Trouble the Water by Rebecca Dwight Bruff

Author:Rebecca Dwight Bruff
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-63393-809-0
Publisher: Koehler Books
Published: 2018-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

I went back to Charleston the next day, and back to the restaurant, holding the thinnest hope that Mr. McKee would act on my behalf. Hope’s a mysterious thing; its absence burdens a man. I tried to remember Mama’s words about hope: “Hope maybe show up on the far side of trouble.”

Mama and I stayed up late, Christmas night, talking about my work at the dining room, and her life at the McKee house. Mama wanted to hear all about the people who were coming and going, and what I was hearing and learning. I told her about the way Mr. Rhett had his own table, and how he huffed around, and I told her about the men who struck me as smart. She laughed when I told her some of the words I’d learned by listening to bankers and lawyers, and she cried when I told her I’d been teaching myself to read.

She told me about the McKees’ little boy, Will, and how Liza Beth was becoming a young lady, at last.

“They all had a fine time at the big tea, when she finished at Mrs. Marcham’s little school. And it looks like she’ll be going on to Charleston or Savannah fore long, for more schoolin. Maybe you’ll see her round town!”

I tried to imagine Liza Beth finding her way around Charleston. Of course, she’d have her aunt, Mrs. Ancrum, right there to help her out.

Mama told me she’d been going to prayer meetings at the Baptist church every week on Wednesdays and hearing more and more talk about preparing for some kind of war. She’d heard folks worried about Yankees coming and taking everything away, that people in places like Beaufort could lose everything.

“We ain’t got much to lose, son, but lots of white folk, they scared. I guess havin lots means losin lots.” She said they prayed every Wednesday for folks to use sense and wisdom. “You can’t lose what you ain’t got.”

True, but I want the possibility of losing—the opportunity.

I told her about the meetings I’d been going to with Alfred and Tombo and Billy, and the big preacher-not-preacher Jeremiah.

“They talk like you, Mama, about choosing good, about not fighting if you can help it. That Jeremiah, he’s a big man; no one’s likely to pick a fight with him anyhow. It’s the small ones, like me, get messed with. But I been doin like he says, and it seems to be good counsel.”

She just smiled. She never said, “Told you so,” even when she did tell me so.

“What else does he say?” she asked.

“Well, he says that Mr. Douglass—remember him?—says he’s doing real good work, and things might change for all of us someday.”

She was quiet for a long time. We were thinking the same questions. Could things really change for us someday?

“Mr. Jeremiah says we have to always be looking out in front of us, let go of what’s in back of us. He says when you forgive somebody, it makes you a better person.

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