The game was as lively as the crowd was loud. I hadn’t been to a game since the previous summer. Of all the things that bothered me about being the “son” my father never had, baseball was not one of them. I knew all about the sport and loved it—playing it, watching it, sprawled out on the living room rug listening to it on the radio with Mr. Pop and Bud and Ellery. So much so that my comments bored Molly, who only had eyes for the pitcher and other cute boys in the crowd.
But for once during the festival, my eyes and mind were focused on nothing but this game. And it was a good one, a hitter’s game. Neither pitcher had good stuff, and the ball was flying out of the park. Unfortunately when the ninth inning ended, Brewer had beaten out Watsonville by one run, twelve to eleven. With lengthy innings due to all that offense, by the time the game ended, it was late afternoon and time to regroup and find Mother and Mr. Pop. After managing to finally put the Indian Rights Council out of my mind, I resented the fact that it had just taken up residence again.
Molly and I headed toward the front entrance to the festival grounds and found Mother sitting on a bench waiting. She spotted us almost at the exact time we spotted her.
“Hi there, you two. How was your day?”
“Good,” I said. “Some people-watching, good food, ice cream, and the baseball game. We saw Joseph too.”
“Joseph?” Mother asked.
“Yeah. He was helping Chef Barone at the Nelson’s booth. We ate some lasagna and got to talk with him a little.”
“How’s he doing?”
“A lot better than three days ago at the farm,” I said. “It seems this job has transformed him. It’s a clean slate for Joe.”
“Wow. That clean slate talk makes you sound like Pastor Murphy,” Mother said. “What’s that he always says? God’s in the business of offering clean slates and new mercies? Sounds like Chef Barone might be in the same line of work!”
“That’s funny,” Molly said. “Joseph was just equating you with God, Mrs. Millar.”
“Me? Goodness. Apparently Joseph hasn’t heard that I’m a confrontational shrew who humiliates her husband and drives him out to sit in the car.”
“Who says that?”
Mother smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “Well, that’s what some of the talk is around here, I guess. Martha Brown introduced me to a woman who nearly fainted dead when she learned who I was. Her husband is bringing a very different view to the Indian Rights Council than your father. Certainly a different view than I’d have brought. But then again, I’ve gotten quite a reputation as a lover of Indians.”
“Mother!”
“I’m sorry. But I’ve just had enough. Enough of all this baloney. Enough of good, white Christian folks acting like Jesus died for us alone.”
“So have you heard anything from Mr. Pop?” I asked. “It’s felt good not thinking about it this afternoon. Now I kind of dread hearing news.”
“There won’t be much news today, honey. They’re just starting to raise these issues about Indian affairs.”
“I meant news about Mick. Or Marjorie and Glenn even.”
“Well, I’m hoping they didn’t talk much about any of that. Would most likely just be gossip and not helping the situation at all.”
Molly stared at her shoes. When she’d first gotten the shoes last fall, something about the smooth of the white overlaid with the black stitched saddles brought out an envy I didn’t normally feel. As I looked at them, I noticed how the scuffs overtook the whiteness, making the shoes less black-and-white and more shades of gray.
And within that gray area was where we’d all moved. Once life seemed so cut-and-dried, so right and wrong. Now it had gray areas, some rights seeming muddled and some wrongs seeming not so bad after all.
Mother had been talking while I stood lost in my thoughts. Something about not seeing Mr. Pop and not holding out much hope either.
“But,” Mother said, “he did say he’d meet us for dinner. Maybe we ought to walk back over to the hotel and get ready.”
“Governor Cross was there,” Mr. Pop said. “Roger guessed he might be. The town council president of Presque Isle, mayor of Caribou, and mayor of Watsonville, along with a handful of other town council representatives from other small towns around the county.”
“Okay, okay. Never mind who was there! Don’t keep us guessing. What happened?”
“These are delicate issues, Mercy,” Mr. Pop said. “And one meeting doesn’t solve or fix everything. We began by talking about some of the broader issues related to Indians in Maine, like land rights and the recent passing of the law that allowed Passamaquoddy and Penobscot to vote in federal elections.”
“Like president?” I asked, making sure I understood.
