* * *
I was climbing into bed that night when my mother came into my room. She sat on the edge of my bed. Smoothed my covers. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. Tucked me in. She smiled down at me.
“We love you more than anything in the world, you know that, don’t you?” she asked.
“Of course. And I love you, too.”
“And the volunteer work you’re talking about is unnecessary, Ellie. There’s that new bill coming soon that’ll make it easy for Negroes to vote, so what is the point of this SCOPE program?”
“It’ll take more than that bill to make it easy for them to register, Mama. A lot of them won’t know how to go about registering, or there’ll be obstacles in their way. They could lose their jobs or their homes or—”
“Why on earth would that happen?”
“Because their bosses or landlords don’t want them to have any power.”
She sighed but when she spoke again, her voice was harsh. “You’d be beating your head against a brick wall, trying to change things,” she said. “This is the way God made the world. Most Negroes know their place. Like Louise. We all loved Louise, didn’t we? But she never tried to overstep. She understood—”
“Mama, it makes me crazy to hear you talk that way!” I raised myself up on my elbows. “White people made the world this way. Not God. White people want to keep Negroes down. Louise probably had to bite her tongue the whole time she was saying ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘whatever you say, ma’am’ to you.”
She slapped me. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t much. But she had never so much as laid a hand on me before and I thought we were both in shock. For a moment, neither of us spoke, and I lay back on my pillow again, turning my face away from her.
“Louise knew her place,” she said finally. “That’s all I’m saying. And you should know yours.” She smoothed the hair back from my forehead. My cheek—and my heart—still hurt from where she’d slapped me.
“Does this have something to do with little Mattie?” Mama asked me now.
“What do you mean?” I asked, although I knew.
“Well, she and Louise were the only Negroes you’ve ever really known, and Mattie was your little friend and their story was certainly tragic, so I just thought, maybe you—”
“Mama, don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “UNC is integrated. My dorm is integrated.”
“Your dorm is…？” Her eyes widened.
“Yes. It is.”
She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe the state of the world. “Well, I just thought … you know … how bad you felt about Mattie. That maybe you’re thinking this is something you should do. A way to honor her or something. You never seemed to get it through your head that you were a hero that day.” She smoothed my hair behind my ear. I resented her touch after that slap. “An eleven-year-old hero,” she continued. “Why don’t you hold on to that? To what you did that day. Let it be your legacy. Your contribution to—”
“Mama, stop it!” I sat up, nearly knocking her off the edge of the bed. I couldn’t bear to listen to her go on about Mattie for another minute. Mattie had drowned in the lake at the end of Hockley Street and I hadn’t been able to save her. The newspaper wrote me up as a hero, though, and for years afterward, people would stop me on the street to tell me how brave I was to try to save “the little colored girl.”
My mother stood up abruptly, surprised by my outburst. I thought she might slap me again but she held her knotted fists at her sides.
“I want to do this, all right?” I said. “Why does it have to be such a big deal? I’m nearly twenty-one years old. I have straight As. I’m not stupid or foolish or … I’m going to do it.”
“Your father said no and he’s right,” she said firmly. “So we talked about it and we think a good idea is to get you out of Round Hill for the summer. Dorothy Rogers would love to have you come stay with her in Myrtle Beach. You love it down there and she said Reed is welcome to visit anytime. What do you think?”
Any other summer I would have jumped at this chance. Dorothy Rogers, an old friend of my mother’s, was easy to be around and she had a great pool. I thought of Myrtle Beach with its beach music and dance competitions. It was tempting, but it was not what I wanted. I wasn’t looking for fun this summer.