Flowers in the Snow (5 page)

“What about her?” Alma asked, pointing over at Beatrice who was still feeling as though she were intruding.

“Go on home,” the woman said, almost as a question.

“She needs a drink or something first. She just ran near-on two miles. Plus those boys might still be out there,” Alma insisted, looking at her mother as though she were being unreasonable.

“You know full well she can’t be coming in our house,” the woman replied with a choked out laugh. “I’m grateful for what she did, but it don’t work like that.”

“Ain’t it worse for her to be standing out here where anyone can see her? Seems like inside at least her white skin ain’t catching the sun and glowing for everyone to see. We’ve got the most private house here, but should we count on that?”

Beatrice looked down at her arms and then up at the sun as though she had some kind of magic reflecting power she didn’t know about.

“Don’t be smart,” the woman scolded, swatting gently at her daughter’s backside as she reluctantly waved Beatrice to come in the house.

Beatrice hesitated only a second then looked around and hurried herself in the front door of the dirt-floor shack. She’d never been in a house without a real floor before. The place was old, and the kitchen didn’t have a single updated appliance in it. The stove was wood-burning and clunky looking. The icebox wasn’t even electric, which meant they still had ice delivered to them. She didn’t know anyone who was still doing that. The beams of the roof were exposed and barely looked like it could keep rain out if needed. How could anyone live like this, she wondered.

“I’m Winnie. This here is my daughter, Alma. What’s your name?” Pouring out a glass of water from a pitcher that sat on the crooked kitchen table, Winnie eyed Beatrice again.

“My name is Beatrice, but I hate that name,” she admitted for the first time out loud. No one had listened to her in so long she had forgotten anyone might actually care what she thought. “It’s my grandmother’s name, and she was a mean old coot. Who wants to be named after somebody mean?”

“Ha,” Winnie hollered. “Well ain’t that the truth. So why not shorten it a bit. You could be Bea. Or Betty. I had a cousin named Betty, she was sweet as a peach pie.”

“I could be named after her.” Beatrice smiled, but it slipped off her face when Winnie slammed her hand down on the table with a loud laugh.

“I can see the resemblance,” she jested. “Now, Betty, tell me what in the world you were doing standing between my baby girl and a baseball bat? Don’t you know any better?”

“I’m starting to think I might be dumb or something. Everyone keeps telling me how the world is and how I’m supposed to act and feel and stuff, but I don’t. It keeps confusing me and I keep getting everyone all mad.” Betty felt tears dripping down her cheeks. Maybe she was just tired from the running, but really it was her heart that felt tired. She didn’t bother crying when the girls at school cut her straps on her jumper. She didn’t cry when her mother kept sending her to bed earlier and earlier every night. But here she couldn’t help it.

“Girl, why are you crying? Don’t be doing all that in here. You’ll turn our dirt floor to mud,” Winnie joked, but it was clear by the look in her large round eyes she felt bad for Betty.

She blinked away the tears and stared at Winnie, taking in the differences in her features. Winnie’s nose was flat and wide, her nostrils flaring when she let out her hardy laugh. Her teeth were pearly white and when she flashed them her whole face lit up.  “I’m sorry,” Beatrice sniffled, trying to wipe the tears away. But they just kept coming, as did her confessions. “I’m just so lonely. Ever since last month nobody will talk to me. And if they do it’s just to call me names and shove me around. My own kin thinks there’s something wrong with me, so there must be. I keep getting told one thing and doing another. I never should have given that man that soda, but he was so hurt.”

“That was you?” Alma asked, her dark molasses eyes going wide. “You’re the little girl who helped Amos after they beat him?”

“No,” Winnie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You must be joking with me here.”

“I saw him lying there all beat up, and I just thought about what I learned at church. I thought God would want me to help him. But now everyone is telling me you ain’t really people so God doesn’t care about you the same way.” Betty spoke with flailing arms as she paced around the tiny old kitchen trying to get it all off her chest.

“We is too,” Alma bit back angrily. “God loves me just fine.”

“Hush your mouth, child. It isn’t her fault that’s what they teach her. How’s she supposed to know if that’s all she ever hears?” Winnie reminded her daughter.

Betty was nearly sobbing now, her wet eyes darting around the room as she tried to gather her thoughts. “So if God does care about you then I’m supposed to. The Bible says that clear as day. But I’m supposed to honor my mother and father, too; the Bible says that. My daddy says you’re dirty. That you’re dumb folks who don’t deserve the same things we have. If they let you vote then you’ll take over the country and muck it all up. I don’t think I want that to happen either. How am I supposed to know what to do?”

