Amethyst, there’s someone here to see you.”
Amethyst looked up from the cutting board. Her fingers reeked of onion, and her hair fell in ragged wisps around her face. She pushed at a stray lock with the back of her hand. “Silvie, I’m not exactly dressed for receiving. Look at me—blue jeans and one of Harper’s old shirts.
Who is it?”
“The new preacher at the Presbyterian Church.”
“Dixon Lee Godwin?” She frowned and waved the knife in Silvie’s direction. “What’s he want with me?”
“White folks don’t often tell me their business,” Silvie quipped. “Besides, you are a member of his congregation.”
“He’s only been in town a month. I’d barely recognize him on the street.”
Silvie shrugged. “Maybe he’s eager to get to know his flock.”
“Can you tell him this is not a good time? I’ll give him a call and invite him to tea.” She went back to dicing the onions.
“He seemed very insistent. Agitated, I’d say.”
“Oh, all right.” Amethyst flung the knife down and pulled the apron over her head. “But somebody needs to tell this fellow that it’s impolite to drop in unannounced.” She looked down at her jeans and stained shirt and grimaced. “He’ll just have to take me as I am.”
Silvie grinned and picked up the knife. “Don’t we all?”
Amethyst went into the parlor to find the Reverend Dixon Lee Godwin perched uncomfortably on the brocade settee. She had only seen him in the pulpit, where he cut an imposing figure. Up close, she thought he looked a little like Abraham Lincoln—very tall, with gangly legs and enormous hands. He had that same angular jaw and jutting brow, but his face was clean-shaven and his hair graying at the temples. A fine figure of a man, she thought. Born to be a preacher.
“Reverend Godwin,” she said as she approached him with her hand outstretched. “Please forgive my appearance. I wasn’t expecting company.”
He stood, towering over her, and gave a formal little nod. “I apologize for barging in on you like this. I know you must be busy—”
Amethyst shook her head. “Nonsense. When you run a boardinghouse, there’s always work to do. You finish breakfast and start dinner.” She caught a strong whiff of her hands and wrinkled her nose. “It’s just your misfortune to arrive when I was slicing onions.”
Amethyst sat down and motioned for him to resume his seat. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Reverend Godwin?”
He blushed a little and ducked his head. “Please, call me Dix. I’m not much accustomed to the Reverend label yet; I just completed seminary, you see. This is my first parish. Until four years ago, I was a salesman in Sioux City, Iowa.” He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of surrender. “I received the call late in life, I suppose.”
Amethyst smiled. She liked this affable man. He was humble and self-effacing, not at all caught up in the pretensions of being “a man of God.”
“Well, I have no doubt that the Lord did call you to ministry. I’ve heard you preach.”
He smiled, and a deep dimple creased his left cheek. “Thank you. Coming from you, that’s a real compliment.”
“Coming from me?” She cocked her head and looked at him quizzically.
“I didn’t mean it quite in that way,” he hedged. “It’s just that you have a reputation for being a person of . . . ah, uncompromising faith.”
“Meaning I’m bullheaded and stubborn.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Apparently you also live up to the other part of your reputation. Being unflinchingly candid.”
Amethyst pressed her lips together. “Hmmm. Yes, that, too.”
Godwin leaned forward and laced his long fingers together. “Actually, that’s why I’ve come to see you.”
“Because I’m bullheaded? Or because I’m honest?”
“Both, really. I’d like to talk to you about your, ah, perspectives. On the Negroes.”
Amethyst sat for a moment and watched him. Clearly he was uncomfortable, yet she did not discern in his expression any evidence of disapproval. “Just what, precisely, do you mean, my ’perspectives on the Negroes’?”
He cleared his throat. “Miss Amethyst—”
“Just Amethyst will do.”
“All right. Amethyst. It’s well known around town that you have several colored men, lawyers from the NAACP, boarding here at Noble House.”
Amethyst felt her temper begin to simmer, but she said nothing.
“And, well, I am your pastor,” he stammered. “Part of my calling is to be concerned about the safety and well-being of my parishioners.”
