Bent but Not Broken

Book 5: Lexington, Alabama Novel

by Mary Monroe

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; Historical Fiction; Southern

Synopsis

Brimming with unpredictable twists and scandals, the latest Depression-era Alabama novel from award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe tells of a mistreated wife who finally finds the love she's longed for—only to be plunged into deceit, betrayal, and murder . . .

As a young woman, Naomi Simmons grabbed her one chance to escape the overwhelming demands of her selfish family by marrying devout older man Jacob Purcell. But it only landed her with a controlling, unfaithful husband who delights in hurling insults at her and their troubled now-teenage daughter, Ethel Mae. So, Naomi is amazed and touched when Homer Clark sees her for the vibrant, intelligent woman she truly is. Believing the handsome, worldly widower is her love of a lifetime, Naomi plans to leave with Homer and start fresh in the big city . . .
 
Then Jacob suffers a debilitating stroke, and Naomi can't bring herself to abandon him. Unfortunately, Homer refuses to listen—or understand.  Relieved when he leaves town and disappears, Naomi dedicates herself to the now-grateful Jacob’s care. And she feels truly delighted and blessed when Ethel Mae finally gets her life on track away from home—and comes back with good news . . .
 
But Ethel Mae’s surprise will shock Naomi to her core and threaten everything and everyone she holds most precious. With no one who can help her—or believe her—Naomi battles increasingly insidious mind games even as her world starts falling apart. Can she defeat what appears to be a twisted scheme against her?  Or will she be forced into a devastating showdown that will leave no one undamaged—or standing?
 

Release date: March 25, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

May 13, 1916

THAT SATURDAY MORNING STARTED OFF LIKE EVERY OTHER SATURDAY for me. I did a few chores and then I cooked breakfast for me and Daddy. The only thing different about this day was that I had woke up with a overwhelming sense of dread. The only other times I felt this bad was when somebody close to me had died. I couldn’t figure out what was causing it or what I could do to shake it off.

At one point it was so bad, I went into my room and read my Bible. That didn’t help . . .

The ominous feeling was still with me when I walked the six blocks to the market after me and Daddy finished eating breakfast. Colored folks was only allowed to shop at this place on certain days and hours. The days and hours would change at random, so we never knew if we’d be allowed to shop until we got there.

Lady luck was on my side today. When I walked into the cluttered, musty-smelling store, I went to the meat counter first. I frowned at the chicken wings with a few feathers still attached, gimpy pig tails, and discolored hot links dangling from strings tacked to the ceiling. Behind me was a barrel filled with assorted fruit. Some was bruised or had already started to rot. Gnats hovered above the barrel. Some white merchants put out expired and undesirable food products during the colored shopping hours.

The redheaded, sharp-featured old man behind the meat counter stared at me and didn’t bother to ask what I wanted. The pig ears looked fresh, so I pointed to them and told him how many I wanted. I watched him real close because the last time I came to buy some liver, he had the nerve to try and sell me a piece with a big green spot on it. He tried to hide it by folding it in two. I told him to forget the liver and give me some pork chops instead.

I’d been coming to this store since I was a little girl, and it was just as scary and uncomfortable today as it had always been to me. “Add two more pig ears, sir,” I requested with my heart beating fast and hard.

The man still didn’t say nothing. He just rubbed his pointy nose, wrapped up my order, slapped it down on the counter, and walked off. I shook my head, grabbed my pig ears, and shuffled over to the produce section. While I was rooting through the bin that contained the yams, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. My heart started beating harder and faster because the only time I got tapped on the shoulder in a white-owned store was when they thought I was stealing. They would check my purse, socks, shoes, and pockets. The last time, this store’s manager even looked in my mouth to make sure I hadn’t swiped some candy and hid it inside my jaw like some of my friends did. I had never stolen nothing in my life, and I would get naked if they wanted me to so they could see I hadn’t swiped a thing today.

I sucked in my breath and reminded myself that no matter what, I had to remember my place. Colored folks wasn’t allowed to sass, argue with, or disrespect white folks in any way. If we did, we could end up in jail, beat to a pulp by the sheriff and his deputies, even murdered. A lot of the folks buried in the colored cemetery was there because they had riled up white folks in one way or another. Me being just a teenage girl didn’t matter much. Our church choir director’s thirteen-year-old daughter got beat to death in broad daylight in the middle of Main Street by a mob of white boys for snatching a white woman’s purse.

