Out of nowhere, Hallelujah said, “Preacher almost married her.”
My head jerked toward him. “Who?”
“Preacher asked your aunt Ruthie to marry him after my mama died.”
“Your real mama?”
Still staring at Aunt Ruthie as she ambled across the porch, Hallelujah nodded.
We watched Queen settle on the edge of the porch. Her legs dangled from the solid blue trim of her blue and white checkered skirt, and her forehead wrinkled with concern as she gathered Aunt Ruthie’s children on either side of her and cradled the baby in her lap.
“I never knew Reverend Jenkins wanted to marry Aunt Ruthie,” I said.
Hallelujah shrugged. “He said she was one of the smartest women he knew.”
“Ain’t too smart,” Fred Lee said, “lettin’ Slow John hit her like that.”
“Said she used to be one of the prettiest women in Stillwater, too,” Hallelujah said.
“Reverend Jenkins said Aunt Ruthie was pretty?” I asked.
“She is pretty,” said Hallelujah.
“But she’s so d—” I stopped myself when I realized what I was about to imply.
“Dark women is pretty too,” Fred Lee said.
“That ain’t what I was about to say,” I snapped.
“You was,” Fred Lee countered.
Fred Lee was right. I knew Aunt Ruthie was pretty. So why did I find it hard to believe Reverend Jenkins would find her pretty too? For the same reason I couldn’t think of myself as pretty—?my own grandmother had made me feel ashamed of my complexion, saying I was as black as midnight without a moon. But I had to remember my own strange words to Hallelujah on the night before the murder trial ended: stars can’t shine without darkness. And I was determined that one day, instead of fretting over being as dark as midnight without a moon, I would shine as bright as the morning star—?which, Reverend Jenkins told us, is the planet Venus and is also a sign of hope.
“How come Reverend Jenkins didn’t marry Aunt Ruthie?” I asked Hallelujah.
“Miss Sweet wouldn’t let him,” he answered.
“Wonder why,” I mumbled, staring at the house.
“I wish she had,” said Hallelujah. “She’s too smart and pretty for a man like John Walker. Preacher said after Miss Sweet wouldn’t let her marry him, she ran off with the first thing with legs.”
“She’d have been better off marrying a spider,” I said.
“I’m glad she didn’t marry Preacher,” said Fred Lee.
Hallelujah and I stared at him.
“All o’ yo’ mamas die,” Fred Lee said matter-of-factly.
We tried not to, but laughs slipped out of Hallelujah and me anyway.
Yet we knew this was no laughing moment. Here was our aunt, again at her parents’ home, again having walked seven miles with her children, again having been beaten by her no-’count husband. And probably would, again, leave the safety of our house and go back to him.
I let my head lean back, and I looked up at the clear blue sky. The evening sun streaming through the leaves warmed my face. October had just begun, so the leaves on the ancient oak towering over me had not changed. They were still full, green, and fluffy. But I knew they would soon change. They would become orange and red and gold; then, eventually, they would fall from the tree. Change was inevitable in nature, as Miss Johnson used to say, but not in people. People had a choice, whereas nature did not.
Reverend Jenkins was sure that a change was coming to Mississippi, that life for the Negro would get better. I had made a promise before the church and before God that I would change, and today my sins had been washed away. Queen and Fred Lee, too, had made that profession of faith to change. And long ago, when she was our age, so had Aunt Ruthie. Now, years later, it seemed she needed to make a commitment to change again. A commitment to permanently walk away from a life where she wasn’t really living. I closed my eyes and offered up a prayer for her. Only two people could help my aunt: God and herself.
Change. It’s what I had been thinking about since that Monday after the Emmett Till murder trial—?the day after Aunt Belle and Monty headed back to Saint Louis. So many thoughts warred against one another in my mind. I thought about what Hallelujah had said on the night before the trial ended, about why folks like Reverend Jenkins and Medgar Evers chose to stay in Mississippi even though they could probably leave, just like Mr. Pete, Mama, and Aunt Belle.
Dreams have more meaning when you have to fight for them, he’d said. And that’s why some people chose to stay. They knew they had a right to be there—?this land is your land, this land is my land. And they wanted the freedom to do so.