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“What do you mean?”
Jamila’s father shook his head. “Doing legal work for farm workers. It’s draining the life from me.”
Jamila’s mother stopped fussing over the stove and sat beside him on the sofa. Jamila was all ears. Little Bobby’s attention didn’t stray from the TV.
“What’s got you so discouraged?” she said in a soft voice, though Jamila could hear her plain as day.
“It’s the people I’m up against. Frankly, racism is endemic to this place.”
“Shh. Keep your voice down.” Jamila’s mother urged, with a quick glance toward Jamila, who feigned indifference.
“I wonder how much longer I can keep this up. How much longer can I fight this system?” He gave Jamila’s mother a long look. “I don’t want our children growing up in a place where people feel entitled to call them niggers.”
“Okay, tell me where they don’t.”
Jamila felt a twinge of anxiety in her gut. She hated to hear her parents argue or even disagree. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it upset her.
After a bit of back an
d forth between her parents, Jamila’s mother rose and returned to the kitchen. She and Jamila prepared to serve dinner. At shortly after six, Jamila told her father dinner was almost ready. As she returned to the dining table, she saw the cartoon had been interrupted by an announcement. Her father rose to bring Bobby to the dining table. On his way, he raised the TV’s volume.
“We interrupt this program to inform you that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., has been shot outside his motel in Memphis, Tennessee. At this time, Reverend King is being taken to the hospital …”
The announcement was interrupted by a crash. Jamila looked at her statue of a mother. The casserole dish and its contents had scattered across the floor, sending ground beef, tomato sauce and noodles everywhere. Amid the shards and food, Jamila’s mother remained frozen. Never had Jamila seen such a look of sheer agony and panic on her mother’s face.
Turning toward her father, Jamila saw even more despair. What was happening? Who was this Reverend King they were talking about?
Bobby and dinner forgotten, her father walked to the sofa and simply collapsed onto it. “Oh, my God.”
*****
That night, the television was declared off-limits to Jamila.
“Go to your room and read, sweetheart.” Jamila’s mother half pleaded her demand.
“What’s happening?” Jamila asked. Everyone seemed to be going crazy. The house felt like it was filled with static electricity. One wrong word and a spark would blow them all up.
Jamila’s father watched television and kept shaking his head. “I don’t believe this.” He must have said it a hundred times.
“Laura is supposed to come over,” Jamila said.
“No.” The vehemence in her mother’s voice startled her. “Laura’s not coming over.” She bit her lip. “Not tonight.”
*****
Jamila tossed and turned while her parents stayed up late talking. She’d close her eyes and open them, the dim light from the living room leaking under her door. Jamila pounded her pillow and repositioned it several times, but she couldn’t sleep.
Meanwhile, her parents’ voices would grow louder and then become more hushed. By 1 A.M., Jamila couldn’t lie still a minute longer. She rose and crept to her door, opening it slowly. Her parents’ words drifted down the hall toward her.
“I don’t understand. You owe them nothing.” Her mother sounded frantic.
“I’m their attorney,” her father said, sounding resigned. “I owe them my allegiance.”
“You won’t be able to help anyone if you’re dead.”
Jamila sucked her breath in. Why would her father die? What did this have to do with anything?”
“Honey, I’ll be fine.”