I forced myself to smile before I turned around. I was surprised to see Jacob Purcell standing there with a wall-to-wall smile on his cute, coffee-colored, baby face. He looked more like sixteen than twenty-six, but his well-developed body belonged to that of a full-grown man.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. All of a sudden, the dread I’d been feeling was gone. But I was still concerned as to why I’d had it in the first place. “You frightened the daylights out of me,” I said in a stern tone. “What do you want?”

“I’m sorry if I spooked you.” Jacob suddenly looked nervous. “I been trying to catch up with you for a long time.” He snorted and scratched his head, which contained some of the thickest, blackest, curliest hair I ever seen on a colored man. He had on a pair of bibbed overalls and a brown plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

I’d left my house at 10 A.M. and didn’t think I’d run into anybody I knew that early, so I hadn’t bothered to put on no makeup or none of my cute clothes. I looked like a frump in my faded gray blouse with the top button missing, and a limp, black corduroy skirt. A dingy, flowered headscarf was tied around my head. I cringed when Jacob glanced down at my dusty bare feet standing next to his shiny black clodhoppers. Another reason I hadn’t gussied up before I left the house was because white folks didn’t like to see us looking too spiffy. One time when I was strutting down Main Street in a bright red dress and matching shoes, a white girl I passed hawked a gob of spit on the tail of my dress. I was so used to holding in my anger, I didn’t do or say nothing. But when I got home, I punched my bedroom wall and burned the dress and them shoes.

I sniffed and blinked at Jacob. “Trying to catch up with me for what?” I asked.

“I thought you might like to go out with me sometime. I heard you liked to go fishing. I do too so I was thinking maybe we could go together one of these days.” He paused and added, “Real soon.”

I loved to fish, but I would have preferred something a little more romantic for a first date. Like a buggy ride, a movie, or a picnic. “I’m going fishing this Sunday after church.”

We agreed to meet up at the bank of Carson Lake on Sunday around three o’clock. I was about to head to the cashier when Jacob started talking again. “By the way, a girl like you shouldn’t be out here shopping by herself. It ain’t fitting. Cute as you are, some old boy might try to take advantage of you. You ought to take a dog with you every time you leave your house.”

I laughed. “I ain’t got no dog.”

Jacob gave me a sideways look. “Then what about your boyfriend?” he asked.

“I ain’t got no boyfriend, neither.” I got sad and mad when I thought about how James Hardy had dropped me like a bad habit two days ago so he could court one of them no-neck Baxter sisters.

Jacob’s eyes got big, and he leaned his head back and gave me the once-over. “Naomi Simmons, you must be the prettiest colored girl in Lexington, Alabama.”

I blushed. I didn’t agree with him. I thought my eyes was too big and my lips too thin. But I was proud of my honey-colored complexion, high cheekbones, and thick jet-black hair. Boys and grown men had been telling me for years I was pretty, but I still liked hearing it. “Aw shuck it. You think I’m that pretty?”

“Every day. I been wondering how come you ain’t married yet . . .”

“I been wondering the same thing myself,” I said in a stiff tone. All three of my older sisters and four of my close friend-girls was already married—and one was only fourteen, almost a year and a half younger than me.

Jacob smiled again. “I don’t know your family well. But before my uncle Johnny died two months ago, your daddy told him he couldn’t wait for you to find a husband so he can concentrate on his lady friend.”

I didn’t like hearing things was being said about me behind my back, especially by Daddy.

“Humph! That’s me and my daddy’s business. Why do you care?”

Jacob hunched his shoulders. “Well, I’d like to do you and your daddy a favor, I guess.” He laughed. “Anyway, I done heard how dependable, clean, and tolerant you have always been with your daddy and them demanding sisters of yours. A girl with all them good qualities could make me a good wife.”

I never expected my first “marriage proposal” to be so vague and out of the blue so I was flabbergasted to say the least. “You don’t know much about me, and I don’t know much about you.” I was lying. The colored folks in Lexington spent more time gossiping and putting everybody’s business out in the street, so I knew quite a bit about Jacob. He had started working at the sawmill a few weeks ago. Last year while he was still in the Army, a clumsy soldier accidentally shot him in the foot. He’d been discharged for medical reasons and the government gave him enough money to put a nice down payment on a two-bedroom house. Last month he broke up with a girl he’d been engaged to before joining the Army. A heap of other girls had their eyes on him. If he wasn’t good husband material, I didn’t know who was.

