JOURNAL ENTRY, MAY 1964: When Nina rang the doorbell later that night, I’d been standing in the dark watching you sleep for so long that the hallway light was blinding. I opened the front door, hardly able to tell who was on the other side. Nina told me she’d come to strategize: if we split the interviews between us, we could do twice as many in half the time. For now it was still a regional story, but assuming the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, it’d be national by early next year. How did I feel about radio and television? With a little practice, she thought I could get comfortable being in front of a camera instead of behind one. She blathered like this for several minutes before realizing I hadn’t said a word. “You all right?” she finally asked, at which point I asked why she hadn’t told me about the newspapers. “What, today’s?” She laughed. “The real story comes when we start talking to the press.” I told her they’d printed Sam’s picture. “Of course they did!” she said. I told her that I’d brought Sam home from school and she’d cried herself to sleep. “Sounds rough,” Nina said. I explained that a reporter had been lying in wait for us outside the apartment. “Oh, yeah?” Nina said, her face lighting up. “Which one?”

This morning you wouldn’t get dressed. As I took off yesterday’s shirt and tugged your hands into the arms of a fresh one, you closed your eyes. You were limp as I slid yesterday’s skirt down your legs and traded it for something clean. You wanted me to take your temperature, so I placed the thermometer under your tongue. I could practically hear you wishing the mercury up, but it didn’t budge past normal. You pleaded to come to the restaurant. You’d read in the storeroom; no one would know. Even if I’d let you, there still would have been tomorrow and each day after that, and you can’t spend the rest of third grade in Remming’s dry storage, nibbling stale bread.

“Mommy,” you said as I walked you to school, “Mrs. Mallory just crossed the street with Rusty.” I told you it was nothing, but you shook your head. “She saw us,” you insisted, your voice full of tears. “She saw us, and she crossed the street because she doesn’t want me to pet him anymore.” You wouldn’t let me walk you all the way to the schoolyard, so I hung back as you entered the front gate, where you remained alone and frozen in place, silently waiting for the morning bell. Squirrel, I wish I could take you with me to the restaurant every morning to read books and eat day-old rolls until the verdict is reversed or third grade is done!

78. Couple on Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, 1964