Chapter Seven

Ida

 

Like I do on every Tuesday, I swear off ever playing bridge again with Charleston’s upper crust mainly because bridge isn’t the only game played. A subtle competition is dealt in with every hand alongside the finger sandwiches. A comparison of clothes, homes, travels, and overall largesse. Spending time with Madison is the only redeeming part of the gatherings. We are two odd ducks in a sea of squawking geese, pretending that we belong and at the same time taking pride that we don’t.

Home again, I sit at the picnic table under the big maple tree in the backyard that provides bountiful shade. A box of stationery sits on the table that I retrieved from my room. After remembering the adventures Maisie and I used to have as girls, I want to write my old friend a letter. Yet I wonder what to write about. At this point, my life is about as exciting as liver spots.

The fence gate squeaks open, and Trudy enters the backyard. The expression on her face is one I haven’t seen before. She sits at the picnic table across from me. Her forehead is creased like it gets when she is thinking hard about something.

I place my fountain pen on the stacked linen sheets of white stationery and scoot forward to put my warm hands on hers. I catch sight of the waddle underneath my arms that comes with age. Who knew that skin could be like underwear and lose its elastic? I jiggle the waddle, thinking how interesting aging is. I have been alive seventy years, though in some ways I still feel like a girl.

“What is it, honey?” I ask. Trudy is like her father when something bothers her. To get her to talk is like pulling a heavy bucket out of a deep well.

“Nana Trueluck, I want to ask you something, and I don’t want you to say ‘no’ automatically. Think about it first, okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

Am I one of those people who always says “no” to things? That sounds more like Abigail than me. Or does it? In the last year I have done my fair share of grieving and soul-searching. I have to admit there was a part of me, right after Ted Senior died, that was ready to go, too. I didn’t know how to continue on without him.

Also, it has taken some doing to figure out who I am without Ted Senior. When you’ve been married to someone your entire adult life, it is hard to remember how to be single again. Sometimes I wonder if I ever knew.

However, if given a choice of whether to be the kind of person who says “no” to life or “yes,” I want to choose “yes.” I am not dead yet, after all, and as a grandmother I want to be a good example to my grandchildren.

In the next instant, Teddy runs through the backyard with another boy his size. Each of them brandish toy six-shooters and use Trudy and me as human shields. I cover my ears when Teddy shoots the cap pistol, and in a flash the two boys are gone again.

“Oh, to have the energy of a six year old with six-shooters,” I say, more to myself than to Trudy.

The backyard quiet again, I remind her that she was about to ask a question. Instead, she tells me the story of her day. About how she, Vel, and Paris walked along the marsh road. About how Paris had to dive into the bushes to avoid being seen by some delinquents in a red pickup truck. About how one of the delinquents stopped and spat at her feet. She even tells me about a boy named Hoot with a case of what sounds like nightmarish acne. I nod and listen, wishing I’d had a grandmother when I was a girl who had done the same for me. Perhaps I would have grown up with more gumption.

“Vel acted weird the whole time, like we were doing something wrong by talking to Paris,” she says. “Mama and Daddy probably wouldn’t want me to be friends with him, either,” she concludes.

“It’s because they’re protective, Trudy. They don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” Nor do I, I want to say. But protection doesn’t seem to be what Trudy wants right now.

“Like what bad thing could happen?” she asks.

“You’d be surprised,” I say, my words soft. I look off into the backyard thinking of examples that I am not about to tell her. She has a right to her innocence for a while longer.

“Did people really throw rocks through Daddy’s office windows because he called Paris a hero in the newspaper?”

“It looks that way.”

“But why?” she asks.

“Why is such a big word, Trudy.”

“Tell me,” she says. “I need to know.”

I pause to admire her youthful passion and wonder how to put something so complex into simple language. Not that I fully understand it, either. The world is a complicated place.

“It’s just that people want to keep the old ways alive. It feels safer to them. Change frightens people.”

It frightens me, too, I want to say.

“Not changing is also scary,” she says, sounding wiser than her years, something she does quite often.

