"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Thatcher," Mackie said, extending his hand.

Jonas took it, momentarily speechless as he looked directly across at the boy, he was that tall, and very good-looking; he looked more like Ruth's side of the family—looked a lot like Beau as a matter of fact. "I'm pleased to meet you, too, Mackie. I've got a son—he's still just a little fella—but when he grows up, I surely do hope he's as fine a young man as you are."

Mackie gave a slight smile and ducked his head. "Thank you, sir," he said and, like a much younger child, he grabbed his mother's hand and pulled her along with him to the meeting room. She hadn't wanted him to be here, but Mack had thought it important that he see what she was calling an historic moment. The BCCCTC was an unprecedented organization, and if they could get it off the ground without anybody being killed, surely it would be an unprecedented and historic event.

Some fifty people sat quietly in the meeting room though Jonas knew they probably felt anything but quiet inside themselves, expected that their insides were roiling too, just like his. He was standing on a slightly raised platform behind a podium. He gripped it with both hands so the audience wouldn't see them shaking. Public speaking was not his strong suit. In fact, he'd never done it before. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he said and was startled when a lively chorus of "good evening" came back to him. "My name is Jonas Thatcher, and I live in Carrie's Crossing."

"You any kin to Silas and Beau and Ruth Thatcher McGinnis?" somebody called out.

"We grew up on the same land," Jonas said, knowing that the older members of the group would understand his meaning. "Little Si—you know him as Dr. Silas Thatcher—and Ruth and I played together as children. Their folks didn't like that, and my folks didn't like it, but we were friends, and we spent time together whenever we could. We fished and hunted, picked berries and climbed trees and talked about what we were going to do when we grew up." He looked out at the faces turned toward him. "Sometimes friends can be closer to you than family, and when I was growing up, Ruth and Little Si felt closer to me than my own brother and sisters."

"Y'all still friends?" somebody else called out.

"Of course we don't see each other like we did, but when I called Mack and Ruth to ask for their help, they agreed right away. And when they told me I needed to come over here and talk to y'all in person, I agreed right away. I'd say that's how friends treat each other."

Murmurs of assent floated through the crowd, and several people asked Mack and Ruth directly if Jonas was telling the truth about the friendship; when they responded in the affirmative, the crowd settled and returned their attention to Jonas. He explained the proposal and how it would work. He answered questions, and he asked a few. Finally he said, "I know it's not a perfect plan, but if it works, we can add to it. Right now, it's only for the live-in help because the pick-ups are on Monday morning at six o'clock and the return is Friday evening at six o'clock, in the parking lot of the Episcopal Church on Ashby Street. And here's something for you to think about while you're thinking about what happened to Sadie Hill: We've got a list of everybody who's participating. I have a copy and Mack and Ruth have a copy. We know who's working where. I also have the word of every person on that list that nobody will ever do what was done to Sadie Hill." He looked at the list in his hand and called out three names: "Miz Ernestine Smith, Miz Ruby Johnson and Mr. Samuel Johnson. If I could make your acquaintance, please?" He went out into the audience to meet them and shook their hands. "I'm pleased to have y'all working for me and my wife, and I'm also pleased to tell you, Samuel and Ruby, that you will have your own, private quarters in a separate structure on my property."

When the clapping stopped, Mack read the list of drivers who would make the first trip on the following Monday morning, and the names of those who'd ride with each driver. "We know that many people want to do day work, want to be able to ride the street car or drive to work in the morning and come home in the evening, and we are still talking to the police chief about how we can make your journey safe, and how we can make sure that what happened to Beau Thatcher doesn't happen to anyone else—"

"You won't have to worry 'bout that," a man called out. "He won't be doin' that to nobody else." And at Mack's confusion and lack of response, the man added, "That's 'cause he dead. The one put Beau on the chain gang—he dead."

More applause, this time louder than before, and Mack had to work harder to restore order, a task made more difficult by the look on Jonas's and Ruthie's faces. "How do you know that?" Mack said. "Is that just some gossip? What's your name, sir?"

"I'm Leroy Patrick and no, indeed, that ain't no gossip. My brother is the janitor at the police station and he told me. They found the man's body early this morning over in the Fourth Ward. Beat to death."

The energy in the room shifted so suddenly that Mack had to yell to be heard. "Monday morning at six o'clock in the Episcopal Church parking lot. If you're gonna work in the Crossing, be there on time." Excitement carried the crowd out of the room. Mack hurried over to Leroy Patrick, took his arm, and pulled him aside. "Can you tell me everything you know about what happened to that police officer?"

"Yessir, Mr. McGinnis, and I swear it ain't no gossip. They say he got kilt some time last night, but they didn't find him 'til early this mornin' on account of where he was: In a alley over on the East Side, a place so rough the rats and roaches is scared to go there. It's a place for gamblers and 'hos and cutthroats, a place where that Officer Edwards used to go pract'ly every night."

Mack was astounded. "The police chief knew Edwards went to a place like that?"

Patrick nodded his head. "My brother said they don't bother him too much 'cause his pappy is a rich man. Only reason they got after him for what he did to Beau Thatcher is 'cause the man Beau worked for is even richer."

"Do they know who did this thing? Did your brother say?"

"Yeah. Pimp by the name of Ollie Smith. And one other thing: They can't find where he lives, that policeman. The place where he told 'em he lived, the woman there said she ain't his wife and he don't live there."

Mack thanked the man and hurried over to Ruthie and Jonas. Mackie was there with his arm around his mother. Mack didn't want him to hear what he had to say but at this point, it couldn't be helped. He told them what he'd learned, and Ruthie began breathing again at the news that perhaps Ollie Smith had killed Horace Edwards, Jr., but Jonas still was ghost-white.

"I have to go," Jonas said. "Maybe I can get home before somebody calls Audrey."

They shook hands all around. Mack urged Jonas to be careful and to drive carefully and he hurried away.

"I want to see Beau," Ruth said.

"It was Ollie Smith," Mack said.

"I want to see Beau."

Mack and his son straightened the chairs in the meeting room, made sure no trash was left behind, turned out the lights and locked the doors. Ruth was in the car waiting for them. "Why don't you call him tomorrow, Ruthie, instead of upsetting your Pa by going over there now."

She didn't respond, and he knew he had little choice but to take her to her father's house. He again wished that Mackie wouldn't hear the discussion or the reason for it, but again, it was too late to do anything about that.

Big Si opened the door almost immediately, as if he'd been expecting them, and his first words hinted at some uneasiness within him. "What's done happened?"

"Where's Beau, Pa?"

"Upstairs 'sleep. What's done happened?"

"Was he home last night?"

"Oh Lord have mercy! I knew somethin' wasn't right." Ruth put her arm around his waist and led him to the sofa in the living room, sat him down, and waited for him to continue. "He went out and when he got back it was late and he was soaking wet and it didn't rain last night. I asked him how come he was wet and you know what he said? 'Cause he was hungry. I told him I'd fix him some food but he had to take off them wet clothes first. So, you know what he did? He stood in the middle of the kitchen and took off ev'ry stitch he had on, socks and shoes, too, rolled it up in a ball, and took it outside to the firepit. You hear me? He was butt nekkid, it was the middle of the night, and he took them things out to the firepit. Then he come back in here and set at the table, ready to eat. I told him to go put some clothes on and I'd get the food ready. He ate six eggs, a whole pot of grits, and half a loaf of bread. The boy hadn't ate that much food all together since he been back from that work camp." Pa took a deep breath; so many words all at once had exhausted him. He leaned heavily against Ruth. "What's done happened?" he asked again.

"That police officer, the one who arrested Beau, he's dead. Somebody killed him."

"They think it was Beau?"

"They think it was a man named Ollie Smith."

"Why you think it ain't Ollie Smith?" Pa asked, barbed wire in his voice.

Ruth stood up and began to pace. Her father, her husband and her eldest son watched her every step. They knew her so well—too well—she sometimes thought. "Something the man told you, Mack, doesn't make sense, and for now, it doesn't matter. White people very often don't make sense and that can work to our benefit: A white man is dead, they have a Colored man—Ollie Smith—to blame for it. But here's what doesn't make sense: Why would Smith cut the tires on his own car if he'd just killed a white man?"

Mack began to pace with his wife. "Maybe all the police are as stupid as Edwards and nobody will think what you just thought, Ruth."

"Will they even care?" Mackie asked. "Will it even matter to them that they've got the wrong Colored man as long they have a Colored man to blame?"

Nobody who loved Mackie wanted to know that he'd already come to such a horrible realization, yet they all were relieved that he had. The sooner the better. It was this kind of knowledge and awareness that would keep him alive.

"Pa," Ruth said, "I think we need to find another place for Beau to live."

Big Si nodded. "I been thinkin' that same thing for a while now. Some place where there ain't so many people. 'Specially white ones. But where?"

"I have an idea," Ruth said. "I need to look into it some more. I'll let you know.

 

***

 

– Carrie's Crossing –

Jonas

 

"You can't call your pa, Audrey," Jonas said.

"But if Junior is dead, pa needs to know."

"I still don't understand why he doesn't know. Seems to me telling his wife would be the last thing they'd want to do—under the circumstances." Jonas knew well how men's minds worked, knew it would be easier for one man to tell another some version of a sordid truth than to tell a woman any aspect of it, especially if that woman was the man's wife.

"That's exactly why they wouldn't tell him first. You know how he acts—yelling and screaming and cussing."

"I also don't understand why you didn't tell me that he didn't live with his wife."

"I told you, Jonas. I was ashamed. My brother goes with whores and then brings diseases home to his wife. I didn't want to tell you anything like that. You already don't like my family, and I didn't want to give you another reason."

He tightened his hold on her. "You are not your family, Audrey."

"How is that? Why is that? Do you know? Do you understand?"

He shook his head. It was a question he couldn't answer, despite the fact that he'd asked it of himself a million times: Why wasn't he like Zeb? How had he escaped being like Zeb? And it wasn't just his pa's hatred of Colored people that Jonas was relieved to have not inherited; it also was the man's inherent laziness, his fondness for alcohol, and the petty, vindictive streak that had earned him the general dislike of most of his peers. "I don't guess it matters. What matters is that you're you and I'm me."

"Suppose JJ is like them? Or the new baby?" She started to cry again, and he soothed and quieted her, then held her as she tried to stand. "I should call pa. I should."

"Then you'll have to tell him how you know which means you'll have to tell him how I know—tell him where I was and what I was doing there."

Still sniffling, she slumped against him…and the phone rang. He ran to answer it.

"Thatcher residence," he said, though he knew who was calling.

"Let me talk to my daughter."

"She's resting, Horace. Can I give her a message?"

"You can get her to the damn telephone is what you can do."

"And you can talk to me like you've got some sense or I'm hanging up."

Audrey was standing beside him now, reaching for the telephone.

"I need to talk to my daughter, Jonas. Her brother is dead."

Jonas gave her the telephone and left the room, went upstairs to look in on JJ, and as he watched the little boy sleep, he pictured Ernestine Smith, the woman who, in less than a week from now, would have bathed this little boy and put his night clothes on him and brought him down to his mama and his papa for a story and good night hugs and kisses. He had said that Audrey was the one looking forward to having household help again but in truth, he was the one. He heard Audrey behind him.

"You know we have to go over there."

"What did he say?"

"That some niggers had killed his son. I asked what happened, where it happened, who did the police think did it. He wouldn't answer; he said it didn't matter. All that mattered, he said, was that Junior was dead and that somebody would pay."

"You think he knows the truth? You think they told him what really happened?"

Audrey was quiet for a long moment, whether thinking about his question or the answer she'd give, Jonas didn't know. She seemed to be looking at something in the distance, then she turned her gaze directly on him. "I think he knows who his son was and what he was and how he was. I think if pa can keep his focus on somebody else, on some Colored man, then that poor man better make his peace with his Maker because Horace Edwards will see him sent to the electric chair."

 

***

 

– The Mountains of North Carolina –

Ruthie

 

The sun sliding down behind the peaks of the Appalachian Mountains leaving snail trails of gold and pink and orange was one of the most beautiful things Ruthie had ever seen. Or maybe those were the Great Smokey Mountains. She didn't care and it didn't matter. It was beautiful and peaceful and, for Beau, safe. It also was cold. Back home in Belle City, in the last week of October, nights were chilly. Leaves were beginning to turn on the trees. Up here the transformation was complete, and when the chill breeze blew, the leaves fell, covering the forest floor with a carpet of red, orange and gold. The forest floor would drift white with snow in the winter, the prints of various critters left as proof of their existence.

"You like this place all right then, Beau?" she asked him as he appeared out of the shadows and dropped down beside her.

"That's the third time you asked me that, Baby Sister, and my answer is the same: This is a good place, a very good place, and I'm glad you found it for me."

"Good because I don't want you to feel..."

"I know you're just takin' care of me, Ruthie. You just like Ma that way—she always would know what was good for somebody before they knew it for their selves."

The tears rose and fell before she could stop them. Beau put his arms around her and pulled her close, and they sat like that for a while. She told him how much she would miss him, told him much she had always relied and depended on him, how he'd never let her or any member of their family down.

"Yeah, I did. I let ev'rybody down when I...did what I did. I thought I was doin' the right thing. I still think so, but I see, though, how what I did could cause y'all trouble, so I'm glad to be livin' up here in these mountains, outta the way."

She wept again. "Oh, Beau. That's not why we wanted you away from Belle City."

"Why then?" he asked, surprised.

"Because...here's what I believe: Killing Tom Jenks and that policeman killed a part of you, too, because what you did made you like them, and that's not who you are. You're nothing like those men. You're the kind of man who gets mad at evil and at people who hurt other people, and you want to make it right. But Beau: There's always going to be people hurting Colored people and you can't make it right. Seems like not even God can make them different, so you'll surely kill yourself trying, and I don't want you to be dead on the inside. That War almost killed your spirit and your mind. Ma and Pa brought you back to us. Then, that chain gang took you away again, and Pa brought you back again. Next time—"

"Won't be a next time, Baby Sister, 'cause I live up here on a mountain." He picked her up as he'd done when she was a girl and swung her around as he'd done then, and they both laughed like children, which brought Pa and Mack to see what was going on.

"I see you already made yourself at home," Pa said, overwhelmed at the sight of his eldest and youngest engaged in a moment of pure joy.

"This is a good place y'all found, Pa. Good people up here, too. Fellas'll be 'round in the mornin' to help me and Mack dig and pour the foundation, and we think to be able to get it framed in and the roof on before the real bad weather sets in."

"I can help too," Pa said, and Beau and Mack both agreed that he certainly could, though neither voiced the thought that it would be over their dead bodies. Ruthie had extracted that promise from them as a condition for her agreeing to Pa moving up here with Beau—as if she could have prevented it. He was her parent, not the other way around, and Beau was her big brother and Mack was her husband. That the three of them conspired to have her believe that she was having her way with them both infuriated and enchanted her. She adored the three of them and had almost perfected the smile she now pasted on when she said how excited and happy she was for Beau and how glad she was that Pa would be living with him. It was breaking her heart. Pa was almost sixty-five years old and had a bad heart. There was no doctor up here…

"I'm getting hungry," Mack said, then to Ruthie, "Do you still remember how to cook outside?"

"Of course I do. You don't forget the things you love."

They laughed, the three of them, making various comments about how far removed Ruthie now was from the life she was born into. "That's why, after we cook and eat, you're gonna ride down the mountain and spend the night with the professor and his wife in their house, 'stead of out here under the stars," Beau said.

She laughed with them, acknowledging the truth of their words, though for reasons vastly different from what they were imagining. She had no more fear of the forest now than she did as a girl. What she needed from Professor Burgess was more reassurance that Pa and Beau would be safe, though she was secretly pleased that she wouldn't have to make do without indoor toilet facilities and electric lights.

"That's Indian land," Arthur Burgess told her when they first met. That was almost two months ago in Belle City. She and Mack accepted his invitation to visit the following weekend. She loved the land, but many of the Indians she'd met looked enough like white people to cause her to question the professor, himself a white native North Carolinian but a student of the history of the Indians of the state. He'd taken one look at Beau and proclaimed he'd have no trouble being accepted in Hendersonville, and Pa would be accepted because he was with Beau. "For that matter, you could live up here too, without any difficulty. Don't worry."

He had helped them find the land, and when it became clear that Beau could afford to buy and build anything he wanted, the locals became downright expansive. He could hire as many men as he could afford to pay, and these were men who knew how to build houses for mountain living. He would have as much seasoned wood as his soon-to-be-built shed could hold. Two dozen men were waiting for them when their two trucks pulled into the clearing an hour earlier. They inspected the wood, the nails, the window sashes, the door, the roof shingles, the cement, and the tools—hammers, chisels, trowels, saws, mitre boxes—and found everything acceptable. They would, they said, return at dawn, ready to work.

Mack had, a month ago, made sketches of the mountain house, and Beau had given his approval—with one request: That Mack make it bigger. He didn't want a house just large enough for Pa and himself. He wanted a house large enough to accommodate his entire family, he said, for he wanted and expected that they would be regular visitors. He had looked pointedly from Mack to Ruthie and said, "'Specially you and the chil'ren. I'm gon' have me a measurement wall and I'm gon' mark off how they grow, so you can't keep 'em away from me for too long." So, instead of a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, Beau would have a house.

In the remaining daylight, Mack and Beau began staking the ground while Ruthie and Pa began digging the firepit and lining it with rocks, then piling in the kindling and the wood chunks that would burn hot, fully cooking the chickens and potatoes that would be their supper tonight and breakfast in the morning.

 

From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

We celebrated Christmas that year in North Carolina. Everybody went—Big Mack and Clara and their other sons and their families; Belle and her children and her Ma and Catherine, Mack and me and the children. It was one of the best times of my life. We had all brought something for the house—pots and pans, dishes, knives and forks, bedsheets and towels and blankets—everybody brought blankets and we needed every one of them. We brought rugs for the floors and curtains for the windows, and kerosene lanterns—they had gotten hot and cold water, but they didn't have electricity yet—and of course, we brought food. From the moment we arrived until we left, somebody was cooking and somebody was eating. Pa kept wishing he had a radio; he missed his music, but I was glad because I didn't want Beau hearing the news about the war in Europe. That was the frightening, ugly side to that wonderful Christmas holiday that nobody would talk about but which was on everybody's mind: Nobody believed that the U.S. could stay out of the war. It was a strange and difficult time. The decade of the 1930s had begun in a terrible depression, and was ending on the brink of war. But for that one week, we refused to allow ourselves to think horrible thoughts, and war wasn't the only horrible thought or the only secret we were harboring. Tobias was dead from a drug overdose. He died just after Thanksgiving. That was the last time any of us saw him—he came to dinner at Big Mack and Clara's and passed out in the bathroom with a needle in his arm. Nobody said anything to or about him after that, but we still couldn't tell Pa that he was dead. Beau either, for that matter. They thought he hadn't come because of what happened Thanksgiving, and they read Belle's strangeness as that—but that was only a part of what was on Belle's mind. With Toby's death, she became the biggest numbers writer in Belle City and we all were worried, but she said she paid the police enough protection money that they'd leave her alone. Plus, she said, the cops didn't bother her as much since that Edwards was killed over in Fourth Ward: Seems the chief of police was keeping a closer eye on his officers. But that was only part of the reason for our worry—we feared for the children, which seemed not to concern Belle at all. It bothered Sadie, though, so much that she wouldn't work for Belle anymore, so she went to work in our house, and from that time until she died, she rented Pa's house. She didn't want her children exposed to gambling and drugs and what she called "loose folks." A truly funny sight, one I'll never forget, was Pa's face when he heard relatives of his referred to as "loose folks."

