The Steep and Thorny Way(14)

“Why doesn’t he want to talk about Joe?” I asked. “I thought you said we’re supposed to be forgiving.”

“You can forgive him, but don’t dwell on him. He’s still not easy to talk about.”

I watched her agitate the cloths and the undergarments in the tub and remembered Joe’s talk of white hoods and robes.

“What does Uncle Clyde say about my future here?” I asked.

Mama peeked up at me without lifting her head. “Why do you ask that?”

“I’m not sure if I can imagine him paying for me to receive further schooling after I graduate. And we all know I can’t marry anyone around here, unless a nonwhite young man actually moves into the region. I’m not sure if anyone would hire me for work.” I drummed my fingers against my sides. “What on earth am I supposed to do for the rest of my life?”

“Well”—she brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes with fingers red and cracked from the washing—“Uncle Clyde says you’re welcome to live here with us as long as you please.”

“Does he even like me?”

“Hanalee!” She jabbed at the wash with a force that splashed water over the edge. “The questions you’re asking . . .”

“How does he feel about the Negro race in general?”

Mama’s jaw dropped. “Why are you asking such things? Uncle Clyde is most certainly not a bigot, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

“If I’m going to be stuck in a house with him, I want to know precisely what type of man he is.”

“He’s a good man who wants you to have a decent future.”

“I’m thinking of becoming a lawyer.”

Mama wrinkled her forehead and placed a hand on a hip. “A lawyer?”

“Yes.” I grabbed the plunger back from her. “I would love to one day open up a newspaper and read the words ‘Hanalee Denney, a little lady lawyer descended from Georgia slaves, overturned Oregon’s exclusion laws and interracial marriage laws—and fought hard to bring justice to people like her father. People killed by cowards who hide their guilt behind others.’”

“What did you just say?”

I plunged the laundry deep into the scalding water until my back hurt from bending and straining.

“What’s going on, Hanalee?” She shaded her eyes from the sun. “Have you seen Joe?”

I gulped, but I didn’t stop plunging.

“Have you?” she asked again. “Hanalee?”

I met her eyes. “If I saw Joe, wouldn’t I tell you?” A simple question. Not an outright lie.

“I certainly hope you would tell me. I hope you always speak the truth to me. Why did you say such a thing about your father’s death?”

“I’m just exhausted. I didn’t sleep well last night.” I bowed my head over the water. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Mama gave a sigh and wandered over to the clothesline with her tired walk, her shoulders lowered, hips swaying. I watched her fetch the pins we’d use for drying. A troubled frown darkened her face.

We finished boiling the whites and hung them on the line before boiling all the darks, and then the darkest darks. Warblers twittered in the nearby woods, and sunlight crept over the back of my neck with the tips of its burning fingers.

We didn’t say another word about Joe.

We didn’t say another word about much of anything.


I KEPT QUIET ALL THROUGHOUT SUPPER AND DURING our evening of silent reading with Uncle Clyde. I sat on the sofa and flipped through the pages of Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities, by Monroe Alphus Majors, a book I’d received as a Christmas present from our former reverend’s late wife, Mrs. York, when I was ten. She even wrote an inscription to me in the front of the book:


Keep dreaming, Hanalee, just like all the brave and wonderful women inside these pages.

—Mrs. Georgina York, December 1917

I came upon a section that featured a woman named Charlotte E. Ray, the first black female lawyer, who was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar way back in 1872. My heart beat faster, and I sat up a little straighter.

Yet I didn’t make one peep about laws or injustices or the death of my father.

No more than six feet across from me, Uncle Clyde read his own book—Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt—with a mug of coffee steaming by his side, as comfy as can be in my father’s beloved maroon armchair. Worn spots on the arms marked the places where Daddy’s elbows used to rest. On the wall behind Uncle Clyde hung my father’s framed pencil sketches of the hickory trees that grew behind his family’s home in Georgia, as well as his delicate line drawings of the brick and sandstone buildings of turn-of-the-century Portland.

“Is everything all right, Hanalee?” asked my stepfather with a tilt of his head. He pushed his specs farther up his narrow nose, which ended in a sharp point small enough to fit inside a pencil sharpener.

I turned the page of my book, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama glance up from her copy of Good Housekeeping.

“Hanalee?” said Uncle Clyde. “You’ve been quiet this evening. Is something troubling you?”

“No, everything’s just dandy,” I said, and I flipped another page.

In my peripheral vision, I saw my mother share a look of concern with her new husband. They both wrinkled their foreheads. They glowered.