“You are a dumb-dumb,” Alma said, balling her hands into fists, looking ready for a fight. She’d been the one to insist Betty come in, and now it looked like she was ready to toss her out. This was the problem with the world as far as Betty could see it. No one made any sense to her. They all changed their minds too quickly.

“Alma, shut your lips. Let the girl get it all out,” Winnie demanded as she shot her hand up and halted her daughter from saying another word.

“Simpson, the boy with the baseball bat. I’ve known him since we were in diapers. Now it’s like I don’t know him at all. My daddy, I thought he was just in this club or something, and now I’m hearing all this stuff about who the Klan is.”

“You’re daddy is Klan?” Winnie asked, dropping the towel she was holding to the floor. The shock in her eyes was enough to rattle Betty to the core.

“Yes,” Betty answered meekly, still unsure of the ebb and flow of this conversation and what it seemed to be doing to them.

“Girl, you need to drink up that water and be on your way. You can’t be caught here. Not in my house,” Winnie insisted as she moved around the kitchen nervously. “If I’d had known that from the start I wouldn’t have let you in.”

“What else can they do to me? Everyone already treats me like I’m a leper. I don’t care if they know I’m here.” Betty shrugged, trying to look confident and brave.

“It ain’t what they do to you, dummy,” Alma cut in, “it’s what they’d do to us if they found a little white girl here who belongs to the Klan. It don’t matter what you tell them you were doing here. They’d have us hung up in a tree before we even had time to explain.”

“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time,” Winnie said, seeming to center herself again. “You seem like you have a good heart. But these times aren’t for people with good hearts. It’s too dangerous for that. You need to go on home and do whatever your daddy tells you to. Don’t be letting any of those other thoughts in your head. I thank you for what you did for my daughter today, but next chance you have to do something like that again—don’t.”

“I don’t belong anywhere,” Betty croaked as she placed her glass on the table and shuffled toward the door. “If I try to be a Christian my family will hate me, and everyone I know will torture me. When I try to help, even you people don’t want me around.” Betty used her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “And if I don’t help, if I stand by and watch it happen, I’ll hate myself. There ain’t no way to get it right.”

“You’re just a little girl. I bet you’re what, eleven?” Winnie asked with softness in her eyes again. She was clearly as tormented and confused as Betty was, and that brought Betty an odd comfort. Being alone in anything, even sadness, feels terrible.  “Alma is only ten. You both got a long bit of growing up to do. When you’re a big girl, a grown person, you can do more if you still want to. But right now, little girls can’t get anything done. Not in this kind of world. You just need to keep your head down long enough. Things will either change or you’ll get big enough to try to help change them yourself. But it ain’t for little girls to be worrying about.”

“So you’re saying just listen to my daddy? Listen to the folks telling me what I should do?” Betty asked, looking desperate for anyone to give her the answer.

“Yes,” Winnie nodded. “That’s what you do.”

“They’ll tell me to kick a man like Amos. They’ll tell me to hold Alma down while they teach her a lesson for wandering onto their property. I should turn my nose up to the woman who cleans house for the Davis family and act like she’s not there. I should stand with my arms linked together with my family, blocking the way of anyone looking to vote. I don’t want to do all those things, Winnie. I don’t want to.” Betty’s tears fell again and her shoulders slumped over. For a brief second there was no color in this room. Just a terrified child and a comforting mother.

Winnie pulled Betty in for a hug so tight she nearly lost her breath. The warmth of her arms around her did the trick. The last time she’d been hugged was the day her mother had her first miscarriage. Betty had been a form of comfort for her mother but soon that twisted to something much different, and hugging was no longer something they did.

Her hug with Winnie was only a few heartbeats long, but for that time Betty felt safe.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you,” Winnie admitted. “There’s no answers in this world. Even if we wish there were, these problems are as old as time and they aren’t going anywhere.”

“What do you do when you feel like this,” Betty asked, keeping her face pressed against Winnie.

“’Round here we cook. Sometime a recipe is the only thing we can control. Sometimes things feel better on a full belly.” Winnie nodded her head and smiled down at Betty, trying to brighten the darkness of reality.

“Really?” Betty asked, astonished at how easy that answer was. Could everything really be solved just like that?

“No, not really. All of your problems are still waiting for you on the other side; you’re just more ready to deal with them if you’ve been fed properly. You know anything about cooking?” Winnie asked, raising an eyebrow at Betty.

“No, but I’m plenty skilled in eating,” Betty said with a grin, the first big smile she’d had all day.

