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Chapter 124
I TRIED TO HURRY past the mob of reporters. I was becoming quite adept at avoiding them, but the more skilled ones—the fellows from New York and Washington—were relentless. They pulled at the sleeve of my jacket. Some actually planted themselves in the middle of my path.
Finally, I had to push them out of my way. It was the only way to get past these rude and opportunistic fellows.
“Mr. Corbett, do you think you have a chance?”
“Jonah, why’d you let a white man give your summation for you?”
“Mr. Stringer, what’s your angle? What’s in it for you?”
I felt someone push something into my hand and looked down to find a twenty-dollar bill.
A reporter I recognized from Washington was grinning at me. “That’s for a private interview, and there’s more if it’s really good!” I wadded the bill and tossed it back at him.
I heard Jonah calling to me across the throng: “See you at the War Room, half an hour.”
The reporters lost interest in me and turned on Jonah. The
War Room? What War Room? What war? Do you think of this trial as a war? Do you think you will lose?
I used this opportunity to escape. I crossed Commerce Street and hurried downtown, to the platform by the nearly deserted depot. One old colored man was attaching a feedbag to a fine brown horse hitched to a flat truck.
I found a bench in the shade near the stationmaster’s house from which I could survey most of Eudora.
The mob was still swirling around the courthouse, a jam of horses and wagons and honking automobiles.
Out on the edge of town, on the dirt road leading out to the Quarters, I saw columns of smoke rising into the sky, the camp-fires of Negroes who’d come from all over southern Mississippi to await the verdict. I had ridden through their camp yesterday, smelling the smoke of fatback, hearing the hymns they sang.
“Sing loud so He can hear you,” I said to the distant columns of smoke.
This was the first time in weeks I’d been alone, without the trial looming in front of me. It was time I did something I had put off for too long.
I took out a sheet of paper, turned the satchel over my lap, and started to write.
Dear Meg,
I have waited weeks to write this letter.
I have waited because I kept hoping that you would reply to my last. I envisioned an envelope with your return address on it. I imagined myself tearing it open to discover that you had changed your mind, that the thought of us living apart was something you had come to believe was a mistake. That you once again believed in the two of us. But that letter never arrived. I am alone, as separated from you and Amelia and Alice as if I were dead—or, perhaps, as if I’d never existed.
Meg, much has happened in the time we have spent apart. I have been involved in a highly provocative trial here in Eudora. I’m sure you’ve read about it in the newspapers. I will not waste time in this letter describing the trial, except to say that as I write to you now, the jury is deliberating the outcome.
I know that this might anger you, but I must tell the truth. I am convinced beyond any doubt that I am doing the right thing when I try to use my skills as a lawyer to help those who can’t find justice anywhere else.
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Meg, I know that I alone cannot right the wrongs of this society. But I cannot and will not stop trying. I know you feel that effort takes too much energy and time away from you, our girls, and my love for the three of you.
Should you decide to continue our marriage, I promise I shall try to be a better husband and father.
But I must also warn you that I will not (and cannot) abandon my ideals. As much as you may long for it, I cannot become just another government lawyer.
Please, Meg, give it another chance. We have so much to lose if we abandon each other. We have so much to gain if we try to move forward together.
My time here in Eudora is drawing to an end. Soon I will be coming back to Washington, and to you. I know now—I have learned—that Washington is my home. You are my home, Meg. The girls are my home.
I pray that when I open that front door, I will hear your sweet voice again, and you will speak to me with love.
