But the train and Philadelphia and what all happened that winter was what I meant to write on. Folks was in the worst way. The Army was everywhere, not just soldiers but tanks and other things of the kind. My daddy said they were there to protect us from the jumps, but to me they were just big men with guns, most of them white, and my daddy had always told me to look on the bright side, Ida, but not to trust the white man—that’s how he said it, like they was all one man—though of course that seems funny now, folks all blended together like they are. Probably whoever is reading this doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. We knew a fellow from up the way got himself shot, just for trying to catch a dog. I suppose he thought eating a dog was better than nothing. But the Army shot him and strung him up on a light post on Olney Avenue with a sign pinned to his chest that said “looter.” Don’t know what he was trying to loot except maybe a dog that was half starved and going to die anyway.

Then one night we heard the loudest boom and then another and another and planes screaming over our heads, and my daddy told me they’d blown the bridges, and all the next day we saw more planes and smelled fire and smoke, and we knew the jumps was close. Whole parts of the city were on fire. I went to bed and woke up later to the sounds of a set-to. Our place was just four rooms and voices had a way of carrying, you couldn’t sneeze in one room without somebody in another saying bless you. I heard my mama crying and crying, and my father saying to her, you can’t, we have to, you be strong, Anita, things of the kind, and then the door to my room swung open and I saw my daddy standing there. He was holding a candle and I’d never in my life seen him with such a look upon his face. Like he’d seen a ghost, and the ghost was his own self. He dressed me quick for the cold and said, be good now, Ida, and go say goodbye to your mother, and when I did she held me a long, long time, crying so hard it makes me hurt to think of it, even now, all these years gone by. I saw the little suitcase by the door and said, are we going somewhere, Mama? We leaving? But she didn’t answer me, she just went on crying and crying and holding me like she did, until my daddy made her let go. Then we left, my daddy and me. Just the two of us.