Again she waited. Let him squirm.
“You are, after all, a single woman, with no one to look after you,” he went on lamely after a moment. “As leader of the church, I have a responsibility to—”
"Reverend Godwin,” she interrupted, glaring at him, “forgive me for being unflinchingly candid, but I have been looking after myself for a number of years now. I am perfectly safe in my own home, and if you’re here to tell me I should evict my boarders, you’re wasting your breath. And your time.” She stood up. “If there’s nothing more—”
Godwin remained fixed to his seat. “Please, sit down,” he said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t come to pick a fight.”
“Then why did you come?” Amethyst remained standing and placed both hands on her hips.
“I came to talk to you about the Negro situation.”
“The Negroes are not a ’situation,’ Reverend Godwin. They are people.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. Forgive me; I misspoke. I’m—” He ran a finger around his collar. “I’m a bit nervous.”
Amethyst watched him for a minute, then took her seat. She felt a little sorry for him, but she couldn’t let pity get in the way of standing her ground. “I’m listening.”
“As I said, this is my first pastorate. Already I have had a number of people coming to me, concerned about the church’s response to what is happening in this town. People are frightened, Amethyst. All they see is that a group of outsiders—these NAACP lawyers—have come to Cambridge to stir up trouble. And trouble is being stirred up. Witness the—ah, incident—that occurred here several weeks back.”
She bit her tongue to curb the caustic response that leaped into her mind. Incident. Bailey savagely beaten. A cross burned in her front yard. Incident, my foot. And who, she wondered, were the troublemakers in that little scenario?
“I am quite familiar with the incident, as you call it,” she answered, consciously governing her tone of voice. “Those NAACP lawyers are here for one reason and one reason only—to do what they can to improve the lot of Negroes in this county. If we didn’t have a problem, Reverend Godwin, they wouldn’t be here. And as long as hooligans in sheets are running around the countryside terrorizing innocent people, Mr. Blue and his colleagues are welcome in my house.”
Godwin gave her a despairing look. “I understand,” he said plaintively. “Things do need to change. Black people are being oppressed and terrorized—sometimes even killed. I abhor what’s going on. As a Christian, I cannot in good conscience stand by and let it happen without offering some response. But isn’t there some other way? Some way to make changes more gradually, without inciting people to violence?”
Amethyst thought about this for a moment or two. Then she looked Godwin straight in the eye and said, “You really want to know, don’t you? You’re really struggling with what the Christian’s response should be.”
He nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“Jesus said, ’Blessed are the peacemakers,’” Amethyst mused softly. “And yet Jesus also stood up to the Pharisees and confronted them with their pride and arrogance. It’s the dilemma of all who would follow Christ, I suppose—when to make peace, and when to take an unpopular stand and refuse to budge. Tell me this, Reverend Godwin—how long are you willing to sit back and wait for change to occur?”
He frowned at her and lifted his shoulders in a shrug.
“Another ten years? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Slavery ended more than eighty years ago. In those eighty years, living conditions for many Negroes have become worse, not better. Black people get inferior jobs at less pay and are treated as second class citizens. Many fear for their safety, even their lives, because they’ve seen their neighbors beaten and lynched, their houses and churches burned to the ground, if they dare to stand up for their own dignity. How long do they wait? Until the Ku Klux Klan decides, out of the goodness of its heart, to stop hating and embrace their black brothers and sisters? Until the Jim Crow laws vanish from the books by some miraculous act of God?”
She shook her head. “If you wait for that, Reverend Godwin, you’ll be waiting forever. People don’t lay down their prejudices because it’s the right thing to do. They won’t stop killing and beating and oppressing and insulting until the law isn’t on their side any longer. This isn’t the Negroes’ struggle, Reverend. It’s a struggle that concerns all of us.”
As Amethyst spoke, she began to realize that the words she was saying weren’t just for his benefit, but for hers as well. She had believed them for a long time, but speaking them aloud confirmed their truth in her, heart and mind and soul. With the words came a determination of conviction, a power she had not known before.
