Emily considered this and made a tutting sound before spinning around to recommence her skipping.
Uncle Freddie still held Louise’s hand and his grip had tightened to the point where it felt like the bones in her fingers might crack under the pressure, but she figured he needed something to hold on to so she stayed steady and held her breath. After a minute, his grip slackened. Louise exhaled and asked, “Why did you go to the war? Couldn’t you have died?”
“Yes, I could have.” He tented his hand over his eyes to watch Emily’s antics. Just when Louise thought the conversation was over, he said, “Sometimes you have to do things because they’re the right things. If we Negroes continue to participate in this country, someday our white countrymen will have to start seeing us as people who deserve every bit of respect that they expect for themselves.”
“But what if you had died?”
“I would have died in hopes that my sacrifice would help others, like you and your sisters, Junior, all of you.”
“How would it have helped us?”
Uncle Freddie fished his wallet from his back pocket and thumbed through its contents until he extracted a photograph and handed it to Louise. In it, Uncle Freddie and another black man sat at a café with a bottle and two fancy glasses set in front of them. Their legs were crossed and they appeared relaxed, yet they sat with the dignified bearing of military posture.
Louise studied the photo. “This was the war? It doesn’t look too bad.”
“It was plenty bad, but this picture was taken after it had ended. We had a weekend in Paris. My friend and I went to cafés, to the theater. No matter where we went, we were treated with respect. The French were grateful for our service no matter the color of our skin.”
“Huh. Did you consider staying there?”
Uncle Freddie laughed. “Your grandma wouldn’t have stood for that. This is my home. I needed to come back, but going there made me realize that we’ve got to do risky things because they remind us that we’re worth more than we’re led to believe.”
Louise pondered this, but she couldn’t shake the way the white people had seemed to dismiss Uncle Freddie when they were in the park. It didn’t seem right that he had gone and risked his life but no one seemed to pay him any respect. “Are you going to do something about those names being left off the plaque?”
“No,” he said, looking straight ahead. His tone indicated the discussion was over.
Eight years later, the memorial was unchanged except for a bright green scrim of pollen that covered it. Louise brushed it off the plaque and traced the engraved names with her index finger. Since that afternoon, they had never again discussed the fact that the names of the black veterans were missing from the plaque. Still, every morning Uncle Freddie hung an American flag outside the main window of his garage apartment and every evening, he took it inside; and every Fourth of July, he donned his uniform and joined the town’s festivities. It never appeared to occur to him to not honor his country, even though that honor wasn’t reciprocated by his countrymen, and that was that.
Now Louise had a faint understanding of what Uncle Freddie had been thinking that afternoon. Maybe sometimes you had to keep your head down and know that what you were doing was important even if no one seemed to acknowledge it. Just like Uncle Freddie’s patriotism remained unshaken, she had to keep running and doing her best, no matter what happened. Despite the coaches saying that the results of the day meant nothing, they meant something to her. She would remember today and hold her coach to his word. Everyone needed to follow the rules.
And as for Mary and her silence? That was still confusing to her. But then she thought about those striped scars on the backs of the girl’s freckled legs. A cold pit hardened in Louise’s stomach. Once she had caught a glimpse of the lower half of her grandmother’s back and seen a similar pattern. Grandma never said anything about her youth in Mississippi and Louise knew better than to ask. Sometimes silence meant survival.
Often it seemed as though the color of Louise’s skin provided code for how she needed to act, what she needed to say. Or not say. Back in the park, all kinds of forces pressed upon her to prevent her from being as decisive as Olive. But what kept Mary from speaking her mind? Maybe Mary’s silence indicated more than weakness. Maybe it had something to do with survival. Sadness overcame Louise, and she drifted away from the plaque a few steps before starting to run again. Her earlier energy had faded and she was left with a headache and legs that weighed enough to be made of concrete.
Rosie got away with winning that day, but cheating would take her only so far. But Mary? Olive? They were fast and followed the rules. The stopwatch would tell the truth.
Louise couldn’t wait to race them again.
8.
October 1928
Fulton, Missouri
BY FALL, HELEN WAS BACK AT SCHOOL. DESPITE DR. McCUBBIN’S assurances that her throat had healed, her voice was different. Deeper, huskier. Sometimes it was more of a rasp. It certainly did not sound feminine, and it gave the other girls in her fifth-grade class one more reason to avoid her. As a result, she played with the boys during recesses and before and after school.
“Hey, bet you can’t hurdle that fence,” Tom Egglethorpe said to Helen, pointing toward the edge of the schoolyard. The group of boys surrounding them crowed in delight at the challenge. Tom was the only boy in school who even came close to Helen’s athleticism. Like her, he was a head taller than everyone else.
“Bet I can,” she said, rolling her eyes to get a rise out of him. She needed to get home to muck out the henhouse, but there was no chance she’d leave a dare unmet. Helen never said no to a challenge.
“Fine, you go first.” Tom stuck one hand on his hip in a defiant gesture.
“Why? Need me to show you the way? You a sissy?”
Tom’s face, already pink from perpetual sunburn, flushed a darker shade of crimson. Even his scalp flushed through the thin layer of the almost-white blond hair of his buzz cut. Everyone could see it. “Nah, I ain’t a sissy. Take that back.”
At this rate, their parlaying would take all day. Helen snorted in disgust, turned, and took off in a sprint toward the split-rail fence. She balled her hands and punched up at the sky with each stride. Faster and faster. She neared the fence. It was higher than she’d expected, but there was no turning back. She sucked in a breath and held it, launching herself into the air. Up, up, and over. Her heel caught the top plank of the fence and she wobbled, straining to keep her feet underneath her, to keep her balance. She landed with a thump, stumbling slightly on her landing, but kept upright and exhaled before gulping down some desperate breaths, glad to be facing away from the boys so they couldn’t see the relief she knew to be stamped all over her face. She slowed to a stop, turned, and raised her arms over her head. “Ha! See if you can do that!”
At that moment, Miss Thurston emerged from the schoolhouse. From where Helen stood, she couldn’t hear exactly what her teacher said to the boys, but from the way their chins dropped to their chests, there was little doubt it was a good tongue-lashing.
Miss Thurston turned to scan the schoolyard, but stopped when she caught sight of Helen. “Miss Stephens, you come here right now.”