 

From the Journal of Jonas Farley Thatcher Mar. 18, 1940

Only one thing could make me stop thinking and worrying about war coming and that was Alice Corrinne Thatcher. My baby daughter, born on my 35th birthday. Poor Audrey is so worn out I don't think she even heard the doctor tell her it was a girl. She was in labor for the better part of a whole day. She had a real rough time and as sorry as I am about that, I'm glad that my baby girl shares a birthday with me. I'm also glad I'm not a woman. Whoever in the world ever thought they are the weaker sex? I couldn't take 22 seconds of labor, never mind 22 hrs. And to think women have been doing this since the beginning of time, and will do so until the end of time. And do it more than once. They say that women love their children more than men and maybe that is why, because of what they have to suffer to bear a child into this world. And I know I didn't suffer, but I don't believe anybody can love this little girl more than I do. Or love JJ any more than I do. He is so happy and excited. He's about to drive Ernestine and Ruby crazy, jumping up and down and calling her name. Alice Corrinne! He hollers as loud as he can. She's named after her two grandmas, Audrey's ma, Alice, and my ma, Corrinne. When I called Horace to tell him, he wanted to know why we hadn't named the baby after HIS ma. Lord I wish I didn't ever have to talk to that man again. It's only that it would make Audrey unhappy that I don't cut all ties with him. But Audrey or no Audrey, I'll throttle him if he asks me one more time to invest in his war business. He truly does not understand when I tell him money is not the most important thing to me. He keeps telling me how much he's going to make—how much money I can make if I invest with him. In the first place, I don't think he stands to make that much, but even if I'm wrong, I don't want to make any more money if it means being at work more and at home less. I will be so happy when Alice and Audrey can come home. JJ will too. We've got a little crib set up for her in our room. Ernestine and Ruby decorated Alice's room so it will be ready for her when she's old enough to sleep in her own room. It's next door to JJ's room and he has said that he will guard her. Ernestine and Ruby are a blessing. I don't know how we got on without them. Yes, they are good cooks and housekeepers and they look after JJ like he was a son to them, but they are also very, very nice people. They eat dinner at the table with us—Ruby's Samuel too—and they tell us about their family. Their children are all grown up and that's why they don't mind being live-in help. I'm glad we have them. And Audrey made me promise not to tell anybody that we eat supper with the help.

 

***

 

– The Mountains of North Carolina –

Ruthie

 

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Ruthie, happy birthday to you!" The clapping and cheering was loud and raucous, and it was a good thing they were out of doors; an inside room, even a huge one like the living room of Beau's house, couldn't have contained so much sound. Somebody started For She's a Jolly Good Fellow and it quickly became an even louder proclamation of their love for her. She began to feel a bit emotional, but Nellie's insistence that she hurry up and blow out the candles so the cake could be cut quashed that. She inhaled deeply, held her breath long enough to make a wish, and blew. And blew again. And again, this time getting an assist from Mackie, until they all were extinguished.

"Let's cut the cake, let's cut the cake," Nellie sang, hopping from foot to foot. "I want cake."

Mack Jr. scooped her up. "Pa has to toast first, Nell, you know that."

"I forgot," she said, then beckoned to her father. "C'mon, Papa. Toast!"

Mack faced his wife and raised his glass to her. Two dozen other glasses were raised in her direction. Mack, smiling, began to recite: May you live a long time and your heart remain mine. May your body be strong, may your Spirit be free, and may all your good deeds be seen as the seeds that grow to fullness in your eternity. Since I love you, all that's left is for God to bless you. Ruthie touched her glass to Mack's, then lifted it to the crowd. After the clapping and cheering died down, she cut the first piece of cake, then passed the knife to Nellie and Mack Jr. so they could finish. Everybody stood quietly, watching, waiting, plates at the ready, for their piece.

"Is thirty-five old, Ma?" Wilton asked into the silence, starting the laughter and hoots and catcalls all over again.

"Depends on who's doing the counting," Ruthie answered through her own laugh, and kissed him. "If it's you doing the counting, then, yes, I expect thirty-five is rather old. If, on the other hand—" and she surveyed the crowd, eyes stopping on Beau, "it's my BIG BROTHER Beau doing the counting, well, then, no, thirty-five isn't all that old."

Beau bent over at the waist and began hobbling around like an old, decrepit man, to everyone's delight. He looked happier than Ruth had ever seen him. Of course he was thrilled that his baby sister had wanted to have her thirty-fifth birthday party at his home, and he was justifiably proud of the home he had created for himself and his family in the North Carolina mountains.

The central feature of the towering A-frame house was the stone fireplace that occupied an entire wall and which, in the winter, heated the entire structure. It was in front of the fireplace that everyone gathered—to listen to and tell stories, to listen to the radio, and to eat, sleep and just be. At night, the children would climb into the loft and look down on the grownups below, listening and learning before falling asleep. The three bedrooms on the ground floor always were occupied by Big Si, who lived there and kept his own room even when company came, by Big Mack and Clara, who slept in the guest room when they visited, and by Ruthie and Mack Jr., who slept in Beau's room while he, happily, climbed the ladder to the sleep-loft and joined the children. And that, she realized, was what was different about Beau, what made him look and feel happy: He now was an integral part of the family. No longer just the one who was summoned when there was trouble or a problem; Uncle Beau now was the one children wanted to visit, to play with, to talk to. He was the one who could repair a broken toy or fairly mitigate a dispute. He no longer was the brooding, silent, angry avenger. He had emerged as a man quick to laugh and to want to make others laugh.

The land behind the house had been cleared, and it appeared that Pa and Beau had planted every vegetable that would grow in dirt, along with several varieties of fruit trees. Along the front and one side of the house bloomed flowers of every color, and Ruthie's eyes misted as she imagined the joy her mother would have taken in the riot of blossoms. She knew, without a doubt, that her father was responsible and that her mother was the reason. She knew also that the chicken coop outside the back door was her father's—he loved fried chicken more than anything in the world, could eat it every meal of every day, and he kept the coop close to the house so he could prevent the foxes and mountain cats from eating the chickens before he did. He told her that Beau, now and then, would even eat a piece of fried chicken or fish if he hadn't witnessed its killing and gutting.

Looking at the land and the people, remembering her mother, reminded her of home, a long time ago, and the big June 'Teenth Celebration. It had been like this—their yard teeming with people, the scent of cooking food and the sound of happy voices carried on the breeze…a breeze that in Carrie's Crossing, Georgia, had been warmer than this one in the North Carolina mountains. Even in May, the nights could be chilly.

"What are you thinkin' 'bout, Baby Sister?"

He still could do that—appear beside or behind her, silent as an animal hunting its dinner, which always made her grateful that she was friend and not foe. "About, you, Big Brother, and how much I like your home. If they had schools up this mountain, I'd think about living here myself." She looked out at the merrymaking in the yard. "Schools and a few more Colored people," and they laughed dryly at what wasn't funny: No matter the oasis created, no matter where it was, being Colored was still a perilous proposition, even in this part of North Carolina, where there were a good number of Indians who definitely did not consider themselves Colored but who definitely were in the eyes of white people. "You all ever get lonely, you and Pa?"

He shook his head. "We work too hard for that. And in the evening, after supper, we listen to the radio and then go to bed so we can get up with the chickens." He paused and surveyed his surroundings. "Sometimes in the winter, though…"

He trailed off and even though she could imagine what he was going to say, she waited for him to tell her about the snow, and he did, how it snowed and snowed and how the wind blew it and how it drifted. How beautiful and quiet it was, and how frightening at the same time. She was reminded of the freak blizzard that paralyzed their world the winter after she and Mack first were married and still living in the Crossing. Even though they had each other and even though they knew that friends and neighbors were a stone's throw away—that they were not isolated and alone—it still unnerved and frightened them. She could remember the feeling still. But up here, where they truly were isolated and alone? She shivered, and Beau put is arm around her.

"Nothin' for you to be worried 'bout."

"Did they say when you'll be getting your phone?"

Now he did laugh. "You mean you're not happy 'bout the 'lectricity they finally strung in? Now you want telephone poles?"

She did, indeed, want telephone poles, and the sooner the better—preferably sometime in the next six months before winter set in again. "I wouldn't mind," she said in an offhanded way and poked him in the ribs.

"Then I'll just go right on down to the Bell telephone company office and tell 'em my baby sister said they better have me a telephone in my house before the next snow."

"And it had better not be a party line."

Between guffaws he asked, "You think they'll shoot me the deadest for bein' Colored or for bein' crazy?"

"There's a difference?"

They were holding their sides and laughing so hard their eyes were running, and it felt good. Ruthie tried to remember the last time she'd laughed until she cried and could not. Had there ever been a time she'd laughed so hard and so freely? Certainly not with Beau or because of Beau.

Mack and his parents were walking toward them, and Ruthie and Beau tried to compose themselves, but when Clara asked, "What's so funny?" and when they tried to answer, they only laughed harder, and soon the other three were laughing too. They all put their arms around each other and, still laughing, returned to the crowd, most of whom were busy with plates of ice cream and cake.

Nellie and Wilton ran to meet her. "Ma, Mackie cranked this ice cream all by his self," Nellie said, ice cream traces all around her mouth, "and it is deeelicious."

"Himself, Nell, please. You know better."

The girl grinned up at her mother; of course she knew better, and to prove it, she repeated the statement in grammatically correct French.

"C'est bon, ma cherie," Ruth said, as Big Mack and Clara applauded. It never ceased to amaze them that their grandchildren spoke French. Truth be told, the children's father never ceased to be amazed, either, not to mention proud.

"Wil said I was the baby of this family. I'm not, am I? Angel's younger than I am which makes her the baby of the family. Will you tell him, please?"

Angel was Belle's new daughter and to quote Pa, "The less said about that, the better." And while Angel certainly was younger than Nellie, answering the question Nell posed was problematic, at best. Thankfully, the child's attention was easily captured by one of the half-dozen other activities and conversations swirling around her, and she ran off to join whatever game was in progress, oblivious to the fact that they shared Wilton's view of her status in the family, not to mention their ambivalence about Angel.

 

***

 

– Carrie's Crossing –

Jonas

 

It was their first big entertainment, and Jonas found himself as excited and nervous as Audrey. They thought the timing was perfect: All of the improvements, renovations, additions and enhancements to the house and property finally were finished. Mack and his crew put the final coat of white paint on the stable and the fences the previous day and drove away for the final time. Everybody stood in the drive and waved good-bye. Then they all spent the better part of an hour just walking around and looking at everything. Even Mack said he wouldn't have recognized the house had he not been the one to make all the changes, and Audrey was so happy she couldn't form complete sentences. For Jonas, the pièce de résistance was the stable. He'd always loved horses, loved to ride, and Audrey did too. The few times they took the children riding convinced them of the need to have their own horses, and they certainly had enough land for them.

Jonas's second favorite addition was the barbecue pit and smoker. It had been Mack's idea and his design—based, he said, on the one that his own father had built in their backyard. "You can grill, roast, smoke, cook any kind of meat you like on this pit," he had said, and when Charlie Pace from the Crossing Café came to take a look, he, like Audrey, was rendered speechless.

"You gotta let me cook on this thing, Jonas. I'll pay you to let me cook on this thing. I'll even buy the meat!"

That's when they decided that the Fourth of July would be a perfect time to invite all their family and friends for a backyard barbecue. Horace and Alice had insisted on coming over the night before because Alice wanted to "help," which had given Audrey so severe a headache that she threatened to cancel the whole event. And if Jonas hadn't intervened, the event would have had to be cancelled because there would have been nobody to cook the food. Ernestine and Ruby, who had had the dubious pleasure of meeting Alice and Horace once before, went from sullen to openly hostile and threatened to quit on the spot if Jonas and Audrey didn't get her out of "their" kitchen.

"What are we going to do, Jonas?" Audrey moaned.

"Get her drunk," Jonas said.

"You can't."

"It's either that or try to call thirty people on the telephone tonight and cancel the party," he said. "And look at it this way: We get her good and drunk tonight, she'll be so hung over tomorrow, she could be almost polite."

Audrey didn't like it, but she agreed; she even helped. She settled Alice in chaise lounge under an umbrella on the back patio and told her that Jonas needed her to try out a new drink he wanted to serve at the party, and because neither of them drank, he needed to be certain that it would be acceptable to serve their guests. Alice was only too happy to help. The drink was something Audrey had seen in a magazine—a gin fizz—but Jonas didn't bother with the precise measurements. He made it sweet, with plenty of lemon juice, fizzy water and ice, and he served it in a tall glass. She slept through dinner. Infuriated, Horace threatened to pack her up and go back home, but when the threat was met with little resistance, he backed off.

Audrey wanted Ernestine to feed the children in the kitchen, but Horace wanted them at the table so he could talk to them. Without Alice, Jonas thought, it would be all right. And it was—for a while. Audrey told him all about the party and the food and how Mr. Pace would begin cooking the meat that night; it already was marinating in his big refrigerator at the Café. Ernestine and Ruby would shuck several dozen ears of corn after dinner and peel and cut ten pounds of potatoes to cook for the potato salad that Rachel would come over later to make.

"His sister makes the best potato salad I've ever eaten," Audrey enthused.

"Your ma makes the best potato salad, Audrey, and you know that."

Jonas should have kept his mouth shut and he knew it. But he didn't. "If you want to go wake her up, Horace, and get her to make the potato salad, I'll call Rachel and tell her to stay home."

"Oh, Jonas," Audrey whispered. She was holding Alice, wiping the baby's hands and face, and Jonas barely heard her, but he heard her tone, and its sadness cut him. He had promised to try to be more understanding and tolerant of Horace; after all, she'd once reminded him, suppose Zeb were alive? Suppose there were two of them?

"Horace, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Alice needs her rest—we all know that. Tomorrow is a big day—"

The baby heard her name and began to laugh and gurgle and clap her hands.

"Yes, you, Alice. You need your rest too because tomorrow is a big day." He scooped her up and swung her over his head, eliciting more gurgles and a stream of drool on to his shirt front. "You also are a very messy girl," he said, giving her back to Audrey.

"Am I messy too, Papa?" JJ asked.

Jonas lifted him from his seat—he and Audrey were very conscious of giving the same time and attention to both children—"Not anymore, and do you know why?"

"Because I'm a big boy."

"That's right, you are, and the best big boy there ever was." He gave the boy a big kiss, and the child kissed him back and wrapped his arms tightly around his neck.

"You shouldn't be kissin' a boy like that. And lettin' him kiss you. You'll make a sissy out of him."

Before Jonas and Audrey could intervene, JJ asked, "What's a sissy, Papa?"

Jonas turned to Horace. "I don't ever want to hear that word out of your mouth in my house in front of my children again." To JJ he said, "It's a bad word to call a person, and we don't call people bad names, do we?"

"No, Papa."

"And since tomorrow is such a big day, it's time for you little ones to get bathed and ready for bed." He walked over to the wall and pressed a button. "Let's call Miss Ernestine and ask her to come get you and your baby sister—"

"Miss Ernestine." Horace gave a nasty bark of laughter. "Y'all got these chil'ren callin' the niggers 'miss'? No wonder they're the way they are."

Audrey jumped to her feet and startled Jonas by yelling at her father. "What do you mean the way they are? What way are they, Pa? Are you saying something is wrong with my children?" His daughter's fury surprised, frightened and chastened the man, and he tried back-pedaling, stuttering out a kind of apology, but she wasn't listening to him. Her raised voice—something none of them had ever heard—terrified the children, and their screams snatched Audrey back to herself, and she sought to soothe them.

The call bell, along with the raised voices and screaming children, had brought Ernestine and Ruby on the run. They stood in the doorway, waiting for Audrey to tell them what to do. Horace saw them and turned purple.

"What you niggers want? Get outta here!"

"Those people work for me. You don't tell them what to do," Jonas said, one arm around Audrey and the screeching Alice, the other holding a weeping JJ. He looked up at Ernestine and Ruby. "Y'all come on in and take the children, please."

Both women, studiously ignoring Horace, came in and each took a child and as they whispered soothing words, the children quieted almost immediately. Before they could leave, however, Sam appeared, a wide grin on his face.

"'Scuse me, Miz Thatcher, Mr. Jonas, you wanted me to come tell you—"

Horace jumped to his feet. "Y'all got to stop this! You can't have niggers in an' out whenever they choose. And you can't be sayin' 'please' to 'em. You got to be the voice of authority, you got to be in charge. You! Boy!" he said, pointing at Sam, "You get on outta here. Go on!"

Sam looked at Jonas, who shook his head, then said, "This is the last time I'll say this to you, Horace: You will not use that kind of language in my house, and you will not tell the people that I pay what to do. They do what Audrey asks and what I ask. They do not take orders from you or from Alice." He looked at Ernestine and Ruby: "Y'all get them ready for bed. Audrey'll be on up to read their stories and sing their lullabies."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Jonas," they said in unison and hurried out, hugging the children to them as if to protect them from some awful thing.

"Sam," Jonas said, "did you want to say something?"

"Yes, sir. You told me to come tell you when Mr. Pace got here."

"Thank you, Sam. I'll change my clothes—put on my cookin' uniform—and I'll be right out. Don't y'all start without me!"

Sam touched his hat, threw a slit-lid glance at Horace, said "good evenin', m'am" to Audrey, and left the room. A deep silence reigned for several long seconds, broken only by the sound of Jonas's footsteps as he crossed the room to stand beside his wife. He put his arm around her and pulled her close.

"The only reason I continue to do business with you, Horace, is because of your daughter. The only reason I invite you into my home is because of Audrey. But I will not tolerate your disrespect not one more minute. I don't care what you say in your home, but in mine, you will respect my wishes. You will not speak to my help, and you will not use foul, ignorant language in front of my children. Do you hear me, Horace?"

"What I hear is a whole lot of 'my': My house, my children, my help. Your wife have any say-so in your house?"

Audrey stepped away from Jonas, out of his embrace and toward her father. "Yes, Pa, I do. I have all the say-so I want or need, whenever I want it or need it. I have more than Ma ever had in your house, and I don't need to beg for it."

Horace looked at her as if at a stranger who'd said something awful to him. "You turned my own daughter against me. With all your highfalutin airs, actin' and talkin' like you're better'n everybody else. Callin' me ignorant 'cause I don't sound like you. Well let me tell you somethin', Mr. Jonas Thatcher: You're a country cracker just like me and everybody knows it. Audrey knows it too."

"I am a country cracker, Horace, but I'm nothing like you, and I've never tried to be anything but what I was. Yes, I wanted to get educated but not because I wanted to be or to try to be somebody else. I like knowing things. And that's one of the things I first loved about Audrey: She knows things. More things than I do. But I do know this one thing, Horace, and it's something my own pa never learned: You can't treat people badly and think they'll do for you. They won't. My pa used to jump up and down, cussin' at the farm hands, callin' 'em niggers—and worse—and then try to shortchange their wages and wonder why they wouldn't work for him. You ever stop to wonder why you and Alice can't keep any help? And don't tell me it's because Colored people are lazy. Do y'all even know why you hate those people so much you have to make up lies about 'em?"

Horace looked at him with eyes bulging with hate. Jonas stood there and held his gaze, waiting for him to speak. When he didn't, Jonas suggested that he go to bed so that Ruby could clear the table and wash the dishes. Audrey, he said, was going to put the children to bed and he was going to join Sam and Charlie Pace in the yard to start cooking the meat for the following day's July Fourth celebration. "Leave Audrey alone, Horace. Don't say anything to her. Not one word."

"She's my daughter. I can talk to her if I want to."

"She's my wife, and this is my house. You will leave her alone." To Audrey he said, "When you get the children down, you might want to come out and see that…what did Charlie call it? Monument to meat?" He laughed gently, kissed her, and left the room.

Audrey crossed to Horace and kissed his cheek. "Good night, Pa. See you in the morning." She turned to leave the room.

"Audrey!"

She stopped in the doorway but did not turn to face him.

"He hit me once. Did you know that? He hit me."

She nodded her head, acknowledging that she heard him or knew that Jonas had hit him—he didn't know which—but still she did not turn or speak, and when he didn't say anything else, she crossed the hallway and went up the stairs to her children. For her part, Ruby waited until she heard Horace Edwards slowly and heavily climb the stairs before she entered the dining room.

 

***

 

– Belle City –

Ruthie

 

"Why do I have to take French if I already know it?" Jack demanded. "The teacher already said she was impressed with my fluency."

"Easily impressed, is she?" Ruthie said, as she drew a red line under a sentence Nellie had written without a single mark of punctuation. Mackie snickered and Jack, who hadn't understood the sarcasm in his mother's remark, now realized that there was more to the words than the words themselves.

"Why are you at the homework table anyway?" he demanded of Mackie.

"Where should I be?"

"You're in college. You don't have to do homework."

Mackie laughed. "They give you more homework in college than ever. It's so much that sometimes I don't even go to sleep. I just read and study all night long."

All of the other children stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Then they looked at their mother. "Is that true?" Nellie asked, face wrinkled in consternation, "'Cause if it is, I'm not going to college."