As for me, I didn’t think I was that special. It sounded like he did, though. I was impressed that he went from us going on a fishing date to us getting married.

“You want to get married or not? If you don’t, I don’t want to waste my time.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said in a firm tone. I didn’t like it when men got pushy with me, especially one I wasn’t even involved with. It was the first red flag, but I ignored it.

“Oh. Well, if you need to think about it, you must have other eggs in your nest waiting to hatch.”

I gave Jacob a tight smile. “Maybe,” was all I could think to say. I didn’t have a new boyfriend in sight, but I didn’t want him to know that.

I didn’t know what to say next, so I excused myself and rushed around to pick up the rest of my groceries. Daddy had gave me a shopping list. It contained only the same things we ate on a regular basis: yams, beans, greens, and a few other boring items. Like on every trip to the market, I snuck in some licorice to gobble up on my way home.

A few seconds after I got in line to pay, Jacob came up behind me and said in a low tone, “I hope you don’t take too long to ‘think about it.’ There is a heap of other pretty girls in Lexington.”

Just as I opened my mouth to say something, the scowling cashier hollered, “Keep moving, gal! Y’all need to be out of this store in ten minutes. If you ain’t, I’m going to call the sheriff.”

Before I could pay for my stuff and make it out the door, a white couple jumped the line in front of Jacob. They immediately started chatting with the cashier about a upcoming church event they was going to attend. I prayed that Jacob would get waited on before our ten minutes was up. If he didn’t, he’d have to leave his items on the counter and come back during the colored hours.

IT WAS WARMER THAN USUAL FOR THE MIDDLE OF MAY, BUT WE’D had a bad tornado two weeks before. It blew down one of the two pecan trees in our backyard and shattered every window in the house. Daddy had cussed up a storm when he found out how much it was going to cost to get the windows replaced. He didn’t make much money shining shoes downtown and doing handyman work at one of the elementary schools only white kids could attend. My older siblings was married and had decent jobs, so Daddy got money from them when he needed it. I made a few dollars running errands and doing favors for some of our neighbors, but Daddy still gave me a dime allowance every week.

Since the weather was pleasant again, I wanted to enjoy it for as long as I could before the next tornado season, which would be November and December. But tornadoes was fickle so they could also sneak up on us any other time during the year.

It was a nice day, but I didn’t have plans to do nothing. I didn’t want to spend another weekend being bored. Jacob’s clumsy marriage “proposal” had really got my attention. I didn’t know if he was serious or not, but I wanted to find out. If James hadn’t broke up with me, or if I’d had something better to do, I would have gone home and not gave Jacob another thought. Since I was between boyfriends, a man flirting with me boosted my ego.

Jacob rushed out the market door a few minutes later hugging his bulging grocery bag so tight you would have thought he was scared somebody was going to snatch it away. “That cow gave me a bag with a hole in the bottom. Some of my stuff will spill out before I get to my house!” he complained. “Next time I’ll bring something stronger from home like a crocus sack or a pillowcase.”

“She put my stuff in a holey bag, too,” I said with a heavy sigh. “They do it to me almost every time I shop here.”

“Well, they don’t do it to me too often, but it burns me up when they do.” Jacob pressed his lips together before he heaved out a loud breath. Then he gave me a curious look. “Why you still here? You know this neighborhood ain’t safe for us.” There was fear in his tone. “You better skedaddle before them crackers have you arrested for loitering. The sentence for that is ten days in jail.”

“Um . . . I was counting my change to make sure that lady didn’t shortchange me,” I lied.

“Well, even if she did, I advise you not to go back in there and call her on it. If you do, she’ll call the sheriff and have you arrested for harassing her. The sentence for that is a month and a day in jail.”

“Oh. I guess I’ll go on home then.” We started walking toward the neighborhood where we both lived.

Jacob rearranged the groceries in his bag, but a few green beans slid out anyway. “Dagnabbit! I’ll be lucky if they don’t charge me with littering,” he snarled. He started walking fast, and I did, too.

