“Yes, you will!” Willie declared with a nod. “Yes, you will.”

  By the next organizing meeting of the NAACP, Mr. Butler opened the gathering with some splendid news.

  “Mr. Richardson, in his first case after passing the bar, has obtained a stay against the segregation of theaters in Oakland,” he exclaimed.

  The group murmured their approval; Naomi joined in.

  “Praise the Lord!” she proclaimed.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Smith, for bringing this issue to our attention,” Mr. Butler said.

  Naomi was gratified by the praise, but more grateful for their success at barring the practice. They lost the fight to ban the showing of The Birth of a Nation, but they’d won this battle.

  “We have shown we will not be humiliated and assigned second-class citizenship in the city of Oakland!” Mr. Butler declared.

  “If only that were true. We chop the head off one evil snake, and another slithers in to take its place!” Mrs. de Hart said.

  All eyes turned to the middle-aged woman.

  “The Santa Fe Tract improvement board is voting on a resolution for land segregation,” she explained. “If it is approved they will bring the proposal to the Oakland City Council.”

  Naomi’s throat tightened.

  “They wish to emulate the land segregation laws in Baltimore and Louisville?” Mr. Butler asked, his voice filled with dread.

  “We must stand up to them!”

  “We have to learn their plans.”

  “Can they force us to sell?” Naomi asked, on the verge of tears. She imagined telling Willie they were being chased out of their neighborhood. Would he forgive her if she lost all their savings? Could she forgive herself?

  “I understand that is the intent with the laws in other states,” Mr. Butler said. “The Supreme Court is hearing the case from the national NAACP.”

  “When will they argue and make a ruling?” Naomi asked.

  “This term, but we don’t know the precise dates,” Mr. Butler explained.

  “We can’t wait for that,” a voice to her left shouted out.

  “When is the Santa Fe Tract meeting?” Naomi asked.

  Mrs. de Hart replied, “In two weeks, on a Tuesday evening.”

  Naomi nodded. Willie would be home.

  “I will ask my husband to attend. He’s so light whites don’t see he is colored,” she offered. “Forewarned is forearmed.” She swallowed her fear and sighed.

  Mrs. Brown shook her head and said with sympathy, “You just bought your beautiful home in the Santa Fe Tract, didn’t you?”

  Naomi nodded. The sympathy caused her emotion to grow. She swallowed hard.

  “We will fight them with everything we have,” Mr. Butler declared. “Our friends on the city council will stand for our dignity.”

  Naomi wished she shared his confidence. She looked around the room at these finest of people. It was 1917! How could their lives be destroyed by hateful attitudes?

  Two weeks later Naomi and Gramma Jordan waited for Willie and Lisbeth to return from the Santa Fe Tract Improvement Club. Lisbeth readily agreed to attend with him despite the stress of Sadie’s illness. Though they were not the closest of families, they could count on one another in times of need. Naomi feared the worst when she saw Willie’s and Lisbeth’s pained demeanors.

  “I have tea.” Naomi led them to the kitchen, where Gramma Jordan was already seated.

  At the wooden table, Willie sighed and shook his head. “It was as sickening as you might imagine.”

  Lisbeth nodded. “Their comments were bathed in polite language, but racial contempt is the basis for the proposal.”

  “Are they bringing a law for the city council to vote upon?” Gramma Jordan asked.

  Looking near tears, Willie and Lisbeth both nodded.

  Naomi exhaled hard.

  “Lisbeth was the only person who spoke against. The only one,” Willie said.

  “How many were there?” Naomi asked.

  “Fourteen men,” Lisbeth said, “all strangers to me. Even though I live in the Santa Fe Tract, I wasn’t given any notice of this meeting—except from you. These gentlemen . . . or rather hateful men . . . live close to Market Street. They have given themselves a name and act as if they are representing our entire neighborhood.

  “They started this agitation because a white neighbor sold his house to a colored man. When the colored man rejected their suggestion that he move, they threatened him with creating a law to force him to sell.”

