Take My Hand(70)

Eugenia Wooten enters, carrying a large purse on her shoulder. She has changed out of her scrubs into street clothes—a pair of jeans and a simple scoop-necked gray top. When she spies me, her face breaks into another wide smile. She sits down and apologizes for taking longer than she’d expected. I dismiss the apology and study her. Her eyebrows are natural and unruly. There are pinch marks from her eyeglasses on each side of her nose. Her shoulders are covered in light freckles.

“Do you still live in Montgomery?” she asks me as she hangs her purse on the back of the chair.

“Not anymore. I’ve lived in Memphis for years now.”

She nods. “You still a nurse?”

“A doctor.”

“Oh? What kind?”

“OB-GYN.”

“That makes sense.”

“Really? Why?” She pauses, and I regret my confrontational tone. I offer a weak change of subject. “You hungry?”

“I’m too knotted up to eat,” she says.

“Me, too,” I say. I have nothing to do with my hands. My coffee cup is empty. I pick it up and take a sip of nothing.

“How is that family? The Williamses. Are they alright?”

I don’t know how to answer that question. It seems so complicated, the way she phrases it. It could be read as a question of whether they are dead or alive. Or it could be asking whether they survived the trauma. Either way, the question feels fraught.

“India has cancer. She lives in Rockford. I’m headed down that way.”

“Oh God.” She blinks rapidly. “You know, Mama never wanted to talk about it. I knew, of course. So did my siblings. But we never told our children. Then one of my sister’s grandchildren found the story online. She wasn’t but thirteen years old and was sure enough mad at us for not telling it to her. Little Miss Nosy.” She shakes her head, as if to say, kids.

Thirteen. Same age as Erica when her tubes were tied. “Then you told all of the children?”

“No; I mean, not all of them. Dr. Townsend, it was just so awful.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I mean, Mama was trying to do the right thing, right? That’s what I always wanted to believe. It’s why I always wanted to reach out to you. I wanted to ask. Were you ever able to forgive her?”

“Forgive who? Your mother?”

“Yes.”

I stutter. “N-no. To be honest, no.”

“Mama wasn’t a Klan member or nothing like that. She wasn’t a Confederate or a slaver. She was just a nurse trying to do the right thing at a difficult time. I mean, it was the year of Roe v. Wade, for goodness’ sake.”

“It was.”

“She wasn’t a monster, right? She was a nice lady to Blacks? I mean, she did work at the clinic.”

“She did.”

“She wasn’t no racist, right? Please tell me, Dr. Townsend, what you thought of her. Was my mama a racist?” The woman’s eyes are desperate, pleading.

I twirl the empty coffee cup between my fingers. I want to give this kind woman the relief she craves. I have carried this burden for so long that I understand her anguish. We are bound together by this tragedy. As much guilt as I have carried over the years, I know, with the discernment of a woman my age, that my pain does not rival what Linda Seager inflicted upon her own family.





THIRTY-SEVEN




Montgomery

1973


India and Erica walked timidly into the water.

“Come on. I’m not going to let you fall.”

The white sand stuck to my feet, and a shell pricked my toe. I was thinking of our last trip to the beach, when Mama had laughed and laughed. This beach had always meant something to my family, but it was usually where Mama lit up the most. As soon as Mace had said he wanted to take the girls to see the ocean, I had known exactly where I would take them.

Mace was still wearing his tube socks and shoes. I had not invited him, but when I arrived to pick up the girls he had followed us out of the house with his fishing pole in his hand. I must have suspected he would want to come, because I had taken extra care choosing from the three swimsuits in my closet. All of them made me self-conscious, and on my drive over to their house, I worried how much weight I had gained that summer.

India laughed, an audible hawing sound, and her smile lit up her face. With one moist palm in mine, she used the other to bend down and scoop up water. We stopped walking once we made it in up to our shins. A foaming wave hit our legs, and India squealed. The water was cold.

“Can we get our hair wet?” Erica asked.

“If you want to.”

“Grandmama will kill us if we get our hair wet. We just got pressed.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

When I’d started coming to this beach as a child, it had been free. Now we had to pay a park ranger. He had given us a piece of paper to put on the dashboard of our car. It was an early Sunday morning, right in the middle of the church hour, so we’d been able to choose a quiet stretch without anyone around. I’d brought three chairs, and Mace sat in one of them, squinting. His fishing pole lay untouched at his side.

I took off my shorts, but I was still wearing my T-shirt. My swimsuit was dark blue with an orange floral print. It was impossible for a woman built like me not to show cleavage, but this swimsuit gave me decent support. Even so, I was shy about taking off the shirt.