I was surprised and disappointed Jacob was not trying to flirt with me now. We had almost made it to the end of the block, and he hadn’t said nothing else. It was hard to believe he’d had so much to say to me in the store and now he was acting like a cat had his tongue. I decided not to wait for him to bring up marriage again, I did it. “So, you thinking about getting married?”

He looked at me and grinned. “Yep.”

“How many girls have you asked?”

“Other than the girl I used to be engaged to before I went in the Army, just you.”

“Oh,” I sniffed. “Well, like I said, I need to think about it, and I would like to get to know you better.”

“All right, then. You know where I live.” We went separate ways when we got to the corner.

I only liked Jacob. But getting dumped by James had really clobbered my ego. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been so antsy to get another man, and this time a husband. I wanted to be in love with the man I married. It didn’t look like I was going to be that lucky off the bat, though. From what my sisters and other married women had been telling me for years, it took more than love to make a good marriage. Security was the most important thing. Love was supposed to develop over time. One of the older ladies I babysat for told me she’d been married to her husband for over ten years and she still wasn’t in love with him. She claimed she was happy, though. She also told me the only thing keeping her content was the boyfriend she had on the side. Fidelity was important to me. I was a Christian to the bone and there was no way I’d marry a man and cheat on him.

So far, my luck with men had been bad. I’d had four serious relationships. Neither one had lasted more than a few weeks. Besides, none of them men had decent jobs or was in the church like Jacob. I couldn’t get him off my mind. If I didn’t take Jacob and run, some other girl would, and there was no telling what frog prince I’d end up marrying. With so many young colored men moving to the North, getting lynched, or joining the Army and never coming back to Lexington, the pickings was real slim.

I took my sweet time walking back to my house. I even stopped along the way and watched some birds building a nest in a big old tree in the middle of our block. I lost track of the time, so I didn’t realize how long I’d been gone until I got home. Daddy was standing on our rickety front porch with his hands on his wide hips and a scowl on his coffee-colored, still handsome face. “Didn’t I tell you to go to the market and come straight back home? You go yonder to the kitchen and set them groceries down and then drag your tail to the backyard and pluck a switch off one of them trees so I can whup your behind.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy. The store was real crowded. One white lady was buying stuff for a party and both cashiers took their time helping her pick out what she wanted. I couldn’t ask them to hurry up. You warned me I could get in a heap of trouble if I got uppity with white folks . . .”

Daddy gave me a thoughtful look and scratched his head. “Yeah, I did warn you. You did the right thing by being patient until somebody could wait on you. So, I’ll let you slide this time.” Daddy snorted and gave me a threatening look. “You might not be so lucky the next time. I’m going to carry Miss Maddie to the movie theater tonight, so you need to get supper ready lickety-split.”

After me and Daddy finished eating, he went to go visit Madeline “Maddie” Upshaw, the widow woman he’d been seeing for the past ten years. She lived two streets over from us in a house just as ramshackle as ours and most of the others in our neighborhood.

I stretched out on the living-room couch and thought about everything Jacob had said to me today. He wasn’t the first person to tell me my daddy was itching for me to get a job, move out, or get married so he could move on.

I couldn’t blame Daddy for feeling the way he did. He’d had such a hard life. He couldn’t read or write because he had to drop out of school in first grade and go work in the fields so he could help out at home. Him and mama had gotten married when he was seventeen and she fifteen. They had thirteen kids, but five died when they was babies. Mama died giving birth to me. Daddy had a real hard time raising eight children. All of my grandparents was dead and all four of Daddy’s siblings had passed before I was born. The only help he got raising me and my seven siblings was from our church and the lady friends in and out of his life.

Miss Maddie had already raised her nine kids and sent them on their way. She’d made it clear she didn’t want to raise no more—especially me. There was some bad blood between me and her. One of her daughters used to mess around with the same boy I was seeing at the same time. I didn’t know about him and her until she cold cocked me after a church picnic last year. She’d caught me and that two-timing boy kissing behind a clump of bushes. I didn’t like to fight. But some of my friends was looking and I didn’t want to look like a scaredy cat, so I punched her in the stomach—which was holding the boy’s baby at the time, but I didn’t know.