  “Orville Caldwell,” Willie said in a quiet voice.

  Naomi looked at him, her eyebrows drawn up in question.

  “One hateful man is doing this, willing to ruin our lives because of his beliefs,” her husband replied.

  “He is only one man,” Naomi said.

  “The others were indifferent and approved his proposal without seeming to have his underlying animosity,” Willie said. “Their indifference to our dignity somehow seems a worse slight than his passion.”

  “What law are they proposing?” Gramma Jordan asked.

  Willie pulled out a folded piece of paper and read, “No colored person may live or own property in a block where there is a majority of white residents.”

  “What are the polite arguments?” Naomi asked, anger in her voice.

  Willie read, from the same paper, “We have the right to maintain our property values from the deterioration that inevitably follows from mixing the races. There will be no burden restricted to either race. We will only provide a legal means of regulation of the conduct of men of either race who show a disposition to ignore and disregard the wishes of others.”

  Lisbeth took Gramma Jordan’s hand and said, “Jordan, surely the city council will not approve!”

  Naomi looked at their entwined hands: Lisbeth’s bony with age spots and Gramma Jordan’s still smooth, dark skin. So few white women cared enough about a colored woman to hold her hand in comfort.

  Naomi shook her head slowly. She didn’t share Lisbeth’s naïve certainty. Dread filled her belly: she looked at her husband and said, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I have lost us everything.”

  “Not everything, Naomi,” he replied, tenderness in his voice. “We will always have each other. And our children.” He looked at Gramma Jordan. “Our precious family. They can’t take that from us.”

  Naomi sucked in her breath; he was right, their family mattered more than this home. Willie wasn’t angry at her for them being in this position. She took her husband’s hand and said, “Thank you, Willie.”

  He seemed to be forgiving her more easily than she would be able to forgive herself. She feared she’d reached too high and they’d all suffer because of her ambition.

  WAR TO BE DECLARED

  The headline screamed at Naomi. Her outrage and fear weren’t diminished by the fact that she wasn’t surprised. The news had been building toward this outcome for weeks. The increasing likelihood of the United States joining in the European War preoccupied their dinner conversations. Naomi was absolutely certain they should not send young men to die in foreign lands, but Congress wasn’t going to take into account one colored woman’s opinion. Nor were her sons. They were swept up in the fervor. Willie was likely too old to serve, but she wondered if he would go too if allowed.

  Joseph stood behind her and read over her shoulder.

  “April 2nd, 1917. Mark my word,” he declared, excitement in his voice, “this day changes everything—gives me more options when I finish school. Paris here I come!”

  “So long as you do graduate!” Naomi declared, hoping she kept the panic out of her voice.

  “I will, Ma,” Joseph said. “There’s no way I’m going to let Cedric hold a high school diploma over me.”

  Naomi laughed. Sibling rivalry might work in her favor.

  For four days the paper was filled with politicking and speculation, but no congressional vote. On the fifth, Naomi read the sickening headline:

  WAR IS DECLARED

  VOLUNTEERS ARE CALLED FOR

  Volunteers were needed—120,000 single men age eighteen to twenty-five—or a draft would be instituted. No amount of maternal persuasion would stop her sons from jumping to the front of this line.

  A blanket of dread draped over her heart. She picked up the paper and went over to her mother’s flat to share the pain of this news. How long would the war last? she wondered, knowing that was how long this fear would be her constant companion.

  CHAPTER 16

  MAY

  May 1917

  May carried scarlet and white carnations into the kitchen. “I left the mottled ones growing,” she told her grandmother with a scoff. “I don’t know what they stand for.”

  She pinned two white flowers to her dress. One on her left shoulder to honor her mother and one on her right to signal her disapproval of the war. Now that it was here, she was against sending young men across an ocean to kill or be killed. Every unmarried man was preparing to leave his family behind to face horrific challenges. They were fortunate that married men were being allowed to stay home—for now.