“Right. Some people wondered why the Maliseet and Micmac weren’t included in this too. Of course, what they don’t understand is that each tribe has its own government that interacts with the state government,” Mr. Pop added. “There is the Wabanaki Confederation, with all four Maine tribes, but that only goes so far. The four different tribes don’t always agree on how things should happen or even on what needs to happen. Truth is, some tribes have better leadership than others. Some are better at knowing how to navigate politics than others.”
“But what about Mick?” I asked. My leg bounced under the table. I wasn’t interested in the grand scheme of things or in one of Mr. Pop’s lectures. I wanted to know about Mick. “Is he going to have to sit in the county jail forever?”
“Hold on, Little Miss Mercy. You haven’t hardly given me a chance to say anything.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m just worried for Mick.”
“We all are,” Mr. Pop said. “There were good people around the table in this meeting today. We all don’t see eye to eye on everything, but we all want resolution. Even if resolution is wanted for the wrong reasons by some, I’ll still take that. God works in all kinds of ways to accomplish His business in this world. Everyone around the table agreed that things have to change. The way I see it, it’s the attitude of Whites that has to change.
“Look at what’s happening in the South with the ruling that came down in May on Brown vs. Board of Education. Schools there are going to be integrated. Now we already have that here, but the attitude toward Maliseet students in our schools certainly needs improving. And look how many Maliseet children don’t even go to school. Their parents keep them at home to help out, or they don’t want them going to school with white children. Certainly, not many white folks are complaining when the Maliseet children don’t show up. There are issues on both sides of the fence, but it’s easy to see who the major perpetrators of injustice are.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Mr. Carmichael!”
Molly’s mouth fell open, and she slapped her hands on her armrests. While I knew she was angry at her father for how he treated her in the wake of her sister’s scandal, Molly and I had managed never to talk about all this. When my eyes met her alarmed glare, I realized I had assumed too much. I had no idea whether she believed her father about Mick or how much she blamed the Maliseet for Marjorie’s disgrace.
I thought Molly would bound out of the restaurant. I immediately and rather dramatically pictured us spending the night not at the pageant but wandering through the streets, calling Molly’s name. But all that was thwarted when Mother placed a hand on Molly’s shoulder, offering a gentle invitation to stay seated.
“No,” Mr. Pop said. “Actually the injustice I’m talking about falls squarely at all our feet—at the feet of all white people, I mean. We were the ones who came in and took away Maliseet land.”
“I didn’t take anything,” Molly said. She had accepted the invitation to stay but now leaned back in her chair, arms crossed against her chest.
“No,” Mother said. “But your grandparents’ land and your home and Fulton’s and your schools are all built on land that was taken, even if it was ages ago.”
“So you think we should just give it all back then?” Molly asked. “Let the Maliseet move into the house my grandparents built, let them take over the hardware store my father gives his life for? Are you going to turn your farm over to Ansley when we get back?”
If I spoke to Mr. Pop this way, I might expect my mouth getting a nice visit from a bar of Ivory. Certainly, I’d have been sent away from the table with no promise of food till morning. But Mr. Pop only smiled at Molly. All the questions I had about how Molly felt about her father and Mick and Marjorie and Glenn were answered in her body language.
“Well now, Molly. You’re getting right to the heart of it,” Mr. Pop said. “How do you make right that problem? Now that’s complicated.”
“So was Mick’s situation even talked about?” I asked. “Were Glenn and Marjorie mentioned at all?”
“Well, the conversation regarding Mick started with the status of Old Man Stringer. His outcome is central to how we proceed with Mick. We also went around the table and asked for honesty about what members of the council had heard regarding the incident with Mick and Old Man Stringer. The good news is, there is confusion about what happened, and at least two versions of the story are being told. The bad news is that news travels fast. Who knew there were so many people wondering about what went on in our little neck of the woods? I suppose I should’ve gathered that an Indian ‘attacking’ an old white man would still be news.”
Mr. Pop sighed and looked down.
“But I’m sure none of these busybodies bothered to ask about Mick’s version of the story.”
“Now Mercy, they did ask what the police version was. And since they took down his statement, it included that.”
“Yeah, I know, but does anyone on your council believe Mick’s story? When it’s up against someone like—sorry, Molly—Mr. Carmichael? He’s a prominent businessman in town. What good is Mick’s statement against all that, Mr. Pop? It feels so hopeless.”