"You haven't even gotten to high school yet," Thatcher said, head down, eyes, as always, focused on what he was doing or thinking. "It's too soon for you to be worrying about college. Anyway, you have to go. We all do."

Ruthie gave him a surprised, quizzical look, which he didn't see because his eyes were on his book. He was her dreamy child, the one always reading or thinking, the one always wondering why or what if, and he rarely interjected himself into the arguments and disputes of the other four, so she hadn't realized he was attuned to the discussion at the table. Mack thought it was because he was the middle child—he was younger than Mackie and Wilton, older than Jack and Nellie—and therefore unable or unwilling to take sides. Ruth didn't think that was the case.

She'd witnessed all four of the others, at one time or another, defer to Thatcher and defend him, as if they intuited the specialness about him that Ruthie believed was there, a thing that she could neither name nor define but which bothered her a bit. If it was an aspect of herself that he shared, a preference for solitude over people, for thought over talk, but which he could sublimate in order to share himself with family and loved ones—that was all right, she thought. But along with those inclinations, she knew, was a tendency toward darkness, to harbor deep, dark thoughts. The key for her was not to linger in that place. Not only did she not wish to, there was no opportunity and there never had been—except the one time: When Nellie was killed.

The slammed back door and Mack's rushed entrance halted all discussion and captured all attention. That he hadn't stopped to remove his work boots before crossing through the kitchen into the dining room told them something was wrong, but it was the look on his face that confused the children and frightened Ruth. She stood quickly and rushed to him. "What is it?"

"On the radio. Y'all didn't hear it?" He looked around, realized what they'd been doing instead of listening to the radio. "Oh, yeah: Homework Table. Anyhow, President Roosevelt just announced it. The first ever peacetime draft."

Ruth and Mackie understood immediately but neither of them spoke. The other children set off a clamor, demanding to know what a peacetime draft was, and even after Mack explained it, only Wilton fully understood its implications.

"When?" Ruth asked. "What ages?"

"Starting next month. Men twenty-one to thirty-five are supposed to report to their local draft boards to register."

Mackie let out the breath he was holding. He was just twenty.

"What else?" Ruthie asked, and Mack's hesitation caused her stomach to clench.

"If war is declared, all men eighteen to thirty-six will be required to register."

Ruth walked away. Two of her sons—Mackie and Wilton—would be required to register, and to register would mean going to war, and there would be a war to go to. Mr. Roosevelt had just made that very clear. And depending on when the war began and how long it lasted, it could claim her third son as well. There was no point in hoping for what could not happen: That Europe would awaken to peace tomorrow morning. Practically the entire continent had been at war for the last three years…or more precisely, that Hitler had been waging war on the continent for the last three years with nobody much waging back at him. It was almost the end of 1940. The first registrations were required next month, October. Did Roosevelt plan to go to war at the end of the year? Early next year?

She was, she realized, outside, walking, going she didn't know where. Between thoughts, she'd been trying to define what she was feeling and recognizing the irony of what she'd so recently concluded about her middle son. Her own thoughts at this moment were deeply dark. But there was something else, the thing that had so tightened in her stomach that doubled her over. She was angry, more so than she'd ever been, even when Nellie was killed or their home in Carrie's Crossing was stolen by the KKK. She had not imagined anger could be more fierce than that. Yet, in this moment, it was. But anger stood her up straight, prepared her to fight. What she wanted to do now was gather her sons and run…Fear! She felt fear, deep and wrenching, and she hadn't recognized it because she had never in her life been afraid—of anyone or anything.

She should go home. Where was she? She looked around and got her bearings: Four blocks from her house, and it still was daylight; she could see people in their houses and their yards. She knew all of them, and she nodded and waved greetings and wondered how many of them she had ignored just a little while earlier, when her thoughts had owned her. She knew that there were men of draft age in many of these houses. Had they heard the news? Were they angry or fearful? Was it only the women who would be afraid, or would the men, too, feel fear? Did young men feel fear? The men who'd gone to that first war, The Great War, certainly would, for they would know what was in store for them. She remembered Beau saying to Jonas, all those years ago, that he was lucky that his brother had died in France because being dead in body was better than being dead in mind and spirit while still physically alive. Surely if Beau thought he'd have to go to war again he'd be afraid. But Beau now was too old for war. So was her husband. It was just her sons who would be called on to go to a far off foreign place to fight—again—for a country that still hated them, and perhaps always would, just because they were who they were.

Now the anger shoved the fear aside. She wanted to kill them, the ones who made war, all of them. How dare they do this again? Then the anger waned as quickly as it had arisen because she realized that even if it were possible to kill them all, their thoughts and ideas wouldn't die with them; they kept records of their cruelty and some future one of them would read the record and consider it worthy, and she would have damned her soul for naught.

 

***

 

– Carrie's Crossing –

Jonas

 

"Jonas Farley Thatcher, you come down off that ladder right now!"

"But I'm helping, Audrey. Aren't I, Sam?"

Sam looked from one to the other, a sly grin spreading across his face. "Well, now, Miss Audrey," he said slowly, "he does have his uses, Mr. Jonas does."

Audrey gave them both the same disgusted look. "Men. You all stick together, don't you?" She stalked away to sound of their giggling, glad they couldn't see her own laughter. Jonas was as excited as the children, stringing white lights around the roof of the stables and in the trees and on the house. They'd decorate the inside tree tonight. It would be a family affair: Rachel and Cory and their children would join Audrey and Jonas and their children. They'd sit in front of the fireplace and drink hot cider and sing carols. That their family wasn't as large as some others weighed like a boulder on both of them, but, they told each other, some family was better than none, and they both were grateful for sweet, gentle Rachel. Audrey said that Jonas and Rachel were as they were because of his mother, while she was, as she put it, the only sane one in her family because both of her parents were crazy. Jonas had had no contact with Esther and her husband, Caleb, since he fired them the night of Zeb's death. He knew they lived somewhere near Stevensville, but he didn't know exactly where, and if Rachel hadn't asked about Esther, he'd not have thought about her. His entire focus was on the holiday season and the Christmas Eve party they were having. Already, Jonas and Audrey's July Fourth and upcoming Christmas Eve functions had taken on tradition status: There'd been but one July Fourth party and this would be the first Christmas Eve gathering, but an invitation was a sought-after commodity, and the assumption was that the success of the parties would be the raison d'être for their continuance.

Audrey was not so secretly pleased that, without having tried, she'd succeeded in becoming an important social arbiter in Carrie's Crossing and was becoming known in Belle City though over there, birthright and family both were as necessary as money for social standing, and, as Jonas forthrightly would acknowledge to any who asked, he and his wife were just a couple of country crackers who'd made good. But they were well-matched in their dislike of pretension and had no desire to traverse the Belle City social circuit. They took great delight and joy in their children, and Jonas in his work. His success as a developer was well-known, and he owned and developed property in three states. That was the only negative to Jonas's way of thinking: That his business more and more often required him to travel. He took Audrey and the children with him when he could—to Nashville and Memphis and Charleston—but as often as not, the land he purchased for development was undeveloped or rural; he'd slept in his car more than once.

Baby Alice did not yet understand Christmas, but she felt the excitement in the house and reacted to it. JJ understood full well what was happening and was so enthused at the prospect of decorating the fifteen foot fir in the living room that he threw up his lunch, refused to take his nap, and by supper time was so cranky that Jonas had to carry him around like a baby, whispering and singing to him, until he finally dropped off to sleep, where they'd leave him until Rachel and Cory and their children arrived.

Jonas was every bit as excited as JJ. He didn't throw up his lunch and he was anything but cranky, but he refused to sit down, even for a moment. He had never had a Christmas like this. During his growing up, his ma was so often sick that skipping special days was the rule rather than the exception. Then there was the question of money: There wasn't any for the buying of presents, even if Zeb had been inclined to treat his children to the myth of St. Nick or Father Christmas or, as Zeb called him, Sandy Claws, as in, "There ain't no such person as Sandy Claws bringin' presents to nobody." Jonas vowed that for as long as his children were inclined to receive the myth, he'd be inclined to foster it. Audrey felt the same way, though she had, throughout her childhood, enjoyed a whole season of merrymaking: "From Thanksgiving straight through to the New Year!" Her parents believed in celebrating and in providing elaborate gifts for their children. Jonas had to give Alice and Horace credit where credit was due, and the truth was that the three Edwards children knew that they were loved. No child could ask for more, and no child could ever get over the feeling of not being loved if he never knew that feeling.

Jonas burst into the house, grabbed Audrey by the hand, and pulled her toward the kitchen door. He beckoned to Ernestine and Ruby. "Y'all come see the lights. It looks like paradise."

 

From the Dairy of Jonas Farley Thatcher December 9, 1941

My thoughts alternate between what happened at the Pearl Harbor navy base the other day, and my memories of last Christmas—it was the best one of my life. We could not know that it would be the last good Christmas for a while. We'll put the lights up this year—Audrey says we should for the children's sake because they don't understand war but they do understand Christmas and we shouldn't ruin it for them. I suppose she's right, but I can't summon the feeling. All that death and destruction. And of course we are a country at war now. Hitler and Tojo wanted a fight. Well, now they've got one, and I think they'll be sorry. I know nobody can predict the future, but I think this war is going to change everything—for us in America and for everybody around the world.

 

From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

Pa and Beau showed up early on the morning of December 9th. They had driven all night. Beau said he figured the police had more to worry about than the two of them, and he was right. All the police in all the coastal states were on alert, charged with guarding the coastline in case of a second attack. Nobody was asleep when they arrived because none of us had been to bed. We had spent the entire day listening to the radio, absorbing every bit of news that was broadcast. They walked in the door, and I started to cry. I had never shed tears in front of my children, but this time I couldn't help myself. I wept for Beau who should never have had to think about war again, and even though he wouldn't have to go, two, perhaps three, of his nephews would, and that was all but destroying him. He wept with me, and so did Pa. We were so distraught that Mackie and Wilton begged us to stop. They said we were frightening them, and they didn't want to be any more scared than they already were. As I remember that day, and I recall it in vivid detail, I'm aware that I have to work at not sounding platitudinous…oh, Sissy, you know how you all are always chiding me for being able to put a positive spin on every event? Well, there was a positive aspect to Mackie and Wil being called up—no, really there was. See, they both were in college, and there weren't very many Black men in college in 1941, and they both were fluent in French. The army hadn't been integrated yet, but there were some divisions of Black soldiers being trained for more than menial and manual labor. And of course when the real fighting started, the French army was only too pleased to have Black soldiers fighting with them. But—before that, the army had established the first flight school for Black pilots at the base in Tuskegee. That's right, you now know them as the Tuskegee Airmen, but in 1941, it was an experiment that the army fully expected to fail. They did it because the NAACP and the National Urban League had threatened to bring a hundred thousand Black people to Washington to protest the situation in the army and in the defense contracts. It was just like World War I all over again and people weren't going to stand for it. So, to start out, Mackie and Wilton went to Tuskegee and taught French. They also taught our soldiers how to recognize other European languages—German and Italian—how to tell the difference between our Allies and our enemies.

 

From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

July 2, 1942. Here is something I never would have thought could happen, but it did: Horace is now more of a pain in the neck than he was before. He can't stop telling everybody who'll listen—and a few who have tried to ignore him—how smart he was to see early on that war was coming and how to capitalize on it. He stands to make quite a lot of money, and he is very happy that he doesn't have to share it with me. He keeps saying over and over how he wanted me to partner with him and how I wouldn't do it, and how I'm missing out on a big payday. Audrey threatened not to invite him to the July 4th celebration if he didn't stop talking about his money. We discussed not having a party this year, but people wanted us to do it. They said it was more important now than ever to celebrate the U.S. of A, and I suppose that's true. One thing for sure: We won't have as much food as we did last year. Everything is hard to come by now—Horace will tell you that. There's talk of rationing, which has been happening in Europe for years now. But what is important is not how much food we have but the fellowship, and there will be plenty of that. And, best of all, Charlie Pace and me get to spend the night cooking on the Monument to Meat. Well, not all night like before because we don't have that much meat this year, mostly just chickens and half a pig that Charlie butchered up real good. We do have a lot of whiskey, though, most of it left over from Christmas, and Sam got us some fireworks, so I expect we'll make a good time of it. Happy Birthday USA!

 

***

 

– Belle City –

Ruthie

 

Ruth walked every day for hours, with no particular destination or reason. After she took the younger children, Jack and Nellie, to school—Thatcher walked by himself to Booker T. Washington High School—she walked because it was better than sitting at home and thinking. Of course she thought as she walked, but as there were things to see and people to talk to, sometimes even activities to engage in (she occasionally taught French to young girls at the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA and watched the tennis matches at Washington Park, and on Friday evenings she was in the Episcopal Church parking lot when the BCCCTC cars returned), she could free her mind of the dark thoughts, of wondering exactly where Mackie and Wilton were, whether they were injured or frightened, whether they were too cold or too hot, wet or hungry or dirty, whether they were still in France. That's the thought that was most destructive to her equilibrium: That her boys would not only be fighting a war, often surrounded by people who should be companions but who hated them as if they were the enemy, but could be in a place where they could not understand what was being said. At least in France, she told herself, if they met soldiers not wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, they'd understand what was being said.

Mack had stopped telling her that it didn't matter what language somebody aiming a gun at you was speaking, and he brushed aside her argument that French soldiers would not be aiming guns at American soldiers. He stopped short of calling her hysterical and made her look directly at him when he made her promise to restrict her marathon walks to the Colored side of town. "I mean it, Ruth. You got to pay enough attention to where you're going that you don't end up in trouble. Promise me."

She promised, and she meant it. It would do no good for her to get into trouble, and she didn't want to worry him. Just as she walked, he worked, usually beginning before the sun rose and working until exhaustion sent him home. Had George Tennison not been at his side, she'd have worried, but she knew that George would keep a close eye on him. She also knew that Mack had enlisted any number of their friends and neighbors to keep an eye on her. She'd even seen Big Mack following her one day, and she'd slowed down so he wouldn't get winded trying to keep up; he was too old to be playing detective.

Most days Pa walked for a while with her. A little exercise was good for him, but too much was dangerous. Because people instinctively were drawn to him, walks with Pa always were punctuated by conversations with people they passed, and more often than not, Ruthie would leave him sitting on someone's porch, sipping something or sampling fresh-baked something, and talking about everything under the sun. She had urged Pa to return to North Carolina so that Beau wouldn't be alone, but he was torn: He wanted to be with Ruthie in case news came about one of his grandsons, but he also needed to be with the son who'd already survived one war and who felt the horror of what was happening in Europe more than any one of them. Ruthie and Mack had each other and three of their children to see them through this war. Beau had no one, and that wasn't right, which is why, they said to Big Si, he should be with Beau.

"Ruthie!"

She stopped, startled, at the sound of her name yelled almost in anger. Then she saw why: Belle was running to catch up and had probably called her name several times. Ruth saw immediately that her sister-in-law had gained weight, and she was breathless when she got close enough to say, "Are you all right? Didn't you hear me calling you?"

"I'm sorry, Belle. No, I didn't hear you. I was just..." Just what? She shrugged another apology. "What are you doing over here this time of day? Is everything all right?" Now it was her turn for concern.

Belle nodded and took her arm. "Are you goin' home? Can I walk with you?"

Ruth took stock of where she was, and she was, indeed, headed home, and she thought that having Belle for company would be a nice change. Big Mack and Clara, she remembered, would have the children for tonight and would take them to church the next day. Mack wouldn't be home until who knew what time. Yes, she thought, Belle would be good and welcome company. For Pa, too.

The old man's warm embrace of his daughter-in-law proved Ruthie correct, and Belle's tears were additional proof to all of them that they had indeed missed each other. It wasn't necessary to say that it was Belle who had removed herself from them, any more than it was necessary for them to admit that their judgment of Belle's activities was likely the cause of her distancing. Their togetherness in that moment was as perfect as ever. She asked for news of Mackie and Wilton, and she accepted, as they all had, that having heard nothing to the contrary of what they had said in their last letter—"they were as well as can be expected in the circumstances and a lot better off than a lot of the other men"— was good news. She asked for news of Beau and expressed her concern about him being "up there on that mountain all alone. Beau might seem to like being by hisself all the time, but he likes it as long as some one of his people is close at hand."

Pa looked at Belle as if the words she'd spoken were hanging in the air outside her mouth, able to be read. Then he nodded. "You right, Belle. Ruthie and Mack been tellin' me for months to go on back to North Car'lina to look after Beau, but 'till you said what you just said 'bout Beau likin' his loneliness just so long as he can reach out and touch me or Ruth or one of his brothers—that's the truth." He remembered what First Freeman said all those years ago about Beau preferring to make his rounds of the city alone, what Toby had told him when Beau first bought the building they shared—they'd only see Beau once a day: First thing in the morning he'd rush downstairs and into the shop and look at them, as if to make certain they were there. He thought of what he knew first hand from sharing a living space with his eldest son: As long as Beau knew that Pa would be home at the end of the day, Beau often would be away from before sunup until well after dark. He looked at Ruthie. "Will y'all drive me back up there? I been away from that boy too long."

Ruthie hugged Pa, then hugged Belle. "I wish I'd thought to say what you just said, and I am so glad you said it. Yes, Pa. We'll go tomorrow. Do you and the children want to go, Belle?"

"No, thank you." Belle inhaled deeply, and it was clear that she wanted to speak, so they waited for her. "I'm goin' back to work at the beauty salon. Ma and Helen and Catherine are gonna help me get it ready to open, and I got a barber ready to take over on...on the barbering side."

Ruth and Pa looked at her but didn't speak. They didn't need to; Belle read their expressions. Surprise, joy, confusion, and finally the question: What brought this on after so many years away? Belle tried to explain, tried to answer all of their questions but found that she didn't really have the words because so much of what was happening inside her was feeling, and she'd never been good at putting her feelings into words. Ruth rescued her.

"Even with the War on, Belle, people are ready and able to get back to taking care of how they look."

Belle nodded. "Most people seem to be back to doing some kinda work. 'Course we still can't get the good-paying jobs in the factories and plants, still can't do nothin' but clean up or cook, but some kinda job is better'n no job, and while people can't buy new clothes or a new car, they can buy groceries now, and they can look nice, get their hair cut or curled, men can get a barber's shave now and again." She gave a small smile. "You know how we like to look good even if we're doin' bad. That's why people gamble, play the numbers: If they don't have but a dime, they know that's not enough to buy a haircut and a shave or a press and curl, but if they can turn that dime into two bits or a dollar, why, then—"

Suddenly an overwhelming sadness replaced the smile, tears filled her eyes, and she no longer was at Ruth and Mack's kitchen table but in some other place that was not warm and familiar. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "It was that Depression that almost killed us. That did kill Tobias. That was a terrible, terrible time. We couldn't tell y'all everything that was going on. Tobias wouldn't let me tell you. He was proud and 'shamed, both. He wanted y'all to see that he could stand up on his own two feet and take care of his own fam'ly, but he didn't want you to see what the cost was to us." She sobbed and shook, and Ruth and Pa left their chairs to embrace and enfold this woman who had returned to them. Like the prodigal, it didn't matter why she'd left, only that she had returned. But she told them why, and they wished she hadn't.

Throughout the Depression, Belle said, new and increasingly exorbitant taxes were imposed on Colored businesses. Silas told them, before he left for Chicago, that the new taxes were illegal and that collection of them could not be enforced. Toby found out that indeed individual tax collectors were illegally collecting money from Colored store and shop owners and threatening to foreclose on their properties if they didn't pay. Some of the more prosperous businesses could and did pay. Many more were forced to sign over their deeds or leases to people chosen by the tax collectors—people who then would pay the extra "tax." She and Toby paid for as long as they could, Belle said, and when they literally ran out of money, the collector for their area said there was another way they could make payment. "That's when I became a prostitute."

Ruth now wept with Belle, and Pa, in an uncharacteristic and unprecedented display of fury, threw his coffee cup across the room. The sharp sound of the shattering china startled the women. So did the rare profane invective that flew from his mouth.

"Y'all shoulda said something!" Big Si yelled. "Why didn't y'all tell somebody?"