  May put on a mask and brought a scarlet carnation and a white one to the sickroom. Momma was asleep, her loud, shallow breathing filled the dim space. The sick woman wasn’t nearly strong enough to attend church but would be happy to be part of the Mother’s Day service in this way.

  May set the flowers on the bedside. For Lisbeth Johnson and for world peace. Unwilling to disturb Momma’s rest, she didn’t take her hand. Instead she held her hands out and prayed silently in her heart and mind: God, Spirit of Love, help us to find a cure for Sadie Wagner that she may have a long and healthy life.

  She wished there was more to do, but their doctor didn’t have a cure. It would be months or years before this limbo was behind them. Momma was at once a ghost in their home and a living presence that demanded attention. May wanted it to be over, but not if it meant life without her mother. She took a deep breath.

  “I love you, Momma,” May whispered. Her mother’s shallow breath filled her ears as she closed the door.

  In the kitchen, Nana Lisbeth wore three carnations: two white for her deceased mothers, Mattie and Ann, and one white to protest the war. She was staying home to care for Momma but would participate from afar.

  “F . . . f . . . ,” Kay Lynn declared, pointing with a pudgy finger and with her eyebrows arched in glee.

  A wave of love crashed over May at the sight of a scarlet carnation on Kay Lynn’s dress. That flower was for her, for May, to honor that she was a mother now. So much had changed since this ritual last year.

  “Yes, you have a carnation too!” May told her one-year-old. “Thank you, Nana.” May hugged her grandmother and left with her daughter for Sunday worship and supper. It hurt to leave Momma behind, but it felt good to be going somewhere besides work at the market.

  An envelope addressed to May Wagner rested on the table in the entryway when she returned home from work.

  John’s handwriting sent a jolt through her. Without removing her coat or setting down her pocketbook, she ripped it open.

  May 18th, 1917

  Dear May,

  Last week, I was most surprised to see you carrying a young child—who I can only presume to be ours. I have often regretted how things ended between us, but never more than on that day. I must speak with you. I will return next Tuesday at noon with the greatest hope that you will have lunch with me.

  Fondly yours,

  John

  A twenty-dollar bill accompanied the note. May swallowed. Anger flooded through her, but if she were honest, there was longing too. She’d cried too many times over these months about him, or being an unwed mother, or simply feeling inadequate; she didn’t know. She wanted him to regret his choice, change his mind, and beg her for forgiveness. But she didn’t know if she wanted to give it to him or to welcome him into their lives.

  May looked for Nana. She waved the envelope, a question in her eyes.

  “He stopped by a few hours ago. He asked to see his child, but I refused,” Nana Lisbeth said. “I did give him an envelope, paper, and pen.”

  May handed her the note to read. She watched her grandmother read the words from the man who betrayed her.

  “Will you meet with him?” Nana Lisbeth asked.

  May shook her head. Then shrugged. “What do you advise?” May asked.

  “He is Kay Lynn’s father,” Nana Lisbeth said, an unspoken reminder in the tone of her voice.

  She sighed. Her father had briefly intruded upon her life, causing an enormous rift between her and her mother—and then disappeared entirely again. She’d yet to ask Momma the painful truth about Heinrich. She didn’t know who she was protecting—her mother, her father, or herself. But she wasn’t willing to upset her extremely ill mother to hear the story.

  Was John like Heinrich? Would Kay Lynn be better off knowing her father or being kept from him? Unlike her father, John didn’t wait more than twenty years to return. She decided meeting him would not harm her daughter.

  “I’ll be at work on Tuesday at noon. Can you send him to the market when he returns?”

  Nana Lisbeth nodded.

  “And thank you for keeping him away from Kay Lynn . . . at least for now,” May said.

  “It’s your decision,” Nana Lisbeth reminded her.

  May didn’t realize what a burden that responsibility would seem.

