I don’t even know where to start.” Amethyst shook her head and kicked the toe of her shoe at the charred remains of the parlor rug. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Her bedroom furnishings reeked of smoke and were covered with a sticky residue of damp soot, but at least they were still intact. Most of the serious damage had been confined to the front parlor. The only piece of furniture left standing was the old piano. Its finish had been bubbled by the searing heat, and it would have to be completely restored, inside and out, but it was salvageable.
Jake, the fire chief, had showed her the central flash point where the fire had started—a huge oval of black in the center of the parlor. “Gasoline, or maybe kerosene,” he said. “Pour it on the rug, strike a match, and—poof!”
There was no doubt who was responsible. Amethyst’s bedroom drawers had been rifled, and on the mirror over the bureau, a message had been scrawled in lipstick and baked hard by the heat: Niger Lovver. KKK.
Evidently, bigots couldn’t spell.
Bailey and the others had been working since sunup, hauling debris out to the yard, raking through the rubble. Silvie looked like a charwoman, and Dixon Lee Godwin could have been black himself, for all the smoke and grime that covered his face. They were good people, these friends of hers. People who would stand with her no matter what.
Amethyst tied a bandanna around her hair and slipped on a pair of gloves. She might as well get to it. Probably the best place for her to begin was sorting through her personal things in the bedroom. Nobody else could do it. But first she was determined to remove that message of hate from the mirror.
She went out on the porch and waved Bailey down. “Does anyone have a toolbox?”
“Around back, I think,” Bailey answered. “What do you need?”
“A scraper of some kind. To get the lipstick off the mirror.”
Bailey went to track down a putty knife while Amethyst waited on the porch. But before he could get back with the toolbox, a caravan of cars and pickup trucks pulled up to the curb. People kept piling out, two dozen or more of them. Men in dungarees and coveralls, with tool belts slung around their waists. Women carrying covered dishes and loaves of bread and pies.
Rube and Edith Layton led the way.
“Mornin’, Miss Amethyst,” Rube said formally.
“Good morning, Rube, Edith.” Amethyst narrowed her eyes and peered at them. What were they doing here?
“We’ve come to help out, if you could use a hand or two,” Rube went on. “Now, I’m not the mayor anymore, but I’ve still got a stake in how this town treats its citizens. And I’ve still got a little influence, too.” He took off his cap and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “We’re not saying we agree with your stand, Miss Amethyst. You gotta know that. But none of us”—he waved toward the crowd assembled behind him—“think a lady like you deserves this.”
“A lady like me?” Amethyst suppressed a smile. “Time was, nobody in Cambridge would have called me a lady.”
He ducked his head. “Well, you are, in my book, anyway.”
Amethyst wondered, just briefly, if these people would have offered the same support and aid had she been a Negro. But before she got a chance to say anything, Bailey appeared from behind the house with a paint scraper in his hand.
“Morning, Mr. Layton,” he said, eyeing Rube warily. In his old khaki work pants and a T-shirt stained with sweat and soot, he could have more easily been taken for a poor dirt farmer than a Washington lawyer.
Layton looked Bailey up and down. “Good morning, Mr. Blue.” He held Bailey’s gaze. “I’ve got a work crew here, if you’ll just tell us what you need done.”
Bailey moved forward and extended a hand. “We appreciate that, Mr. Layton.”
Rube Layton’s gaze darted to his wife, who gave a curt little nod. Hesitantly, he reached out and shook Bailey’s hand. When he drew his hand back, it was smeared with black grime.
“Hmmm,” he mused. “It does rub off.”
Bailey threw back his head and laughed. “Only temporarily. It’ll wash.”
The tension was broken, and everybody began talking all at once.
“We brought food,” Edith added, holding out a fresh apple pie.
The women clustered around Amethyst, and the men, taking their cue from Rube Layton, gathered near Bailey to get instructions.
Amethyst watched in awe as white farmers and builders and one former mayor went off to work side by side with a group of NAACP lawyers. Miracles do happen, she thought to herself.
Sometimes they just came in inscrutable ways.
Dixon Lee Godwin sat on a pile of rubble in the backyard and drank down a cold glass of lemonade. All morning, as he had worked with a dozen other men clearing out debris from the parlor and repairing the interior walls, he had engaged in a silent dialogue with his God.