In some ways, losing my comfortable life with Ted Senior has allowed me to see who I am without the role of wife to define me. Not that I wouldn’t return to that role in a heartbeat if he were to come back. But even then I think I would try to keep more of myself in the relationship and not always default to meeting his needs without considering my own.

“Why can’t I be friends with anyone I want?” Trudy asks.

“Good question,” I say, not having any answers.

The screen door slams, and Abigail walks into the backyard carrying a tray.

“You missed your lunch,” she says to Trudy. “Where have you been all day?”

“Just around,” Trudy says.

Abigail puts a plate in front of her with a sandwich and a scoop of fruit cocktail on the side, the cherry carefully placed on the top. Trudy thanks her. Manners are a prized possession here in the South.

When Trudy takes a bite of a peanut butter and banana sandwich on Sunbeam Bread, I recall the scene from yesterday. The screech of tires in the distance. The bread truck heading straight for her. A picture on the side of the truck of that smiling blond girl with dimples. I never realized how totally white that picture was until now. White girl. Blond curls. Blue eyes. White bread. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a person of color and have all this whiteness around them.

However, the main thing I remember was my heart lurching into my throat. Then how strange it was to run at my age. A kind of half-run, half-walk accompanied by the fear of broken hips and Trudy being hurt.

If not for the boy who saved her, Trudy might be in the hospital, or worse yet at the funeral parlor with our whole family crying over her like we did Ted Senior. I hope to never feel that devastated again.

“You want anything, Ida?” Abigail asks.

I thank her and say no, not wanting to give her anything to complain to Ted Junior about.

“Why don’t you join us?” I say to her. “No need to work so hard on such a beautiful afternoon.”

Abigail laughs like the world might stop spinning if she sat in the shade for five minutes. She leaves, telling me to enjoy my lazy afternoon, letting a tiny bit of resentment sneak out in the way she says it.

Meanwhile, Trudy pokes a finger into the sandwich, making two eyes and a mouth, before licking off the peanut butter and smashed banana. At moments like this I remember she is still a child even though she acts like an adult sometimes.

“What did you want to ask me that I shouldn’t say ‘no’ to right away?” I ask again.

She hesitates. “We need your help.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Paris and Vel and I.”

“And what kind of help do you need?”

She hesitates again. I settle in to wait for more.

“We want to go to Columbia and take down that rebel flag that flies on top of the State House.” Her eyes glisten as though a passion is on the verge of igniting.

“You what?” I ask, my shock evident.

She starts to repeat what she said, and I touch her hand to stop her. I want to say “no” on many levels, ranging from shouts to whispers. But I can’t seem to say anything.

“How do you plan to take it down?” I pretend to be calm.

“We have no idea,” she says. “But we’re meeting at the cemetery tonight to talk about it.”

The Trueluck family has been members of Circular Church for over a century. The church was founded in 1681, the cemetery in the 1700s, though there has been no room for new residents for quite some time.

Is Trudy seriously considering such a bold move? How does a child even think to do something that audacious? Something that dangerous? While I don’t know Trudy’s new friend, I am surprised Velvet Ogilvie is included in on her plan. She is not the type to spark a revolution unless it involves the mistreatment of books.

“I’m not so sure—” I stop myself. Trudy counts on me to not be like her parents. I don’t want to discourage her, but I don’t want to encourage her, either. Nor can I even begin to imagine a scenario where I might be helpful.

“Don’t tell Mama and Daddy,” she says. “They wouldn’t understand.”

I agree to keep her confidence, but I am not so sure I understand. When I dared to support her summer adventure, I never dreamed it would be one of this magnitude. Befriending someone of another race would have been big enough. Besides, how are three children going to take down a flag that flies at the State House a hundred miles away? I guess that’s where I come in. I tell her I will think about it. That’s the best I can do. I haven’t said “no” automatically, and I haven’t said “yes,” either.

Trudy excuses herself to go make plans for her secret meeting scheduled for later tonight. A meeting I feel I have no choice but to attend, at least from a safe distance, hiding in the shadows of the churchyard.