  May saw John through the front-window glass of the market. He’d scarcely changed in the nearly two years since she’d seen him. Still handsome, with his lovely brown hair and eyes; his teeth straight and white. Before he could step inside she came out with a jumble of emotions. She wanted to feel nothing toward him, but he made her heart race—in desire and fury in equal measure.

  “Hello, John,” she said, consciously keeping her voice even.

  He leaned in to kiss her cheek, but she shook her head and stepped back.

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said; nerves showed in his shiny brow and his grip on his hat. She glanced at his hands, that she’d so dearly loved holding. “I thought we could eat at the Claremont?”

  “I have fifteen minutes, then I must return to work,” she said, rejecting his plan. “We can sit here while I eat my lunch on my break.”

  He nodded, looking well reprimanded and joined her on the low wall.

  “You are a cashier?”

  “Yes,” she replied, leaving out any details.

  “Why didn’t you . . .” He sounded accusatory, then softened his tone. “I wish I’d known you kept the baby.”

  She raised an eyebrow to show her outrage.

  “I thought we agreed . . . ,” he said.

  “Agreed?!” she questioned.

  “You agreed to take care of the situation, did you not?” John replied, blinking in uncertainty.

  Confusion and anger pounded in her. How could he have taken that from their brief conversation?

  “I do not believe I owe you an explanation for my choices.”

  “The child is mine, yes?” he asked, staring at her intently.

  “Of course.”

  “Please, tell me about him,” he begged.

  “Her name is Kay Lynn. She was born March seventeenth of last year.”

  “Saint Patrick’s Day? That’s memorable!” He smiled, looking right into her eyes. He was trying to make amends, to learn about their child.

  “And not a bit of Irish in her,” May replied, slipping into a familiar banter.

  John nodded with a smile. “I should like to meet her.”

  May inhaled slowly. She swallowed. John stared at her with his dark caramel eyes—a similar color to Kay Lynn’s. Would he accept her?

  “She’s not like other babies,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  May swallowed. She studied John’s face as she spoke. “I intended to adopt her out, but she seized soon after she was born; her left side is weak. The doctor recommended she go to Napa.”

  Kay Lynn still hadn’t had another seizure, but she was just over a year. The doctor said she still might have more. Her left side didn’t work like her right, but she sat up, crawled in her own fashion, and fed herself. She might never learn to walk without crutches or braces. Would she ever speak in full sentences? It was too soon to know, but she understood what she was told as well as most one-year-olds.

  Nana Lisbeth was adamant there was nothing about Kay Lynn that would prevent her from living a full and beautiful life, and that the judgment of perfectionists or stares of strangers in the future didn’t take away her inherent worth and dignity.

  “She’s an epileptic?” he asked, his eyebrows drawn in. Was that confusion or contempt?

  Protectiveness rose in May. She bristled at the need to explain Kay Lynn to John, or prove her value to a person who should already love her. “I must return to work.”

  May stood up abruptly, turned her back to John, and left him on the wall. It felt good to be walking away from him this time.

  A few days later there was another note in John’s handwriting waiting for her when she arrived home after work.

  May,

  I should very much like to meet our little Kay Lynn. Please telephone me at SR2223 so we can arrange a visit.

  John

  May exhaled. Confused and angry, but also curious, she slipped the letter in her pocket. She found her daughter in the kitchen watching from the high chair as Nana Lisbeth cooked supper. Kay Lynn squealed and a huge, crooked grin showed her utter delight when she saw her mother. May returned the sentiment by scooping up Kay Lynn and covering her with kisses. She’d never felt this way about anyone before and longed to do whatever was best for her child. Whether that meant including, or excluding, John from Kay Lynn’s life, May hadn’t decided.

  “How’s Momma today?” May asked.

  “No change,” Nana Lisbeth replied. “She slept most of the day as usual. She managed to drink her milk. She’s preferring it warm.”

  Nana Lisbeth pointed to a pan on the stove. May returned Kay Lynn to the high chair, despite the girl’s protest, filled a mug with warm milk, and brought it to her mother’s sickroom.