Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) Read Online Free PDF

and some not-so-good ones.”
    “Oh.” Jubilee hesitated a moment then asked, “Did Mama think she was nice?”
    Paul shrugged again. “Hard to say. Mama never talked about her, leastwise not to me.”
    “How come?”
    “Judging by the letters I read, Mama and Aunt Anita didn’t get along real well.”
    “What if we get to Virginia and Aunt Anita don’t get along with us either?”
    “You ask too many questions. Stop worrying. Try to sleep.” He wrapped a long arm around her shoulders and nudged her closer. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a big day.”
     

     
    Jubilee closed her eyes and before long drifted off to sleep. For Paul, sleep was impossible. He kept asking himself the same questions Jubilee asked. Unfortunately, he knew something she didn’t. He knew what Anita had written in those letters. Paul thought back on the last letter, the letter dated just two months after Jubilee was born. The angry words were written in a heavy-handed script, and even after seven years the smell of bitterness still permeated the ink. If you refuse to listen to reason, Anita had written, then I wash my hands of you.
    Since there were only a handful of letters, five to be exact, Paul had no way of knowing what Anita wanted his mama to do.  He could only pray that by now her anger had subsided.
     

     
    The bus pulled into Wyattsville shortly after daybreak. Paul gave Jubilee a gentle shake to wake her. “We’re here,” he whispered.
    The bus station was something Paul could have never before imagined. Four buses stood side by side, each one coming from someplace far away and heading to someplace else. A loudspeaker crackled the last-minute warning for folks headed to Chicago. Men and women moved through the terminal without slowing, each one confident of where they were headed.
    Wyattsville apparently was a lot larger than Paul had anticipated. Finding Anita might not be that easy. Holding tight to Jubilee’s hand, he made his way toward the front door of the station.
     

     
    Their first stop was a luncheonette where they sat at the counter. Jubilee whirled herself around on the stool three times; then Paul told her to stop. He looked down the menu prices, then ordered a glass of milk and biscuit for Jubilee and coffee for himself. He was on his second refill when the waitress, a woman with a badge indicating her name was Connie, asked, “Can I get y’all something else?”
    “You got a telephone book?”
    “Sure do, honey.” She waggled a finger toward the rear of the shop. “Right past the restroom.”
    Jubilee’s eyes widened. “You got a special room for resting?”
    Connie laughed then leaned across the counter and whispered, “It’s a toilet. We just call it a restroom for the sake of politeness.”
     

     
    After warning Jubilee not to budge from the stool, Paul headed toward the back. The phone book, nearly three times the size of Charleston’s, had way more names than he was hoping for. He turned the pages to W. He knew two things: Anita was supposedly their aunt, and her last name might be Walker like his mama’s once was. None of Anita’s letters mentioned a husband, so Paul was hoping she was still a Walker. There was a full page of Walkers. Not one of them was an Anita.
    As he made his way back to his seat Paul began rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, the way his daddy did when he was worrying.  Sitting at the counter he pulled the remainder of the money from his pocket and counted it again. Twelve dollars and eighty-seven cents.
    When Connie poured a third refill, Paul pushed two dimes and a nickel across the counter and said, “Thank you, ma’am.” When she came back with another biscuit for Jubilee, he asked if she knew of any rooming houses in the area. “Not too expensive,” he added.
    “I sure do,” Connie answered. “Missus Willoughby has a real nice place, and I think she only charges two dollars a night.”
    “Two dollars just for sleeping!” Jubilee