I sat down near him on the top step. “Have you ever been through anything like this?” I asked. “What happened tonight?”
He shrugged. “A few times. This was just a skirmish in comparison to some others I’ve been through,” he said. “This was nothing really. Poor DeeDee got the brunt of it.”
“I think they were aiming at me.”
He nodded. “They don’t like seeing white and Black together, uh-uh. That taps into something primal in them. Sets them off.”
I sighed. Looked over at him. “Are we … the white students … are we just making things worse?”
“What do you think?”
I looked down the road toward the raggedy little house where he was staying. The way the moonlight settled on the roof made it look almost pretty, like old silver. “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe in some ways. But … I think Black people need to know that a lot of us are on their side.”
For the longest time, he said nothing. The sound of the cicadas rose and fell in the fields and trees.
“Why are you doing this, Ellie?” he asked finally. “It’s got to be costing you. Your father last night…” He shook his head. “That was one angry man. I mean, he was holding it all in, I could tell, but I could still see the sparks flying off him.”
“He’s a really good person,” I said. “He’s just worried about me, that’s all.”
“So why?” he pressed. “Why are you here?”
I thought of Aunt Carol and how she influenced me with her passion and commitment, but I knew my love and admiration for her was not the complete answer to Win’s question, and tears started running down my cheeks before I even knew they were coming. I turned my head away from Win, but he knew. The moonlight wouldn’t let me hide anything tonight.
He let me cry for a while before he asked, “You going to tell me what’s got you like this?”
I’d never told a soul the truth about Mattie, but suddenly I knew I had to. I couldn’t carry it around with me any longer, and I trusted Win. I swallowed hard. Brushed the tears away, then smoothed my hands over the hem of my skirt, my fingers trembling.
“When I was little, we had a maid,” I said, glancing at him before focusing on the way the moonlight played on the cornfield across the road. “Her name was Louise. I didn’t have many friends back then. I was extremely shy and we lived—still live—on this country road not close to the other kids in my school. I wanted to fit in with the popular girls, but I just didn’t. So, whenever school was closed for a holiday, Louise would bring her daughter, Mattie, with her to our house. I knew Mattie was … well, I was old enough to understand she was slow. Later I realized she was mildly mentally retarded, but all I knew then was that I loved playing with her. She was fun. So inventive—she didn’t seem to see limitations, you know?” I looked at him and he nodded as if he understood. “And she was always so positive. It was like she didn’t know she was different.” My throat tightened, but I smiled at the memory of Mattie trying to learn to ride my bike on our dirt road. Mattie trying to run through the kudzu. “I really loved her.” I glanced at Win again. His face was unreadable. “There was a lake by our house,” I said. “Little Heaven Lake. Mattie and I would fish in it and catch absolutely nothing.” I chuckled to myself. “I don’t think there was anything in that lake to catch. But it was just fun, being with her. She didn’t care that I was shy.” I knotted my hands together in my lap until they hurt. “So, sometimes in winter, the lake would freeze. Not often. I haven’t seen it frozen in years, but that year—I was eleven—it froze, and some kids would skate on it. Just on their shoes. Nobody had skates in Round Hill. This was during the Christmas holiday, so Mattie came to our house with Louise, and she and I went to the lake to play, and these two very popular girls from my school were there. They looked down their noses at Mattie and me but then they called me over to skate with them. To hold hands and spin around, that sort of thing. I was so thrilled they asked me. I wanted to ask Mattie to join us, but one of them said flat out, ‘Don’t call that … colored retard over here.’” Of course, she hadn’t said “colored” and I was sure Win knew I was cleaning up the language for his sake. “I hate myself for this, Win,” I said. “I hate myself for every part of it. And I’ve never told anyone before and I don’t know why I’m telling you. I just—”