2:47 A.M.
Introduction
My name is Hattie. Hattie Mae Ellington. Today I am ninety-one years old. I turned ninety-one on March third of this year. I was born back in 1934 in Macon, Georgia. I have lived through a lot in this life. I have gone through situations that, when I tell people today, they don’t believe me. But everything I am going to tell you here is the gospel truth. You can ask my daughters, my grandchildren, anyone who knows me. I do not lie. I have never lied in my life.
For seven months, every single night at exactly 2:47 in the morning, my husband would stand right next to my bed in the dark, just watching me sleep. He did this until the day I pretended to be asleep and heard what he was whispering. And child, what I discovered destroyed my life forever.
I married Otis Washington on October 15th, 1955. I was twenty-one years old; he was twenty-six. It was a marriage sort of arranged by our families, as was common back in those days in the country. My daddy knew his daddy. They were deacons in the same church and thought we made a good match.
I barely knew Otis before the wedding. We had seen each other about three or four times, always with our parents nearby. He was handsome, tall, strong, and hardworking. My daddy said he was a serious man, a man of his word, and that he would take good care of me.
After the wedding, we went to live on a small farm that his daddy had given us. It was about fifty acres of land near Cordele, deep in the Georgia countryside, far from everything. The house was simple, made of wood, just three rooms. There was a living room that was also the kitchen, a bedroom, and a small pantry in the back. The bathroom was outside, an outhouse, and we didn’t have electric lights. We used kerosene lamps. The water came from a well in the yard.
Otis worked in the fields. He planted corn, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and raised some chickens and hogs. I took care of the house, washed clothes on a scrub board, cooked on a wood stove, and sewed our clothes. It was a hard life, but it was the life we knew.
We had three daughters. Ruth was born in 1957, quiet and calm. Ruby came in 1959, loud and demanding attention from her first breath. And Pearl, my baby, arrived in 1962. Otis wanted a boy to help him in the fields, but the Lord gave me three girls, and I was grateful for each one.
Otis was always a very quiet man. He wasn’t one for talking, nor was he one for affection. He never hit me, never raised a hand against me—I have to say that. But he was never affectionate either. He never hugged me just to hug me. He never told me he loved me. It was as if we were two strangers living in the same house.
That was how it went for thirteen years. Thirteen years of a quiet marriage without great joys, but without big problems either. Until January of 1968 arrived.
It started on Tuesday, January 16th, 1968. It had been a normal day. I got up early, made the coffee. Otis went to the fields. I stayed to look after the girls.
We went to bed around nine at night. I always slept on the left side of the bed next to the wall. Otis slept on the right side next to the door.
In the middle of the night, I woke up. I woke up suddenly, the way you wake up when you feel something is wrong. You know when you have the certainty that someone is watching you? That was the feeling.
I opened my eyes slowly, still half-groggy with sleep. The house was pitch black. There was no moon that night. But child, I saw his silhouette. The silhouette of Otis standing by the bed, just standing there.
My heart started racing. I got so scared that for a second I couldn’t even breathe. I thought it was a burglar. But then my eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw it was him. Otis, standing on my side of the bed, watching me.
I was so scared I couldn’t say anything. I just lay there looking at him, and he kept standing there, just watching me. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. After a while—maybe a few minutes—he went back to his side of the bed and lay down without saying a word, as if nothing had happened.
The next morning during coffee, I asked him, “Otis, did you get up last night?”
He looked at me with a face like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Get up for what? To go to the bathroom? No, I slept all night. Why?”
“Nothing. I thought I heard a noise.”
And that was it. Subject closed.
But child, it happened again the next night. And the third. And the fourth. Every single blessed day, always at the same time. I started looking at the clock we had on the wall. It read 2:47.
He stood there for about ten minutes. I lay there pretending to be asleep, but I was wide awake, heart pounding, trying to understand.
Seven months passed. Seven months of this. February, March, April, May, June, July. Starting August. Every single blessed day, 2:47 in the morning, he would get up, go to my side of the bed, stand there watching me, and then go back.
I started to lose weight. I couldn’t eat right. I couldn’t sleep. I lived tired, nervous. The girls noticed. Ruth asked me if I was sick. I told her it was just tiredness, but she didn’t believe me.
Ruby was acting strange, too. She was always the most talkative of the three, the happiest. But in those days, she was quiet, didn’t play like before. She stayed in her corner, silent. I realized she had lost weight too. Her little face was thinner. Her clothes were loose.
One day, late July, Ruby came home from school and went straight to the bedroom. She said her stomach hurt. Later, when I went to bring her dinner, I saw she had been crying.
“Ruby, are you crying? What happened?”
“Nothing, Mama. It’s the pain.”
But I knew it wasn’t just the pain. There was fear in her eyes. Fear of what?
That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about my daughters. What was happening to my family?