“Girl, in this house if you ain’t mixin’ it and you ain’t fixin’ it, you ain’t eatin’ it. Go on and wash your hands in that basin, and I’ll show you how to make the pecan pie we’re having for dinner tonight.”

“Yes ma’am,” Betty called out, regaining her voice as the tears stopped falling.

“Now hurry up though. You need to be well out of here before my husband comes home. He’ll drop dead of a heart attack if he see’s a little white girl wearing one of my aprons.”

Betty’s eyes lit with excitement as she clapped her hands together. “I get an apron?”

“You do, but once you have it on it means you gotta do your share of the work.” Winnie pointed her finger at Betty in mocked sternness.

“I promise,” Betty assured, her eyes wide with enthusiasm. “Thanks for being my friends.”

“We aren’t friends,” Alma said curtly as she moved to the other side of the kitchen and readied herself to help with the cooking.

“Alma,” Winnie spat back, not seeming to need any more words than that to be understood by her daughter.

“But we ain’t enemies either,” Alma shrugged, tossing an apron over to her. For the first time in a month, Betty’s stomach didn’t ache.

“Betty,” she said to herself. She loved the way it sounded on her lips. The way the new name made her feel. Reborn. The skip had returned to her step as she cut through the woods and returned to Alma’s house the following day. She’d paid close attention on her way home last night to be sure she’d remember the way. All day at school while people acted as though she were invisible, she daydreamed of the pecan pie they’d made the day before. She could almost taste the sweet sugary syrup they’d drizzled over the top of the pie. Just like yesterday, she’d stop feeling left out and start smiling again. All she had to do was make it to Alma’s house.

At the top of the ridge she looked down at the tiny house and smiled. She knew she needed to be careful approaching the door as to not draw attention to her. There were no houses close by to Alma’s, and if she stood up here for a minute she could make sure no one was lurking around. It was foolproof.

Once she was satisfied the area was clear, she set off in a run toward the front door. She wasn’t dumb anymore. Winnie had shed a little light on how things worked in this world, and Betty was determined to be careful. With a quick and quiet knock on the door she held her breath, looking over her shoulder again and again.

When the door did open it was just a crack, with Alma’s little eye peering through. “What in the hell?” she stammered, swinging the door open and yanking Betty all the way in.

“What are you cussing about?” Winnie asked, rounding the corner to the kitchen, a batch of laundry under her arm. “What in the hell?” she exclaimed, parroting her daughter’s words.

“What?” Betty asked, looking down over her floral patterned dress as if she’d spilled something on it that was drawing this type of reaction.

“Why are you here? You can’t just be showing up out of nowhere,” Winnie scolded, tossing the laundry on the table as she folded her arms over her chest. It was all very different than the open arms Betty had felt just yesterday.

“But we cooked together. We made the pie. I thought I’d come back today and we could eat some together.” Betty couldn’t understand why they were acting as though she’d done something wrong. Had yesterday meant nothing to them? Was it just some prank they were playing on her like everyone else in her life?

“We didn’t invite you back. I thought you’d have noticed that.” Alma moved to stand next to her mother and folded her arms the same way. At the sight of that, Winnie groaned and changed her posture, letting her arms drop down to her side. She nudged her daughter to do the same. She might be angry, but she didn’t want to be a bad example for Alma, and Betty could appreciate that.

“You gotta learn how things work, little girl,” Winnie continued, though the edges of her face were softer now. “You aren’t out here visiting your cousin. You don’t just walk up and knock on the door whenever the mood strikes you. I told you, you coming around here is too dangerous for all of us. Yesterday you were having a hard day and I felt for you, but I think you should go on home now. I’m grateful for how you helped my Alma but you can’t be here.”

“It wasn’t just a hard day.” Betty forced her voice to stay level even though she wanted to cry again.

Alma’s forehead crinkled as she furrowed her brows at Betty. “You been treated bad for like a month. We get treated like that every day.”

“That seems like a good reason to be my friend then. If everyone is treating us bad we should be good to each other. I’ve been trying to read stuff over the last couple weeks since I helped that man by the fountain. I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on better. I’m trying,” Betty said earnestly as her eyes pleaded for a lifeline.

Alma rocked her head back and forth with attitude as she explained the world to Betty. “In a couple weeks everyone’s gonna stop calling you names. They’ll look at you and forget. Ain’t nobody gonna look at me and forget my skin is black. And right about that time when they start being nice to you again, I’d bet my mother’s biscuit recipe you’ll forget all about us.”

With a light thwack to the back of the head, Winnie silenced her daughter. “Don’t go betting my biscuit recipe on anything. That’s sacred. And quit being so mean to this little girl. She saved your behind yesterday, and I don’t know if you even said a proper thank you. Well, go on.”