"We couldn't," Belle said, wiping her face, blowing her nose. "Beau already had given us that building. Gave it to us. How could we turn around and ask for anything else? And we couldn't lose it. We couldn't do anything else." She sank back down into her chair, deflated. She bent over, head down between her knees, breathing deeply. Then she straightened and faced them. "Besides, if we hadda told Beau what was happening he woulda killed that tax collector. Y'all know that. And we couldn't let that happen either."

After Belle became their regular payment to the tax collector, Tobias changed. He treated her like it was her fault, Belle said, even as she was helping him implement their plan to close the barber and beauty businesses that fronted on the sidewalk and open the gambling parlor upstairs at the back of the building. They'd been open less than a week when the first cop showed up demanding payment. Toby had agreed to pay him weekly if he got rid of the tax collector, which he did. "I didn't have to be a 'ho anymore, but by that time I'd lost my husband. He already was drinking a lot—I think he's the only one of you Thatchers to ever take a drink of whiskey—but then somebody introduced him to the dope and that was that. I had to learn the gambling business and—" she smiled broadly, "I was good at it. I got a real head for numbers. And after what happened with that tax man, I swore no man would ever take advantage of me again, so I ran a tight ship. Lots of people thought that with Toby the way he was, they could run over me. They found out different. All but one of 'em, and he didn't run over me as much as I laid down."

As long as Tobias was alive, Belle convinced herself that she was not alone, that she had a husband and her children had a father, and she needed this belief to hold on to because by this time, she believed that she had no family. She saw her mother and sisters only if she sought them out because, like the Thatchers, they were disappointed if not disgusted by how she was earning a living. Angered by that response, Belle convinced herself that she didn't care what anyone thought, that she didn't need anyone but herself to take care of herself. Into this mind-set strolled Freddie Lee Durham, the man who is Angel's father. Belle said she fell hard but got up quickly when she realized that Freddie expected her to spend money on him, to take care of him, expected that he would live in her house and eat her food. This in the house where her children lived. She ran home to her mother who, Belle said, called Catherine and Helen and the three women appeared at Belle's door early on a Sunday morning. They awakened Mr. Durham, helped him into his clothes, helped him pack, helped him to the front door and out to the street, where "Ma told him she'd shoot him if her ever came back, and she pulled a pistol out of her purse and fired it. I didn't know Ma even had a gun. I bet ol' Freddie is still runnin'."

"Your Ma is not one to take a lot of foolishness," Pa said appreciatively.

"My Ma is my savior, and I don't know why it took me so long to see that."

"You see it now," Pa said, "and that's what counts."

"She cried when I told her I wanted to stop the gambling stuff and open up my shop again. She's been helping me every day, her and Cat and Helen."

"What can we do to help, Belle?" Ruth asked.

"You know we'll do anything we can," Pa said.

Belle raised her hands. "I don't need no money, if that's what you're askin'. That's one thing I got a lot of, no thanks to Freddie Durham who thought I was gonna spend it all on him. But if I could borrow Miz Hill, I sure would appreciate it, and I'll pay her whatever y'all pay her."

Ruth nodded. The trip to North Carolina and back would take several days. "I'll ask her, but if it's all right with her, it's fine with me."

"One more thing," Belle said. "And if y'all don't like it, I understand, but I'd like to make Angel's name Thatcher. I want her to be a part of this family like the other children. I want her to call you auntie and you grandpa. But mostly I don't want her to know that her ma was such a big fool. I don't regret that child, but I do regret how I got her. I don't want the child to feel like a bastard. She don't deserve that."

Big Si's response was immediate. "No, she don't, and just like we'll always think on you as a Thatcher, we'll think on that child the same way: Angel Thatcher."

"Her name's not really Angel," Belle said. "That's just what I called her before I knew what a devil her pa was. Her name is Emma, after my Ma."

Pa and Ruthie smiled widely. They liked the name Emma much better.

 

The grand re-opening of BELLE'S BEAUTY AND BARBER SALON took place the week before Thanksgiving in order to, Belle said, "put the idea of bein' thankful for lookin' good in people's heads." It was a strategy that worked. The event took place on a Monday evening, normally the day the shop would be closed. Belle hung balloons out front and inside; she'd hung colored streamers and more balloons. She also served tea and cookies, which earned her enough good will, it seemed, that those who knew about her stint running a gambling house were willing to forget it.

As Ruth surveyed the crowd, she noticed that the appearance of abject poverty that marked the Depression had been replaced by a more genteel poverty, the kind that was commonplace before the hard times set in. She didn't see a single pair of pants held up with rope or string, not a single pair of shoe flaps held together with tape or rope, not a single dress or skirt hemmed with straight pins or purse straps held with safety pins. Most of the trouser legs and suit jackets and dresses and skirts were shiny from use and wear, and certainly no one wore the fashion of the day, but all were clean and pressed. With one exception: Belle's new barber. The man looked like a picture from a magazine—like Duke Ellington or Count Basie. She watched the response of the women to him, and, in that moment, she caught Belle's eye and gave her a wide smile: Hiring this man was a stroke of genius. Women could not sit in his chair, but they'd come to the shop, sit in Belle's chair, and watch him. Perhaps a few of the single women might warrant a dinner invitation. She leaned in and whispered her thoughts to Mack, who threw his head back and laughed out loud.

"What?"

Mack took her arm and walked her away from the crowd and into a corner. She was, he said, exactly right about the barber's attractiveness to women, and he probably would be a draw but only if Belle could keep him under control. "The women may come in the shop to see him, but it's the men he'll be interested in."

It took a moment for her to understand his meaning, and when she did, she hissed at him, "Mack McGinnis. You should be ashamed of yourself. You can't know a thing like that simply by looking at a person."

"Yes, you can, Ruthie. Not all the time, but often enough. In fact, it's one of the few things that you can tell about a person just by looking at him."

Ruthie looked again at the young barber, and the only thing she saw that made him different from the other men in the room was that his suit, shirt, tie and shoes looked new. They were not as elegant as Mack's, and Mack never would have worn those colors—they were too flashy, too attention-getting—but there was nothing else to set him apart. "Where did Belle find him?"

"He worked for her in the other place."

"Is he any good as a barber?"

As if he'd heard the question, Ruthie saw him beckon to a man who obviously had not had a professional haircut or shave in a while. The man shyly but quickly got into the barber's chair, a look of pure joy on his face. He leaned back and was covered, foot to neck, with a striped cloth that the barber tied in the back. Then, as if by magic, the young man withdrew steaming towels from a shelf and wrapped them around the man's face. So quiet was the crowd that the man's pleasurable sigh was audible. The barber worked his straight razor back and forth along the leather strop, then touched the razor with his thumb. He nodded his satisfaction, then began whipping the shaving cream with the brush. Ruthie knew what he was doing because she'd watched Mack do the same thing a million times, but there was something mesmerizing about watching a stranger being shaved by another stranger. Especially with a straight razor.

The young barber worked swiftly and surely, giving the chosen-at-random man a close, smooth shave, followed by a close, neat haircut. He patted lotion on the man's face and brushed his neck with talcum powder, whipped off the draped cover, and took a bow to the applause that filled the room. The women hovered while the men shook his hand and slapped him on the back. He received the praise graciously and gratefully. No matter his proclivities, this young man, Ruthie thought, would be a fine partner for Belle.

Ruthie and Mack and Belle's mother, sisters and children—and the new barber—were the last to leave. Belle introduced him: James Jackson was his name, and he smiled broadly when Mack announced that he'd be in once a week—at least—for a shave. "No reason for me to shave myself when you're right in the neighborhood."

"I hope everybody that was in here today feels that way," Belle said.

"I don't think you'll be hurting for business," Mack said, hugging Belle.

"How's Pa?" she asked. "And Beau? Y'all heard from 'em?"

Ruthie nodded. "And from Mackie and Wilton." Everyone followed an unspoken and unwritten rule: They didn't ask about the boys, but Ruthie and Mack told everybody when a letter arrived, took the letter and showed it and shared it.

"Oh, let me see," Emma Johnson exclaimed, and she took the letter and held it to her breast before she opened it. She read slowly, one word at a time, touching her finger to the paper, as if touching the words could bring Mackie and Wil closer to her. She truly did love the Thatcher boys like sons. "I'm so glad they're together," she whispered like a prayer, returning the letter to Ruth.

They all were glad they were together. It was the one aspect of their being in the Army that was positive: They were together. They could take care of each other, protect each other. They both wrote, so the letters were long and chatty and by reading between the lines, Ruthie could tell how they really were, aside from the hungry, cold, hungry, dirty, and hungry they always were.

"I expect it'll be busy in here right on through to Thanksgiving," Mack said, his arm around Emma Johnson. "But we'll be looking for all of you at my ma and pa's for dinner," he said as he and Ruthie took their leave. Then he turned and looked directly at James Jackson. "And you're welcome too, Mr. Jackson, if you don't have a place to be."

 

***

 

– Carrie's Crossing –

Jonas

 

Alice Corrinne seemed to know the exact second when all the adults were looking the other way. That's when she shimmied out of her highchair and on to the dining room table where her birthday cake held the center spot. She crawled over to it, sat down, and plunged both hands in. When her mother turned to see what she was doing—one of those moments when parents realize that the silence is unnatural—the little girl looked like a chocolate-covered bunny. Audrey shrieked, which caused Jonas to drop the camera he'd been loading film into. JJ hurried over to Baby Alice and the cake and grabbed his own hand full and stuffed it into his mouth before his parents could stop him. Ernestine, just coming into the room carrying a cylinder of fresh-churned ice cream, began to laugh so hard she gave herself hiccups and ran out of the room, which caused Ruby to hurry in to see what the trouble was. By this time, everyone was laughing hysterically, and it was into this scene that Alice and Horace Edwards arrived with birthday presents for little Alice Corrine.

Audrey, gradually bringing herself under control, went to greet her parents, while Jonas, who'd finally gotten the camera loaded, began to take picture after picture of the two children with chocolate all over themselves, eating cake with their hands. JJ started to sing happy birthday and everyone joined in.

"Allie! You're three years old," her mother exclaimed.

Alice held up two chocolately fingers. Audrey held up three fingers. Allie looked at Audrey's hand, then at her own, and added a third finger. "Three. I'm three."

JJ gave her a big kiss, then turned and started to run from the room.

Jonas grabbed him. "Where you goin', Buddy?"

"To tell Ernestine to bring the ice cream. You got to have ice cream with cake."

"Don't touch anything, and ask her to bring a bunch of wet towels."

"Yes, Papa!" he yelled and jetted out of the room.

"Aren't you gonna say hello to your grandma and grandpa, Alice?" Horace asked as he approached the little girl and her cake.

"Want some cake, Gran'pa?" She grabbed a handful and offered it to him, and Horace backed away.

"No, Alice, I don't think I want any cake."

"Papa want cake?"

Jonas, still snapping pictures, leaned in and let her shove cake into his mouth. "Ummm, good cake, Allie."

"Ruby did it."

"Ruby's a very good cake baker."

Ruby and Ernestine came in then with ice cream, bowls and spoons. They both spoke to Horace and Alice, who ignored them, though they didn't react, by now being used to the rudeness. Besides, Ernestine had opined, "them not speaking was better than what came out of their mouths when they did speak."

They all sang happy birthday to Alice again, and, cleaned up now, she opened her presents—with JJ's assistance and supervision—and, after thanking and hugging parents and grandparents, she took her presents and her brother and went with Ernestine to play in the solarium; it was too cold and blustery this March day to be outside.

Ruby had made a second cake—a coconut one—for Jonas's birthday and the four adults took coffee and cake to the living room where Sam had laid and lit a fire. It had caught and was roaring like some large beast. Jonas and Audrey sat together on the couch facing the fire, Alice and Horace took the easy chairs flanking them, and they ate cake and drank coffee and watched the fire. The peace and quiet was an unusual and welcome interlude, one that didn't last long because Horace abhorred silence.

"Jonas, you remember I told you about those three lots of wool socks I got a line on? In a warehouse some place in New Jersey? You remember me telling you 'bout it?"

"I remember."

"I bought 'em and turned around a sold 'em at a two hundred and twenty percent mark up. Now I got a line of long underwear that I'm gon' put out to bid. Every army's gonna want 'em, and now's the right time to offer 'em, just before it gets warm. They'll want to be prepared for next winter."

"Suppose the war ends over the summer? Then what?"

"War ain't gonna end over the summer."

"Doesn't it bother you to be taking advantage of other people's misery?"

"Take a good listen, Alice, to the sound of sour grapes," Horace chortled.

"What are you talking about, sour grapes?"

"You're mad now, Jonas, 'cause you didn't get in on the ground floor. I'm makin' money hand over fist and you're left in the dust—"

Audrey jumped to her feet. "Pa, stop it. Always talking about money, how much you have, how much you made. Can you talk about anything else?"

"You always take his side. Seems to me you'd be worried about all the money he's losin' 'cause he wouldn't go in with me on this idea. But don't matter to me. I'm happy to keep it all to myself."

"If you only knew how ridiculous you sounded."

"Audrey Edwards!" Alice sat up straight, glaring at her daughter. "That's about enough of talking to your pa like that. It's disrespectful."

"That's all right, Alice, she'll see the error of her ways one of these days soon."

"Listen to this, Pa, and listen carefully: Last week, Jonas sold—"

Jonas reached toward his wife. "Audrey—"

"I'm going to tell him, Jonas. He needs to hear it."

"Hear what? What did you sell, Jonas?"

"Some beach front property in Florida. Miami Beach, Florida."

"We don't own no property in Miami Beach. Not down there with all them Jews."

"Not we, Horace, me. I bought the land with my own money—with our money, Audrey's and mine—two years ago."

"And we just sold it for one and a half million dollars. That's what we put in the bank. So don't ever say again that Jonas needs you or your money or your deal."

Horace and Alice sat with their mouths hanging open, Alice in amazement, her husband furious. "I better not find out that was a Edwards/Thatcher deal, or that you used any company money for that."

"Shut up, Horace," Jonas said wearily.

Ignoring the admonition, he looked at his daughter. "You keep sayin' our money. If some of it's yours, what do you get to do with your money?"

"I'm starting my own business," Audrey said and enjoyed a couple of minutes of complete and total silence.

"What kind of business?" Alice asked.

"Interior decorating," Audrey answered. "It seems that I'm good at it."

"Who told you that?" Horace spat.

"I did," Jonas said. "Mack McGinnis did—"

"You think you're some kinda interior decorator 'cause some nig—some jig said so? Where's your common sense, girl?"

"Too bad you can't find it in yourself to be proud of your daughter, Horace, but for the record, she's decorated seven homes and right now is consulting on three others." And in case there was doubt, Jonas named names and invited his in-laws to call Audrey's clients to check if they didn't believe him.

More silence followed during which Ruby came in with the coffee pot and plate of cake. Jonas held his cup to be refilled and his plate for more cake. Audrey punched him in the belly and suggested that he'd better start watching his weight. Ruby chuckled and said if she wanted to see what too much cake looked like around the middle, take a close look at Sam next time he was in the house.

"Who's Sam?" Alice asked.

In that instant Ruby realized her error, and Audrey and Jonas thought of how to mitigate it; there was a heavy thud from above, quickly followed by a loud wail. Audrey was on her feet and out the door in a flash, Ruby fast on her heels after shooting Jonas an apologetic glance. Jonas was up too, listening. JJ had added his cries to Allie's, but the volume was decreasing, and Audrey's footsteps had her almost at the top of the stairs. Between her and Ernestine, they'd have the children quiet and playing again in a few seconds. He returned to his place on the sofa, unaware that he was smiling.

"What are you grinning like that for?" Horace asked.

Jonas tried to straighten his face and didn't quite make it. "That Allie has a fully working set of lungs on her." His face broke into a wide grin again. "She's already got her big brother wrapped around her little finger. Did you hear him start up right after Allie started? He cries if she cries."

"I told you you're making a sissy out of him."

Jonas, immediately angry, started to reply, but stopped himself, reaching instead for his cake. He watched Alice and Horace watch him in surprise; both fully expected his defense of himself and his son, and when it didn't come, they were thrown off balance. Audrey taught him that. He wished he'd learned sooner.

Horace recovered and shifted gears. "Why don't you go upstairs and see 'bout Audrey and the children?" he said to his wife: An order, not a suggestion.

Silence reigned upstairs, and they all heard it. Alice looked questioningly at Horace, which he ignored. She, in turn, grabbed a handful of magazines from the basket beside her chair and, ignoring him, began to page through them. He glared at her, which she didn't noticed, engrossed as she was in the Saturday Evening Post. "I've never seen this magazine before," Alice said. "Does Audrey read it often?"

"We both do," Jonas said.

"I've got some business to discuss with Jonas, Alice, so if you don't mind—"

"I've discussed enough business for the day, Horace," Jonas said.

"No such thing as enough business."

"There is for me."

"Why didn't you talk to me about that Florida beach property?"

Jonas gave him a disgusted look. "You mean the beach property down there with all the Jews? That beach property? Why would I talk to you about that?"

He gave a Jonas a pained look, then glared again at his wife. "You know I don't discuss business in front of my wife."

"Maybe you should. Audrey's the one who suggested I buy the Florida property. She said it would be a good investment, and she was right."

"All my wife knows about money is how to spend it."

Alice didn't seem to have heard him, but Jonas knew better. "You're probably wrong about that, Horace, as you are about so many things," he said, and the twitching of Alice's lips proved his point.

"Horace wants to borrow some money, Jonas, to buy that lot of long underwear. Most of what he made selling the socks he owed out, and the rest he put down on that underwear. But he'll lose that if he can't pay the balance when it comes due." Alice had said all that without ever raising her eyes from the magazine, so she didn't see the look Horace gave her—a mixture of awe and anger. An unusual feat, Jonas thought.

Horace sputtered a bit before he could form words. "How do you know all that?"

Alice looked at him. "Just because you treat me like I'm stupid doesn't mean that I am. If you treated me like Jonas treats Audrey, I could be some help to you, keep you from making a fool of yourself some times. Like now, for an instance: Jonas is not going to lend you any money, and Audrey won't, either."

"What won't Audrey do?" she said coming into the room, resuming her place on the sofa beside Jonas.

"Lend your pa eleven thousand dollars," Alice said.

Audrey froze in the motion of leaning forward to retrieve her coffee cup. The look she gave her mother was priceless. "How do you know Pa wants to borrow money? And from me?"

Jonas got up. "I told you I was done discussing business for today, Horace, and I meant that. I'm celebrating my birthday and my daughter's birthday. No more talk about money today."

"Then I won't talk to you, I'll talk to my daughter, if that's all right with you."

"I don't care what you do, Horace."

"Do you care what she does with her money?"

"She can do what she wants to do," Jonas said and left the room.

"Well, now," Horace said, face creasing into a wide grin. He clapped his hands, then rubbed them together, then leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. "It'll just be for five, six months, then I'll pay you back with interest—that is if you charge your pa interest."

"All these years and you still don't listen to your wife." She leaned toward her mother. "What are you reading, Ma?"

"This Harper's Bazaar magazine. You surely do have some interesting ones."

"What does that mean, Audrey? You are going to lend me the money."

"No, Pa, I'm not."

"You have to, Audrey. I'm in some real trouble here."

"I'm sorry, Pa. I really am. Maybe you should learn to save instead of spend."

"I don't need advice from you," he snapped, and she wished again, for at least the millionth time, that her husband would end the partnership with her father. She knew he continued it for her sake, but she'd gladly release him from that sense of obligation

The opportunity presented itself the following morning. Jonas and Rachel were doing a brisk business at the store when the phone rang. Jonas answered to hear Grady Allen's secretary ask if he'd be kind enough to come to the bank right away. Whipping off his apron and donning his hat and coat, he whispered to Rachel that he'd return as soon as possible and hurried out the front door, not bothering to get his car that was parked in the back. He half walked, half ran to the bank, unable to imagine why Grady would want to see him in a hurry. Not bothering with the bank's front entrance, he knocked at the back door—Grady's private entrance—and it was opened almost immediately by a man Jonas had seen before but did not know. The man didn't speak but beckoned Jonas to follow him into Grady's office, where he was surprised to find the old banker seated on the sofa while the man sat behind Grady's desk.

"Hello, Jonas," Grady said, and Jonas risked rudeness to stare, which netted a wry smile and the wave of a bony hand. "Look like hell, don't I?"

