by Susan Vaught
“Oh, Lord.” That made me stop a minute. I tried to find the exact right words, but in the end, I said what I felt. “I think you’re smart. You’re determined. You want to do the right things, and you mean well. You care, Leslie. That’s obvious to me.”
She took in everything I said, then met my eyes. “Is that enough?”
“Enough for what?”
Leslie bit at her bottom lip. “Am I your friend, CiCi, or am I not?”
“HMM,” MOM SAID AS SHE drove us home down University Avenue. “Yes, I remember your father saying something about your grandmother being injured in the Meredith riot—fell into one of the steam tunnels or something.”
“Must have been a bad fall, if it laid her up as long as Dr. Harper remembers. Mac said Avadelle told him Grandma had to go to a hospital in Chicago.” I stared out my window, watching the campus zing by, old buildings blurring into new buildings, then trees, then the nothingness of the bridge as we drove into town. “And are those steam tunnels even still open? I thought they were closed.”
I could see Mom’s reflection in my window, and she reached up and fiddled with her braid, then straightened the collar of her lab coat as she answered. “Well, there are the real tunnels and the campus-legend tunnels. Some folks thought there was a network of underground routes that federal marshals used to get James Meredith to his classes once he was admitted, but I don’t think those actually exist. The tunnels I’ve seen are more like utility areas, small and all full of pipes, and they’ve been padlocked now—well, except for the few under these main roads.”
Frowning, I stared down like I could see through the asphalt. “You mean the links between the concrete culverts, where you won’t let me explore?”
Mom turned on her blinker. “Not apologizing. There’s a lot of graffiti down there that’s not appropriate for somebody your age, never mind the people who put it there.”
“So did Grandma get hurt in one of the big tunnels, or one of those little ones with all the pipes?”
“That, you’ll have to ask your father.” Mom started to look at me, then shifted her gaze back to the road. “Did you enjoy your visit with Dr. Harper?”
I stared at the pack on the floorboard, between my feet. It sagged against my leg, feeling huge and heavy. “Enjoy wouldn’t be the right word. We found out a lot of stuff, though.”
“Things that bothered you?” She didn’t look at me, but I heard the worry in her voice. I thought about not saying anything else because I hated stressing her out. It’s just that I had so many questions in my head, and I didn’t have any place left to stuff them.
“Did you and Dad go through a lot, getting married when this state still had anti-miscrimination laws?”
“Anti-miscrim—oh. The anti-miscegenation laws, about interracial marriage.” Mom turned in to our driveway. “Those were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967. Your dad and I were still kids.”
I picked at the strap of my pack. “But our state didn’t get rid of them completely until the 1980s, after you got married. Alabama didn’t get rid of theirs until 2000.”
In the driveway, Mom shut off the car and turned toward me, her mouth slightly open. “I honestly never knew that.”
“So, did you go through a lot?” I kept my eyes fastened on her face, watching for any hint that she was hiding bad things—maybe so she wouldn’t stress me out. My own breathing sounded way too loud, and it was already getting hot in the car with the air off. Every time I inhaled, I smelled coconut and vanilla, and my brain told me everything was fine, that the world was okay and Mom and Dad were okay, and I was okay, but my heart still beat too fast.
Sooner or later, Oops, we’re all gonna be okay.
Grandma’s voice seemed loud in my head, as if she was up and fine and completely herself again. The thought made the corners of my mouth twitch toward a smile.
Meanwhile, Mom seemed to be having an argument with herself. She finally cleared her throat and said, “We went through a few rough situations. There are always people who hold on to old beliefs like the sky will fall if they let go. Doesn’t matter where you live. Mississippi’s no different.”
I noticed that she didn’t tell me what any of the bad things were. I thought about asking her, but I was flat out of room for awful today. The image of the hanged man on the lynching website jammed itself into my awareness, and I couldn’t help a shiver. I popped my seat belt and got out of the car, towing the pack with the manuscript.
Mom was out of her seat before I shut my door, and she asked, “What spooked you just now? Because something did.”
