Beyond Molasses Creek by Nicole Seitz

Author:Nicole Seitz
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2011-12-22T05:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

Homesick

Ally

August 22, 1968

Dear Sketchbook,

It’s the last time I laid eyes on him that haunts me the most. It isn’t all the memories of our childhood together, fishing, talking, playing along the water’s edge; instead, it’s Vesey as a young man now, how he’s tall and filled out and not at all the way he used to be as a child. Not the gregarious boy who spouted off all the things he wanted to do with his life, but the one who’s resigned to quit everything and just farm.

Just farm. Am I a snob now that I’m going off to college? I suppose it is so. There are plenty of colleges where blacks can go, and I know Vesey is smarter than me. If life was fair he’d be the one going off to school and I’d be the one stuck at home.

How could his mother send him off to live with his uncle after she lost her only other son in Molasses Creek? I’ll never understand it. One day, I’ll go right over to her house and demand, woman to woman, an answer for how she could do it. But then that accusing finger will point back at me and tell me I’m the reason her son has no future. That she had to send him away from me before I got him into more serious trouble. I know she’s right too. I remember what happened to that Musser boy who looked the wrong way at Silvia Draught when she was getting on the bus. A group of white boys jumped off and chased him down the street. Knocked him silly. I only heard about what happened to him later. One would think those boys would get into serious trouble for fighting and skipping school, but the truth fell on deaf ears and all the boys were back to school on Monday, looking like the cats who ate the canary. And bragging about it.

Yes, I know what could’ve happened to Vesey if I’d continued to be his friend. It would not have been tolerated by a certain segment of society and worse things than farmwork could have happened to Mrs. Washington’s son.

I put my pen down. I try not to see him in the cars and trees and clouds as we drive along Highway 26 toward Furman. You’re starting a new life, Ally Green, one where there will be fun and learning . . . and boys.

Vesey is there in the field beside the road. In the reflection of a kitchen window.

I close my eyes.

“Margaret, your mother tells me you’re thinking of teaching, is that right?” Mama asks. She swivels her head so she can see Margaret in the seat beside me. My mother is wearing large white glasses that point up on the edges so she looks like a cat. Her hair is tucked beneath a brown hat and pinned in place. Simon and Garfunkel are on the radio singing about Mrs. Robinson.

Margaret is drop-dead gorgeous. Her hair is long and wavy blond, her makeup just right with pale lips and smoky eyes.

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