Page 116 of The Reformatory

Uncle June flinched at the question. “Five months. Three weeks. Six days.”

“And then you left?”

“Yes, ma’am, I was sorry I ever set foot there. My advice is, once Robbie’s out, you should get out too. That place…” He shook his head, not finishing.

“My brother is Robert’s dorm master,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “And I understand. I feel like Percy’s been working there too long too. He told me after a time you start to have—”

“Dreams,” Uncle June finished. “You wake up mad. Pictures in your head. You… do things and later it seems like it was somebody else. Not at first. But by and by.”

All at once, Gloria knew that Mrs. Hamilton was who she seemed to be. The woman’s presence radiated courage and honesty—and raw strength she had not known since Mama. Maybe Uncle June knew too, because she had never heard him talk about his time at the Reformatory beyond a clipped word or two. He had never told her anything about dreams.

“Thank you,” Gloria said, near tears. “Thank you for coming to tell us about Robbie.”

“He calls himself Robert now,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “Like his father.”

“And that’s all?” Uncle June said. “You just came to give us a report? You sure Haddock ain’t done nothin’ else to him except set him off after haints?”

“As sure as I can be,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “But… I heard your family tried to use an NAACP lawyer to get him released. And I’ve heard about the backlash: how the Klan burned down his house. It’s a disgrace through and through. As an admirer of your family, I just wanted to offer my services in case there’s anything I can do to help.”

Help us get him free, Gloria thought so fervently that it felt like a shout.

Instead, Miz Lottie said, “The sheriff won’t let Robbie’s sister, Gloria, alone since we went to the courthouse. They tryin’ to use these children against their daddy. I can barely sleep at night ’cuz I’m ’fraid she’ll be locked up too.”

Mrs. Hamilton brought her eyes to Gloria’s, shining with kindness. “You need a place to stay,” she said, as if she had torn the thought from Gloria’s mind. “And I have a spare room. I would be honored, young lady, if you would stay with me.”

SUNNY HILL, a sign promised in the headlights as Mrs. Hamilton drove Gloria to the new Negro housing development near the county line, far from downtown Gracetown. Lights glowed in evenly spaced squares and rectangles from windows in two blocks of houses that looked identical, painted the same variations of lighter and darker brown. As Mrs. Hamilton squeezed her DeSoto into the narrow carport of a house on the corner, Gloria saw a splash of a lighter color bordering her bright-shingled rooftop. Mrs. Hamilton’s yard had no grass or any growth except weeds and saplings planted in rows, half-starved and browning in the summer sun. Like Lower Spruce, the road was packed dirt, but the newer cars in the driveways, fresh paint, and patterned curtains in the windows—like in a Sears catalog!—felt as far away from Miz Lottie’s street as Chicago.

As soon as Mrs. Hamilton’s car rocked to a stop and Benny Goodman’s orchestra on the radio went silent in mid-flurry, Gloria heard someone playing a piano a few houses down, tapping out the notes in a scale slowly, uncertain. Gloria was carried away by the music, imagining herself squeezing her narrow hips beside Mama’s thicker ones on the piano bench at Miss Anne’s house, Mama’s hand over hers, guiding her fingers along the grooves of the keys. Gloria felt a grief so sharp that her breath hitched.

“You all right?” Mrs. Hamilton said.

Gloria nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak without tears.

“Well, I doubt that’s so, but sometimes we say a thing to try to believe it,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “How many times a day do people ask me how I’m doing and I say, ‘Just fine, and you?’ as if that wasn’t the biggest lie ever told.” She gave a sour laugh, shaking her head. “Come on inside. I won’t ask you any more foolishness like that.”

Despite her sad heart, Gloria smiled a little.

A small dog was barking from across the street, from inside the house, paws scrabbling on the window. Gloria had never known anyone who pampered a dog inside. Even during winter, Papa’s dog, Freedom, had slept under the cabin with a blanket. This dog was trussed up with ribbons like a doll! She couldn’t wait to tell Miz Lottie that now she’d seen a seditty dog too.

“You like dogs?” Mrs. Hamilton said.

“No, ma’am. Especially big ones.”

“Me neither,” she said. “Not one bit.”

When Mrs. Hamilton opened her front door, Gloria smelled paint and promise, the way the new house Papa had been building by the lake had smelled. But she stopped shy of the doorway. Gloria felt like a hex on everyone she touched, anywhere her feet walked.

“You’re not scared of the sheriff?” Gloria said.

“Did you break the law trying to get an attorney?” Mrs. Hamilton asked. “Did you set fire to your own house?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why should I be afraid of the sheriff?”

“And you’re not scared of losing your job?”

“I don’t work for them,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “I’m a volunteer. If the wrong person caught wind, could they get mad and tell me to stop coming? I suppose so. But, no, I’m not afraid.”