by Deborah Heal
They hopped, skipped, and ran down the aisle and sat in a squirming mass on the floor in front of Ned. “We’re missing some children,” he said and grinned. “I guess Garrison and Abraham didn’t come to Sunday School this week.”
He heard giggles and pretended not to see the little boys peeking from behind their mother as she pulled off their hats and coats.
The door of the church opened again and Mr. Moody came in, bringing the cool autumn breeze—and another batch of stray leaves. He waved at Ned and said something to the woman that made her laugh.
Finished with the children’s coats, Cora looked up and smiled a tender smile that was just for Ned. The sight nearly took his breath away, and he whispered a prayer of thanks.
The children came out from behind her and hurried down the aisle toward him laughing delightedly. “Me and Garrison came to Sunday School, Papa. We’re right here.”
Ned’s laugh boomed through the church.
“Oh, oh!” Kate said. “Garrison Greenfield. That’s the name Mom and I found online. I can’t remember exactly where he goes on the family tree, but—”
“So he is your Ned Greenfield?” Merri asked
“He has to be,” Kate said.
“It would be a huge coincidence if he’s not, but…if you want to be totally sure…”
“I agree, Abby,” John said. “It wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. We need to keep going to prove it.”
The low battery message popped onto the screen. “Or not,” John said.
“If he was going to steal your laptop, you’d think he’d at least charge it,” Kate said. “Now what do we do?”
Abby hadn’t thought before how closely they were crowded into the janitor’s closet, and it suddenly seemed really small. She grinned at each of her fellow adventurers. “The Bible says to go into our closets to pray. We’re in a closet. Let’s pray.”
The smile John gave her was sweet. Then he closed his eyes and said, “Dear Lord, thank you that Ned escaped and made it safely to Chicago. And thank you for saving him from his sins. And us too.”
“And thanks for showing it to us, God,” Merri said.
“And thanks…” Kate’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “Thanks that no sin is too big for you to forgive. And help me to forgive Ryan.”
“And,” Abby prayed, “help us to find out about Ned.”
“And even if you don’t,” Kate added, “thank you for letting us meet him and Brother Greenfield.”
“Amen. Let’s get out of here.” John stood and helped Abby up.
“We can stay at my grandparents’ house for the night and try again tomorrow after your battery’s charged.”
“If you’re sure they won’t mind?” Abby said.
“Of course not. They have plenty of room.”
“Okay,” John said. “I’ll slip out of here and let you know when the coast is clear.”
Chapter 28
“Get the dominoes, honey, and I’ll clear off the game table.”
Abby smiled to herself. Kate had obviously inherited her energy and love of life from her Grandfather Donald Greenfield.
Donald gathered up the newspapers and mail that cluttered the game table in the Greenfield family room and stacked them on top of other papers piled high on a desk in the corner of the room.
Kate’s grandmother Margaret brought a tin box of dominoes and set them on the table. “Katie got this deluxe set for us last Christmas.”
“Merri, how about if you team up with me?” Donald said.
“I don’t know how to play.”
“That’s all right. I’ll teach you.”
“Will you team up with me, Grams?”
“You bet, Katie. We’ll wipe the floor with them. You get started. I’m going to make popcorn.”
“We’ll wait for you, honey. Or when Merri and I win, you’ll say we took unfair advantage.”
“We can’t have that, can we?” John said.
“I’m so glad you brought your friends, Katie,” Donald said. “It’ll make dominoes even more exciting. Too bad Ryan couldn’t come, although he’s not very good at dominoes, is he?”
“No, he’s not. Not much good for anything.” Kate turned her face away and mumbled the last part.
“After this we’ll look at slides. I imagine you’ve never seen pictures of Katie when she was little. Such a cute baby.”
Abby grinned slyly at Kate who was rolling her eyes behind her grandfather’s back. “That will be so much fun,” Abby said.
John looked as if he were trying not to laugh. “This is a beautiful game table.”
“It’s hard rock maple. So solid you could dance a jig on it if you wanted to. The inlaid checkerboard is ebony and oak.”
“He’s being modest, John. He made it himself, didn’t you, Gramps?”
“The year you were born, Katydid. It will be yours one day. You can play dominoes on it with your grandchildren.”
“Kate must get her artistic talent from you, Mr. Greenfield,” Abby said.
“Well, no matter my artistic talent,” Kate said, “unfortunately the family tree mural will be grossly lopsided.”
“Oh, oh!” Donald slapped the side of his head. “I almost forgot.” He pushed himself up from his chair and shuffled over to the desk. “How could I forget, Katie? I meant to tell you soon as you got here but with all the excitement, it slipped my mind. It’s here some place.”
He sorted through the stacks of mail, newspapers, and flyers that covered nearly every inch of his desk. “If I don’t find it, your grandmother will never stop nagging me about cleaning off my desk. Hurry before she gets back. See if you can find it, Katie. Your eyes are sharper than mine.”
“What are we looking for, Gramps?”
“Here, hold this.” Donald placed a stack of Popular Science Magazines into John’s arms. He put a pile of Health Bulletins into Merri’s arms and one of Oak Park Gazettes into Abby’s.