He looked like death, Jonas thought, then realized how right he was: Grady Allen was as near death as it was possible to be and not be tethered to a hospital bed. "Grady… I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry."

He waved his hand again. "Nothing to be sorry about, Jonas. I've lived a full life and am as ready as any man to go meet his Maker. But while I'm still able, I wanted to introduce you to Randall Woodbridge, the new president of the Carrie's Crossing Branch. Randy, this is Jonas Thatcher, one of this bank's most important clients, and an old and dear friend. I've known him since he was a boy."

Jonas shook hands with the new bank president and wondered how closely he was related to those Woodbridges. He'd have to ask Audrey or, better, Alice. "Welcome to Carrie's Crossing, Mr. Woodbridge, and congratulations."

"Thank you, Mr. Thatcher. I look forward to doing business with you." He looked at Grady, who nodded, and continued. "I'll be doing things a little differently, and I just wanted to say that to you in person."

"How different? Different enough that I'll have to withdraw all my money from your bank?"

Woodbridge paled. "Good heavens, no." And Grady Allen, deathly sick as he was, managed a dry chuckle.

"Horace was in here this morning trying to get some money out of you all's business account. You know how he does."

"That account requires two signatures, Mr. Thatcher, and I'll enforce that rule. That's what I meant about doing things differently. In the past, I know Grady would call you to get the OK to release the funds, but I won't be doing that."

Jonas nodded. "That's fine with me, Mr. Woodbridge."

"He also tried to withdraw funds from you wife's account—"

"He what?"

"Of course I wouldn't let him do that, Jonas," Grady said, "but Randy was going to have him arrested for fraud, theft, and a few other things." Grady had clearly enjoyed the spectacle that must have been.

Randall Woodbridge touched a stack of files on the desk in front of him. "I've been carefully reviewing your accounts, Mr. Thatcher, and if you don't mind an impartial observation—?" When Jonas nodded, he went on, "I don't know why you're in business with Mr. Edwards. I see why he needed you—still needs you—but why you need him I don't know."

Jonas looked at Grady who explained the how and the why of the improbable and unlikely Thatcher/Edwards partnership. He also detailed its volatility. Then he gave Jonas a look unweakened by illness and recommended in a strong, clear voice that Jonas buy out Horace and terminate the partnership. "It'll cost you roughly three hundred thousand, but it'll be worth it, both long and short term. And given his love of cash, I think he'll jump at the chance."

Grady Allen didn't live to see it; he died just after Thanksgiving, but Jonas took and followed his advice and by Christmas, the Edwards/Thatcher partnership no longer existed. It cost him and Audrey almost four hundred thousand dollars, and it was worth it. They hung lights on the house and the stable and the trees in the yard; they decorated the huge tree in the living room and had their big holiday party. But what they most enjoyed about that Christmas was planning the January 1944 Grand Opening of the Audrey Thatcher Interior Decorating Company. They would write the name in gold lettering on the front window of the no-longer-in-existence real estate development company. Jonas would move his office to the rear of the building—he didn't need a lot of space anyway, he said—and the big front room would be taken up with fabric books and swatches, paint color wheels, and sketches that Mack would draw of potential bathrooms, kitchens and solariums. She would hang draperies in several colors and styles from the walls, and blinds and shutters, too. Audrey was so excited she was vibrating. She was so excited that her father's Christmas present to her—a 1941 Cadillac Darrin—was met with only a mild reaction, which infuriated Horace. "A car like this is hard to come by," he fumed, "and 'specially with Cadillac and all the car companies makin' tanks and fighter planes these days. Only way I came by it is the fella who owned it got killed over there and his folks wanted to get rid of his things. I got it a real bargain price."

"You thought I'd like to have a dead man's car," Audrey said.

"And you found a new way to make a buck off the casualties of war," Jonas said.

Instead of increasing his fury, though, Jonas's remark provided Horace with the entrée he needed to talk about the several new business ventures he had in the works and all the money he would make. As an afterthought, he mentioned his Christmas present to his wife, something neither Audrey nor Jonas had noticed when Alice arrived, and for which they felt an enormous guilt: It was a full-length mink coat, and despite the fact of its total impracticality, it was gorgeous, and Alice was as excited about it as Audrey was about her new business. That they hadn't noticed her wearing it hurt her deeply.

"Don't let yourself become too much like your pa," Alice had said as they were talking in the kitchen after dinner. "Paying attention only to what matters to you."

"I won't, Ma."

"Don't become too much like Jonas, either," Alice said.

"What do you mean?"

"You worry too much about niggers, and I will call 'em that 'cause that's what they are. And that's what I mean about lettin' Jonas rub off on you too much: You heard 'em called that all your life and it never bothered you."

"It did bother me. I just didn't know it bothered anybody else."

"They're not like us, and they never will be, no matter how nice you treat 'em. They lie, they cheat, they steal, and they won't do a full day's work unless you're standin' right over 'em with a stick."

Audrey walked away from her mother then, feeling a deadening inside more than anger. She knew that what her mother and father believed was wrong—she had firsthand knowledge and proof that they were wrong—but how was it that more people believed as they did than shared her and Jonas's view?

"Don't think anymore sad thoughts." Audrey hadn't heard Jonas approach. "It's the Christmas holiday. It's almost the New Year, and I've got a resolution for us: From now on, we won't let anybody make us sad or angry. How does that sound?"

"People you love can always hurt you or make you sad," Audrey said. "How do you stop loving your parents? That's the question."

"I don't have the answer to that. I wish I did."

"I have made a decision about one thing, though: I'm giving Pa that car back."

"It is a beautiful automobile, Audrey."

"Then you drive it. I don't like it. I feel like I'm in a magazine advertisement and I should be smiling and waving. But the reason that he gave it to me is the reason I won't keep it."

"He gave it to you because he's your father and he loves you."

"Oh, stop it, Jonas. You hate him, and he hates you. You know as well as I do that he gave me the car to spite you, to be better than you, to give me a gift bigger than the gift you gave me, and what he doesn't understand—oh never mind. I'm going to take it back tomorrow and get my old car. I'll say I'm coming to have a New Year's lunch with them, just me and Allie. We'll be back before dark."

 

Jonas had just convinced JJ to lie down on the sofa and take a nap while he finished the job of undecorating the Christmas tree when the phone rang. JJ's eyes snapped open, and he was wide awake and off the sofa quick as a lightning strike. "I can answer it, Papa," he yelled, running towards the hall. As he was halfway up a ladder, there was no way Jonas could stop him, so he took his time getting to the phone which JJ gave to him. "Grandpa said where is Mama."

"Horace?"

"Where's my daughter?"

"What do you mean, where is she? She's at your house."

"If she was at my house I wouldn't be askin' you where she was."

Jonas's heart was in his stomach, and his stomach had dropped below his knees. "She left here at twelve o'clock, said y'all were serving dinner at one."

"We been waitin' on her," Horace said, bluster gone, replaced by worry.

Jonas couldn't think. She had to be there. Where else could she be? He'd go look for her...but where? Think. Think. "I'm going to look for her," he said and hung up.

"Where's Mama?" JJ asked.

"I'm going to go get her, Buddy, but I can't take you." And just as he thought to ring for Ernestine, he remembered that the three of them were at their own homes and wouldn't return until tomorrow night. He picked up the telephone and dialed Rachel, told her what he could without alarming JJ and found that it was sufficient to alarm his sister. "Your Aunt Ra is gonna watch you while I go get your Mama and Allie," he said.

"Ok, Papa," the boy said, some wise thing within him knowing this was not the time to resist.

Jonas got himself and his son dressed and out the door in record time. There was little traffic; it was two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the second of January, and still part of the long holiday weekend. Many people wouldn't return home from their New Year's celebrations until Sunday. Rachel and Cory lived halfway between Carrie's Crossing and Stevensville, where Horace and Alice lived, so dropping JJ off was convenient. Rachel met Jonas in the yard, hugged him tightly, told him not to worry about JJ. Then she hugged him again, even more tightly, and the fear inside him turned to terror.

His was the only car on the road, and he took advantage of the opportunity to drive much too fast, thinking and hoping that he'd get to Stevensville and find Audrey seated at the dining room table, eating her lunch. He was paying so little attention to his driving that when the curve in the road straightened, he almost stripped his gears downshifting to stop the car. The road ahead was blocked by two police cars, a truck with a winch, and a hearse from the funeral home in Stevensville. Jonas stopped his car in the middle of the road and jumped out, but then he had to jump back in because he hadn't set the brake. He was just running, not thinking, just running, past all the people standing in the roadway and all the vehicles. Many pairs of hands tried to stop him, and voices called out to him—they even called him by name. He ran until he could run no farther, until he could see clearly what they all saw: The crumpled Cadillac roadster on its side in the ditch, improbably wedged between two pine trees. He didn't remember seeing or hearing or feeling anything else for several days.

 

***

 

– Belle City –

Ruthie

 

"I'm not afraid, Ma," Thatcher said. He was holding both her hands in his, and she studied them, his man-hands, and wondered when they had become such. He was her third child and still a child to her, and yet they wanted him to register for the draft because, as of three days ago, he now was eighteen years old. Her two eldest children—no matter that they were twenty and twenty-two years old, they were and always would be her children—had been two years in the United States Army, and now that Army wanted Thatcher.

"I know you're not, Thatch, but I am. I'm terrified."

"Mackie and Wil are fine, Ma, and I will be, too. Besides, if I don't go register, they'll come arrest me and send me to jail." That was the fate of two of Thatch's friends who'd refused to register, declaring themselves Conscientious Objectors. Apparently that wasn't a designation available to Colored men, for both presently were housed in the Federal Penitentiary.

Bastards! Ruth thought she'd only thought the word, but the look on the faces of her three youngest children and her husband told her she had spoken it aloud. Mack had been dozing beside the fireplace, the book he'd been pretending to read open on his lap. He got up and came to her on the sofa. So did Jack and Nellie, who'd been sprawled on the floor in front of the fire playing Monopoly.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. All the preaching I do about not using bad language, and I say something like that. I hope you'll forgive me," she said, looking at each pair of eyes in turn, "and I truly do hope that none of you will follow my example."

"Miss Sadie says that word all the time when she's talking about white people," Jack said. "Dirty bastards, she calls them, all the time."

If anybody had reason for calling white people dirty bastards, both Ruthie and Mack were thinking, it would be Sadie Hill. Still...

"I've heard her muttering to herself," Thatch said, "especially after I've read something to her from one of the newspapers, but I'm surprised she lets you all hear her."

"What does it mean, Ma? That word?" Nellie said.

Ruthie looked at Nellie. The girl's mind never shut down, never even slowed to a walk. There was always something she wanted to know. "It means a despicable, horrible and disgusting person, the kind of person you'd never invite into your home," Ruth said. "And before you ask, it's always a bad word no matter who uses it." She looked directly at Thatcher. "Especially your mother, and I apologize for it. I'm sorry and it won't—"

"I think you already apologized enough," Mack said. He looked pointedly at the children. "Don't y'all think your Ma has apologized enough for her mistake?"

"Yes, Pa." This time there were three voices in unison, and Ruthie relaxed.

"I'm going with you tomorrow, Thatch," Mack said. "I went with your brothers, and I'll go with you."

Thatcher smiled his thanks, bravado and bravery on the back burner for the moment. Mack and Ruth already had pulled every string at their disposal to ensure that Thatcher, when he was called up (nobody thought "if" was a possibility) would go directly to Tuskegee. He was a college student fluent in French. The top Colored Army officers would want him close at hand. For what purpose though? To train other recruits or to be used as "eyes and ears on the ground," as Mackie and Wilton were.

"I think I'd like a piece of fruitcake and some eggnog," Mack said, and the children were in the kitchen before he finished his sentence. He gave his wife a tight hug. He didn't speak—no point in telling her not to worry or that everything would be all right. She would worry, just as he did, and not a single person, Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill included, could tell them, or any parent, that their sons would be all right.

The following day, the third day of January, 1944, Ruthie took Jack and Nellie to school, then visited Belle, her mother and sisters. The beauty salon was closed Mondays and the women were at home. They knew what the day meant for Thatcher and didn't need to ask her how Ruthie felt; they knew, especially Emma who loved the boys as if they were her own sons. Instead, they talked about their customers—they gossiped about their customers—and shared laughter that more than once grew loud and raucous before turning to behind-the-hand fits of giggling. Then Catherine had shared her good news: She was reuniting with Little Si and moving to Chicago! He'd gotten them a house, she said, next door to a family from Treutland County, Georgia, and in the summer, they kept a garden and promised Catherine all the homegrown fruits and vegetables she could eat. When Ruthie left them, she didn't need to tell them how much she appreciated their taking her mind off her boys for a couple of hours. She didn't know if Mack and Thatcher would have returned home; she thought probably not, so she just walked. The day was cold and even walking briskly, she shivered. Her growing discomfort presented the perfect opportunity to visit the Episcopal Church, something she'd been wanting to do.

The building was stone and not nearly as large as the Friendship or Wheat Street Baptist Churches. The stained glass windows were beautiful depictions of people she did not recognize, Jesus being the one exception. She opened the heavy door and stepped into a warm, aromatic dimness. A deep red carpet covered the floor. A wide center aisle led to an altar. There were rows of pews on both sides of the center aisle, and aisles on the other side of these pews, with smaller rows of pews off those aisles, and adjacent to the walls hung tapestries and art featuring more people unfamiliar to her. She walked slowly up the aisle to the front, to the railing that separated the pews from steps leading up to the altar. She sat in the front row, the deep silence and sweetly pungent scent enveloping her and, she realized, calming her. She was so relaxed that she jumped when she heard her name called.

"I'm sorry I startled you, Mrs. McGinnis."

Ruthie stood up as she recognized the pastor of the church. She had seen him several times, had spoken to him, but she didn't recall his name. He was tall, thin and dark brown, and the oval eyeglasses that he wore made him appear both inquisitive and knowledgeable. His black suit and waistcoat with its stiff white collar gave him an air of authority which he wore with ease but did not seem to require.

"Good day to you, Reverend. I hope it's all right for me to be here."

"This is the House of God, and you are a child of God and always welcome here." He gestured that she should resume her seat and he sat beside her. "Is this the first time you've been inside?"

She nodded. "Yes, it is, though it shouldn't be. It's very beautiful. And very peaceful. And it smells wonderful. What is that scent?"

"Incense. We use it in our services."

Ruthie nodded again but said nothing. Her silence didn't seem to bother the priest; he sat silently beside her, eyes on the crucified Christ above the altar. Ruthie studied the tableau before her, too, though seeking to understand what she was seeing rather than meditating upon it. "What do you think of dancing, Reverend?"

"It's an activity I'd probably think more positively of if I weren't cursed with two left feet. My parishioners enjoy watching me make a spectacle of myself even as they're offering their sympathies to my wife."

Ruthie was shocked. "Your church—the Episcopal Church—doesn't ban dancing or music? You allow it?"

He started to nod his head, stopped, and considered. "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. There's dancing and there's dancing, there's music and there's music," he said, adding, "though some may call that judgmental."

"I'm speaking of me dancing with my husband, my husband and my sons dancing with our daughter or the boys dancing with their aunts."

"There's nothing wrong with a family and friends gathered before the radio on a Saturday night, listening to Duke Ellington or Count Basie, dancing the night away, just as there's nothing wrong with hosting monthly gatherings here at our Parish Hall. You and your husband are welcome to join us some time. And bring the children."

"What do you think about turning the other cheek?"

He reached into his pocket and brought out a small black book in beautiful, soft leather and gilt edges, opened it, turned a few pages, and gave the book to Ruth. She read as he recited, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together."

He stopped reciting, but she continued to read to the end: A time to love, a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace. "Today, my husband took our third-born son to register for the draft. Our two oldest boys already are over there. How much is enough, Reverend?"

"It would be easier to take, would it not, Mrs. McGinnis, if we were full citizens in this nation? If by fighting and dying our men were securing our full participation in the democracy they're fighting and dying to preserve? No mother wants to lose a son—or two or three—but she wants even less for those sons to return home alive only to be lynched in their hometowns for daring to wear the uniform of their service branch." He turned the little black book over and over in his hands. "That was my eldest brother's fate upon his return from The Great War. My mother went to her grave wishing he'd died in France."

"Yet you still believe in their God." She could not conceal her bitterness.

"I believe in my God, Mrs. McGinnis," he said and smiled gently at the look on her face. "They're not the only ones free to interpret scripture to suit their needs. We only have two cheeks, and after they've both been slapped—a time to keep silence and a time to speak—so says the Bible. And my interpretation is that we are duty-bound, obligated even, to speak out against injustice. We can use the Bible against them just as they use it against us. And nowhere in there does it say we have to keep turning the same two cheeks to be slapped over and over again. I don't know exactly how much is enough, but I do know there is such a thing as enough."

She got to her feet. She was warm now and strangely relaxed, comforted. "How long has this church been here?"

"In this location since 1933, but the congregation was born in 1880." He walked with her to the front door. "You'd be most welcome to visit us, either on Sunday morning or at one of our Saturday night socials." In the vestibule, just before he opened the door, he reached into a basket and withdrew a brochure. "Our Church Bulletin for the month."

She folded it, put it in her pocket, then extended her hand. "I feel better leaving than I did when I came in. It's something I'd been intending to do ever since you gave the BCCCTC permission to use your parking lot. I'm sorry it's taken me so long."

He took her hand but transferred it to his left hand. With his right hand he made the sign of the cross over her: "May the blessing of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost be upon you now and forever. Amen."

Ruth thanked him for the blessing and hurried down the walkway, not to get away from him but to get home as quickly as possible, for she found that she very much wished to be there with Mack and Thatcher and Jack and Nellie. She listened carefully to what Mack and Thatch said about their experience at the draft board and understood that her son would be called up in the very near future, and that he almost certainly would be sent to do his basic training in Tuskegee, then on to Michigan for more training before being sent to the Front. She learned that basic training could last as long as four months and as little as three, depending on the need for additional troops, and that men who trained together most likely would serve together, just as Mackie and Wilton had remained in the same unit. She hugged her son, kissed him and told him how much she loved him.

"I'll be fine, Ma. Honest I will. I will take care of myself. I'll be careful."

"I know you will, Son," she said, holding him tightly, then releasing him.

"I'm kinda hungry," he said.

"Sadie made soup and baked some bread."

They watched him head for the kitchen, and when he was out of sight and earshot, Ruthie leaned into her husband and wept. He held her tightly with one arm while he dug in his pocket for his handkerchief with the other. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose and told him about her two visits that day. He wanted to call Pa and Beau right away to tell them about Si and Catherine. They'd already decided not to tell Pa about registering Thatch for the draft. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but Big Silas Thatcher was not in the best health. Just shy of seventy, he didn't hear or see well, and his heart was fragile. Any major news could prove disastrous—good or bad. But they agreed that they had to tell Beau about Thatch. He'd worry but he was the only one of them who could hear a radio broadcast or read a newspaper account of what was happening on the Front and know what it meant. He was the only one of them who could manage not to let his fear show.

Then Ruthie told Mack about her conversation with the Episcopal priest—Bowers was his name; she finally remembered it—Richard Bowers. "Sounds like an interesting man," Mack said when she finished. "And a smart one."

"I want to go to that church on Sunday," she said and froze at the look of horror on his face. Surely he didn't—couldn't, wouldn't—object to her attending service at another church…then she got it: His great-grandparents had been founding members of Friendship Baptist Church, and his family had belonged consistently since then. He probably was gauging the impact her decision would have on his parents. "I'll talk to Ma, Mack. I'm not defecting." At least not yet, she thought.

Clara McGinnis not only understood why Ruthie believed it was a good idea for her to attended a service at St. Paul's Episcopal—out of respect and gratitude for that church's participation in the transportation committee effort, Ruthie had said—but Clara said that perhaps she and some of the Ladies Auxiliary might attend some Sunday too. She drew the line, however, at Mack and the children attending, so Ruthie went alone, a situation she much preferred under the circumstances: She very much wanted to explore and learn more about the Episcopal Church and its teachings, and she'd do that better on her own, not having to talk or explain or justify or share.

The day was cold and clear, and after the service Richard Bowers stood in the door of the church greeting his parishioners. His eyes lit up when he saw Ruth, but before either of them could speak, however, Ruthie heard her name called.

"Dr. McGinnis. What a pleasant surprise to see you here."

