“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“You and me are survivors, Lizzie. We keep moving forward. We find a way, and if there isn’t a way to be found, we make one. Those boys are more inclined to crumble and break than you and I are to even consider giving up.”
“Henry isn’t like that,” I argued. “Henry is like you.”
“Don’t kid yourself, honey. I don’t know what’s going on with Henry at the moment, but that boy is every bit as tormented as your father is on his worst days.”
“Judge Nagle wants the loan settled,” I blurted. Mother sucked in a sharp breath. “He’s pressuring Henry for money. The judge is having trouble of his own because so many of his tenants have gone bust. He says he might sue Henry to get the farm even though the deed is in Daddy’s name. It can’t be true, can it?”
“Honey,” Mother said gently. “If Dad had been able to get that loan from the bank two years ago, we’d have already lost the farm.”
I was startled to realize she was right. Whether the money came from Judge Nagle or from the bank, we still had no way to repay it. I looked out over the moonlit fields and felt a pang of presumptive grief for a loss I hadn’t even realized was inevitable. “Mother, I love this place.”
“I know, Lizzie. I do too. But you know what I love more?” I looked at her, and in the darkness, I saw the gentle smile she offered me. She reached across and squeezed my hand. “This family, honey. Family is everything. I thought I’d already taught you that.”
“You did,” I said. We weren’t the kind of family to say I love you or to express our feelings aloud, but she’d taught me in other ways. Even those hours she spent on the bench near the Texas live oak reinforced to me that what mattered in life was to love so deeply that sometimes you were truly tormented by it.
“The weather let us down, not the judge. At least he gave us a chance and he bought us two more years here. We should be grateful to him, not scared of him or angry with him. Knowing the judge as I do, I know he wouldn’t be demanding money from us unless he really needed it. I bet he’s as distressed about this as we are.”
There was strength and dignity in that statement that astounded me. I stared at Mother in the moonlight—all calm and compassionate, even though she’d just acknowledged she was on the verge of losing everything.
“How are you so strong?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Lizzie. You are just like me. I know they say women are the weaker sex, but there’s nothing weak about the women in this family. The strength of generations runs through our veins. It doesn’t matter what life throws at us—we find a way to keep going. And it seems to me that those of us who are strong have an obligation to care for others when they aren’t.” Mother suddenly pushed herself to a standing position. “You aren’t going to solve this sitting out here on your own tonight. Let’s skip church tomorrow. We can drag Daddy and Henry out for a drive if the weather is good. Maybe they can get some perspective if we get them off the farm.”
12
Lizzie
Huntsville, Alabama
1950
I’d heard Calvin use a sharp tone a handful of times over all of the years of our marriage, but never before had it been directed at me. I didn’t quite know how to deal with it.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that this is insanity!” I blurted, pointing to his office window and the civilized party beyond it, still taking place on the lawn just a few hundred feet away. “They just bring a bunch of Nazi families here and let them roam free and think everything is going to be fine?”
“Not every German was a Nazi, Lizzie,” he sighed.
“But some of those men were,” I said quietly. Cal inhaled sharply. “I’m willing to play the game in public, but when it’s just you and me, I shouldn’t have to pretend I don’t know that.”
“You call that playing the game?” Cal said, waving vaguely toward the window overlooking the party. “This new program is a golden opportunity for Huntsville and it’s a golden opportunity for me. I need your support in this.” I scoffed impatiently, and Calvin threw his head back in frustration. “Do you even know who you were shouting at down there?”
“Does it matter?” I exclaimed.
“It was Sofie Rhodes, Lizzie. Jürgen Rhodes’ wife.” Oh hell. Out of all the German scientists, there were only a handful that Calvin seemed particularly awed by—and Jürgen Rhodes was right at the top of that list. “He’s waited five years for her to join him here, and before I even had the chance to introduce myself, you started an argument with her.”