Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman

Author:Ellen Feldman [Feldman, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers UK
Published: 2009-04-20T23:00:00+00:00

The third person who came to the apartment while Ruby was staying with me was my mother. She telephoned one afternoon to say she was in town on league business, and if I was going to be home later that afternoon, she would stop by.

“I have someone staying with me,” I said.

A moment of silence hung between us. She was wondering if the guest was a man, though she would never ask.

“Would you rather I not come?” she said instead.

“No, I’d like you to meet her.”

I could hear the relief in her voice as she told me she would be there a little after five.

My mother was gracious to Ruby, but Ruby was still terrified of her. The ramrod posture and aristocratic upper lip had cowed more worldly women, and men, than Ruby Bates. But the visit was brief, and nothing untoward occurred, until I walked my mother downstairs to put her in a taxi.

“I suppose you know what you’re doing,” she began as I closed the door behind us.

“I’m trying to save the boys and to help her.”

“You could do that without taking her to live with you,” she said as we came out onto the street.

I raised my arm to hail a cab. “She needed a place to stay until the trial.”

“I’m sure there are others, some more closely connected to the case, who have apartments.”

“And thank heavens I got to her before they did.” A taxi pulled up to the curb. “I’m getting a terrific story out of this.”

She turned to me. “You’re looking for more than a story,” she said, then kissed me on the cheek and climbed into the cab before I could answer.

I stood looking after her as the car pulled away. I knew what she meant, but she was wrong. I was not trying to compensate for the past. And even if I were, what was wrong with that?

Ruby was waiting when I returned to the apartment. “I reckon your ma wasn’t none too happy to find me here.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Way she looked at me. Just like my ma did one time when I carried home a stray cat.”

“You’re not a stray cat, Ruby.”

She shrugged. “She’s a fine-looking lady all the same. Your pa looks nice too.”

I was surprised. “How do you know what my father looks like?”

“You got them pictures on the table yonder.” She crossed the room and picked up one of the silver-framed photographs. “I reckoned that was your ma even before she come here, on account of you feature her some. So’s I reckon the man with her got to be your pa. He’s real fine-looking. I don’t mean just handsome. You can tell from his face he wouldn’t up and sell a house out from under kin.”

The line about selling a house from under kin was a reference to her own father. Harry had wanted me to tone down the portrait of Mr. Bates in Ruby’s life story. The party liked its proletariat high-minded and hardworking. But I had dug in my heels and written the man Ruby had described.

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