After Evelyn delivered Annie Mae’s message to Colleen, she worried that someone would see her leaving. It was almost five o’clock, and in the short days of November, the setting sun cast shadows that made her nervous. She walked around to the front of the school, where her car was parked. A light from inside the main office fanned out shards of light like a flashlight in the dark.
It must be Mr. Peterson. Just like at West Hill.
She considered stopping in to talk to him, like she’d enjoyed doing in the past. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching from inside the school. Maybe the light wasn’t from Peterson’s office. Maybe it wasn’t he; after all, it was a shared space.
Nothing was the same.
When she was seated in her car, she leaned back, breathing in the cool air of the late-fall day. She hurried home, worrying the whole way.
A knock on the back door interrupted Evelyn as she prepared her supper. The key to open the dead bolt was on a hook hidden by the gingham curtains. Evelyn lived alone at the end of a quiet street. She didn’t get many uninvited visitors in the evening, and fewer still at the back door. After school, the children sometimes played in the wooded fields near her small house but they never crossed through the fencing that protected her garden or through the gate to the back of the house.
Evelyn switched on the light over the stoop. She was relieved to see Annie Mae Woods holding a basket covered with a red-and-white-checked cloth. A stained apron over her housedress was a surprise. It was unusual to see her friend look unkempt.
Evelyn released the dead bolt and then the latch to the screen door and invited Annie Mae inside.
“I could smell those famous biscuits of yours right through this door. How is one person going to eat all of them? Come in, come in.”
As she stepped over the threshold, Evelyn heard a sigh as Annie Mae handed the basket to her. “These are some extras I made for our Thanksgiving dinner. I saw you as you drove past my house; it’s after dark tonight. You had a long day. It’s late to be fixing a meal—thought you could use something easy. I’m guessing you spoke to Miz Rodriguez, like I asked.”
“My, my, but you don’t give yourself a chance to rest, Annie Mae. Yes, I told her. No need to worry about me, but I do appreciate the company tonight.”
“Frank is home, helping Rachel with some homework, and Sissy is playing with Baby James. It seemed like a good time to talk a bit, if you don’t mind.”
“Sit yourself down, now; we can talk over tea and biscuits while I finish warming up this chicken stew from yesterday. I have plenty. Do you want some?”
Evelyn took out her favorite teapot, the china one with the purple-and-green wisteria painted over the bone-white background. Aunt Dorothy had given it to her when she’d graduated from college. Evelyn smiled as she lifted it up and noticed the blue imprint on the base. It had a ribbon with a crown over the name of the manufacturer: SADLER—MADE IN ENGLAND. She was convinced that the tea brewed in that pot tasted the best. Evelyn was pleased to be able to use the matching cups, saucers, and dessert plates for her company. They didn’t really match, and they weren’t made in England, but she pretended they were.
The teapot reminded Evelyn of her aunt’s courage. Sometimes she thought if she drank enough tea from that pot, it would give her the fortitude she wished she had. Her aunt and uncle had met at Hampton Institute in Virginia. Aunt Dorothy had been the first of her mother’s sisters to go to away to college at a time when it was difficult for any woman, especially a Negro woman, to be allowed to live away from home. Her family believed in schools for Negroes. Education was foremost, not integration. Her uncle believed in both. Aunt Dorothy tried to convince her Virginian husband to come back with her to Louisiana, but he had his sights set on setting up a restaurant in Houston with some of his classmates, and that was what they did. She became a teacher, and he was a businessman. They were part of a group of educated and successful Negroes. The group pressured the businesses in their community to accept integration, and those that didn’t were faced with scornful stories and photos from Negro writers and photographers. Her aunt then led the group to work with some determined white librarians to quietly desegregate the Houston Public Library in 1953.
Evelyn thought back to the day her library opened.
They put the chairs on the lawn.
“Evelyn, you haven’t said a word to me since you asked me if I wanted to eat some chicken stew.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. This library thing with Colleen has me thinking of my aunt.”
“What does your aunt have to do with it?”
“Annie Mae, you know how some white folks were thinking that Miz Rodriguez was getting signatures? They don’t care if she’s helping us get library cards or signing us up to vote—it’s all the same to that kind in this town.”
Evelyn checked the color of the steeped tea and poured the first cup for Annie Mae. She laid a biscuit drizzled with honey on the plate and gave her friend a lace-trimmed cloth napkin.
“Don’t you remember what happened the day our library opened, Annie Mae? It wasn’t that long ago … Well, maybe it’s been ten years, but it seems like yesterday to me.”
“Ten years ago, I had three youngins—Frank was eight, Sissy was four, and Rachel was just born—and no time to care about a library being built.”
“Those uppity white women you iron for took the chairs out of the library so that we couldn’t sit at the tables. They had a read-in.”
“A read-in?”
“Yes, like the ones in Alabama. I just wanted to have a good library and some new books. But they were so worried about their books, they didn’t want us to come inside. I heard one of them say they didn’t want to touch a book that a colored hand had touched.”
Or sit on a chair still warm from me.
“Who said that?”
“The same one causing trouble for Colleen, Rita Harper. The one with that cop husband. He was the one who stopped her.”
“No, but you work for her friends, and they sure stick together, don’t they?”
Evelyn realized that Annie Mae wasn’t paying much attention to her. Of course she knew what a read-in and a sit-in and even a freedom ride were. Something else must be wrong. Her face was drawn, her eyes were clouded, and Annie Mae looked like she had when the sorrow of losing her husband had almost taken her.
“Annie Mae, what’s wrong? I know you were worried about Rachel and your nephew Jarrod going to the library, but I told Colleen why you aren’t going to send them, so we just have to wait and see what she does. It’s up to her.”
“No, it’s not that—it’s Frank.”
Evelyn knew how much Annie Mae counted on Frank since he was now the man of the family. She lifted the teapot to pour them both another cup of fortitude.
“Tell me. It’s my turn to listen to you.”
“He’s getting into trouble. Came home with a bloody shirt stashed inside his bag. Didn’t want me to see it. He won’t tell me what happened.”
“But you talked with Mr. Peterson after they walked out of the school. Wouldn’t he call you in?”
“No, I don’t think it happened at school. I don’t know what to do. He’s been wandering around after school, letting me think he was at practice. When I found the bloody shirt, he got angry and told me that he gave up football practice since he can’t play. He hates being second string. He’s upset because he can’t play in the Thanksgiving game tomorrow.”
Evelyn reached over and placed her hand on Annie Mae’s. Nothing was the same.