“Bailey Blue says there is strength in numbers,” she finished quietly. “But there’s also strength in diversity. I believe the Lord has called us to reconciliation—not just reconciliation with God, but with one another as well. God commands us to gather the outcasts and welcome them in. And that means those of us who are not among the outcasts—us white folks, who have privilege and power and prestige—must lay down our power, must willingly share it with those who have none. No one is free while anyone is in chains.”
When she finished, Godwin was leaning forward in his seat, intent upon every word. “Do you want to preach this Sunday?” he asked with a grin. “My pulpit is open to you anytime.”
Amethyst chuckled. “I believe I’ll leave the preaching to the professionals.”
“Too bad.” He got up and extended a hand to her. “Thank you. You’ve given me a great deal to think about. And now I’ll let you get back to your work.”
“You’re welcome, Reverend.”
Amethyst walked with him to the door, and he stood on the porch, obviously reluctant to leave. Finally he straightened his jacket and turned to her. “I have a request of you.”
“Certainly.”
“Pray for me,” he said earnestly.
“I will,” she promised. “Anything in particular?”
He nodded. “Pray for direction. Pray for wisdom. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us.”
Amethyst smiled and waved as he walked down the sidewalk toward his car.
We, he had said.
“Lord,” she whispered as she shut the door behind him, “give Dixon Lee Godwin what he needs most.” She rolled her eyes heavenward and grinned. “Wisdom. Direction. And a kick in the pants every now and then.”
“Amethyst, come look!”
“I’m busy, Bailey.” Amethyst was sitting on the piano bench, trying to replace the bulb in the hideous piano light. She hated the lamp—a miniature bronze statue of Michelangelo’s David, his upraised hand holding a fringe-trimmed, lurid pink shade. It had once been a gas lamp, but had been electrified along with everything else in the house. Every time she looked at it, she felt the overwhelming desire to put a tiny little diaper on the shepherd-king’s midsection. But the lamp had belonged to Grandma Pearl, and she couldn’t bear to part with it. Sometimes taste had to take a backseat to sentimentality.
She peered into the socket. “This bulb is broken off—Bailey, would you mind going to the kitchen and getting me a potato?”
Bailey stared at her. “A potato? But we just had dinner.”
“Not to eat.” Amethyst let out a long-suffering sigh. Men could be so dense sometimes, and evidently a law degree rendered a man totally useless when it came to simple household tasks. “You slice the potato, see, and press it down over the broken bulb. Then you can unscrew it without cutting yourself—”
“Never mind that. Come look.”
Amethyst got up and went over to the window. “All right, Bailey, I’m here. What am I looking at?”
She peered through the ancient glass and rubbed at her eyes. “These old windows distort everything. Is that someone out in the yard?”
It was almost dusk, but beyond the big magnolia tree she could see a figure bent over a rake, scratching at the ground. “What on earth?”
She headed for the door with Bailey right behind her. In her haste, she slammed the screen door against the side of the house, and the figure in the yard jumped a foot and a half off the ground
“Miss Amethyst!” His voice squeaked, as if he had just hit puberty and was still a part-time soprano.
“Bogey?” she called. “Clarence Bogart, is that you?”
“Yes’m.” He moved a couple of steps forward, out of the shadow of the magnolia. “I—I’m sorry to disturb you. I thought I could just—”
“What are you doing?”
He held the rake at arm’s length and hung his head. She looked past his shoulder to where a large blackened circle stood as witness to the Night of the Klan Babies. The burned grass was gone, the hole filled in where the cross had been planted. Next to the magnolia tree sat a small bag of grass seed.
“So you thought you’d just sneak over here and repair my lawn without anyone knowing it?”
Bogey flushed a bright red and lifted his shoulders until they met his earlobes. “Yes’m. It was kinda stupid, I guess.”
“It was very thoughtful,” Amethyst corrected. “But why?”
