The construction guys are only working on a few of the houses this late. It’s after five and the short street is much quieter as I turn off Shadow Ridge Lane onto Round Hill Road. Rainie and I eat at Taco Bell and she tells me about building block towers with the babysitter at my father’s house while I was with the movers. “Tiffany said I should be an architreck like you and Daddy,” she says.
I smile. “An architect,” I say.
“Architect,” she repeats.
“I think you’d make a good one if that’s what you decide you’d like to do.”
It’s nearly seven when we get home. She doesn’t want a bath until I explain that she’s a big girl now who has her very own tub in her very own bathroom. That seems to satisfy her. She chatters about her friends from preschool as I wash her back. After her bath, we curl up together in her new bed and as I read to her, I wonder how she will fare this night. I’ve shown her several times how to get from her bedroom to mine, and I promise to leave the hall light on. I’m most worried about her making a wrong turn in the hall and falling down the stairs. Every time I think of that possibility, my body gives a little jerk.
Rainie is exhausted, though. She’s already asleep by the time I finish the book. I get out of her bed, turn off the light, tiptoe out the door, and pad quietly downstairs. I’m uncomfortably aware that every window I pass has no blinds or curtains. The wall of windows in the rear of the house, so spectacular in the daytime, makes me feel exposed and vulnerable now. Jackson and I planned to leave those windows uncovered, but that’s not going to do. I’ll order coverings for all the windows this week.
The front windows, though, already have beautiful Roman shades, and after I close them all, I sit on the sofa and dive into the information the security system guy left with me to figure out what number thirteen might be. It turns out to be an unlocked kitchen window. I lock it, scurrying quickly through the kitchen with its sliding glass doors, and hurry back to the living room, where I successfully set the alarm and my heart stops its ridiculous gallop.
Upstairs again, I make the king-size bed—we’d sold our queen for the king and right now, I regret it. I don’t want all that empty space to remind me how alone I am. I sit on the edge of the bed and before I know it, I’m sobbing. Big gut-wrenching sobs that hurt my chest and throat. I’m tired of trying to be strong. I miss my husband. My best friend for the last ten years. It’s so unfair. We were supposed to have more children together. Design more houses together. Grow old together. We had it all planned out. Damn it! I pound my fist on the bed. It doesn’t even make a sound.
I finally pull myself together. Turning off the bedside lamp, I cross the room to look out the window at our new street. The darkness takes my breath away and I shudder. There are no lights in any of the unfinished houses and the streetlights are not yet working on Shadow Ridge Lane. There is only one light I can see and it burns in the window of the old Hockley house. I drag the one chair in the bedroom close to the window, and I spend the better part of an hour staring at that light as if it’s shining from a lighthouse and I am lost at sea.
Chapter 11
ELLIE
1965
Two days before school ended, I went to the doctor at the student health center to get the physical I needed for SCOPE.
The doctor, who looked about a hundred years old, gave me a vision test, took my blood pressure, listened to my heart, asked me if my periods were regular, and then pronounced me fit.
“I admire you for doing this,” he said, signing the form and handing it to me. I was still sitting on the examination table in the paper gown. “If I were forty years younger, I’d join you.” He smiled warmly.
“Thank you,” I said, grateful for the support. “You’re the only person who’s had anything positive to say about it.”
He rested his hands on his thighs and looked at me with crinkly hazel eyes. “It’s much easier to put our heads in the sand and let someone else do the hard work, isn’t it,” he said. “But somebody has to do it. It’s the only way to bring about change. I like the way your generation has picked up the torch and run with it.”
“Thank you,” I said again.
He left me alone to get dressed and when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above the sink, I was smiling. I felt strong and capable and sure of my decision. I was ready to carry that torch.
* * *
The final document I needed to return to Reverend Filburn was the scariest. It was the release form that held the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—Martin Luther King’s organization that was behind the SCOPE project—free of liability if I was injured or killed. My signature had to be notarized, which meant I needed to go to the bank.
Reed looked up in surprise when I walked in. He was working with a customer at his desk. I smiled and gave him a little wave, then went over to Lucy Baker’s desk. She looked surprised to see me.
“Well hello, Ellie,” she said, as I neared her. “So good to see you.”
“Hi, Miss Lucy,” I said. “You have a minute to notarize something for me?”
“Of course, dear. Have a seat.”
I’d known Miss Lucy my whole life. She babysat for Buddy and me when we were little, then taught me piano until both she and my parents realized I had no talent. Then she became the leader of my Fireside Girls troop, and then I had her as a substitute teacher in nearly every class in my high school. Now in her fifties, she had finally settled into this desk job at the bank.
I handed her the form. She had no need to read it—as a matter of fact, I thought she had no right to read it—but the bold letters at the top caught her eye. “SCOPE,” she said. “What is SCOPE?”
“It’s an organization to help people register to vote,” I said. I’d decided that was the way I’d describe it from now on. I didn’t have to be any more specific than that. But Miss Lucy had apparently been keeping up with the news and her eyes widened.
“That group coming down from the North to register the coloreds?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes. I’m going to work with them.”
“Sounds like something your aunt Carol would have done.”
I smiled. “It does,” I agreed.
“That woman never met a cause she didn’t want to take on.”
“So true,” I said, even though I knew Miss Lucy hadn’t meant it as a compliment. Aunt Carol had been no great fan of hers, either.
“Does Reed know about this?” Miss Lucy asked, glancing across the room to where Reed was still busy with a customer.
None of your business, I thought, but I kept the smile on my face. “Of course,” I said, as though Reed didn’t have a concern in the world about it.
I could tell that Miss Lucy wanted to say more, but she clamped her lips together. As she pulled out her stamp pad, pressed it neatly to the page, and signed her name, I could imagine her brain feverishly processing the information she’d just learned. When I stood up and reached for the form, she held it just out of reach, looking up at me with the sincerest blue eyes, eyes I’d known nearly my entire life.
“You don’t want to do this, dear,” she said quietly. “Give it a little more thought.”