I kept a firm grip on the pack and glanced at the house, up to my window. Dad was probably in Grandma’s room, getting her ready for dinner. He was the one who had worried all this would upset me too much. I didn’t want him to be right.
“The numbers that Grandma wrote down, the ones we took to Dr. Harper, they’re about lynchings,” I said, keeping my gaze on the window instead of Mom. “Grandma added up how many people got lynched in Mississippi between 1882 and 1968. There were five hundred eighty-one that we know of, and probably a lot more nobody knew about.”
Silence.
And then, “I see.”
This time, I thought she probably did see, and I was glad. A few seconds later, she asked, “Dani, are you sure you want to take on the things your grandmother studied? Now, at this point in your life, I mean? There’s always later.”
My eyes watered from staring at the house so hard, not because I was crying. “If I don’t know about them, will they stop being true?”
“No. They won’t.” Mom sounded sad. That didn’t help my watering eyes.
I sucked it up and wiped my face with one hand. “If we don’t help Grandma find peace, then who will?”
Mom went quiet again, until I looked at her.
“This is our circus,” she said, sounding resigned. “These are all our monkeys.”
But she was leaning on the car, studying me, like she was trying to decide whether or not to tell me to stop trying to figure out what was bothering Grandma, to leave everything to Dad and her. My fingers ached from squeezing the strap of the pack too hard.
“I need to ask Dad about Grandma getting hurt, and we need to go see Ms. Manchester at Square Books because Dr. Harper says she knows more than anybody about the Meredith riot.”
Mom stayed quiet so long that sweat formed on the back of my neck. “I’ll talk to your father about that.”
Wow. I did not like the maybe-this-is-a-bad-idea tone in her voice. “Meaning?”
She pushed away from the car and came toward me. “Meaning, I’m not sure we’ve done the right thing by protecting you so much from racial issues. And meaning I’m worried about you.”
I pulled the pack closer, until I was hugging it. Tears seemed far away now, and I felt sort of mad, and stiff inside, like concrete was filling me up and chasing away any emotion except sureness that I needed to take the next step and go see Ms. Manchester tomorrow.
“Somebody has to do the right thing,” I told Mom.
Mom stopped walking a few feet from me. The way-worried look on her face slid into something else, like surprise, or maybe shock.
I glanced down at my clothes to be sure I hadn’t torn anything or gotten a big stain I hadn’t noticed. Everything looked clear, so I asked, “What?”
Mom folded her arms. “Somebody has to do the right thing.” She shook her head. “I wonder how many times I heard your grandmother say that.” When I didn’t answer, she said, “I guess that was more when you were little, before you can remember—but trust me, it was a Ruth Beans staple, just like her quotation game.”
Some other feeling nudged in beside the concrete-stubborn holding me up straight. It felt warmer, and happier, like a little breeze had blown out of Grandma’s window, straight to my heart.
“Okay, then,” I said.
“Okay, then,” Mom echoed as I shouldered my pack. When she reached her hand out for me, I took it, an
d we walked into the house together.
* * *
Gray twilight spilled through Grandma’s open window as Dad finished stuffing a wad of bed pads into a big trash bag. “Your mom tells me you want to go to Square Books to see Naomi Manchester about the Meredith riot.”
My pulse picked up its pace, and I bit at my lip. “Yes. I think she works at the main store all the rest of this week.”
“Your mom also said you dug a little deep today, Dani, that you got into some of the rough stuff and it upset you.”
“Kinda rough, I guess.” I mopped off Grandma’s bed tray with a disinfectant wipe. “What I don’t get is, there wasn’t anything about five hundred eighty-one people being lynched in Mississippi in our history book last year. And that’s just this state, so you know there’s a lot more who died if you add up all the states. How could the Civil Rights Movement be just one chapter in any book?”
Dad tied his trash bag. “When you get to college, you can take whole courses. Middle school and high school textbooks just hit the highlights.”