It was more like a monologue, really. Dix had asked a lot of questions, but gotten little response.
For one thing, he wanted the Lord to tell him what he was supposed to do. His mind and heart swirled with a mass of conflicting thoughts and emotions, and he couldn’t for the life of him sort it all out.
He had been obedient, hadn’t he? After his wife’s death, he had left a moderately lucrative sales job and a comfortable home to go to seminary—at an age when most men were beginning to think about retirement. He had spent what little savings he had on tuition and living expenses, and once he was done, he had said yes to a pastorate in Cambridge, Mississippi, when he would rather have gone back home to Iowa.
He had sacrificed a lot to respond to the Spirit’s call. Yet he felt isolated, lonely, and unsure of himself. Didn’t God have a responsibility to him in return—at least to answer him when he prayed?
But he had received no answers.
The congregation at First Presbyterian had accepted him, he supposed. They smiled and shook his hand on their way out of the service, told him he had preached a lovely sermon. He fit right in, they said. Perhaps they thought it was a compliment.
But he hadn’t become a pastor to fit in, to deliver sermons that made people comfortable. He had gone into the ministry because he was engaged in his own search for truth. The spiritual life wasn’t about being ready for heaven, but about reflecting the character of Christ here on earth. It was about growing, deepening, grappling with the difficult questions of real life, discovering how the power of the living God intersected with human life. Unless he challenged his congregation to enter into that exploration for themselves, he had failed.
And at this moment, Dix felt like an absolute and utter failure.
Not a single member of his church had showed up to offer help and support to Amethyst in her time of need.
The people who came, in fact, weren’t for the most part churchgoing folks at all. Rube Layton and his wife attended church off and on—they were Episcopalian, he thought. But from what he could tell through the conversations that went on among the other men, few of them gave the first thought to religion. They were not here because they had any spiritual motivation. They just saw a need and met it.
Dix also knew that Rube Layton and his crew didn’t necessarily agree with Amethyst’s position on civil rights. The man had made that pretty clear, and yet here he was, taking orders from Bailey Blue, laughing and talking and working side by side with a bunch of Negro attorneys. At one point Dix had asked him why he had come, and Rube just shrugged and said, “When a neighbor needs help, you get off your duff and lend a hand.”
Why, Dix wondered, didn’t his parishioners respond like that? Were they simply oblivious to the Lord’s command to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and help those in trouble? Or were they so concerned about appearances that they couldn’t get their hands dirty?
The truth was, he was ashamed of his congregation.
And he was ashamed of himself.
Ever since his first conversation with Amethyst about her perspectives on “the Negro situation,” Dix had felt like Jacob, wrestling with the angel through a very long night. He knew she was right, that as a Christian—especially as a Christian pastor—he couldn’t sit idly by and wait for change to happen. He had heard about the death camps in Germany, about the Jews and Europeans who had been annihilated in German ovens. He had read about the trials going on in Nuremberg. And the question haunted him: If he had been an Aryan pastor in Germany, would he have stood up against Hitler and his purification plan?
Some Christians had resisted. Dix had heard about those who had hidden Jews in their basements and attics, defying Hitler and his gestapo and risking their own lives to save the innocent. Some had escaped. Others, along with those they had rescued, had died in concentration camps or been impaled on the point of a Nazi bayonet.
He hoped . . . wished . . . begged . . . that if he had been offered that opportunity, he would have been brave enough to seize it. He just didn’t know for sure.
Just last Sunday, the epistle lesson had been taken from Hebrews 11, and when he had stood to read it, he could barely get the words out: By faith they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness . . . escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong. . . . But others were tortured, stoned, sawed in two, slain with the sword. . . .
The words tore at his soul . . . taunted him. All of these saints, Dix recalled with a flash of humiliation, were approved as faithful unto God—whether they were victorious or not. The outcome didn’t matter. It was the motivation that counted in the sight of God.
Not because it’s possible, Amethyst had said, but because it’s right.
What was the difference, he wondered, between what happened in Germany and what was happening here, now, in Mississippi? The death camps were worse, certainly, in terms of the sheer horrifying numbers of the slain. But the principles were similar: a dominant, powerful group inflicting cruel, even deadly sovereignty over those they perceived as inferior.
Guilt crested over him in a wave. He didn’t need a voice from heaven to tell him the answer.
There was no difference.