2:47. He got up like always. Went to my side like always. But this time I wasn’t afraid of him. I had courage. I needed to discover what was happening.
That was when I had the idea. I was going to pretend I was asleep, but I was going to pretend well. I was going to stay quiet, very quiet, to hear if he said anything.
Monday, August 12th, 1968. It was going to be that day.
I woke up in the early morning, looked at the clock. 2:30. I still had fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to discover the truth.
I lay completely still, breathing deep and slow. I let my arms go limp. I tried to look like a person in a deep sleep.
Otis was on his side of the bed. I heard his breathing. The minutes passed slowly.
Then, I heard the bed creak. He was moving. The mattress sank on his side when he leaned to get up. He stood up.
I heard his steps slowly, very slowly, on the wooden floor. Creak, creak, creak. He stopped on my side of the bed. I felt his presence there close, very close. I kept breathing deep, slow.
He stood there like he always did. My heart raced, thump, thump, thump, beating very fast. I tried to control it.
Then he moved. I heard a noise like he had crouched down, got on his knees next to the bed.
And then, child, he started to speak. His voice was so low, so weak, I could barely hear a whisper.
“Please, Hattie,” he said my name. “Please, Hattie, forgive me.”
Forgive what?
He kept whispering, his voice breaking, trembling. “Forgive me for what I did, for what I promised. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have done that.”
My whole body went tense, but I kept pretending to sleep.
“I was desperate, Hattie. I was scared. The debt was too big. I had no way to pay it.”
Debt?
He cried. I heard his quiet weeping. “Three thousand dollars. Three thousand. I didn’t have it. I don’t have it. And he was going to kill me, Hattie. Mr. Thorne was going to kill me.”
Mr. Thorne. Silas Thorne, the wealthy landowner, the widower. My blood ran cold.
“So I promised… God forgive me. I promised our girl. Our Ruby.”
No. No, no, no.
“When she turns fifteen, she marries him. That was what I promised. To pay the debt. To save my life.”
I wanted to scream. Wanted to get up. Wanted to grab that man by the neck and squeeze until he stopped breathing. But I stayed still because I needed to hear everything.
“It was January 16th, early morning. I had lost everything playing poker at Big Joe’s juke joint. Everything, Hattie. All the money we had saved. And I still ended up owing three thousand to Mr. Thorne.”
He had gambled our money. The money I scraped together sewing. He had gambled it all.
“He showed up here at the house the next day, Mr. Thorne, and made the proposal. He said he would forget the whole debt if I promised him Ruby’s hand when she turned fifteen. He is fifty-two, Hattie. Fifty-two. And our girl is nine.”
I was shaking on the inside, trembling with rage, with horror.
“I said yes. God forgive me. I said yes because I was afraid. I am a coward, Hattie. I am a coward. That’s why I come every morning, 2:47. The time I made the promise. The time I sold our daughter.”
He kept crying, voice getting lower. “Six years left. Six years until she turns fifteen. And then I’m going to have to hand her over. I’m going to have to take my daughter to Silas Thorne like she was cattle.”
No. That wasn’t going to happen.
He stayed there longer, crying softly. Then he got up. I heard his steps going back to his side of the bed. I heard the bed creak when he lay down.
I waited until I was sure he was asleep. Then I opened my eyes.
Everything made sense now. Ruby was strange because she knew. Someone had told her. She knew her daddy had promised her in marriage to an old man who could be her grandfather.
I lay there the rest of the night without sleeping, just planning. I saw the day dawn through the crack in the window. I got out of bed carefully.
I went to the kitchen, lit the wood stove, put water to boil. The girls woke up. I looked at Ruby, at her little face, and she looked at me. And in her eyes I saw that she knew that I knew.
I hugged her tight. “Are you okay, Mama?”
“Yes, baby, I’m okay.”
Otis appeared, came into the kitchen, sat at the table. He grabbed a biscuit, buttered it like it was a normal day. I looked at him, looked him right in the eyes, and he looked away.
“Ruth,” I said, “you and the girls are going to spend the day at Auntie Etta’s house.”
“Today, Mama? But Auntie Etta lives in Atlanta.”
“We’re going to see if Mr. Banks can take y’all to the bus stop. I’m taking you this morning. You’re going to stay there a few days.”
I looked at Otis. He was pale, white as a sheet. He knew.
I packed a bundle with the girls’ clothes. I took the three by the hand. Mr. Banks took us to the bus stop. I settled the girls on the bus.
Daniel Carter is a senior staff writer at InspireChronicle, specializing in legal conflicts, family disputes, and real-life justice stories. His work focuses on high-stakes situations involving inheritance, betrayal, and complex moral decisions. Through detailed storytelling, he explores how ordinary people navigate extraordinary challenges and the long-term consequences that follow.
His articles have gained significant traction online for their emotional depth and realism, resonating with readers across the United States.
He writes extensively about justice, personal responsibility, and the hidden dynamics within families.