“But what happens to the people who don’t take those courses?” I disinfected Grandma’s bed rail with a fierce vengeance. “And what happens to the lowlights?”
“Guess they stay dim until somebody like your grandmother writes about them.” Dad came to stand next to me, and together, we watched Grandma sleep. Her breathing was slow and even. Her face looked calm, but her fingers worried at the edge of her sheet. Her hands had gotten so thin. I wanted to reach out and stroke them, but I didn’t want to wake her.
“If you really want to go to Square Books instead of camp, I’m fine with it,” Dad said, “as long as you keep talking to us, and telling us if something bothers you too much.”
“I’ll keep talking,” I said.
Dad gave a little grunt and narrowed one eye at me. Then he said, “Fred Harper called. He wants to go with you tomorrow. Indri’s mom gave the go-ahead for her, too.”
He put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me to him, and I let him, even though I was completely icked out by the thought of Dr. Harper showing up at Square Books. I couldn’t shake off the shivers from that look on his face when I thought he was going to try to grab the key. But if I told Dad I didn’t want Dr. Harper to come, he’d start asking questions, or maybe call off the whole Square Books field trip.
I let myself lean into Dad a little more. From far off in the distance, thunder rumbled. I didn’t know if it was heat lightning, or a storm coming in. I didn’t much like storms. I turned my face in to Dad’s shirt. He smelled like cologne and shower soap. When I looked up at him, he was still staring at Grandma.
“What happened to her the night of the Meredith riot?” I asked him.
Dad frowned, and his eyes lost some focus. I got worried that he wouldn’t answer me, but after a time, he said, “I honestly don’t know all that much, and you know how she was about talking about the worst part of the ’60s. I do know she went to campus with Avadelle to meet Dr. Harper and pick up books for the classes she was teaching in Abbeville, because Black schools didn’t get much money for anything, and he put back classroom supplies and books for her. On her way to his office, she got caught in the riot. She ended up falling into one of the steam tunnels, one close to the Lyceum. Hurt her pretty bad.”
“Why didn’t she go to the hospital here?”
Dad went stiff. His lips pulled tight, and his eyes closed. Then he said, “Baby girl, hospitals around here weren’t integrated yet. That didn’t happen until the late ’60s. We didn’t have access to specialized medical care. I always figured maybe her back or neck got injured, since she had to go to Chicago to get it treated.”
“Chicago is so far away. Jeez.” I turned my face back in to his rough shirt and tried to imagine a world where an injured woman couldn’t walk into a hospital and get help just because she was Black.
“I was only eight years old,” Dad said. “We were living over near Sardis Lake, and your great-grandmother, she was in really bad health. Cancer killed her less than three years after Mama came home to look after her. Then I had an aunt go down from diabetes, and Mama saw to her too. We didn’t have much medical care back then, with segregation like it was. Except for getting shots, I didn’t really see doctors until I joined the Army.”
“All those people to take care of—is that why Grandma never left Oxford, even though it was bad?”
“Oxford wasn’t as bad as some places, after the campus integrated.” Dad let out a long breath that sounded like a tired sigh. “And yes, our family was here. Back then, folks took care of their own.”
I turned back to Grandma. “We’re taking care of our own now.”
He kissed the side of my head. “You’re right. Now give your grandmother a hug and take the trash out. It’s getting toward bedtime.”
When I pressed my lips to Grandma’s forehead, her skin felt silky and cool, and it smelled like shea butter and coconut. She smiled without opening her eyes, and her lips puckered. She whispered something, and it sounded a lot like Oops.
I took the trash to the cans outside, then brushed my teeth and stood in my bathroom, working lemony-scented argan oil into my scalp and hair, all the way to the tips, like Mom and Grandma taught me. As I rubbed my hair, I shut my eyes and listened to the house go late-night around me. Mom and Dad switched off their television and put on music, and faint strains of Mary J. Blige’s No More Drama bumped down the hallway. My muscles relaxed as I thought about my parents dancing together in their big bedroom. They liked to do that some nights. Hearing their music and knowing they were smiling at each other as they moved made me feel safe, like everything in the whole world was happy and fine.