“Thank you,” Alma said through pursed lips as she rubbed the back of her head where her mother whacked her.

“So I can stay?” Betty asked clapping her hands together in excitement.

“Why do you want to?” Winnie asked, still not looking convinced. “Why do you want to be here with us?”

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I was up most of the night. I don’t want to be ignorant. Yesterday you said some things I never heard before. There are things I thought about all colored folks, and you showed me they were lies. I want to know the truth. All of it. I want you to tell me everything.” Betty’s eyes were wide, and her face was lit with hunger to learn.

“Hell no,” Winnie said waving her hands like she was shooing the idea away. “What do you want me to be? Your conscience? Your history teacher? Your priest? I’m not going to sit around and tell you everything you know is a lie. I don’t want that burden.”

“I want to know what’s true. You could tell me,” Betty pleaded.

“Did you know I’m a teacher? Have been for over a decade. Everything I believe in is based on shaping young minds. But this, no, this is too much. You know how dangerous it would be?” Winnie shook her head adamantly as though she were trying to keep the idea from getting hold of her brain.

“Isn’t it more dangerous to have bigots and ignorant people running around? You could do something about that. You could tell me how it really is,” Betty countered with a victorious grin. She’d spent most of the night thinking through her response to the argument she might receive when she asked Winnie to teach her. She was proud of what she’d come up with.

Winnie drew in a deep breath and looked down at Betty as though she was wearing on her last nerve. “There’d be rules,” she huffed out, sinking into a kitchen chair. “We’d need to come to an understanding about things first.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Betty answered, her eyebrows rising in hopeful anticipation.

Winnie lost her breath for a moment, and Alma choked a bit, both of them looking at Betty again in that way that made her feel like she had spinach in her teeth or something.

“What? Did I do something wrong already?” Betty asked sheepishly.

“No,” Winnie said, leaning over and closing her daughter’s mouth that had dropped wide open. “You’re just the first white girl to ever call me ma’am. I’ve been called lots of names in my day, but that isn’t one of them.”

“Want me to stop?” Betty asked, wondering what else she was supposed to call her.

“It’s mighty nice of you to do it, but you can just call me Winnie. I think that’ll do fine. Now we need to go over the rules.”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean yes, Winnie.”

“You will not come down here unannounced like you’re delivering us a newspaper. When you leave, we’ll talk about the next time you come. You’ll come in through the woods and go ’round to the door on the side of the house. It’s your job to make sure nobody follows you or sees you coming or going. And most important, you don’t tell anyone you’re here. Not your priest. Not your best friend. Not your mama. Even if you believe someone won’t think nothing of it. They will. There’s no wiggle room on that one. If you care about keeping us from getting hurt, you’ll take that seriously.”

“Cross my heart,” Betty promised.

“There’s more. And this one is a big one. I’ll answer your questions the best I know how. And I’ll be as honest with you as I can be. But what I won’t do is fill your head with things so you can turn around and think you’re a Freedom Rider or something. You are a child. You aren’t gonna go out and fix everything. You aren’t gonna take up the fight. I’ll tell you what’s happening in the world but I’m not telling you to go take up the cause. Can you keep that straight between those two pigtails of yours?”

“Yes, I just have one question,” Betty chirped as she slid into the seat across from Winnie. “What’s a Freedom Rider?”

“I’ll answer your question when you answer one for me,” Winnie said, narrowing her eyes and scrutinizing Betty. “You are eleven years old. Your daddy is in the Klan. How in the world do you know so little about the way things work?”

Betty felt her cheeks tingle with embarrassment. She wasn’t blind to the fact that she was different than the other kids. She wasn’t deaf to the chatter about her being a very young eleven. But explaining that out loud felt like she had a mouth full of cotton.

“I’m in my head a lot. Mama calls me a daydreamer and Daddy calls me dummy. There isn’t anything wrong with me really; well, I don’t think so. I score average on all my school stuff. It’s just that, every chance I get, my brain just goes into another world all its own. I guess I haven’t been paying attention. Plus my folks don’t talk much to me. Mama tells me about religion, and Daddy is just quiet.”

With a knowing nod Winnie folded her hands and rested them on the table. “I’ll tell you what I know about the Freedom Riders while we pit some cherries.”

“Cherry pie is my favorite,” Betty squealed making a funny face at Alma.

“Don’t get too excited,” Alma shrugged. “Mama has a rule for everything, including pies. No eating pie until you know how to make the whole thing yourself.”

“Then I’ll be a fast learner.”