughters—all dressed in black. Respectfully. Not so the DOLLs. They’d attended Mama’s farewell service thirty-strong, dressed in her favorite color, a melted strawberry ice cream kind of pink, with a white rose pinned to their dresses, creating a delicious, feminine sea in a dark ocean of mourning.

The DOLLs—Daughters of Legacy and Light, Colemanville’s women’s auxiliary—was composed of the female descendants of the town’s four founding families. According to family lore and town history, my great grandfather, Profit Coleman, was a child when he escaped slavery because of the bravery of his mother, Liberty.

Profit was ten in 1864 when Liberty managed to secret he and three other boys from the Hollinswood Plantation where they were enslaved onto the Underground Railroad, violently losing her life in the process. Profit survived the harrowing experience and wound up in Kansas; he and the three boys with him. He promised not to let Liberty’s sacrifice be in vain when, irony of ironies, slavery was abolished the following year. Took a decade for him to make his way back to Hollinswood, intent on locating his mother’s grave. He found desolation and a burned-out plantation instead. With earnings saved over the years as a free person, my great grandfather purchased that incinerated wasteland in 1874 with the aid of the three boys Liberty helped free. Together, Profit Coleman, Cain Robertson, Amos Bruce, Isaiah Mosely—the boys Liberty saved—established Colemanville.

The DOLLs were the daughters two generations removed, the benefactors upholding Mama Liberty’s legacy of determination, purpose, and freedom.

I was seven or eight when asking Mama why a useless s dangled from the tail end of the acronym.

It’s about unspoken sisterhood. And sisterhood is never useless. Plus, doesn’t saying I’m a board member of the DOLLs sound more accurate than I’m part of the DOLL?

I’d suggested I’m a DOLL was better than I’m a DOLLs only for Mama to reiterate that sisterhood was imperative, and that the s wasn’t going anywhere. I accepted that as well as their weekly meetings every Friday evening.

Mama never scheduled clients past two o’clock on Fridays to ensure her salon closed on time and she wasn’t late. She came home from DOLLs meetings lively and smiling. That Friday night happiness tempered the sadness caused by my father’s Friday mid-morning departures. I suspected folks had much to say about my parents’ relationship, especially the town tattler, Aunt Sis. But my brothers and I were accustomed to its dynamics, including only seeing our father once a week, excluding major holidays when we saw him even less. Mama filled the interims between my father’s visits with a busy life in Colemanville as its sole beautician and a DOLLs board member.

The scent of the open earth filling my nostrils, I felt an immense wave of gratitude for the DOLLs and their accepting Mama without judgment. But it was Miss Dimple who I wanted to thank for being Mama’s dearest, lifelong friend.

My sight wavered with tears as I shook my head in answer to her question. No, I wasn’t okay and probably never would be.

Oh, honey…

When she opened her arms, I said to hell with public dignity and fell against her breasts, bawling like a starving infant. Mama’s DOLLs instantly surrounded me. Misses Zayda, Ilona, and Greenie. With Miss Dimple they became a living blanket, wrapping me securely, permitting me to wail and grieve until I found a sliver of relief.

Iva Rae ain’t gone, baby. Miss Dimple’s soft-spoken sentiments tumbled on a gentle breath. She just stepped over into eternity. When hurt gets to hurting, remind yourself you’ll see her again.

Yes, ma’am.

She squeezed me tightly before she and the DOLLs continued down the line, taking their refreshing air with them.

In their absence I was suddenly hot, exhausted, and irritable.

I need my mama. I gotta go home.

I turned suddenly, intent on leaving despite whatever trouble that might cause, only to catch sight of something soft and white shimmering in the distance.

It danced on the breeze delicately. A woman’s dress? Or perhaps an ethereal presence.

My heart pounded, thinking maybe Mama’s spirit was visiting, reassuring me she was okay only to remember the lore of my childhood.

If they’re grieving or need rescuing she comes, the champion of children.

I wasn’t a child. I was nineteen. That didn’t prevent me from taking a halting step towards the vision in the distance only for it to waver and vanish.

Liberty lives here.

Our town’s motto slipped from my lips in quiet homage as I blinked against the glaring sunlight, shivering and wondering if the folklore was accurate. Wondering if I’d just glimpsed my great-great grandmother Liberty on the periphery of this cemetery, the sacred place built on the grounds where she’d breathed her last breath.

Liberty lives here wasn’t the mere motto of freedmen.

She was a person.

Three

Can I get you something else to eat?

How’re you gonna fend for yourself, Joshua, and