The greeting came from a woman who'd already descended the church steps to the walkway but who now returned to the steps. Ruth recognized her as a faculty member in the Fine Arts Department but didn't really know her except to say hello. Not being a full-time faculty member, Ruth only knew most of the faculty casually; those in Foreign Languages she knew better.

"Doctor McGinnis?" Reverend Bowers said, taken aback. "And here I've been calling you Mrs. McGinnis. I do apologize."

"No need for it. I am Mrs. McGinnis and have been since I was sixteen."

"You two are acquainted, Dr. Foster, you and Dr. McGinnis?"

"Dr. McGinnis is part-time on the French faculty, though we have tried—so far unsuccessfully—to convince her to join us on a full-time basis," Frances Foster said; that was her name, Ruthie remembered, and she taught English literature.

"I may finally be ready to be convinced," Ruthie said, surprising herself as she expressed verbally what she'd not even allowed herself to fully think. "My children are all practically grown up—even my babies. I don't think I'll be missed at home if I go to work full-time now."

Given the fact that Episcopal Church services were shorter than Baptist ones, she was home well ahead of Mack and the children, and she reveled in the quiet time alone. Dinner was ready and waiting, so she had nothing to do but think—about the service and about her verbalized admission that she was considering teaching full-time. She lit the fire that Mack had laid before they left, then went upstairs to change her clothes; they wouldn't be going out again today, not even to have dinner at Big Mack and Clara's as they usually did on Sunday. Jack and Nellie returned to school the following day after the Christmas holiday, Mack was half-expected in Carrie's Crossing to help Audrey Thatcher open her decorating business, and Ruthie wanted to be on hand in case Thatcher needed her. He'd already decided there was no point in his registering for Winter semester classes, and Ruthie knew he'd be at loose ends, not certain what to do with himself while waiting for the Army to send for him.

The fire was roaring when she got back downstairs, and she happily settled herself on the sofa beside the pile of books, newspapers and magazines waiting to be read, but as she lifted her feet onto the hassock, she knew she wouldn't read. Her eyes closed and almost immediately she fell asleep. It was a wonderful, deep, peaceful sleep that she didn't awaken from until the slamming of the kitchen door and Jack's running feet announced the return of her family. They all were ready to eat, and by the time they were changed, she had the food on the table, and while they ate, she answered their questions about the service she'd attended, and then told them, when they asked, why she went.

"He said that, the Reverend?" Thatcher exclaimed when Ruth repeated what Richard Bowers said about speaking out against injustice and using the Bible as a tool. The children were awed, especially when they elicited agreement with the sentiment of both parents.

"I wonder if he ever gets scared," Nellie said in a quiet voice. As it hadn't been a question, nobody tried to answer, though both of her parents wished for some appropriate response. The telephone rang, and Thatcher ran for it; every sound now meant the Army was sending for him. They heard him answer, heard him say, 'yes, sir' and saw by his face when he returned that he still was safe—for a while.

"Mr. Atkinson wants you, Pa," he said.

Mack had been expecting Jonas Thatcher and frowned slightly as he went to the telephone. Charlie Atkinson was the large general contractor he'd brought on to help him build Grady Allen's Carrie's Crossing bank. "Happy New Year, Charlie," he said, and listened for just a few seconds when he exclaimed, "You'd better believe it. Just tell me when and where." He took the pad and pencil from the telephone table drawer, wrote an address and directions, said thank you, and all but ran back into the living room. "Charlie's hiring me as his principal sub-contractor on a job big enough for me to put all my guys to work for the next ten to twelve weeks. Looks like 1944 is getting off to a pretty good start."

They were less enthusiastic about President Roosevelt's take on things in his State of the Union speech delivered the following day in the form of one of his Fireside Chats. He had not gone to Capitol Hill to deliver the speech to Congress as usual because he had the flu. So did both of Mack's parents, and all three of them sounded weak and tired. The President called for a continuation of National Service—the employment of civilian war workers. "It is argued that we have passed the stage in the war where national service is necessary. But our soldiers and sailors know that this is not true...The national war program calls for the employment of more people in 1944 than in 1943." He also called for what he termed "a new Bill of Rights," the details of which lent themselves to much heated discussion, though there was almost universal agreement that none of the factory and munitions plant jobs would be available to Negroes. "No matter what they call a thing," Big Mack McGinnis said, "if it's got something good to it, we'll never see it, feel it, taste it, or know it."

"But he's keeping them in line, too," his wife argued. She was a bigger fan of the President than her husband. "You heard what he said about putting a stop to those people trying to make a dollar off the war. He called 'em selfish."

"I heard what he said, Clara," Big Mack snapped. "I also know exactly who'll get a job at those war factories and who won't. I also know that no Colored people are makin' a dime off this war, so I don't care 'bout his Bill of Rights, old or new."

The words of the President that resonated for Ruth had to do with his suggestion that the end was near: "We are going forward on a long, rough road—and in all journeys, the last miles are the hardest. And it is for that final effort—for the total defeat of our enemies—that we must mobilize our total resources." To Ruth's ears, Roosevelt was saying the war was almost over. To Mack's ears, the President was wishing, hoping and praying that the war was almost over, like every other sane person in the world.

"If it lasts more than another year—"

"You don't have to say it, Ruthie; I know it just like you do."

What they both knew—and feared—was that if the war still raged in July of 1945, they'd have to register their youngest son for the draft. Most immediately, however, was the notice that Thatcher received ordering him to report to his induction center on the last day of February. The entire family gathered the night before to embrace the young man and to wish him well, a gathering diminished by the absence of Beau and Big Si—they still hadn't told the old man that his third grandson was heading off to war—but a gathering enhanced by the presence of Little Si, who'd come from Chicago to collect his wife. There was true joy at seeing him, and for the two of them. Catherine would be deeply missed, but all agreed that she belonged in Chicago with her husband.

Ruthie and Si had a few moments together, just the two of them, and for most of that time they simply held each other. Words were not necessary. They were, they knew, thinking and feeling the same things: Past memories, joyful and sad, and funny. Both remembered when their elder brothers, Beau and Eubie, were readying to go off to that other World War and the discussion they'd had with Jonas Thatcher, whose older brother also was heading off to war: Jonas's family having a celebration dinner; Ruth and Si's family not considering it a celebration. More than twenty-five years later, they still didn't.

"How sick is Pa, Ruthie? Please tell me the truth," Little Si said.

"It's not that he's so terribly sick, Si, but where he lives, there's no doctor up that mountain, and no Negro doctor at all for miles. His heart is weak, no arguing that fact, but if we can keep him from experiencing too much emotion, well, then, all the better."

"When I called him to tell him about Catherine and me, he cried, and that really scared me."

It scared Ruth, too, just thinking about it, so she banished the thought, something she got more proficient at every day, being able to not think about a person or a situation, especially painful or disturbing ones. Like where Mackie and Wilton were at any given moment. Like where Thatcher would be in three months after his basic training.

"Do you really like Chicago, Si? Really and truly?"

"I really and truly do. Even the winters. Remember that blizzard—"

"In the Crossing, the first year Mack and I were married."

"We walked to Jonas's Pa's store, Mack and me. Well, that's what winter is like in Chicago all the time. But when you've got the right clothes and shoes—and you've only got to walk a block or two—it's really not so bad. And I've met some wonderful people, people you'd enjoy, people who've been to Europe and Africa. Some of them, of course, are a bit arrogant, and when they find out I'm from Georgia, well, let's just say I've had to shatter a few pre-conceived notions about me and my family. I love telling them about my baby sister with the Ph.D. in French and five children who're fluent in French."

"You don't tell people that," Ruthie exclaimed in mock horror.

"Indeed I do, Baby Sister," Si said.

Everybody went to the train station the following day to see Thatcher off to basic training in Alabama (and the platform was packed with young Negro men—boys, really—with the same destination) and, on an adjacent platform, to see Catherine and Si off to Chicago. Cat wept so hard she got the hiccups. Tears of joy, she kept saying, and her mother and sisters shared them with her. They hugged Si so hard he said he thought he heard a rib crack, and Miss Emma, Cat's ma, said she'd show him a cracked rib, and punched him in the belly. Cat promised to write everybody and to send lots of photographs. Thatch made a similar promise with the caveat that he couldn't start, however, before the end of March.

Ruthie spent that next month struggling to occupy her mind during all those hours of the day she was alone, and on some evenings, after she'd done homework with Nellie and Jack and put them to bed, she was still alone; Mack often left at dawn and didn't return until nightfall. The daily walks helped less and less. The only times she was fully occupied was when she was talking with Father Bowers at St. Paul's and when she was teaching French at the YWCA, and she did neither thing every day, and she needed to. That's when she decided that as soon as there was a staff position available, she'd join the college faculty full-time, if they'd still have her.

That's what she was thinking, wondering on the Friday as she was awaiting the BCCCTC cars from Carrie's Crossing in the St. Paul's parking lot. Suppose she'd waited too long to reach a decision? Maybe she could go back to Ashdale Elementary School where nobody would care about her Ph.D.

"Miz McGinnis, Miz McGinnis. Oh, I'm so glad to see you."

Ruthie brought her attention back to the parking lot and to the three people literally surrounding her, as if to prevent her escape. They were familiar, but she didn't really know them: Two women and a man. The man spoke.

"I'm Sam Johnson. That's my wife, Ruby, and that there's Ernestine Smith. We work for Mr. Jonas Thatcher. I b'lieve he's a friend of yours and Mr. McGinnis?"

"Yes, he is," Ruthie said, suddenly on guard. Something about how these three people were holding themselves—rigidly, tightly, as they were afraid they'd shatter.

"He's in a bad way, Miz McGinnis. Real bad."

"So bad he don't hardly talk to that sweet little boy a'tall, which just makes him cry and cry and cry, poor baby," Ernestine Smith said, weeping uncontrollably.

Ruthie was thoroughly confused. "You're saying Jonas doesn't talk to his son?"

"She don't know, y'all," Ruby Johnson said. "You don't know, do you, Miz McGinnis? 'Bout what happened to Miss Audrey and Baby Alice?"

Ruth's stomach dropped, and she felt dizzy. She shook her head. "I don't know anything about Audrey and the baby. What about them?"

"They dead," Ernestine Smith said, wailing. "They got kilt on the second day of the New Year. The car turned over and run off the road and killed 'em."

"Mr. Jonas, he won't do nothin', won't go nowhere, won't talk to nobody. We keep goin' over there and we clean and cook, just like always, but now one of us takes JJ to school and picks him up. We feed him and bathe him—we always did that—but his ma read him stories and sang little songs to him at night and Mr. Jonas, he don't do none of that. Every time he looks at that little boy, he starts cryin'. Mr. Jonas, I mean, and little JJ don't know what to do. Miss Rachel, Jonas's sister, she come 'round and tries to talk to him, and he'll listen to her—she's the only one he'll listen to—but he don't do nothin' but sit up in that room in the back holdin' a picture of Miss Audrey."

"I'm just glad he ain't a drinkin' man," Ruby said, "'cause if he was, he'd a drunk hisself to death by now."

Ruthie couldn't find words. Sam, Ruby and Ernestine, still in their tight circle around her, watched her, waiting, expecting. Something. "We didn't know." Mack would be devastated. He liked Audrey Thatcher very much. He liked Jonas, too. "I'll go tell my husband right away and we'll..." What? "If you still have the information sheet we gave you at the first BCCCTC meeting, my telephone number is on it. Please call me before you go back on Sunday." She shook each of their hands, thanked them for telling her about Jonas, and hurried home, very much aware of experiencing a complete opposite set of feelings than when she began her walk: Instead of numb emptiness inside, she was too full of feeling and emotion—pain, sadness, loss. A man's wife and one of his children had been killed. Her sons were merely endangered—not dead—and terror was her constant companion. One of them dead? As much as she feared that, she could not imagine it. And Mack: How would he be if she were suddenly killed? Her father had not, in more than twenty years, recovered from or reconciled the murder of his wife. Jonas! Poor Jonas. She ran the last block home as she remembered that Mack now came home early on Friday. He paid his men and let them go just after lunch in exchange for their working half an hour longer Monday through Thursday.

Mack's initial disbelief turned so quickly to so deep a sorrow that Ruthie initially was frightened. She had never seen him display this kind or level of emotion. He dropped on to the couch—literally dropped down, for he didn't seat himself—and put his head in his hands. Sadie had Jack and Nellie in the kitchen and Ruth went to make certain she'd keep them there, then she hurried back to sit beside Mack. Again she found herself speechless, so she waited for him to speak to her.

"I think a lot of Jonas, you know that, but I don't think I know him well. I don't think anybody knows him well—nobody but Audrey. She's the only person he ever let get close enough to know him." He broke off and looked at her. "I would be a lost man if I didn't have you, Ruthie, but I have a lot of people who would try to...I don't know what to call it...try to make me see I still had a reason to live, even if I wouldn't think so. Like we tried to help your pa, remember?"

"I do remember, Mack. I also know he misses her every minute he's alive."

Mack nodded. "But he let y'all help him, his children and his pa, and me and my ma and pa—he let us touch him and hold him—" Mack jumped to his feet. "Beau! He'll let Beau help him. He'll listen to Beau," he exclaimed, running for the telephone.

Beau immediately agreed to come and arrived just after dawn on Sunday, having driven all night. He slept for several hours and awoke with a plan: He would go get Jonas and JJ and bring them back to North Carolina.

"That's a fine idea, Beau," Mack enthused.

"It is a terrible idea." Ruthie fumed, shocking both men.

"Why?" they asked, almost in unison.

"Because of Pa," Ruthie said, her tone of voice indicating that she shouldn't have had to make the point. "It would be too much for him."

"It would be perfect for him," Beau said. "Exactly what he needs. And listen to me before you say anything, Ruthie. Yeah, I know Pa's slowin' down, but I also know he's been feelin' not so useful. When we first moved up the mountain, you know how I was. I needed Pa, no doubt about it. I was a sick man. I'm not sick now, and as much as I love that old man and his good company, I don't need him to take care of me. Now, if he could still farm that land, he'd be all right, but all he can do now is be the overseer, and you know how he'd rather do a thing than tell somebody else how to do it."

Ruthie knew that was true, but what did Jonas and his son have to do with any of that, she demanded to know; how would their presence create a perfect situation for Pa instead of just more for him to worry about? "We try really hard, Beau, to see to it that he has nothing to worry about."

"And he don't like it one bit," Beau said. "He knows you mean well, but he don't like it. Havin' Jonas and his boy there will give him somebody to take care of. He misses that. And you know how he loves children. Yours all just about all grown up—Miss Nell thinks she's the Queen of England—and Jonas's boy is what, five or six? Pa will love it."

Ruthie struggled to curb her anger, and as she did, she was forced to acknowledge the truth of Beau's words, which meant acknowledging the fallacy of her own viewpoint. Forced to take an impartial view of Big Si Thatcher, what Beau said about him was the exact truth: The man did love children, and he was very good at taking care of people, no matter their age."

"But will Jonas go?" Mack asked the relevant question, and both he and Beau looked to Ruth for the answer. Why did they think she'd know? She'd seen him once in twenty-three years. She thought about the boy she'd known all those years ago, and the man she'd seen and talked to just last year. Were the two people different, and who was she to judge?

She looked at Beau. "I think that until Jonas got to know Mack these past couple of years, you and First Freeman were the only two people he had ever trusted and the only people whose opinion he respected. I still think that's true, and I think that even in his grief, if you showed up at his house—perhaps especially in his grief—he'd gladly let you spirit him off to the mountains of North Carolina." Still looking steadily at her big brother, Ruthie said, "Jonas thinks of us as his kin. He thinks of you as the big brother he never had."

"He had a big brother, Ruthie, the one killed in the war."

"But it was you who treated him the way he wanted a brother to treat him."

 

***

 

– Carrie's Crossing –

Jonas

 

Ruby, Sam and Ernestine were standing at the kitchen door waiting for them early Monday morning when Mack and Beau arrived, in separate vehicles, at Jonas's house. As promised, they hadn't told him guests were expected. They also hadn't told JJ, so when the sleepy-looking, pajama-footed boy saw Mack, his face lit up, and he launched himself out of his chair at the kitchen table into Mack's arms, wrapping his pajamaed feet and legs around Mack's waist and his arms around Mack's neck.

"Mr. Mack McGinnis!" he shouted before dissolving into tears. "My mama's dead and my grandpa killed her, and my papa is so sad."

Mack held the little boy as tightly as the child held him, patting his back, rubbing his head, whispering soothingly in his ear. Beau, standing off to the side, explained to the three servants what his plan was. He knew that he could be placing them in a difficult if not dangerous situation. They knew it, too. All of them also knew that the danger, if it came, would not come from Jonas or from his sister. His in-laws, though, were another matter. Jonas had forbidden them from ever entering his home, but that had not prevented them from trying. They had a right, they said, to see their grandson. The only time Jonas roused himself was to refute them. Sam explained all of this to Beau, as well as why JJ said his grandpa had killed his mother.

"If Jonas leaves here with me, some one of y'all is gon' have to stay here to make sure they don't get in this house," Beau said. "Either that or have his sister move in here if Jonas is trusting of her."

Sam, Ruby and Ernestine communicated with their eyes, then Sam said as he was leaving them to go upstairs to fetch Jonas, "Maybe both things. Maybe we stay and Miss Rachel and Mr. Cory come stay, too."

In less time than any of them would have expected, Jonas was down the stairs and in the kitchen. He was unshaven, and he needed a haircut, and his clothes hung on him as if on a peg, but the clothes were clean and pressed, and he was clear-eyed. He stared at his guests, looking from one to the other of them.

"It really is you, Beau. I thought Sam had made a mistake."

"I'm so very sorry 'bout your wife, Jonas. Mack has told me what kind of woman she was, and it sounds like you were a very lucky man."

"Luckier than I ever expected or deserved to be," Jonas said.

"We didn't know what had happened—not me nor Mack nor Ruthie—not until Friday night when Sam and Ruby and Ernestine told us. They're real worried 'bout you, Jonas."

Tears began to trickle down his face, and he nodded. He looked at the three of them and saw the concern—and the care—etched in their faces and cursed himself for a fool for not having seen it before. Then he looked at Mack, still holding his son, and the tears flowed. He sat down and buried his face in his hands.

"Miss Ruby, Miss Ernestine," Beau said, seating himself at the table beside Jonas. "I'm right hungry, and I know Mack is, too, and I imagine my friend, Jonas, could do with a little something to eat. If it's not too much trouble—"

The women sprang into action, grateful not only to have a mission, but to have someone to direct it. JJ still clung to Mack, who joined Jonas and Beau at the table. Beau gave Jonas the handkerchief from his pocket, gave him time to wipe his face and blow his nose, then told him what he had planned. "I'll drive you and the boy up there and bring you back when you're ready. Ruby, Sam and Ernestine said they'd stay here in the house while you're gone, look after things. Maybe your sister and her husband'll stay, too."

Jonas nodded, then got up. "I'll go call Rachel and Cory, ask 'em to come." He left the room, and they heard him pick up the telephone in the hall. The five adults in the room exchanged looks of amazed disbelief. JJ must have sensed the exchange because he lifted his face from where it had been buried in Mack's neck and looked around the room.

"Where's my papa?"

"He's on the telephone calling your Aunt Rachel," Ernestine said, reaching for him. "You wanna let me put some clothes on you while Ruby finishes fixin' breakfast?"

The child considered, looking from Beau to Mack, and into the eyes of the three people who'd been his safe harbor since the death of his mother. "Mr. Mack McGinnis, are you going to stay here and eat breakfast?"

"Yes, Mr. JJ Thatcher, I am," Mack replied, releasing him to Ernestine. He first insisted on kissing Ruby and Sam before he left, and waved solemnly at the two guests as they left. Ruby wiped her face on her apron, and Sam cleared his throat several times.

"I don't know how y'all handled this for three months," Mack said.

"We don't, either," Sam said.

"'Cept we didn't have no choice," Ruby said. "We couldn't leave that baby here all by hisself...well, not by hisself, but with Mr. Jonas like he was."

"Y'all are good people," Beau said. "Real good people."