“It’s here some place, unless your grandmother got it into her head to mess with my stuff. Margaret!” he called. “Have you seen—?”
“Don’t get your shorts in a twist, Donald.” Margaret stood in the doorway holding a tray with bowls of popcorn. “I promise. I did not touch your things.”
John hurriedly deposited his stack of magazines on the floor beside the desk and went to take the tray from her.
“I was going through some old letters,” Donald said.
“He saves every one, you know.”
“Yeah, well. You never know, do you, when you might need—”
“What did you find, Gramps?”
“It was in with some of Mother’s stuff.” He turned to the Abby and John. “She passed away last year and I’ve been going through her things.”
“You may have noticed the car’s parked in front,” Margaret said. “The garage is completely packed with boxes.”
“Here it is,” Donald said. “I remember now. I put it with the bills to pay so I wouldn’t forget to tell you.”
He held out a small brown box. On the lid, in fine script, was a name and address: Virgil Greenfield, 2341 Hillcrest Street, Chicago, Illinois. He removed the lid and pulled out a necklace. A copper coin about the size of a half-dollar hung on a brown leather cord.
Kate’s eyes went huge and she grabbed it from him and held it out for them to see. “Oh. My. Look, you guys. It’s Lady Liberty.”
Abby, John, and Merri crowded in close to see it. Abby studied Kate’s face. All she could see there was joy.
“That’s it then,” Kate said.
“And there’s this letter,” Donald said. He handed a thin, pale blue envelope to Kate. She handed the necklace to John and carefully removed one sheet of nearly transparent matching blue paper. She read aloud:
October 23, 1909
Dear Virgil,
Please don’t be angry that I wrote. I promise this is the last time. But I just had to thank you for the money you sent. You’re a generous, kind boy to share with
us.
You’ll destroy this letter and all will be well with you. I imagine that you’re feeling all torn up inside right about now. But I want you to rest easy that I at least understand your choice to pass. And I’m happy for you. You’ll have opportunities for advancement that none of us will ever have.
With your parents gone now, there aren’t many of us Greenfields left. But one day, dear Virgil, you’ll be reunited with them and the rest of the family (most of them, anyway) when we stand in Glory. Don’t ever forget that. And although we won’t see you until that day, we’ll be thinking of you and hoping you’ll think of us, too.
This necklace was your great grandmother Greenfield’s. I don’t know anything about it, but I thought you might be encouraged when you look at Lady Liberty. I always was. I dream of the day when everyone is truly free and no one has to hide who he is just to hold a job.
Your loving cousin,
Jessamine
Kate went to the game table and slid bonelessly into her chair.
“What does it mean,” Merri asked, “passed.”
“I didn’t get that part, either, Merri,” Donald said. “But I thought the names in there might be of some help for your mural, Katie.”
Kate’s smile for her grandfather was watery. “I already had those names, Gramps. Mom and I traced us back to this Virgil’s grandfather Ned Greenfield. But this necklace proves….” She looked up at Abby. “Well, we won’t have to go back to the Illinois Street Church tomorrow after all, will we?”
“We thought you’d get a kick out of the necklace, Katie. Isn’t it neat?”
“It is, Grams. If only I could show you how neat it is. I was going to wait until I had more, but now….”
“Then you must have it, Katie.”
“Really?”
John handed it back to her, and after another close look, she slipped the leather cord over her head. “We come from courageous ancestors, Gramps,” she said, patting the necklace at her throat. “Come over and sit down and I’ll tell you what we found out about the Greenfield family.”
Margaret sat down in the chair next to Kate’s and took her hand. “Are you feeling all right, honey? You look a little pale.”
Kate chuckled and shot a look at Abby. “I am a little pale, Grams, but I’m feeling fine.”
Kate explained about their search in Equality and told her grandparents about Hickory Hill, Miss Granger, and what they found on the third floor. She described Brother Greenfield and Uncle Henry and their connection to Ned.
“We thought they were the wrong Greenfields, because, you see, they’re black. Ned and his parents were slaves.”
“Oh dear,” Donald said.
“Oh my,” Margaret said.
“Gramps, the cousin who wrote this letter to Virgil was referring to passing from the African-American culture into the white culture. Somewhere along the line, some of Ned’s descendants married white people. This Virgil was obviously light enough to pass for white.”
“It sounds like he was forced to in order to get a job,” John said.
“My word,” Donald said, looking from Kate to his wife.
“Are you all right with that, Gramps?”
Donald blinked and turned back to her. “Of course I am, honey.” He chuckled. “It’s just that all this time I assumed Greenfield was a Jewish name.”
“Just think of how difficult it must have been to give up your own heritage, everything you knew, everyone you knew,” Margaret said.
Kate smiled, obviously pleased by their reaction to the news. “We learned Ned’s parents’ names—only their first names—in the slave registry. We may never be able to trace back beyond them. But I want to go down to the courthouse again someday and take another look.”
“Would you like some company?” Gramps asked.
Kate threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “That would be wonderful.”