Music was still playing as I wrapped my hair and snuggled down in my bed. I picked up a book I had been reading, one about werewolves and witches fighting a big war, but when I tried to get into it, the magic felt all wrong. Or just not real.
Disappointed, I put the book down, shut off my lamp, and tried to go to sleep. My thoughts wandered over the day, from Mac to Dr. Harper’s, to Ventress Hall with its stained glass, and eating lunch in the Grove, and—
And Mac.
Anger flared through me, but it burned out fast. He wanted to go to Square Books when Indri and I did. Was that what I wanted?
I reached for my phone to text him, then put it down. No. Mac was a jerk. Plus, Dad would kill me. Forget Dad. Indri would kill me, and she’d probably make it hurt a lot worse.
But he asked to go, and he asked nice.
I picked up the phone again. And I put it down again. For a while, I just lay there in my bed, staring at the ceiling. It would be great if the right thing to do would announce itself in neon letters across the plaster, wouldn’t it? I shut my eyes, opened them, and glared at the uncooperative white paint. Sometimes, it just felt like the whole universe was messing with me.
I snatched up the phone and sent Mac a quick message about Square Books but told him it was probably better if he didn’t go. Then I shut the phone off so he couldn’t text me back and set off the Jerk Alert, or start a conversation I’d have to confess to Indri, or make anything more complicated than it already was.
Then I turned off my light and went back to staring at the shadowed ceiling. Some time later, the world faded away from me—until I snapped awake in the darkness. My hands danced against my throat, and I grabbed for—what? Nothing. Nothing was there against my skin, but I thought I was choking. I coughed and coughed and sat up, my eyes wide, staring around at the nothingness in my room. Starlight. The soft whirr of my parents’ bedroom table fan. The thump of my heart. Nothing was here. I wasn’t choking. I was fine.
A bad dream. No, a nightmare. I just couldn’t remember it, or I didn’t want to. I thought about going to my parents’ room and climbing into bed with them, but I didn’t want to be a baby. Still, the longer I sat there trying to remember what had scared me in my sleep, the more I didn’t want to be alone. Finally, I got up and slipped across the hall to
Grandma’s room, and sat down in the chair beside her bed. The soft yellow glow of her nightlight played across her sheets, almost like candle flame dancing in the darkness, and I realized it was raining lightly against her open window. Drops pattered on the sill, and a few tapped on the floor.
When I touched her hand, she was warm, and her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, the rhythm of it as comforting to me as my parents’ music had been earlier. Her pulse was eighty. Perfectly normal.
“Sooner or later,” I whispered to her, “we’re all gonna be okay. Right?”
No response.
“I know you tried to write your ghost story, Grandma. Your time line, it’s pretty amazing, even if you never got to the Avadelle part.”
She didn’t react, but I liked to think she heard me when I talked to her, even if she seemed to be sleeping. “I still don’t know what the key unlocks, but I think Dr. Harper does.”
No reaction.
Then I told her about seeing Mac, and how he hadn’t acted a total butthead, and how Indri said she needed a shower to wash off contact-cooties from being that close to Worm Dung, and how I texted him our Square Books plans even though I knew Dad and Indri wouldn’t like him showing up, so at least I told him it would be a bad idea for him to do that.
No response at all. That was fine. It was nice to explain it all to somebody who wouldn’t yell at me over being happy that Mac had been nice. Grandma probably wouldn’t have yelled, even before she got sick. Frowned, maybe. But her frowns used to be pretty epic.
“I don’t know why you and Avadelle stopped being friends,” I said, toying with her fingers. “And I don’t know what you want me to do with the key.”
“It’s past time,” Grandma said. “You got to open it. I got to—I need—”
The sound of her voice startled me so badly I dropped her hand on the sheets and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. Had she really just said that? The words had been whispery and slurred, but clear enough to understand.
“Open what?” I stared right at Grandma’s lips to see if they moved. “What does the key unlock, Grandma?”
