Flowers in the Snow by Danielle Stewart

again.” He reached his arm over and pulled Frankie tight to him.
    Frankie’s worries were still not warmly tucked away as her eyes danced between the adults. “What about the police? Where were they that night? Couldn’t Winnie have just called them? Uncle Bobby wouldn’t let something like that go on,” she reasoned, the wheels in her head clearly spinning to make sense of something Betty knew couldn’t be figured out by anyone.
    “You’re damn right I wouldn’t have let that go on,” Bobby shot back, looking as though his anger was growing by the minute. “It’s a disgrace how long this went on here. That it ever happened at all. You’d think this was hundreds of years ago, but it’s not. It’s within your lifetime, Betty. It pisses me off.”
    “Back then,” Betty started, softening her face as not to bring about any useless anger that wouldn’t do anyone any good, “if a white man did something bad, even killed a black man, he rarely went to prison for it. If the police were around they either joined right in or looked the other way. The police were there for us, not for them.”
    “You sure you want to go on with your story?” Clay asked, lacing his fingers with Betty’s as her voice grew more agitated.
    “Telling it won’t change the outcome. It won’t heal all the hurt, but at least y’all will know the people who shaped me.”
    “And we want to know that, Mama,” Jules said earnestly. “I’ve never asked before. I could always tell you didn’t want to talk about the letters from Alma. You didn’t want me to know about all the hurt that happened to you, so I’m glad to be hearing it now. I’ve always wanted to know.”
    “Well I guess I can’t argue with all these big eyes and gaped mouths staring at me. If you want to know the ugly truth of it all, then I’ll tell you. That night Winnie, Nate, and Alma did not escape the mob of angry people, and it was a good thing Nate turned me out when he did, otherwise it would have been much worse.”

Chapter Nine
     
    Edenville 1961
     
    Coming home late on a night when such big news had broken did earn Betty a few slaps on her way up to bed though her mother did look relieved to see she was not harmed in all the commotion in town. As usual when sent to bed, she camped out at the top of the stairs and listened hard to hear all her parents had to say.
    “It’s slipping away,” her father snarled. “Everything we’ve been doing is breaking up and falling apart. They’re letting five Negro teachers come into the school and teach our kids. It’s sinful.” There was a loud thud Betty recognized as her father’s hand slamming down on their large oak table.
    “Can’t you do nothing? The Klan isn’t planning anything? I don’t want our daughter getting taught by some idiot,” her mother answered in a shrill and worried voice.
    “You’re the idiot,” Betty whispered and then quickly repented and did the sign of the cross twice. Little did her mother know, even though she hadn’t started working at Edenville East yet, Winnie was already teaching Betty. She’d learned more in the last two weeks than she had in all the years leading up to it. From current events to the perfect buttermilk biscuit recipe, her brain was more full than it had ever been before. So was her heart.
    Betty tried her best, but three days of staying away from Alma’s house was all she could manage. The more talk that circled the town, the more she needed to see her friends. The first chance she had to slip away she took it.
    “Not today, Betty,” was all Winnie said through the door. “It’s not safe.”
    Betty wanted to sit there in protest but the truth in Winnie’s words couldn’t be ignored. The whole world felt unsafe now. Betty could see the burned out shacks just around the corner from Winnie’s. There was a noose hanging from the tree at the foot of the hill Betty ran down to get to them. Hate had touched the place Betty had imagined was