The fact was, he had not been an Aryan Christian in Germany, facing down Hitler’s storm troopers. The choice to aid and rescue Jews had not been given him. But he was a white Christian in the South, and all around him black people—human beings, created in the Divine image—were being harassed, beaten, burned out, even killed, simply because they weren’t members of the “correct” race. A Klansman’s noose had the same effect as a Nazi’s rifle.
For weeks Dix had been praying about what he should do, what his response as a pastor and a Christian should be. Now even the prayers he had offered shamed him. Of course God hadn’t answered him. The answer had already been given, centuries ago—in the example Christ set by embracing the outcasts of society, in the way God extended love and acceptance toward all. In the cross that hung behind him every Sunday when he stepped into the pulpit.
He had been praying for the wrong thing. He had asked for wisdom, for direction. But he had his direction. What he needed was the backbone to follow it.
He set aside his glass of lemonade, put his head in his hands, and prayed. But this time his prayer was different: Lord, give me courage.
He barely had time to get the thought out when a voice broke into his consciousness. “Dix? There are some people here to see you.”
He glanced up to see Amethyst gazing down at him. She looked ridiculous—soot-covered from head to toe except for one little swipe on her nose. Wisps of graying hair stuck out in all directions from beneath her bandanna. Without warning, a fierce longing overtook him—to hold her in his arms, to tell her he was sorry for being such a coward and ask her forgiveness. The idea shocked him, and he tried vainly to push it aside.
“Dix? Are you all right?” She put a hand on his shoulder, and a rush of warmth pulsed through his veins. He pushed up from the pile of debris and smiled down at her. “I am now. Someone wants to see me?”
She nodded and led him around to the front of the house, where a group of his parishioners stood in a cluster next to the magnolia tree. For a split second his heart soared. Then he took another look.
It could have been a board meeting. Most of the leadership of his congregation had assembled on Amethyst’s front lawn. And from the expressions on their faces, Dix could tell they hadn’t come to help. They had come to confront.
The church moderator, a venerable, white-haired old man by the name of Edward Shoemaker, stepped forward. “We’d like an explanation,” he said tersely.
Dix watched him guardedly. “An explanation about what, Ed?”
“About what you think you’re doing. We were under the impression we had hired a pastor, not some kind of civil rights activist. We’re not sure we approve of the idea of you attending rallies put on by the NAACP, or associating with people who do.” The old man slanted a reproving glance in Amethyst’s direction. “Your place is in the church, doing the job we pay you to do.”
Dix suppressed a smile. Well, he thought, I guess some prayers are answered more quickly than others. He lifted his head and looked Shoemaker straight in the eye. “Being a pastor is not a job,” he corrected, “it’s a calling. And the first responsibility of that calling is to be obedient to God. My second responsibility is to be a model of Christlikeness among you.”
He paused and took a deep breath. “I have something to confess to you—to all of you. I haven’t been the kind of model I’d want you to follow.”
An expression of relief swept over Shoemaker’s face, and a wave of murmured assent went through the group. “Well, Pastor, we accept your apology,” the old man said. “We had hoped we could resolve this and put it behind us.”
Dix held up a hand. “Allow me to clarify. I have long believed that prejudice of any kind is wrong, an affront to the Almighty. I just haven’t had the courage to stand up for that conviction, to put my life and reputation on the line for it.” He waved off Shoemaker’s attempt to interrupt him and continued. “We have a choice before us—to follow the example of Christ, or to live by the standards our society sets for us. I, for one, intend to do the former. So you need to know that from now on, First Presbyterian will be a church that welcomes all God’s people without regard to the color of their skin. You can go or stay as you see fit, but if you stay, expect to have your preconceived notions challenged, and expect to see your pastor taking a stand whenever justice is denied to any human being.”
Shoemaker stood there for a minute, his jaw slack and his eyes wide. Then, without a word, he turned and left, with the others trailing in his wake.
Dix watched them go, then looked down to see Amethyst holding his hand.
“Do you think you’ll get fired?”
He didn’t withdraw his hand from hers. It felt good, this human touch, this connection. As if, at long last, he belonged.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe. But at least I’ll have my integrity.”
Amethyst stood in front of the bureau in her bedroom. She had been through every drawer, looked everywhere she could think of.
The amethyst brooch was gone.