Jonas returned then, pencil and paper in hand. "Beau, if it's all right, can I have your telephone number? I'm telling everybody that I'm going away for a while, to rest." He gave a sad smile. "Funny how everybody thinks that's a good idea and wished I'd had done it sooner." He squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deeply; he was trying so hard not to cry again. "It's for the lawyer and the bank, to guarantee that Horace Edwards, if he gets wind that I'm gone, doesn't try any funny business."

Beau gave him the number and Jonas left again, back to the telephone in the hallway, as Ruby placed cups, saucers, bowls of cream and sugar, and a fresh pot of coffee on the table. Mack and Beau were finishing their first cup when Jonas returned, and Ruby poured him a cup and refreshed the other two. She gave Beau and Mack a pointed look before turning back to the stove, a look they didn't understand until they watched Jonas staring at the table without seeing the steaming coffee before him.

"How do you take your coffee, Jonas?" Mack asked. Jonas focused on the cup before him but seemed either not to have understood the question or not to know the answer. "Cream and sugar?" Mack asked.

"Yes," Jonas said. "Yes. Cream and sugar but sweeter rather than lighter. Audrey used to say that: Lighter rather than sweeter for hers, sweeter rather than lighter for mine."

"This is a beautiful house, Jonas," Beau said. "Mack had told me what a fine job your Audrey did designing it, but seeing it in person—it's really something."

"Mack had as much to do with it as Audrey did," Jonas said. "That's the truth and you know it, Mack. She had some fine ideas, it's true, but so did you. It's when y'all put'em together that we got this house the way it is."

"It's one of the finest in Carrie's Crossing," Mack said, "and I'll always be proud that I could have a hand in it."

Ernestine and JJ returned then, the little boy fully dressed, his hair combed, eyes sparkling. "'Morning, Papa," he said shyly, standing beside his father's chair.

Jonas scooped him up and hugged him tightly. "'Morning, my favorite JJ."

The boy giggled. "I'm your only JJ."

Jonas looked surprised. "Why, I do believe you're right about that." It clearly was a game they'd played often, father and son, though just as clearly, not for a while, and both savored the moment.

Ruby put a plate of sausage, eggs and grits before each of the men at the table, and Ernestine took JJ and sat him on a pile of books in a chair and pushed it up to the table; Ruby placed a plate before him, too. They bowed their heads, Sam said grace, and Mack, Beau and JJ began to eat. Jonas stared at his plate as he had at his coffee, which he'd finally had several sips of.

"You want some more butter in your grits, Jonas?" Beau asked. Jonas looked at the table, surprised to find the plate in front of him. He put a forkful of grits in his mouth but didn't chew for a few seconds. Then he did, swallowed, looked again at the plate. He forked up some eggs. Ruby put a bowl of biscuits on the table and everybody took one, including Jonas. "What kind of jelly you want on that biscuit, Jonas?" Beau said. "We got jelly, right, Miss Ruby?"

"Yessir. We got every kinda jelly you can name. But Mr. Jonas, he likes apple butter 'stead of jelly."

"Me, too," JJ yelled.

"Me, too," Beau added, and, taking the jar of apple butter from Ruby, spread a generous amount on biscuits for everybody. "Is that enough apple butter, Jonas?"

Jonas bit the biscuit, remembered to chew, then bit it again. Ruby's not-quite-so-whispered, "Thank you, Jesus!" was a sentiment shared by everybody in the room.

Jonas's near catatonia returned after breakfast, however, and Mack had to help Ernestine and Ruby pack for him and JJ. Fortunately, no dress-up clothes would be required, and by the time the bags were packed, Rachel and Cory had arrived. Jonas initially seemed surprised to see them but eventually remembered why they were there. He didn't know when he'd return, he said, but thought in a couple of weeks. Rachel told him to take as long as he needed. She thanked Mack and Beau for their "friendship for my brother," kissed him and JJ, and walked with them to Beau's truck.

Beau already had given Sam and Ruby his telephone number and he added Mack and Clara McGinniss's. "If there's a problem, don't call my sister; she's got enough on her mind." That upset all three of them, and they demanded to know what was troubling Miz McGinnis. "Three sons in the army," Beau said. Ernestine and Ruby gasped and grabbed their chests, and Sam muttered darkly under his breath, but Beau heard enough to grasp the intent of his words. He did not intend to wish blessings on the U.S. Army or the Nazis.

Mack followed Beau's truck out of Carrie's Crossing to the junction of the road that led into Belle City and the one that skirted the city to the north and which would ultimately lead out of Georgia and into South Carolina. They honked their horns and waved to each other as they both headed for home.

 

From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

Summer 1944. This is the first time I have written in this book since Audrey left this earth and I would not be doing it if Beau Thatcher and Mack McGinnis had not come to my house just before Easter and got me and taken me up to North Carolina. I stayed a whole month. I don't recall much about the first week but I do know that I will forever be truly and deeply grateful for Beau and his Pa, for the two of them took care of me like I was the child, and they looked after JJ like he was their own. Big Silas Thatcher was so much like First Freeman I would sometimes forget that he wasn't, but the one thing he could help me with that no other man I knew could help me with was how to go on living. He didn't know that I had seen him get the news of Miss Nellie's death, and I didn't tell him. What he told me, though, when it was just the two of us talking—him talking and me listening—was what I imagine it would be like listening to God. So much kindness and goodness and wisdom, right alongside the all the pain and sadness that had never left him. One thing he told me that I'll never forget was to be grateful that I'd had Audrey in my life. Instead of being sad and mad, he said, be thankful that we'd had those few years together. Imagine your life without her at all. It was those words that helped me find the way to put my son back in my heart, and I'm glad I had Big Si to help me, and my little boy couldn't have done better than to have Beau, a man who didn't have any children of his own but who knew how a good Pa loved his children, do that same thing for my little boy. I'll also never forget how Mack McGinnis was holding him that morning they came to my house—holding him like a man would hold his own son, like I used to hold mine before I lost his Mama—like I do hold him right now, today. They can say what they want, think what they want, but those people are my kin, my family and there's nothing I wouldn't do for any of them. We're going back up to N.C. next week to spend Labor Day and this time, Ruthie and Mack and their children and Mack's ma and pa will be there. JJ is so happy. He wants to live there.

 

From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

My biggest challenge during that time—the war years—was learning to occupy my mind in a constructive way. As I spent more time with Father Bowers, I got to know his wife, Eleanor, and she became a real lifeline for me. She was the first person to tell me to stop trying not to worry about Mackie, Wil and Thatch. She said that would be unnatural for a mother to not worry about her children, especially if those children were in a perilous situation—and war certainly is perilous. She asked if she could make a suggestion, and of course I said I'd welcome it. Think about them, she said—think about which one is the funny one, the serious one, the cutup. Think of special moments I'd shared with them, she suggested. In other words, she said, rather than worry or fear, let happy memories guide my thoughts. It was advice I gladly took, so instead of picturing fiery bombs and spurting blood and shattered limbs—which is what I'd been seeing in my mind—I saw my boys not as fodder for the Nazis but as my wonderful sons. I saw them as alive, as living, rather than dead. Taking that approach helped me more than I can tell you, and it also helped my relationship with Mack and with the children I still had at home. I wasn't fully aware of how my fear for the three who were away was affecting my love for the two who were at home. With Mack's blessing, I began teaching full-time at the College and with that, stopped seeing myself as useless. Oh indeed, that is how I felt, Sissy. My three eldest children were at war and my two youngest were teenagers in high school. My husband, thankfully, was so successful that he worked non-stop. And what did I do? I walked. I was studying theology a bit—just a bit, mind you—but only for my own edification, not to benefit anybody else. Periodically I would recall the surprise with which Father Bowers called me Dr. McGinnis, and the ease with which I shrugged off his apology and claimed my Mrs. status, as if having earned a Ph.D. was of no importance. My brother left his home and his family because people hadn't respected that achievement. And speaking of Si. One of the things my newly-formulated self did was accept his invitation to visit him and Cat for Thanksgiving. Mack, Jack, Nellie and me took the train to Chicago.

I had a few very rough moments during the trip, though. It often happened that the passenger trains would slow down and change tracks to give the right of way to the troop trains. I'll never forget the sight: Train cars packed with boys—and that's what they were, Sissy—boys, children, looking like they were playing dress-up in their uniforms, on their way to war. People waved at the trains and saluted them. And many people wept. All of the boys on the trains we saw were white, and I wondered whether, when the trains carrying my sons passed through towns, anybody waved at them or saluted them or wept at the sight of them. It required every ounce of resolve within me not to allow those thoughts to ruin that trip for Mack and the children—especially them.

 

From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

Christmas 1944. I'm having to really force myself to have any kind of Christmas at all, and I'm only doing it for JJ. I can't bring myself to string all those lights everywhere even though Sam said he would do it. It would remind me too much of Audrey. I also can't have the big party, either. I will get a small tree for the living room. I told JJ we'd go into the woods and cut a pine. I'll let him pick it out and we'll decorate it and I'll put all the presents under it—his and the ones he got for Ernestine, Sam and Ruby. I spend all the time I have alone trying to make myself remember the wonderful Christmases I had with Audrey instead of missing her so much this Christmas. And I don't know how I'm going to get through New Year's. Beau said I could go up to N.Carolina if I wanted to. We would be by ourselves, me and JJ for a few days. Beau and Big Si are in Belle City for the holidays which makes me wish all over again that I was part of a big family like that. That's what me and Audrey were building, a big, loving family. But that's all gone now. I don't think I would mind being at Beau's place by myself but I don't think JJ would like it much. He loves following Big Si around, talking to him about what all the fruits and vegetables are and going into the woods with Beau to hunt and fish. I had all but forgot how to do those things but I am remembering. Maybe I could take my son hunting and fishing. I'll ask him if he wants to go. And I will stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to call Mack and Ruthie to say merry Christmas. I still feel bad that I didn't know their boys were in the War. Just like they still feel bad they didn't know about Audrey and Allie. We promised to stay in better touch.

 

***

 

– Belle City –

Ruthie

 

Christmas dinner at Big Mack and Clara's brought a full house. Not as full as in the past but full enough that there were two adult tables and two children's tables and every seat was taken; full enough that Clara beamed her satisfaction as two turkeys and two hams and four dozen yeast rolls were devoured, in addition to the too-many-to-count platters and bowls of greens and green beans, squash soufflé, mashed potatoes, candied yams, beets and turnips and carrots. Big Si and Beau were there and brought with them deer meat cooked over a spit, and it too was devoured. Then there was dessert. Belle's barber, James Jackson, had become a regular at family gatherings, along with his companion, Aaron Stevenson, who was a pastry chef at one of the big downtown hotels and who was as relaxed and casual as James was formal and elegant. Today, he wore one of his trademark three-piece suits with vest, tie perfectly knotted, black shoes shined and, of course, hair perfectly cut. Aaron's hair was well-cut too, and his shave was smooth and close, but he still wore the white apron and chef's hat from the morning spent at the hotel baking the desserts for the dinners that would be served that day, and it did not and would not occur to him to change his clothes.

He'd arrived carrying two cakes, followed by James carrying two more, and had asked somebody—somebody who wasn't clumsy, he'd said—to go out to the car and get the pies. Beau had raced the younger children to the front door—Belle's three, Nellie and Jack, and Sadie's Dorothy and William—teasing that whoever got there first would get a whole pie to eat without having to share. Aaron was laughing and giggling louder than the children when the front door slammed.

They were a fine addition to the family gatherings, James and Aaron. Both had families that didn't want anything to do with them—Mack had correctly assessed their lack of interest in women—and they welcomed the opportunity to be part of a family. James always insisted on buying the food. All of it. He didn't cook but he did eat, he said, and thought it only fair that he pay for the food. After all, he said, it was the cooks who did the real work in preparing a meal for twenty or twenty-five people. Then he'd give his shy, quiet smile and offer that anyway, he ate enough for three people. There was nothing shy or quiet about Aaron. Older than James by eight or nine years—in fact, he and Beau were the same age—he was funny and gregarious and at least half the life of any party. He was generous to a fault and now considered everybody connected to either the Thatcher or McGinnis families as "my own kin" and treated them as such. He had taken a particular liking to Sadie Hill, getting her a job at the hotel where he worked to help her supplement her income. Though Mack and Ruth continued to pay her full salary, with the three oldest boys gone, there wasn't much work for her to do, and Sadie's pride would not allow her to accept money she hadn't earned. She had worked overnight at the hotel and now was at home sleeping. William and Dorothy had spent Christmas Eve with Mack and Ruthie, opening their presents on Christmas morning with Jack and Nellie. She would, she said, be at Big Mack and Clara's by five o'clock—just in time for Aaron's desserts.

Big Si, Big Mack and Aaron were each cutting a cake—chocolate, coconut and pound—when the telephone rang. "I'll get it," Mack said. "It's probably Si and Cat. They said they'd call before it got too late."

Emma Johnson got to her feet, ready to run for the phone and talk to her daughter, when she stopped in her tracks at the sound of Mack's voice: Whoever it was, it wasn't Si and Catherine. Mack's voice was raised, and he was telling whoever was on the other end to quiet down and calm down and start from the beginning. "We'll be right there" they heard him say, and everybody was standing up when he hurried back into the room.

"That was Sadie. She says there's a man at the front door who says his name is Henry Fordham, and he's First Freeman's son!"

"Good God Almighty," Big Si exclaimed, startling them all. "He did have a son by that name. That was his name before he changed it—Fordham—Silas Fordham, and he had a son he said just disappeared one day. Went out and never came back. But Good God. That was…that was…way long time ago." He rushed for the front door. "Come on, y'all. Beau, Mack. Ruthie, you better come too."

They rushed out of the front door then had to run around to the back of the house to get Mack's car. As there was practically no traffic on the street on Christmas Day, they got to Sadie's house—that had been Pa and Beau's house and before that, First Freeman's house—in just a few minutes. They all saw the man on the front porch: Thin, stooped, white-haired. He had a blanket around his shoulders and was drinking a cup of something hot; they could see the steam rising. Sadie had given him a blanket and a beverage but had drawn the line at letting him in her house, and they didn't blame her. Mack pulled into the driveway and parked. Big Si and Beau were out of the car before the hand brake was set, Ruthie hard on their heels. The stranger had heard their arrival and turned to face them, and when they got close enough to see him clearly, Pa stopped in his tracks and said Great God Almighty again. There could be no doubt that this man was related to First Freeman—and to Silas Thatcher.

He looked at them and they looked at him and Sadie Hill watched all of them through the window. "It's cold out here," Ruth said. "Let's see if Sadie thinks it's all right for us to come in."

She excused herself as she passed the strange man on the porch and rang the bell. Sadie opened the door immediately. Ruth entered and pulled Sadie to the side. Her father, brother and husband stood aside and allowed the stranger to enter first. They followed and closed the door behind him. He walked to the center of the room and looked all around. Then he looked at each of the people in the room, studied their faces, for several seconds, and finally pointed to Big Si.

"You. You some kin to me." It wasn't a question.

Pa nodded. "He was my pa, too. I was raised in Carrie's Crossing. He told me 'bout you. It was the biggest sadness in his life that he didn't know what happened to you or why you left him like you did."

The man began to shake and shiver. Ruth took the cup from him before he dropped it, and Mack and Beau led him closer to the fireplace. He stood directly in front of it until he stopped shaking. "I didn't leave," he said. "I got took."

Then Henry Fordham told them the story of the past twenty-six years of his life: He'd been standing in front of a pool hall on Simpson Road on a Friday night. He had just gotten off work and gotten a haircut and was considering shooting a couple of games of pool, but he was hungry and didn't want to eat the pool hall offerings; he wanted a real meal. As he was pondering his next move, a truck pulled up and two men jumped out—two Colored men. Both were talking loudly and at the same time, so he couldn't make out what they were saying. Then they were beside him and he was between them and they had his arms and they threw him into the back of the truck, jumped in behind him, and the truck sped away. There were six other men in the truck, in addition to the kidnappers, and they were bound and gagged. So was he, in a matter of moments. They drove almost all night. It was still dark when they stopped. They were pulled from the truck and forced to walk into some woods where there were huts and cabins, barely visible in the just-breaking dawn. Henry said he was vaguely aware of a noise, a deep rumbling, maybe even roaring noise, that was constant. Then, as he eyes adjusted to the light, he saw men emerging from the huts and cabins and other men walking toward them. It was, he was soon to learn, the shift change: The men who had worked all night were returning to the structures to sleep, while the other men were off to work their twelve-hour shift. They worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, every week of every year, Henry said, and they got paid not one dime. Not ever. Not in twenty-six years was he ever paid for his labor. And it was labor, he said: In plants and factories in Georgia and in Alabama. They moved the men around so they'd never know exactly where they were. Men would escape, and they wouldn't care because there was no place to escape to—the factories or plants were always far away from a city and always in or near woods. The men who returned spoke of snakes and wild boars and the occasional bobcat in the woods. There were others who never returned. They were fed a bowl of beans and rice three times a day, and it never was enough. They always were hungry and thirsty. There were buckets of water placed around the factory floor, but a man had to secure permission to get a drink, and it was rarely given. So they fainted from dehydration, they soiled themselves since the same permission was required to go to the toilet and they learned not to notice or care.

Henry Fordham stopped talking and stood still as a statue, Sadie's blanket still hanging on him. He watched them watch him, but there was nothing in his eyes to suggest that he wanted or needed or expected any one of them to say anything. He knew that there was nothing to be said. He knew what had happened to him, and he knew that there was no explaining it. He knew that being held as a slave sixty years after slavery's end was not the basis for a rational conversation. Even an uneducated, broken-spirited new kind of slave knew that much. So he didn't say anything. He just looked at them, and that he found interesting; he'd never seen Colored people like these. The tall man in the most beautiful suit of clothes he could imagine—during those low, deeply dark times when he fantasized about being set free, he imagined having rich-man things—and the tall, beautiful woman, who held his arm so tightly that it must be painful, could have stepped out of a magazine. She looked like a lot of the men enslaved with him—like an Indian—like the other man with them, the only one not wearing a suit. He looked more like an Indian than the woman, with his hair in a long braid down his back and the deerskin shoes on his feet. The old man, the man who was his brother, Silas, had on a suit too, but not a fancy one, and he didn't wear a tie, and he wore brogans, not fancy city shoes. True, they were new brogans, and they were shined—but nothing fancy about them.

The first one to speak was the lady who now lived in his pa's house. Her name was Sadie, she'd told him. She was crying and beating her hands against her chest. "I knew he hadn't just run off and left me and the chil'ren. I knew Willie wouldn't do a thing like that. That's what happened to him, y'all. What happened to Mr. Fordham here is what happened to my Willie, and I'll bet to Miss Emma's man, too." She was shrieking, and Ruth let go of Mack so that she could hold Sadie. Ruth was the next to speak.

"How many men, Mr. Fordham, in these factories and plants? How many men?"

"Too many. Way too many. And I only seen the ones where I worked, and they was always movin' us around, always at night so we couldn't see nothin' but the dark."

For years there had been wonderment about men who just disappeared without any provocation—good husbands and fathers, the women left behind all claimed. Now they understood. Now they knew. "How did you get here, Mr. Fordham?" Ruthie asked.

For the first time some hint of life showed in his eyes. "I wouldn't die so they brung me back," he answered, and when it was clear that they hadn't understood his meaning, he explained that he'd gotten too old and too sick to work. "They got this one shack for mens like that where they put 'em to die. Don't feed 'em much, don't give 'em much water, and they just die. But I didn't. I wasn't no use to 'em no more, so they brung me back here. They lookin' for some more, but all the young mens is gone to that war, and old mens, like y'all, is got jobs and workin' and ain't hardly nobody on the streets at night no more. 'Least that's what I heared the boss mens say."

Pa looked at Beau. "I guess we better take Henry with us." Then he looked at the man. "I'm Silas Thatcher, and this here is my son, Beaudry. That's my daughter, Ruth, and that's her husband, Mack. And that there is Miz Sadie Hill. She lives in this house now with her chil'ren. Me and Beau live in North Car'lina, and we'd be pleased to have you with us if you care to go."

Henry Fordham nodded his head and said a whispered thank you.

"Willie Hill," Sadie said. "Did you ever know Willie Hill from Belle City? He had a shoe shine bizness. Had a big box that he rolled all around—downtown in front of the hotels, out in front of the train station, in front of the banks. He was real good at shinin' shoes. Did you ever see him, Mr. Fordham, Willie Hill?" Sadie was shrieking again and sobbing. Ruth held her, wiped her face with the handkerchief Mack gave her.