“Mercy,” Mr. Pop said, “I’ll remind you that it seemed quite hopeless when Jesus was headed to the cross, but we know there was resurrection. Hold out a little faith. Uncle Roger is still at work on the case. Governor Cross mentioned that today at our meeting.”
“So was there any progress at the meeting? It feels like a bunch of talk and no action.”
“With these delicate issues, there is always a lot of talk before there is ever any action. We had to be brought up to speed, get the issues on the table, and make sure we were all on the same page, at the same starting point, before we could move forward.” He looked gently at his daughter. “But Mercy, action will come. Mark my words: action will come. The next meeting is set for a week from today, the first weekend of the Northern Maine State Fair. We’ll meet in Presque Isle again. The land grant for the Maliseet is at the top of the agenda. But I’ve asked that we speak about more urgent issues: like how we as Christians are doing at loving our Maliseet neighbors. Uncle Roger will come again if he’s able.”
Action couldn’t come soon enough as far as I was concerned. And I still believed that if the tables had been turned, and it had been one of the council members’ teenaged sons accused of assaulting a Maliseet man, he wouldn’t have even spent one night in that cell. A lawyer would have easily managed to see the judge, and the boy would have been sprung before day’s end.
“Ah, look,” Mother said, “our dinner.”
After the waitress set our plates in front of us, Mr. Pop led us in prayer. We ate the rest of the meal in relative silence. Molly asked for salt and butter to be passed, but otherwise stayed quiet throughout the rest of dinner. I knew she wondered what was said about her family. As I watched her cut her steak with her face fixed squarely on her plate, shame filled me. I was her friend, just as I was Mick’s, and yet I had showed her no sympathy.
I breathed deep and put my hand on Molly’s arm, seeing if Mother’s technique would work for me too.
“I’m sorry I talked about your dad like that,” I said. “I know this is hard for you.”
Molly just nodded and returned to her steak.
“I mean, I can’t believe your father’s doing this to Mick but—”
“Mercy,” Mother said. “That’s enough. No more.”
I huffed out a short breath and shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mol’. Really.”
This time she looked up from her plate and spoke. “I know my dad is wrong. I know he’s lying or at least mistaken about this. And I know that Mick didn’t hurt anyone. But he’s still my father, and we’re all going through a lot. You saying the same awful things as everyone else, it just hurts a lot worse.”
It was my turn to stare at my plate.
“We’ve all said and done a lot of hurtful things during this,” Mr. Pop said. “That’s for certain. There’s going to be a whole lot of forgiveness that needs to go around before all this is settled. It’s during times like this that we can discover that the mercy God offers us, and expects us to offer others, comes in many shades.”
We left dinner having offered and accepted apologies and forgiveness, but Molly and I were still cool toward one another. I figured we’d walk toward the pageant stage in silence and that the silence would continue throughout the night. But I also hadn’t figured the Birger family stepping out from the ice cream shop as we passed.
“Mercy! Molly!” Tommy said. “Been looking for you guys all day.”
“Hey Tommy,” I said. Molly just smiled.
“Did you see Joseph at Nelson’s booth?” Tommy asked. “It was funny seeing him decked out in that white outfit. Can you believe Joseph suggested that my mom try some eggplant dish? She said it was the best thing she ever ate. She’s making us all eat it for lunch tomorrow. You should join us.”
Tommy looked straight at Molly when he said this. Molly was standing in a building’s shadow, and he couldn’t see the red rise in her face.
“We’d love to,” I said. “Well, I hope. I’m not sure when we’re heading back. You on your way to the pageant now?”
“I wasn’t going to,” Tommy said. “But I will. If you’re heading that way.”
Again, Tommy’s eyes were fixed on Molly. As I followed his eyes, I realized why. I hadn’t noticed it during dinner; I’d been too preoccupied with her anger at me. But something about her very countenance, her face, had changed, just since arriving at the festival. While Molly had been pretty all her life, now her loveliness had deepened. No longer was it her perfectly proportioned and symmetrical features, her sky-blue eyes, and bouncy brown hair that radiated, it was her very essence. The strain of the past weeks had worn down the veneer of bubbly Molly and let her truer self show through. And though her eyes were still blue and her smile still kind, the hint of hurt and anger and frustration now glowing from beneath had an allure all its own. This Molly was no longer a cute little girl living in her even more attractive sister’s shadow but a stunning young woman unafraid to push back and defend her place in the world and the people she loved in it.