She had found the velvet box she kept it in—tossed carelessly under the bed, smeared with soot and spotted with water. And empty.
She sank into the small rocker by the window and bit her lip to hold back the tears. So far she had done pretty well handling her shock and grief over the fire. No one had been killed; no one had gotten hurt. “Things can be replaced,” she had told Silvie.
And she believed it. Despite all appearances to the contrary, blessings were already beginning to emerge from this misfortune. Friends had rallied around her in her time of need. It appeared that the folks Rube Layton had brought to help were beginning to view Bailey and her other boarders as individuals rather than as stereotypes. And Dix Godwin had discovered courage in the midst of his own spiritual crisis.
But to lose Grandma Pearl’s brooch! Amethyst shook her head. It was too much. . . .
Hot tears, dredged up from the deep well of her soul, broke through her resolve and spilled over. She wept silently, clutching the velvet box to her chest. For a long time—she didn’t know how long—she sat there, rocking and crying.
Then she heard a noise—a small, faint gasp.
“Mother?”
She blinked back her tears and turned to see Conrad standing in the doorway between the parlor and her bedroom.
“Mother, are you all right?” He ran to her and knelt on the floor beside her. His arms went around her, and he pressed against her the way he had done when he was a little boy and needed comfort. But this time he was comforting her. “Don’t cry,” he whispered over and over again. “Please, don’t cry.” But he was crying, too, choking on his sobs, mumbling something about being so, so sorry.
Amethyst dropped the velvet box and laced her fingers through his hair. She held him that way, caressing his hair, until he got control of himself and looked up at her.
“Mother, what’s wrong?” he asked. Then he laughed at himself and swiped at his eyes. “That was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”
She gazed down at him. He had Harper’s eyes, and one little dimple that was the Wainwright legacy. It tore at her heart, seeing him again. He had changed so much in such a short time. Her little boy had become a man.
“The brooch,” she said quietly. “Grandma Pearl’s amethyst brooch. It’s gone.”
A stricken look came over his face, followed by a shadowed, inscrutable expression. He pulled away from her and sat cross-legged on the floor, lowering his face so that she could only see the crown of his head. A shock of hair stood up, that unruly cowlick she had combed down a thousand times when he was a child. Now she smoothed at it again, but he brushed her hand away.
“I should have come sooner,” he said, his voiced laced with misery. “I wanted to, but—” He paused, took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry, Mother. Sorry for everything.”
She wanted to ask, Sorry for what?, to encourage him to confess, to begin the process of healing and reconciliation.
“You know I was here the night Dooley and the others burned a cross in the yard,” he went on after a minute or two. “Bogey told me you had seen us.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to come then, I really did.”
“Because you had participated in such a horrible act, or because Clarence Bogart told you I saw you?”
He shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
Amethyst sighed. At least it was an honest answer.
“I was there, but I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt. And now this—” He waved a hand at the devastation that surrounded them.
“The fire wasn’t your fault, Conrad.”
“No, but—” He shook his head. “I should have come long before now. You probably hate the sight of me.”
“Conrad, I could never hate you. You’re my son. I love you. I’ll always love you.”
“But you wish I were more like my father, more like your grandparents, and less like Grandpa Abe.”
At first Amethyst tried to deny it, but she knew he was right, and the truth stung. “Is that what you think?”
He nodded. “It’s all I’ve heard, all my life. My great spiritual legacy, the models I should emulate. But I don’t know if I can be like them—or like you. I don’t even know if I want to be. It’s not always easy, being the son of a saint.” He gave a brief, wry smile, and then his expression sobered again. “Still, I’m sorry for hurting you. Sorry for the stupid things I’ve done. And I’m sorry about the brooch.”
He got to his feet and looked down at her. “I need to go talk to Bailey. And then I’m going to pitch in and help clean up this mess.” He shrugged. “I’m not much of a handyman, but I guess I can carry wood and fetch water.”
Amethyst rose and pulled her son into a close embrace. He wasn’t a child any longer. He was nearly grown. She had done her best to sow seeds of goodness and faithfulness and truth in his life. Whether they took root or not was up to him, in the choices he would make for himself. He would always be her son, and even if he disappointed her, she would always love him. But the course of his life was not hers to decide.
As she let him go, she felt a burden lift from her soul. Whatever kind of man her son became, it was between him and God now.