Amethyst knew why, but Clarence Bogart didn’t know she knew. He had no idea she had seen him in the cab of the truck next to Conrad. Clearly he had come as an act of repentance, an attempt to clear his conscience, and she needed to give him the chance to unburden himself.
“It—it wasn’t thoughtful,” he objected. “It was—” He stopped suddenly, and tears filled his eyes.
“Go on,” Amethyst prompted gently.
“I was here, Miss Amethyst—the night the boys—” He broke down and began to sob.
“The night Dooley and his friends attacked Bailey and burned the cross?”
Bogey nodded miserably. “I—I’m so sorry, Miss Amethyst. I didn’t mean to—I mean, I didn’t want to. They made me come.” He looked up at her with a pleading expression.
“Did they?”
He shook his head. “No ma’am. I coulda said no. It was Dooley’s idea, to put a scare into you, I guess. I didn’t know they were gonna beat anybody up.”
“I believe that,” Amethyst said.
“Anyway,” he went on, “it just kinda happened. Everybody was getting rowdy, and Dooley, he was pretty out of control. Kept yelling about how the niggers were trying to take over—beg your pardon, Mr. Blue.”
Bailey waved a hand. “Forget it.”
“And so when everybody lit out and piled in the truck, I went along for the ride. Nobody dragged me along, I guess. I coulda refused, but—”
“But they would never have let you hear the end of it,” Bailey supplied.
“No—ah, I mean, no, sir.” He eyed Bailey cautiously. “Still, I wished I’d never got in that pickup. If I had it to do over again, I’d slit their tires.”
“They’d have found another truck,” Bailey commented. “Bigotry never lacks for transportation.”
Clarence took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m really sorry, Miss Amethyst. And you, too, Mr. Blue, for what they did to you. I didn’t hold the bat, but I’m just as guilty.” With fear in his eyes, he held out a shaking hand. “I hope you can forgive me. I swear I’ll never do anything like that again as long as I live.”
Bailey shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. “I accept your apology, son. Do you understand why racism like that is wrong?”
As Bailey carried on a conversation with Clarence Bogart, Amethyst watched the two of them. Clarence visibly relaxed, and even laughed a time or two at Bailey’s easy humor. She had to credit the poor boy for his apology. It took a lot of courage for him to show his face again and admit outright what he had done.
She only wished it were Conrad.
Would it ever be her son, sitting in this parlor, having this kind of conversation? She could only hope and pray.
An hour and a half later, after a glass of milk and two pieces of Silvie’s mixed-berry pie, Clarence stood to go. He put his bony arms around Amethyst’s neck and hugged her until she could barely breathe. “Thank you,” he said. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel.”
“I do too, Clarence. You come back anytime, all right?”
“I’d like that.” He ducked his head sheepishly. “I’ve missed you, Miss Amethyst.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Clarence.”
“Oh.” His eyes darkened. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you. Con was there, too.”
“I know, Clarence.”
“You do?”
“I saw both of you in the truck that night.”
“You knew? And you still let me in your house?”
Amethyst nodded. “Everybody deserves a second chance, Clarence.”
He bit his lip. “Well, Con, he’s really sorry, too. He kinda got swept along with it the same way I did. We’ve talked about it. He didn’t want to come, either, but he has a hard time standing up to Dooley.”
“And a hard time facing his mother, apparently.”
“Yes’m. I guess so. He didn’t know I was coming over here, though. I didn’t tell anybody.”
“Well, I’m glad to know he regrets what he did. I just wish he’d tell me.”
Bogey’s face took on a hopeful expression. “Maybe I could talk to him—”
“No,” Amethyst interrupted. “I’d rather you didn’t. If he’s going to come, he needs to come on his own.”
“I guess I understand that. I just wanted you to know he’s sorry.”
Amethyst felt a lump rise up in her throat, and she turned her head. “Good night, Clarence.”
“Good night. Oh, and Miss Amethyst?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll need to keep that grass seed watered for a few days.”
Amethyst nodded. The way she felt at the moment, she could water it with her tears.