Mother and Mr. Pop led the way to the pavilion where the little girls were being primped and primed for their pageant. Mother wove her arm through Mr. Pop’s and they leaned close as they talked. They’d never been the sort of married couple to show physical affection in public. But the festival had a romantic effect on people. As the sun set behind the buildings, casting long shadows across the street, and as the music from the band shell rose above the din of the crowds, the mood was set.
I was glad to see them like this. I’d been worried after the incident at the Hendersons’. But they’d had disagreements through the years, some of which I’d seen resolved, some I hadn’t, and they always pressed on. Mother had told me this was the blessing of being married to a man who loved her for her mind as much as anything else. A marriage in which thoughts mattered, Mother said, meant that there would be disagreements. But love would prevail. That’s what she said. And that’s what I held to.
I turned to look at Molly and Tommy behind me. We had started off walking together, but they’d fallen behind. The festival’s air of romance caught them too. I’d seen other “couples” pair off with lightning speed like this before and normally it left me rolling my eyes. But Molly had liked Tommy for so long, that Tommy finally noticed her for the amazing girl she was and that they could enjoy this easiness with each other filled me with a jealous kind of joy. Though their fingers weren’t intertwined, their hands swung close enough together and their eyes shone as they talked. I wondered when their hands would subconsciously reach for each other’s, the way Mick’s and mine did when we were alone.
As I walked between my parents with their decades’ long tried-and-true love and Tommy and Molly and their fresh sparks, something like envy rose within me. I wondered if this experience would ever be mine.
“Aren’t the little girls adorable?” Molly asked. Tommy nodded and turned to smile at her. As they whispered, their faces met close enough that Mr. Pop, sitting behind us on the folding chairs, cleared his throat.
I was trying to block out their conversation. The flirting that had commenced was starting to turn my stomach. I knew it was jealousy, but I also knew that even if Mick and I could be out like that, we’d never act like this. Although, maybe once upon a time we might have.
Suddenly Molly stiffened. She breathed deep and her eyes widened. All sense of coyness evaporated as her dark mood and earlier allure reappeared.
“I just realized,” she said. “Marjorie should be at the Potato Blossom Queen Pageant tomorrow night to pass along her crown.” Molly turned around to Mr. Pop. “You haven’t heard, have you? Mother hasn’t said a word. Is she coming back up?”
Mr. Pop shook his head.
“The Little Miss Potato Blossoms are so sweet,” Tommy said trying to distract her. “I didn’t ever notice before.”
“I’ve always had a soft spot for the little ones,” Mother said, helping Tommy. “Look at Little Miss Van Buren. She’s adorable.”
Accepting the gesture, Molly nodded. “She is. But there’s Little Miss Monticello and that huge mass of curls on her little head. I wonder if it’s natural or if her mother puts her hair up in curlers. I wish I’d brought my camera!”
Tommy patted his pockets as though maybe he had a tiny camera hidden in them. Molly giggled. I rolled my eyes once again but turned them back to the stage. We could hardly keep up with the Little Misses from all the small towns in the county. Although Molly was right. Curly-haired Little Miss Monticello was the one who brought the most applause from the crowd. Evidently Little Miss Monticello caught the eye of the judges too, as she was named Little Miss Potato Blossom. Mother declared her “cute as a bug’s ear,” claiming one of Ellery’s favorite sayings as her own.
We said our goodbyes to Tommy outside the gym, Tommy promising to call on Molly when we were all back in Watsonville. And Mr. Pop, Mother, Molly, and I returned to the Aroostook Inn for a good night’s rest. We’d brought our Sunday clothes with us. Mr. Pop wouldn’t think of missing church. It didn’t matter where we were or who we knew on a Sunday, we didn’t miss church. Especially not here. Mr. Pop had several farmer friends who attended First Baptist in Fort Fairfield, so I went to bed knowing our time here at the Potato Blossom Festival would be over before it started. We’d miss the crowning of Marjorie’s successor, which now I realized was probably intentional. We’d check out the following morning and head to Sunday services at Fort Fairfield Baptist before heading home, which now included wonderful promise for Molly and more of the same great unknown for me.