“Well, we have to meet Brother Greenfield and Uncle Henry, don’t we? After all, they’re my cousins.”
“Oh, Gramps! You and Grams are going to love them. I’ll get my sketch book and show you.”
Chapter 29
Kate bought their tickets online, insisting on using her own credit card to pay for them in gratitude for them “going above and beyond the call of duty.” She drove them to the Amtrak station early the next morning, which was nice, except as was usual for Kate, she waited until the last possible minute to leave, causing Abby to sweat bullets about getting there in time.
There was no time for lengthy goodbyes, so they said them while hurrying up the sidewalk to the door of the station.
“Sorry,” Kate said. “I promise to turn over a new leaf and be early for everything this fall.”
“We’ll be fine.” They stopped at the station door and Abby pulled her into a bear hug. “But what about you, roomie?”
“I’ll be all right. I’ll spend a little more time with Gramps and Grams and then head on back home to Springfield this afternoon. I’ll start on the mural the minute Mom and Dad leave on their trip.”
“I’m sure it will be awesome. But don’t get carried away on the mural and forget to come back to college.”
Kate squeezed Abby back. “Right. 205b Whitaker Hall. Two weeks from now.”
John and Merri said quick goodbyes, and they left Kate and went into the station. In less than three minutes the train arrived and they boarded, Abby and John settling into a seat facing Merri. The train pulled out of the station, and they were on their way to Alton.
“There’s Kate,” Merri said, waving furiously out the window.
“Do you think she’ll really be all right?” John asked.
“Kate’s strong. I know she’ll survive. You wouldn’t happen to know any good guys we could introduce her to, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking about a friend who might suit her. I’ll bring him when I come to visit you at your college.”
“You will?”
John pulled her head against his shoulder. “Of course, girlie,” he said, kissing her temple. “We’ll only be about forty-five minutes away from each other.”
Merri cleared her throat. “Uh. Just a reminder that I’m here, in case you plan on starting in on the kissy-face stuff.”
“We’ll restrain ourselves, kiddo,” Abby said.
John pulled his laptop out of his backpack. When he clicked the on button the computer made its usual whirring sound. The monitor even flickered encouragingly. But then it lit up with what Timmy Tech called the blue screen of death. Windows wouldn’t even load.
“That stinks,” Abby said. “Try rebooting.”
John tried three times, and three times got the same beautiful but deadly screen.
“Timmy can fix it, right?” Merri said.
“Sure. He’ll reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Which will wipe out any files I had on this thing. Or he’ll tell me not to waste my time with all that and to get a new laptop. And then he can put Beautiful Houses back on it. From your computer, like he did before.”
“Actually, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Abby said. “We almost lost the laptop, after all. If Mr. Carwell hadn’t been such an honest man, or if we had been just a little later reaching Ryan….Well, who knows what would have happened to the program.”
“So that’s the end of it then?” John said. “No more time-surfing?”
“You can always come and time-surf at my house,” Merri said. “That is, if it lets us.”
John yawned and slouched into his seat farther.
“We are still the three Musketeers, right?”
He kicked playfully at Merri’s sneaker. “You bet. One for all and all for one.”
Merri smiled contentedly and then looked out the window.
Abby looked too and saw that they had left the city behind. The grays and tans of tall buildings had given way to the greens of corn and soybeans. She realized that she would miss the country, and Patty Ann and her hills too, w
hen she went back to college. And Brother Greenfield for sure. Maybe she’d go back with Kate and her grandparents.
Abby smiled at Merri. “We’ve gone from one end of the state to the other, Merri. Which one do you prefer?”
“I hated it when Mom took me away from Chicago.” She closed her eyes and settled down into her seat with a tiny smile on her lips. “But if you must know, I’m kind of anxious to get back to Miles Station.”
After only a minute or two, Merri began snoring softly. The rocking motion of the train made Abby sleepy too. She hadn’t slept well at Kate’s grandparents. That, together with the excitement of the past few days, left her feeling groggy and muddle-headed.
John bent down, untied his sneakers, and began removing the laces. Abby started to ask him what on earth he was doing, but after pointing to Merri, he put his finger to his lips in the universal shush sign. “Let her sleep,” he whispered.
He didn’t say anything more, just began weaving and knotting the two shoelaces together. She watched his hands work surely and gracefully to make an intricate pattern that looked a little like the macramé plant hangers that held her aunt’s potted ferns.
Seeing her interest, he grinned and whispered, “I learned it at Bible camp when I was twelve.”
“But what is it?” she whispered.
“Just be patient.” After he had formed a plaited cord about six inches long, he dug into his pocket and took out something, which he kept hidden in his hand.
“Turn away for a minute, Abby.”
She looked out the window again but didn’t notice the scenery. All she could see was the sparkle in John’s eyes and his lips turned up in a grin.
After a while he whispered, “Okay, you can look.”
When she turned back, he took her hand in his and wrapped the plaited cord around her wrist. He tied the remaining ends into a bow and then turned the makeshift bracelet a bit so she could see that he had, somehow, woven a slot that held a penny. She lifted her wrist to study his handiwork closer.
