Post 22: The Broken Chain

Mae lived in a small but well-maintained shotgun-style house, with a wrap-around porch. Her yard was small but profuse with flowers, and her house was pretty much identical to the eight other houses on her block. She had worked for thirty years to pay off the mortgage, with no help from a husband who had disappeared in 1960 and never came back. “It’s small, but it’s mine,” she would say.

When we reached her house, I leapt from the driver’s side, around the chrome and polish of the Cadillac’s hood, and opened her car door. Mae allowed me to help her out and gladly took my arm as we made our way to her front porch. As we walked, her face betrayed her thoughts, and by the time we reached her porch swing, she wore a satisfied look and turned to me to speak.

            “Let’s sit.” We sat, and Mae smoothed her dress, sat her cake beside her, opened her purse, and picked out a single Lucky Strike. I fumbled quickly for my lighter and lit her cigarette.            

“And just what are you doing with a lighter?”

I grinned, pulled my own pack of Marlboro Lights out of my jacket pocket, lit one, and exhaled upward toward the sagging porch roof.

            “Don’t tell Mama.”

            “You’re a grown man, Drew. You do what you do. And, by the way, she already knows. Smelled it on your shirts.”

            “Oh.”

            We sat and smoked for a few minutes, and it was nice just to sit. I had almost forgotten the question that was hanging in the late afternoon air, or perhaps I was hoping she had decided to let it go when Mae, looking straight ahead at nothing in particular, began to speak.

            “Drew, yes. Your mother knew better. But what she knew started in a different time. She had a lot of unlearning to do about black people, about things she learned. You know, when she was a little girl.” Mae paused and scanned my face for signs of understanding. Satisfied with what she saw, she continued. “But, just to be clear, I believed then and still believe now that no matter why, or when, or who uses that word, it is hurtful. And it goes beyond offensive: it is vile.”

She took a long, slow drag of her cigarette, and seemed to be measuring the words to speak. Her eyes took on a melancholy cast; they were the same eyes Mama and I saw that Easter weekend over twenty-five years earlier.

Mae turned and put her large, soft hand over mine. “I’ll say this carefully, Drew, because you know I love you and your mother and your daddy and Kit. Your mother, and Natalie, and you that afternoon? You were all just thoughtless. And by that, I mean, specifically, there was an absence of thought, no motive, nothing mean going on. And I know that in my heart. But it still made me sad.”

            Mae stubbed out her Lucky, set her purse on the swing, smoothed her hair, and stood. “You know, Drew, I’ve had a lot of time to think things over, and I’ve decided I’m glad you and Natalie came back from the creek and dropped—what do they call it now, the N bomb? Really, I’m glad you did. You see, in a few sad seconds, a powerful thing happened.”

            I looked her in the eye, waiting for her to go on, feeling an echo of past shame and embarrassment.

            “You broke the chain, Drew. Whatever casual or careless disregard for a whole race of people—my people—and their dignity, whatever had been passed on to your mama, whatever it was, for her, it stopped that afternoon. It stopped in your mama, and she stopped any possibility of it being passed on to you. Don’t you see? You and your mama, you broke the chain. I know it’s just a word, but it’s a powerful word. And stopping people from using it? Well, that’s a start, honey. It’s a start.”

            Mae gazed with satisfaction at her dahlias that bordered the walk and the edge of the porch. Her gaze, and her gentle smile, returned. “Of all the crazy things you children invented, your cookin’ pot of full of mud was the best. That afternoon, I got to witness a change. For the better.”

Drawing me to her, we hugged. I was startled by how frail she felt through her navy and white cotton suit. “So, of course, Drew, of course, I remember that afternoon. I hope you will, too. For as long as you live on this earth.”

            It was the last time I saw Mae. The party was in August, and by November, a stroke had claimed Mae’s movement. Before I could get back home for Thanksgiving, she was gone.

Years passed before Mama and I talked again of Mae or that afternoon in our backyard with Natalie’s cook pot. It was 1997. Daddy had died the previous June. I was home once again to help Mama with the house and its fifty-plus years of accumulated memorabilia, in preparation for a downsizing move that would never come.

  Digging through the drawers of the old mahogany drop-front desk in the living room, I came across the photos of that Easter weekend. In an instant, time fell away. Natalie and Kit were nine again, in starched Easter dresses and lace hats. Daddy and I stood in the front yard flanking the birch tree, each of us in a blue blazer and razor-creased khakis. There were photos of the Easter egg hunt at Aunt Virginia’s. And, toward the bottom of the pile of black-and-white prints, were photos of Natalie and me, arms and legs the color of cocoa, mouths agape with satisfied children’s grins.

Mama and I stood silent for a minute. “That was a hard afternoon. Mae was our good friend.” Mama stared at the photos.

I broke the quiet. “You know it took me two more years to fully understand what made Mae’s eyes look so sad. I talked with GranMag about it and she explained how words, especially hurtful words carelessly spoken, could wound a person. She asked me if I understood, and I nodded. She asked me if I had ever used that word again, and I shook my head no. She said, ‘Good’, sliced us an apple, and never mentioned it again.”

 Mama ran a finger along the ragged edge of the photos. I turned to her.

 “You realize, Mama, that until that afternoon, I believed that you and Daddy never made mistakes. Ever.”

Mama smiled softly. “The thing is, Drew, I knew better. Really, I did. I was just wrong, on so many levels. I didn’t think. I think Mae knew that, and we eventually made our peace. And even though it was a struggle to get your aunt Camille to use the word ‘negro’ and later ‘black,’ I can promise you I never said it again. I can still see Mae’s eyes, so full of disappointment.”

I turned to her and, for a moment, I saw those eyes again, and saw the sadness that Mama had carried for more than forty years. I knew those eyes, and I knew what Mama meant. They were the eyes that could change a mother and her child forever.