“It will still be here when you come home. I will still be here. I will wait for you. Be safe. Come home to me. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t come home to me.” I stood on tiptoe, flung my arms around his shoulders, and kissed him. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” I whispered before I let him go.

•   •   •

“I can’t believe this!” I said to Thelma a few days later with the latest Challenger in hand. “Here’s what the Montgomery Improvement Association is asking from the city. This is all they want, and they’re being denied? Is it really too much to ask that the drivers should be courteous? Is that revolutionary? That they should hire black drivers for black neighborhoods and that the buses should stop at every block in the black neighborhoods like they do in the white neighborhoods? That seating on the bus should be first come, first served? Is that so outrageous?”

“Here’s today’s mail,” she said, smiling. “Terrence’s letter is on top.”