think about Vesey more and more. I began to think about the way his muscles were forming, his skin growing darker, his smile brighter. I began to draw his little house from my side of the river. When weâd steal away for short boat rides while Mama was at the store in town, I would take my sketchbook along with me. I began drawing Vesey as he stared off into the marsh. Heâd giggle occasionally and Iâd tell him to be quiet, to be still. Heâd grow serious and my charcoal would capture the light as it hit his brow, the round of his cheeks, the depth of his eyes.
I began hiding my sketches and lying to my parents when theyâd ask to see what Iâd drawn lately. I told them Iâd misplaced it or some other excuse. I didnât want them to see my drawings of Vesey. I thought theyâd reprimand me, threaten me to stay away from him. Tell me how unbecoming it was for a young girl to be off with a boy of his age and of his color. What would the neighbors think? they might say. I didnât want to hear any of it. I knew they would see in the care of my lines how important heâd become to me. He was the beauty I saw around me now, like the water and the trees and the wildlife, worthy to be drawn.
But my friend Margaret saw my notebook. She was over at my house when we were in the seventh grade. She peeked under my bed and before I knew it, she was flipping through, looking at my drawings of buildings and gates and rivers and Vesey. She stopped flipping, and I grabbed the book away from her.
âThatâs mine,â I said.
She reached to get it back. âBut I can see it. Iâm your friend.â
âItâs private.â
âWhy, Ally Green, I didnât know we had secrets from each other. I thought thatâs what friends are.â
I bit my lip and held on to the book, tight. Then her eyes glittered.
âI saw a black boy in there. Since when do you know a black boy?â
I couldnât speak.
âSince when do you know a black boy well enough to have him sit still and draw him? I want to meet him,â she said.
I shook my head. âI canât. Heâletâs just go out and play. I want to go take a walk orââ
âIâll find out who he is, Ally. Youâll tell me. Or Iâll tell the whole school youâre sweet on a black boy. You think that would go over well? Youâd beââ
âIâm not sweet on him! Heâs a friend. A neighbor. He lives there, across the creek. And you have to promise me youâll never tell a soul about him. Please. It . . . it would get him in a heap of trouble.â
âNot to mention you. So I can meet him?â Margaret pushed. I hated her in that moment.
âYeah. I guess. Sometime.â
âSoon,â she said. Then she smiled like the Cheshire cat, and my stomach sank to the floor.
Part Two
But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
âC. S . L EWIS
FOURTEEN
Pinky Promises
Ally
1959. I WAS NINE YEARS OLD. IT WAS THE SUMMER OF wailing. Howls and deep-throated cries could be heard all hours of the night coming from the other side of the river. Iâd lie in bed and wake from a dream, having incorporated the screams right into it. Iâd be panting, heart racing, and walk out into the halls, into the living room, and peer through the darkness toward Veseyâs house where a light would be on. I would imagine her face, contorted. Iâd send up a silent prayer, for there was nothing else I could do to comfort her. I was never convinced my prayers did anything at all because the wailing persevered.
The wake and funeral had already taken place, but it seemed family members would still come over day after day, bringing food maybe or sitting with Veseyâs mother and father, helping to ease the pain by their presence. I
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