I woke that morning to little fingers tapping on my forearm. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that it was far too light out for it to be my usual time to get up. Gasping, I sat up fast, holding the covers over my bosom as if the sheets could protect me from being as late as I was certain I already was.
“Aunt Betty, it’s Monday,” Hugo said, standing at my bedside. “Are you up?”
“I am now.” Nearly breathless, I turned and glanced at Norm’s old alarm clock. We had half an hour before the first bell of the day would ring. “Gracious. We’ve got to hurry.”
“I got myself dressed.” He looked down at his clothes as if making sure they were still there.
“Very nice, sweetie.” I nodded at the door. “How about you let me get ready? Close the door behind you, please.”
As soon as the door was latched, I threw the covers off and hopped out of bed.
Heavens. It was unlike me to oversleep like that.
Rushing about and not caring as much as usual about how my face and hair looked, I somehow managed to get Hugo to school on time. Granted, he had to eat toast and peanut butter on the way there, but he said he didn’t mind that at all.
By the time I bustled my way into the bakery, I was already exhausted from the morning.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, putting the apron over my head. “My alarm didn’t go off.”
“Well,” Pop said from his desk. “Sometimes a woman gets a little absentminded when she reaches a certain age.”
“Oh boy,” Stan said, carrying a tray to the cooling rack.
“If I’m old, what does that make you?” I tied the strings behind my back.
“A classic.” Even at his age, the man still had dimples when he grinned. “Don’t sweat it, kiddo. We managed all right without you.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t need me?”
“I’d never say something like that,” he said. “Not to your face, at least.”
“Oh, you.” I winked at him.
Turning, I saw Albert coming through the front door, a newspaper open in one hand, the other rubbing his chin. Lips slightly apart, they moved along with what he was reading.
“Good morning, Albie,” I said. “How were your deliveries?”
“Fine,” he answered, not looking up from the paper.
“Is something the matter?”
It was only then that he looked up at me, as if he hadn’t known I was there. He took a step toward the counter, setting the paper down and turning it to face me.
“They bombed a church,” he said, his voice weak and trembling, either from disbelief or grief or rage. Maybe even from a mix of all three. “Four little girls died.”
“Where?” I asked, trying to focus my eyes to read the article.
“Birmingham.” He took in a halting breath. “Alabama.”
It was wrong of me, but my first instinct was to shut my eyes and push the newspaper away. I wanted to pretend that I hadn’t heard what he’d said. I wanted to go on with my day, not knowing about something so horrible as what was in that article.
But I simply did not have that luxury.
The first line of the article had said that the four girls “blasted to death” were “Negro,” and at the very first, I wondered why it mattered what color they were. It was the “blasted to death” that turned my stomach, broke my heart, and made my head throb all at the same time.
But it did matter, I realized.
It mattered that the little girls had brown skin and dark eyes and hair. It mattered that they lived in Alabama where people who looked like them weren’t afforded the same dignities as people who looked like me.
It was of great importance that less than a week before, children who had the very same skin color walked into public schools in that very same state, screamed at and threatened and spit upon.
“Who would do something like this?” I whispered, meaning all of it. Every last bit of it.
Albert shook his head, eyes still on the paper. “It’s horrible.”
I thought once more about Dr. King’s dream.
It seemed so far off.
Impossibly far.