I wandered back into the playroom and sat down on the floor with my children and wiped their noses and felt their foreheads. Fannin was sitting on a chair watching over them. “A friend of mine who is a civil rights worker was cut with a knife today,” I said. “She was cut down the face and on the arm. Her arm was really hurt. They severed an artery in her arm.”

“That’s big trouble everywhere now.” Fannin’s face closed up like a fist. Her eyes would not meet mine. She turned her eyes away. She did not trust me, and with good cause. I did not know whose side I was on. I was too powerless to have a side or to be trusted to say what I meant. “Lot of folks going to get hurt.”

“I stayed at her house last week when we went down there. She had a cross burned in her yard. Now they’ve cut her up.”

“Well, I got to go get supper started.” Fannin stood up. “You take care of these babies for a while so I can get my work done.”

“Is Ifigenia coming to help?”

“She’ll be here at five. You going to stay and watch them now?”

“I said I would. I tried to take over an hour ago and you said you didn’t need me.”

“Well, I need you now.” She left and went into the kitchen and I sat on the floor with my little boys and helped them build a fort for the Indians to attack. We had fifty soldiers and eighteen Indians and ten horses that either the Indians or soldiers could ride. We had enough Lincoln Logs to build a big fort with a wall around it and we also had some Marines and a few tanks and planes from a different set but we almost never brought them in when we played Lincoln Logs until the very last when we had used up all the rest of the stuff.

Chapter

27

The next afternoon was Friday. The children were better and I decided to go downtown and buy them some books. “I’m going to start reading to them every day,” I told my mother. “I’m going to start really paying attention to them. I bet I could teach Little Malcolm to read if I really tried.”

“Sure, honey,” she said. “Go on. But don’t be back late. Get back before Fannin leaves.”

“I’m only going to the bookstore.”

“I know. Don’t go by anyone’s house on the way home. Don’t start drinking with anyone. Promise me you won’t.”

“I won’t.”

“You really should stop drinking, Rhoda. You’ve been drinking too much lately.”

“I can’t help it. There’s nothing to do. I’m so bored all the time.”

“Well, go on to the bookstore but come back by five. Promise that you will.”

“I already did.”