Chapter Thirty-Seven

Three Years Later

1970

Ida

 

 

Six years have passed since that fateful summer of 1964. Six years since Paris pulled Trudy out of the path of a Sunbeam Bread truck and saved her life. Six years since our unlikely band of rebels took down the Confederate flag at the State House in Columbia, and the Charleston newspaper released a list of names of the local Ku Klux Klan.

Last week the Trueluck family attended Trudy’s high-school graduation. In the fall, she will study journalism at the College of Charleston. After that she wants to work for the newspaper and report stories that inspire people to act on what they believe in. She may even write a book someday.

Two days ago, Madison Chambers asked me to marry him. I haven’t told anyone the news. Not even Trudy. We are taking everyone out to Henry’s tonight to announce it, the same restaurant where Madison proposed.

My happiness with Madison is a different kind of contentment than I had with Ted Senior. Part of it is that love at my age is so unexpected. After Ted Senior died, I closed the door to romance, never dreaming I’d have a love life again. But never say never, as the old saying goes.

The telephone rings in the kitchen, and Abigail answers it. She practically coos when she announces that Madison wants to speak to me. Perhaps she is entertaining the thought of someday not having her mother-in-law living in the spare bedroom.

Abigail now co-owns Callie’s Diner and does all her baking there, where her peach, apple, and lemon meringue pies are famous. She invested in Callie’s after Ted Junior’s literary agent in New York sold his first novel to Harper & Row. Meanwhile, my grandson Teddy, as an incoming freshman, has already been secured as a defensive tackle by the high-school football team.

Over the phone, Madison calls me darling. Even Ted Senior never called me darling or sweetheart, like Madison often does. To Ted Senior, I was always honey. Honey this and honey that. It was sweet to be someone’s honey, and I miss him still.

I tell Madison I am almost ready, just in need of some finishing touches.

“I’ll pick everyone up,” he says.

We end our call, and I go upstairs.

Thirty minutes later I am dressed and take a look at myself in the full-length mirror. I wear a teal summer cotton dress with pearls along with my high-top sneakers. I suppose, there is still a bit of a rebel in me yet.

After a knock, I open my bedroom door and Madison is there.

“Oh my,” he says, with a playful sigh. “I’m in love with the most beautiful girl in the room.”

“The only girl in the room,” I say with a short laugh.

He closes the door and pulls me into his arms like he is Rock Hudson in Pillow Talk and I am Doris Day. We kiss. Not a peck on the lips, mind you, but a long and passionate hello, guaranteed to make an old woman’s knees a bit wobbly.

“Ready to shock the Truelucks?” he asks.

“As I’ll ever be,” I answer, getting my knees up under me again.

The entire Trueluck clan gets into Madison’s car, and we head to the restaurant. After dessert, Madison clinks his butter knife against a water glass and the two of us stand, holding hands. I announce our plans to have a small wedding ceremony at Circular Church next Saturday. Followed by a honeymoon in Savannah. Then I will move into Madison’s house on Tradd Street, where we will begin our life together at seventy-six years of age. We get a standing ovation. Not only from our family—with Abigail in tears and shouting the loudest hoorays—but from the entire restaurant, including servers and cooking staff.

I imagine we are considered brave to get married at our age, but I am no longer willing to waste a moment. After all, I am still making my own history.

Later that night, Trudy sits on the end of my bed. We are the night owls in the Trueluck family and have had some of our best conversations after midnight. I look at her and take a mental snapshot. My tomboy granddaughter has turned into a beautiful young woman.

“I’ll miss you living here,” she says.

“I’ll miss you, too,” I say. “But you’ll be in college soon, and you can always visit me at Madison’s. In fact, I’m counting on it.”

We exchange a hug. Having these last six years together in the same house has made us close. I am her buffer from Abigail, as well as someone she can trust to love her as she is. Grandmothers are experts at unconditional love.

“What are Vel’s plans now that she’s graduated?” I ask.

“She’s going to USC,” Trudy says. “She wants to major in criminal justice and work at the State House someday.”

So much has stemmed from that summer when we all came together.

According to Trudy, Vel still carries a book everywhere she goes, in a purse slung over one arm. After becoming totally boy crazy from the seventh grade on, Vel gave up Nancy Drew for romance novels. In the last year she has had a steady boyfriend named Mel, short for Melvin. Even though he hasn’t asked her yet, she constantly plans every detail of their wedding. From the pink wedding gown, right down to Mel and Vel printed on their reception napkins. Trudy and I both roll our eyes at that one.

“Has Paris found a place to live yet?” I ask. With Madison’s help, Paris was accepted to an acting school in New York City.

“He’ll live with an aunt and uncle in Harlem at first,” she says. “Then he and Hoot may get an apartment. Hoot has applied to three schools up there.”

Hoot Mackelhaney’s transformation is perhaps the most dramatic of any of us. Within a month of the newspaper releasing the Ku Klux Klan names from an anonymous source, Hoot’s uncle figured out that he must have been involved. When Hoot confessed, every single member of his family disowned him. Since he had nowhere to stay, Miss Josie offered to let him live at her house. As a result, Paris’ Uncle Freddie helped Hoot get back in school, and he recently graduated with honors. He outgrew his acne and plans to become a lawyer who represents Civil Rights cases. He and Trudy have become great friends, as have Miss Josie and I.

Looking back, the summer of 1964 turned out to be a pivotal time in my life. Everything changed after that—my small world got bigger. In some ways it seems like my life started over that summer. It was the summer I found my voice and learned to be bold.

Who knows what the history books will say about this time and this place. For many in our country it was a time of heartbreak. For others, it was a time of great change. It strikes me that life is full of mystery. In the midst of the darkest and most tumultuous times, laughter can light the way to new beginnings and love can exist in profound proportions.

 

 

 

THE END