* * *
I was worried that no one would show up for the protest, but the courthouse green slowly began filling up. Once everyone—except for the late stragglers, of which there were plenty—was in front of the building, we formed a big circle on the lawn. I took some pictures as Paul said a prayer that seemed warm and heartfelt, and Win talked about the changes voting would bring to the Negro families of Derby County.
After Win finished talking, I made a little speech about songs being a kind of prayer, and I talked about how I hadn’t known many of the freedom songs a few weeks ago, and how they now filled me with joy and hope. My voice shook when I first started speaking but by the time I began singing “This Little Light of Mine,” it was so strong that it surprised me. Everyone knew that song and pretty soon we were all singing, our arms crossed, our hands linked, and I got the same warm feeling I’d had that last day of orientation in Atlanta. I looked around the circle at the sweaty faces, Black and white, and felt lifted up by the fact that, even if what we were doing made no difference at all, we were bonded, all of us, and we wouldn’t give up the fight. Across the circle, I caught Win looking at me and he smiled, nodded his head. I knew he was saying, Good job, Ellie.
While we were singing, three policemen appeared on the sidewalk by the courthouse, their hands on their clubs, their eyes on us. They were part of a growing crowd of white people, none of whom was there to cheer us on. A few of the men jeered, but we ignored them. I was surprised that I felt no danger. Only happiness.
* * *
After we drove those who needed rides home, we met back at the school to discuss the protest. Win sat next to me in the heavy wooden chairs, intentionally. I saw him seek me out. And I saw Rosemary’s face as he sat down. She gave a small shake of her head I could only read as disapproval. Or maybe I was imagining things.
“You did great,” Win whispered to me as Greg started our meeting.
“You too,” I whispered back.
“Good job, folks,” Greg said from his usual perch, sitting on the corner of one of the metal desks. “You probably didn’t notice, but there was a reporter standing on the sidewalk, watching us. Taking notes. Snapping some pictures. We’ll be in the paper. We’ll gain the support of the good-hearted people in Derby County … as well as the wrath of those who don’t want us here.” He went on for a while in his deep voice, but I wasn’t really listening. I was so aware of Win sitting in the chair next to me. I felt an almost uncontrollable need to reach over and give him a hug. Just a happy, contented hug.
“And Ellie,” Greg said, jolting me back to the room. “You have a beautiful voice. You can be our official song leader from now on.”
* * *
I lay in bed back at the Daweses’ house that night, cuddling with GiGi and Sally, thinking about the crazy turn my life had taken. I wanted to tell Win what had driven me here. I wanted to tell him about Aunt Carol and how my eyes had been opened by the Chapel Hill protests. Most of all, I wanted to tell him about the terrible day Mattie drowned in the lake. I wanted him to know who I truly was. To see past the brave veneer of a do-gooder girl. I wanted to tell him about the real me. The me that still shamed me. I thought of what words I could use to tell him, but I fell asleep before I could figure out how to string them together.
I was dead asleep when the shouting began. I sat up in the darkness, disoriented, my brain still wired from the singing at the protest. The little bodies around me were heavy with slumber. It took me a minute to realize that someone was pounding on the bedroom door. Suddenly, it flew open.
“Get up! Get up!” Mrs. Dawes shouted. She carried a lantern that illuminated the fear in her dark eyes. “Keep the children with you!”
“What’s going on?” I asked, but she was already gone. From the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of light. I leaped out of the bed and pulled aside the thin curtain at the front window, then caught my breath. A cross was ablaze in front of the house, no more than a few yards from the bedroom where I stood in my nightgown and bare feet.
“Kids!” I shouted to the four of them. “Wake up!” I jostled them. Shook them. Yelled at them. They were like dead children, their bodies too heavy with sleep to respond. I finally got the two older girls up and I grabbed the little ones in my arms as I ran from the bedroom to the front porch.
Outside, Mr. and Mrs. Dawes and the two older boys ran back and forth from the pump to the fiery cross, buckets of water sloshing. Embers flew through the air from the cross and I was terrified one of them would land on the roof and set the house ablaze. I thought I should help, but Mrs. Dawes yelled at me. “Just keep the children on the porch!”
So I stayed in the rocker, GiGi asleep on my lap, Sally on the splintery porch floor sucking her thumb. The two older girls stood next to me, clinging to my shoulder, my neck, staring at the flames. I could see the fire and fear reflected in their eyes. And I knew I was the person who put it there.
Chapter 23
KAYLA
2010
Although I invited her to hold our yoga practice in my new house, Ellie insisted we have it in her home, where she could be at the beck and call of her mother and brother. She’s cleared one of the big upstairs bedrooms of most furniture and there is plenty of space. The room is empty except for her purple mat and a huge purple exercise ball. A table in the corner holds a CD player and another essential-oil diffuser, and the air smells like lemons.
The windows are open; and I realize there is no air-conditioning in this house, or at least not in this room. But there is a ceiling fan and the window lets in a light breeze. It also lets in the sounds of construction, both of the Shadow Ridge houses and the back porch repair that’s underway.
“I’m not going to bother with my usual yoga music,” Ellie says, motioning toward the CD player. “Instead, we’ll let the construction sounds be part of our practice. Rather than be annoyed by them,” she says, “let them simply wash over you.”
I find the noise a challenge at first as I sit on my pink mat, which I’d managed to unearth from one of the larger moving boxes in the spare bedroom. The shouts of the workers and the buzz of their saws and staccato banging of their nail guns are a distraction, but Ellie sets an example of a woman at peace and I soon have the feeling of being completely in the room with her. Nothing outside can touch me.
I let her guide me through the asanas. It’s hard not to gawk at her incredible flexibility and strength. I’m not clumsy, and after the last few rough months, I’m certainly not overweight, but I’m not lithe. That’s the word that keeps running through my mind as I watch Ellie move smoothly from one long-held pose to the next. She is sixty-five years old and she is still lithe.
This is just what I need, I think, before reminding myself not to think. Just to be. Moments of peace come and go. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt any peace at all, so I’m grateful. Ellie’s breathing seems to become my own, or perhaps it’s the other way around. We end, of course, with Savasana, and I shut my eyes and feel the hot lemony air against my skin as I try to calm my mind instead of thinking of all I need to do for the rest of the day. I’ve almost managed to clear the thoughts away when I’m brought back to the room by the slamming of a car door.