She lost her baby a few hours later and Miss Maddie had a fit. She stormed into our house and called me all kinds of names and made Daddy whup me right in front of her. She even had the nerve to bring the switch. After my whupping, Daddy and Miss Maddie marched me to her house and I apologized to her daughter. The girl claimed she was so afraid of me. Two days later Miss Maddie put her on a bus and sent her to live with some kinfolks in Massachusetts. Ever since then, Miss Maddie treated me like a dog she didn’t like. When Daddy brought her to the house now, I was always respectful to her. I didn’t want to jeopardize their relationship because he told me she was the only woman he’d been with since my mama died who made him happy.

RIGHT AFTER I’D STARTED HIGH SCHOOL LAST YEAR, I HEARD from a bunch of folks that Daddy was going around telling people he was anxious for me to be on my own. Just last Sunday while I was at the Baptist church I’d been going to all my life, my preacher came up to me after the morning service. Reverend Sweeney was a head taller than me, so I had to look up at him.

He put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a pitiful look before saying, “Sister Naomi, when are you going to slow down and get married and give your daddy a break?” Reverend Logan Sweeney was only about ten or twelve years older than me. He had taught Sunday school to me and my friends when we was still in elementary school. He had stepped into his current position three years ago when his daddy got too old and sick to continue preaching. I had a lot of respect for him, so his opinion was real important to me.

I forced myself not to stare too hard at his smooth copper-colored dark, muscle-bound body, and shiny black hair. He had a fiancée, but a lot of my friends had crushes on him. I had laughed his comment off and hurried away from him, but on the way home, a moon-faced old lady named Betty Woods who lived two doors down from us, yelled at me as I walked past her house. “Gal, your daddy told me he prays seven days a week for you to get a job or a husband so he can move on. If you don’t do it soon, you’ll have to settle for the scraps at the bottom of the barrel. I’m going to pray for you, myself. Seven days a week.”

“Thank you, Miss Betty.”

It seemed like everybody I knew was saying Daddy wanted me to find a husband or a job. He was one of the few who hadn’t told me!

I didn’t have nothing better to do, so I decided to visit Lula Pittman, my best friend since second grade. She was three months older than me and wasn’t a blood relative, but I looked up to her more than I did my own older sisters. Lula would jump in front of a speeding train for me, and I would do the same for her. Lula lived with her parents and two younger brothers. Her mama was a talented seamstress, and she was teaching Lula all the tricks of the trade so she could do the same kind of work full-time someday. Their house was only two blocks away from ours so it would only take me a few minutes to get there.

It certainly wasn’t no walk in the park. In them two blocks, I had to step over a dead lizard stretched out on the sidewalk. I passed by a deserted house where somebody had dumped a old pee-stained mattress in the front yard. The city didn’t do much to help the colored neighborhoods look good. Most of the time, it was up to us to haul away our trash and keep the streets clean. A trash can filled with odds and ends had fallen off the back of a truck last week and was still laying in the same spot on the street in front of Lula’s house. Somebody had cleaned up most of the junk and rolled the can to the curb.

As soon as I marched up onto the squeaky porch steps at Lula’s shabby, brown shingled house, she peeped out the living-room window. Before I could let myself in, she opened the door with a impatient expression on her cute, heart-shaped face. As usual, she wore enough face powder and rouge for two girls. There was blood-red lipstick on her full lips. She had flawless, reddish-brown skin and big brown eyes that always sparkled like new pennies. Today her long thick black hair was in a French twist. She looked like a princess in the pink silk blouse she had made with her own two hands.

“You can’t come in right now. I got company.” Before I could say anything, she closed the door and came out onto the porch.

“Why can’t I come in? I come over all the time when you got company,” I said with a pout.

“Because I got Maxwell Rogers sitting in the living room. I think he’s fixing to ask me to marry him, and I don’t want you to distract him.”

I gasped. “What a coincidence! Jacob Purcell proposed to me this morning,” I blurted out.

Lula raised her eyebrows and grinned. “My goodness, girl. I’m impressed. Jacob is kind of cute and makes good money at the sawmill. If I was you, I’d snatch him up real quick. One of the Baxter sisters told me she got her eye on him.”

It was one of them man-eating Baxter sisters who had stole my last boyfriend. I wasn’t about to let nobody in that family take another man from me. “I told him I’d think about it.”

Lula rolled her eyes and suddenly looked exasperated. “You better get the spirit, sister. What do you need to think about? All the men that ain’t standing in line to get to you? If you let a golden egg like Jacob slip through your fingers, you need a w. . .