They all felt Sadie's grief for a moment, Henry Fordham included. Then Big Si said they needed to get back to Big Mack and Clara's so folks wouldn't worry about them anymore than they probably already were worried. "We were havin' Christmas dinner at my in-laws house, and it was some kinda good food. Would you like to come eat?"

Henry looked at them, and then down at himself, at his thread-bare work clothes and patched brogans, and shook his head. "I ain't dressed no kinda way to go into folks' house for dinner."

"It's a family dinner, Henry, and you're my brother. Won't nobody care what you got on."

He was right; nobody cared what Henry Fordham was wearing, so struck were they by his story, as told by Pa, Mack, Beau and Ruth. Emma Johnson fainted dead away when she fully understood what happened to Henry and when they revived her, she, like Sadie, asked over and over whether Henry had know her Ed. Then, finally grasping the horrible enormity of the situation, she, too, wept helplessly and hopelessly. They all felt the same way: Helpless and hopeless. There was nobody to tell what they'd learned, and nobody to halt it. Even now, according to Henry, the hunt was on for new slaves. The only thing they could do, they agreed, was tell all the ministers at all the churches, who then would sound the alarm: No able-bodied Negro male should be out alone after dark. It was cold comfort certainly, but now the ministers could tell families where at least some of their missing men were, and confirming for them that they'd been right all along: The men hadn't just up and left one day for no reason.

Pa and Beau cut their visit short and left with Henry Fordham the following day. In whispered conversations, both had expressed the opinion that Henry did not have long to live; however, they said they'd make him feel as at home as possible, would tell him all the First Freeman stories they could think of, would feed him good food and give him a comfortable place to sleep—in short, guarantee that he'd have everything he'd lacked during the previous twenty-six years.

The rest of them, in groups large and small, talked about nothing but Henry for the rest of the week, until the New Year dawned and brought them another topic: The possible end of the war. German troops were trounced and routed on New Year's Day 1945, and almost every day brought news that American and British forces were gaining the upper hand against the Germans. Dare they hope the war would end soon? According to Si and Cat, people in Chicago thought so. According to Pa and Beau, people in the North Carolina mountains thought so. According to Jonas, people in Carrie's Crossing thought so. Ruthie and Mack allowed themselves to think and hope so, and by March, the hope turned to belief as the Army had the Japanese on the run in the Pacific. At the beginning of April, they did something the swore they'd never do: They went downtown to the Fox Theater, climbed the stairs on the outside of the building to the Crow's Nest, the top tier of seats in the massive auditorium where Colored were relegated, and watched the News Reels. They'd sworn, all of them, that they'd never in their lives pay a penny of their hard-earned money to crackers to sit in a filthy corner of any place for any reason. They had heard that the Crow's Nest was filthy because the theater management never cleaned it. The rumors were true. Ruthie held tightly to Mack's arm so she wouldn't have to touch the stair railings outside or inside, and she wished she hadn't had to sit on the hard seats, though for once she was grateful for the meanness of white people: How much worse would the seats in the Crow's Nest be if they were cushioned and upholstered? The awful surroundings receded when the lights dimmed. The News Reel footage was dramatic and impressive. The total defeat of Japan was imminent. Yes, it was too soon to start planning the Homecoming Celebration for the boys, but they certainly could begin thinking about it: Thanksgiving? Christmas?

As often happened when there was good news, when all the attention was focused in that direction, bad news blew in the back door, blindsiding everybody. Ruthie knew this to be true from firsthand experience, but she wasn't the only person taken totally and completely off guard by the news on April 12th that FDR had died. The whole world, it seemed, reeled. Quickly, though, the shock was replaced by worry and concern: A new president taking over in the middle of a war? But the war wasn't at midpoint. The end of it was in sight, and Truman had Eisenhower. That's what people said. Ruthie didn't think that was true, but before she could give the matter really serious thought, they had to shift focus again. Henry Fordham died the day after Roosevelt. Beau called with the news that evening, and it almost was anti-climatic since they'd already buried him.

"But Beau. You can't just bury people."

He laughed. "Baby Sister. You are a treat." Then he explained that he and Pa had discussed their options at length, and concluded that since nobody had heard anything of Henry or anything about Henry in twenty-six years, since nobody knew where he'd been or that he'd returned, since nobody was looking for him and since nobody missed him, the logical thing to do was to bury him. He'd died in his sleep. "He just didn't wake up this morning," Beau said, and since they couldn't leave a dead body in the house, they had dug a deep pit, lined it with rocks and lime, said a prayer (Pa had said the prayer), wrapped Henry in a sheet, and laid him to rest. "It was the right thing to do, Ruthie," he said.

She sat thinking. Was Beau right? Had he and Pa done the right thing? If so, then she was wrong. She'd been wrong a lot lately. "How's Pa taking it?"

"He was kinda upset at first, but not broken-hearted 'bout it. After all, he didn't know the man, even if it was his brother. But he said the whole thing made him sad—that the man died and didn't but two people in the whole world know or care. Then he started talking about how when he died, how many people would care, and I had to move him off that subject," Beau paused. "He talks about dyin' a lot, Ruthie."

"How is he, Beau? Really?"

"Old. Weak. Tired."

"Do we need to move him back down here?"

Beau sighed deeply, sounding as if he had something caught in his throat. "Maybe when it gets a little warmer. June, July."

She hung up the phone thinking that this summer, her pa would be coming home to die, just as his brother had done. She was still sitting there when the phone rang again. It was Jonas. They had kept their promise to keep in touch, and he was calling to share thoughts with her about FDR's death. When she ruefully admitted that at the moment the dead president was the furthest thing from her mind, he asked why, and she told him. All of it. He was very quiet for a long time. Only the ubiquitous hum on the telephone line let her know he was still there. When he finally spoke, it was almost in a whisper, as if he didn't want to be heard. And when she heard what he said, she imagined that he did not want Ernestine or Sam or Ruby to overhear.

"I think I've heard about those places, Ruthie. I don't recall the names of them, but I've been asked to invest in plants and factories in Georgia and Alabama that make unheard of profits. At first, I didn't believe it; nobody makes that kind of profit. But if it's from slave labor, if workers aren't being paid—well, then, yeah, they'd be makin' a huge profit. And all I can think right now is how glad I am I didn't invest. I know that sounds self-serving, but to think I could have been a part of something like that."

"You couldn't be blamed if you didn't know."

"How often do people hide behind ignorance as an excuse? Besides, somebody, a lot of somebodies, do know what's going on and are doing nothing."

"Can you find out about them? Where they are, what they're called? We know two women whose husbands just disappeared one day, and it's possible that they're in one of these places."

"I'll try to learn more. But Ruthie—?"

"What is it, Jonas? What's wrong?"

"If men are being stolen off the street, driven to a different state and not paid for their work, then it's possible that those places don't know their names, that there are no records of who they are or where they're from."

She hung up the phone thinking that what happened to Henry Fordham and, in all likelihood, to Willie Hill and Ed Johnson, was worse than slavery. At least the slaves had names and people who worked them without pay knew their names. Even if, at some point, they changed them. Silas Fordham became First Freeman, but everyone who knew him, knew that. Then she had a horrible thought: Suppose, when Pa moved away to be with Beau, they had rented or sold the house to a stranger. When Henry appeared, nobody would have known about First Freeman. Henry would have been sent away. He'd have been penniless and alone and about to die. Beau was right: They had done the right thing.

 

***

 

– Carrie's Crossing –

Jonas

 

They had slowed from a canter to a walk, and JJ slowed his horse first. Jonas was glad because the boy had turned a deaf ear to any attempt by his father to discuss selling the horses. JJ wasn't going to sell his horse, and no argument his father could offer could change his mind, and the argument was a good one: Carrie's Crossing was becoming so urban and developed that there almost was no place to ride a horse anymore. What had been open fields and meadows now were parts of estates, fenced-off private property, no horses allowed. They couldn't even ride on their own land anymore because the road and the traffic came so close it frightened the horses. "It's not fair to them, Son," Jonas had argued, "to have them spooked and scared all the time."

"What's the point of having a horse if you have to walk him?" JJ complained to his father. "Horses were made to run."

"I guess we just have to face the truth: We don't live in a little country town anymore; we live in a big city."

"Belle City is a big city, Papa, not us."

"That used to be true, Son, but not anymore. It's called progress. One day we'll have just as many people living here as live over there."

"I don't like progress," JJ growled.

Jonas wasn't terribly fond of it either, but what he said to his son was that, like everything else, progress had its place; like everything else, there was some good with it and some not-so-good. The key, he always told his son, was to find the good and enjoy it, and not to let the bad destroy you—that's if you couldn't change it. And a way for them to keep progress from destroying them was to sell the horses to a farmer in South Georgia who had a lot of land—open land where the horses could run. That way, he told his son, the horses would be happy, and they would, too, knowing the horses wouldn't be scared and spooked all the time.

If not contradicting everything he said meant that JJ finally was ready to accept the sale of the horses, then he'd shout like Ruby, thank you Jesus! The last thing he'd wanted was to have to force him to accept getting rid of the horse he loved.

When they heard the clanging of the bell, the horses turned and headed for home without having to be told. Jonas had found an old ship's bell and hung it from the side of the barn to be rung any time he was too far away from the house to hear himself being called. A couple of clangs was all it took, and he'd head back. Continuous clanging meant hurry back. A brisk canter was the best they could do, and when they trotted into the yard the urgency was obvious: Horace's car was parked in the driveway and he was on the front steps, and Jonas could see from a distance that he was hopping mad. Indeed, he was hopping from foot to foot, and Jonas could guess the reason: He wanted in and Ernestine wouldn't open the door.

Sam met them at the barn door and took the reins of Jonas's horse as he dismounted. Sam didn't say a word as he helped JJ down and solicited the boy's help grooming the animals, a request he only needed to make once.

As Jonas made his way to the front of the house, he could hear Horace yelling to Ernestine to open the damn door. "You know she's not going to do that, Horace, so why are you making all that noise?"

"Why can't I go in the house?"

"You know very well why you can't go in my house. Now, what do you want?"

Horace stood looking down at him. He looked worn and tired. "Can we go in and sit down and talk like grownups?"

"We have nothing to talk about."

"Jonas, please." The desperation in his voice could mean only one thing.

"You broke again?"

"I'm about to lose everything. Even my house. I can't do that to Alice. You got to help me."

"No, I don't. Whatever mess you're in this time, it's your own fault, just like all the other times—spend, spend, spend. You never met a dollar you didn't want to spend."

"It's not like that this time. Three businesses I got money invested in, they all been shut down by the government. Feds just waltzed in, seized the merchandise, and shut 'em down."

"These the places you told me about? The ones returning the huge profits?"

Horace's head was bobbing up and down like apples in a barrel. "And I wasn't spending. I plowed back everything I made, and I'd made a ton. I put it all back in these places. They were the best investments I'd ever made. Then here come the Feds."

"Roosevelt warned against profiteering over a year ago," Jonas said.

"Damn Roosevelt!" Horace shouted. "I wish he hadda died years ago. He had no right interfering in business like that. This is a free-market society. We're capitalists in this country, not socialists or communists."

Jonas laughed out loud. "Who've you been listening to? You got yourself an economics professor on the payroll?"

"This ain't funny. Every dime I had was invested in those three plants, and now I can't get it back. None of it, and that ain't right. It ain't fair."

"That's probably what the people who worked there thought: That it wasn't right or fair that they worked twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week, for absolutely no pay, so you could make huge profits on your investments."

He came down off the top step now and stood face to face with Jonas. "What do you know 'bout how them places was run?" All the country cracker in him surfaced when he was mad. "Who you been talkin' to? You been talkin' to the Feds, boy? I'll kill you I find out you been talkin' to the Feds."

"You don't have the courage or the strength to kill me. Now, get off my property and don't come back, Horace. I mean that. Tell me who holds your mortgage, and I'll pay the note only because of Audrey. Because of her memory. That's why I didn't knock you down just then when you threatened to kill me. But if you step foot back on my property again, I will kill you, and believe me, it'll be easier the second time."

Horace was about to ask what he meant when the front door swung open at the same time that Sam came running around the side of the house.

"Hitler's dead!" Ernestine shouted from the doorway. "Hitler's dead!"

"He killed hisself!" Sam yelled. "Before we could get to him, he killed hisself. All along, nothin' but a big ol' coward."

"The War got to be over soon, now, ain't that right, Mr. Jonas?" Ruby demanded to know. "Ain't it? And our boys can come home where they belong."

It was a lot to take in. Hitler dead, by his own hand. Yes, certainly this part of the War was over—the European part. At least the part waged by Hitler. What about Japan, and, according to Charlie Pace, Russia? Even though they're supposed to be our allies, Charlie said they couldn't be trusted as far you could throw Adolph Hitler. "I don't know how soon we should start looking for troops to come home," he said, thinking of Ruthie and Mack's boys, knowing they were wondering the exact same thing. "Just because ol' Adolph is dead doesn't mean his Army is dead. We'll have to wait and see."

"What did you mean by what you said, Jonas?"

"You're still here? I thought you'd left."

"I was talkin' to you before we got interrupted," he spat out, looking pointedly at Ruby, Sam and Ernestine. "What did you mean about killin' me bein' easier the second time? Who've you killed? You killed somebody, didn't you? Ha! I knew it. You ain't nothin' but trash. I tried to tell Audrey, but she wouldn't listen."

 

***

 

– Belle City –

Ruthie

 

Four days after Ruthie's fortieth birthday, Germany surrendered. They'd had a big party that weekend—music, dancing, barbecue, and three of Aaron's cakes. Beau and Pa came but nobody but Ruthie and Beau knew that Pa wouldn't be returning, though a close look at him told his truth: He was not well. He would not live for very much longer.

Ruthie's party started Friday night and ended when it was time to go to church on Sunday morning. It resumed on Tuesday evening when they got news of the German army's unconditional surrender. It won't be long now, they told themselves. It has to be over soon. And, as if to punctuate that sentiment, five letters arrived from Mackie, Wil and Thatch over the next six weeks.

Every time a letter came was cause for celebration, and so they continued their merrymaking, especially as, in the letters, the boys reported themselves to be well and healthy, if dirty, tired and hungry most of the time. They could not, of course, say where they were or what they were doing, but the fact that they were still alive and still healthy was sufficient. Mackie and Wil were still together and they had not seen Thatch, though they did get one letter from him and he was not close. Thatcher's letters, though, sounded like Mackie and Wil's letters—and none indicated any reason for worry. The one letter that was different was from Mackie and Wil and it arrived the first week of June. As always, they first described themselves as well and healthy so nobody would worry. Then they wrote, "sit down, everybody, and catch your breath. Are you ready for this? We found Eubanks Thatcher!"

Mack was reading the letter out loud and had to stop when Ruthie screamed. She grabbed the letter from him and read it to herself, all the way to the end. Then she held it, looked at it, shaking her head back and forth. Beau got up, took the letter from her, and gave it back to Mack and asked him to please continue reading. He was breathing hard, and he was shaking, and he stood beside Mack as he read, as if by being so near he could hear the words as they left Mack's mouth an instant before everyone else.

"Uncle Eubanks lives in a small village near Sainte-Menehould. He has a wife and four children. His two sons are in the army. When we knocked on his door and he opened it, he stared at us, then he started to cry. He reached out and grabbed us and held us. We hadn't said anything, hadn't told him who we were, but I guess we look enough like the family that he knew. His wife and daughters embraced us too, all of them crying, and pretty soon we were crying too. It was a very, very emotional moment. When we finally told him who we were—that we were his sister's sons—he started dancing all around the room and singing, Ruthie, Ruthie Ruthie! Then he asked our names and how old we were then he just started asking questions one after the other, fast, like machine gun fire. His wife—her name is Berthe—had to tell him to stop, to let us sit down. She made coffee and gave us cake and we told him everything we could think of IN FRENCH. He was amazed, especially when we told him why we were fluent French speakers. We couldn't stay too long and he understood why. We told him we would try to come back to see him but we couldn't promise anything. He understood. Of course he did. He'd been in a war, too. He cried again when he talked about his mother, and he wanted us to tell him again and again about Grandpa and Uncle Beau. Here is his address. Write to him soon in case we are not able to get back to see him."

"When did they write that?" Beau asked. "Before Hitler died, before Germany surrendered?" Mack looked at the date and nodded. "So, they could be on their way back home by now. Ruthie! We got to write Eubie a letter—"

They were startled by a sound from Pa. They all turned in time to see him grab his left arm with his right hand, then slide out of his chair on to the floor. The two Macks got to him before his head hit the floor, and with James and Aaron's help, they lifted him on to the sofa. Beau knelt beside the sofa and rested his head on his father's chest and wept like a little child.

Silas Thatcher's funeral was held on his seventieth birthday. Every inch of every pew in the Friendship Baptist Church was occupied. Dr. Silas Thatcher from Chicago delivered his father's eulogy and wept when he said his one regret was that Big Si—that's what he called him—would never know the grandchild that his wife, Catherine, was carrying. And to honor him, Little Si said, they would remain in Belle City until the child was born, and if it happened to be a boy, his name would be Silas Thatcher the Third. There were more tears and lots of laughter before the service was over as people shared their remembrances, which Big Si would have applauded and approved. But it was the tears shed by the tall, thin white man sitting in the front row with the family that the congregation found most wrenching, for when the choir sang, Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me find my strength in thee, Jonas broke and wept for every person he'd ever loved. JJ tried to comfort his father, but there was no comforting Jonas Farley Thatcher that day. And as Beau and Mack had supported Big Si on the day of his wife's funeral as the choir sang Rock of Ages, they supported their friend, Jonas, on that day, and Ruth Thatcher McGinnis's two youngest children, Jack and Nellie, held the hands of young Jonas Farley Thatcher Jr. as they left the church.

 

From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

There was a schedule for servicemen returning home after the war. A hierarchy: Those who'd been in the army longest and in combat longest came home first, especially those with children. The war didn't end and everybody came home—it wasn't that simple, so I stopped trying to calculate the likely date that Mackie and Wil would come home. I just waited and knew that Thatch would follow eventually. We had hoped otherwise, but even though the war was over, Jack still was deployed after he registered, and we still had to worry because there were those who didn't trust the Russians. Turned out they were right. But it just meant that our days and nights of worrying weren't completely over. Mackie and Wil were home for Christmas and two skinnier things you've never seen. We hadn't told them about Pa, and they cried like little babies. We also didn't tell them how he died; that would have made them feel even worse, if they thought that telling us they'd found Eubie led to Pa's death. What odd and difficult feelings. The joy of finding Eubie, of having our sons returned to us whole and healthy, opposite the pain of losing Pa. There was a huge hole in all of our hearts and minds, and nobody expected that it would or could be filled any time soon. Having Pa present was like taking a breath—it was a necessary thing. Not having him present was like choking, suffocating. Trying to catch a breath and being unable. You'd think that his being in North Carolina would have prepared us, but it didn't. And to make matters worse, both Big Mack and Clara were ailing, and losing Pa sank them both into a deep depression. Not only had they lost a friend as close as a brother, they'd witnessed their own mortality. They never recovered.

 

From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

New Year's Day 1946. My Audrey has been gone from me for two years. It feels like 20 sometimes, and then it feels like just yesterday she and Allie were here and my house and my life were full of love and life. But I am alive and my son is alive and for the first time in my life I have friends and family—real family. It would hurt Rachel to read that. She is my family and she is a good sister and I love her very much and she loves me. But no matter how much we both try, we cannot change the part of ourselves that was raised by Zeb, and those parts do not know how to love people or let people love you. Mack and Ruthie and Beau let me and JJ celebrate with them—the boys coming home from the war, finding their long-lost Eubie—and they let me be sad with them. But it seems that whatever happens to them, they draw closer together. Maybe that's what life is all about; it's how you are no matter what things happen, good things or bad things. This is something I would never say to them, but when I am with them I forget that they are Colored or that I am White. I forget that we are different and I still don't understand or like why that is. Si still won't have much to do with me. He does not have any white friends in Chicago and he does not like white people. He is polite to me but that is all. Funny thing is, I understand. But I do wonder if this will ever change or if my pa was right: It's how things are and how they will always be. I hope he's wrong about that like he was wrong about everything he said and did.

 

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