Freshwater Road (57 page)

"Is that a promise?" He was the lawyer and she was testifying with her
hand on the bible.

"Yeah, I promise." How could she spend two weeks with her mother
when they had not a thing to talk about, not a common interest in anything? How could she be in that house with her after the letter? She'd do it
for Shuck. And what if Wilamena brought up the letter? Her note? Would
they have a knock-down, drag-out about it? More than likely. They'd be
like erupting volcanoes, burning lava sliding over everything and years of
black rock before green ever showed its face again. She'd never bring up
that letter to Wilamena. Would refuse to discuss it. Just let it sit there like a
rocky shore, no invitation to dock. It was going to be some Christmas.

"She's lonely out there." Shuck had "I told you so" in his voice.

"Why is she so lonely?" Celeste had never thought of her that way.

"Hard to talk to those people. Engineers. Don't know what's going on."
Shuck looked back at his gleaming white Cadillac parked at the curb yards
behind them.

She thought he might just get up, go to the car and drive away. Be a
memory. That her whole life had been a dream. "She married him."

"Yep." A certain get-up-and-go in his voice.

"She oughta be happy. She likes it out there." The words came out soft,
but in her mind, the sarcasm floated. She remembered how Wilamena over
the years had described the aspen trees glowing golden in autumn, the snow
on the pinon trees, how her stationery had a rendering of the New Mexico
mountains and sky.

"I don't think she's been happy a day in her life." Shuck's head moved
back and forth like he was grinding the meaning of it all into something
he could carry in his pockets.

Celeste heard him loud and clear. Maybe that was why Billy left home
and didn't seem to want to come back. The waters were too muddy for
swimming, too much work to keep everyone on an even keel, somebody
always falling overboard. Kept clear of it all. Billy was older, wiser. Some
day she'd have to talk to Billy about all this.

"I feel like an old person." She clasped her hands onto her knees like
Mrs. Owens did when she was ready to get up from her rocking chair.

"You got nothing but future." Shuck squeezed her into him then let her
go, lit a cigarette, the sharp quick clank of his cigarette lighter a percussion
behind the lapping water. "You wanna smoke?"

She took a cigarette and he lit it, holding his hand against the breeze
coming off the river. She drew in the smoke, let it curl down her throat into
her lungs, coughed. "Haven't smoked since I left Ann Arbor."

"Good. Don't start up again." He blew the smoke out in white puffy
ringlets, and she could feel his body relaxing next to her.

"I won't, Daddy." The word echoed just the slightest bit in her head,
then settled down. She'd smoke this one, feel the deep stirring the tobacco
gave to her stomach and lungs, the flutter in her heart, float out the smoke
evenly, hold the cigarette like one of Shuck's polished women in his bestof-Negro-life wallpaper, then never smoke again. "Daddy" wasn't some
miscellaneous, bone-dry word, some throwaway to be tossed to a tired dog.
It meant everything. Wilamena lost her father when she was very young and
maybe she just didn't want anybody to have what she'd never had, especially
not her own daughter. Some people were like that. Celeste didn't know
how she'd ever talk to her mother when the time came or what she'd say.
She knew that she, Celeste Tyree, would never tell Shuck about that letter,
and she knew Wilamena wouldn't either. Shuck would never allow her to.
That was good. It would end right here. Somehow, she had to get herself
to New Mexico and celebrate Christmas without tearing into Wilamena.
Christmas with no music.

During the hottest days of her Mississippi summer, she'd longed for
autumn, the cool at the edge of the wind, the flamboyant leaves sketched
against a boyish blue sky. It was as if you were on a viewing stand celebrating
the end of a glorious parade that too quickly disappeared down the street.

THE END

Janet Fitch, Journeyman Fiction Workshop, William Reiss, James Ragan,
Professional Writing Program, University of Southern California, Lee
Chamberlin, The Squaw Valley Community of Writers, James D. Houston, Shelby Stone, Naomi Harris Rosenblatt, Bill Galvez, Gail Berendzen,
W.O.M.E.N Inc., Beverly Todd and Friends Three, Nancy O'Connor
(Mrs. Carroll), Dennis and Denia Hightower, Asaad Kelada, Shirlee Taylor
Haizlip, Emmett Nicholas, Otto and Kay Nicholas, Louise Burgen, Rudy
Lombard, the Ebell of Los Angeles, Kynderly Haskins, Kenneth Reynolds,
and Douglas Seibold.

In writing this book, I referred mostly to my own first-hand knowledge
of both Mississippi and 1964, but I also read many of the books published
about that era. A few I kept close at hand were, The Origins of the Civil
Rights Movement by Aldon D. Morris; In Struggle by Clayborne Carson;
Walking with the Wind by John Lewis; and Free at Last? by Fred Powledge.
A major character in this book is a reader and collector of Jet magazine,
and I am grateful for the important work done by Johnson Publishing.
Also, in Chapter 2, a character makes reference to a fictional Detroit News
article about Mississippi during the run up to Freedom Summer. While
the article is fictional, the statistics mentioned are real, drawn from Eyes
on the Prize by Juan Williams. I also found The Detroit Almanac, edited by
Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw, to be a goldmine of tidbits about my
old hometown.

Denise Nicholas is an actor and writer who has appeared in numerous
films and TV shows, including Room 222, for which she earned two Golden
Globe nominations, and In the Heat of the Night, for which she also wrote
several episodes. She lives in Southern California. Freshwater Road is her
first novel.