Page 11 of Where the Rivers Merge

Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) are small blackbirds dubbed ricebirds when rice production was a thriving industry in the southeastern United States. Huge flocks would descend upon the rice fields while on migration to fatten up for the remainder of the trip. Since they were capable of doing great damage to the crop, they were shot and killed by the hundreds of thousands.

1988

I paused my story, feeling the memories coming too hard and too fast. I exhaled slowly and looked around the table to see Savannah and Norah watching and listening with keen interest.

“I think it’s time for a rest,”

I said. “Perhaps a sip of tea to wet my whistle.”

Savannah briskly rose from her chair. “I’ll get it.”

She returned a short while later carrying a tray with tall, icy glasses. “I’ve got some sweet tea for us. And Mariama is here!”

A moment later, Mariama strode into the room like a breath of fresh air. “Hey, y’all,”

she called out, rolling in a cart filled with dishes. “I didn’t want to interrupt the telling, but I thought you’d all be ready for some lunch. I brought lunch from the restaurant.”

“Thank you,”

I said, catching the scents of shrimp, corn, okra, and andouille sausage. “That gumbo smells delicious.”

Years ago Mariama had inherited Clementine’s house, so she now lived just outside Mayfield. She often stopped by bringing gifts from her restaurant—a meal, corn bread, fresh produce. I knew it was her way of checking on me when I was alone in the big house.

Mariama set a large blue-and-white china soup tureen on the sideboard along with several bowls of the same pattern. Norah and Savannah got up to help serve the food.

“I want to hear more of those stories,”

Mariama said. “Clementine’s my great-aunt, so I’m curious. I’ve always wanted to hear more about her.”

“Then set yourself down. There’s a lot more to tell.”

I waited until everyone was seated before picking up my spoon and tasting the gumbo. “Clementine used to make her gumbo with alligator meat when she could get it.”

I smiled at Savannah’s reaction.

“Your life back then sounds idyllic,”

said Norah. “Listening to you, I can picture my grandmother as a little girl.”

“Our childhoods were far from idyllic. We had bad times to counter the good, same as we do now. Living life was harder. Labor was harder. Injustice was harder. Getting sick was harder. People died.”

I drew quiet, eating my gumbo as I scanned the mural with so many faces of the departed. Memories swirled, vivid and sharp. I set my spoon down as my hunger faded.

“Are you okay, Grandma?”

asked Savannah, looking up from her plate.

“Oh yes. I’m just filled with memories. When I see the murals and tell the stories, the images come to mind so fresh.”

“I’m astounded that you remember it all so clearly,”

said Savannah. “Like it all happened yesterday.”

I reached for the corn bread, pleased to feel its warmth. As I spread butter I added, “Nostalgia is a peculiar thing. We tend to recall the sweeter moments that elicit a smile or make our hearts wax and wane . . . and forget the sad memories.”

“I want to hear them all, good and bad. Daddy said they were boring, but they’re not. Of course, I knew the names of the ancestors, but that’s all they were. Names. Now I feel like they’re real people who lived real lives—right here at Mayfield. Makes me wish I was alive back then. It all sounds somehow . . . better.”

“That’s what makes nostalgia a dangerous trap,”

I replied. “The happy memories shine brightest. They lure you into thinking the past was better than the present.”

“Especially for people of color,”

said Norah. She shifted in her seat, looking at the murals. Her voice was low. “Covey and Wilton had to know—how did you put it?—their place.”

I understood her uneasiness. “Yes, that was true for that time,”

I replied. “The bigotry and narrowness of the South, the nation, was deeply ingrained.”

I shifted my glance to the murals, struck by how many scenes of all of us—white and black—dotted the wall that told our intermingled stories.

“Norah, it’s for you to decide how far we’ve come since then. I daresay, not far enough. But these are my memories, told true. Most every childhood is a time of innocence. Na?vete. And for us—me, Covey, and Tripp—they were the best times of our lives. Those early days formed the very foundation of who we were to become.”

I dabbed my lips with my napkin, took a sip of sweet tea, and remembered back to those happy days. “The summers passed in much the same way, one after the other. We children prowled the boundaries of Mayfield, exploring, loving each clump of dirt. We learned the names of trees and birds and critters we came across. A found feather was a triumph. An animal was captured in pencil then added to our journals to be researched later in the library. Covey especially loved the plants. She taught us their names. Tripp loved animals.”

I paused. “I loved it all because all of it made up Mayfield.”

Norah crossed her arms, her expression skeptical. “When did it change?”

My brows rose. “Say again?”

“When did the idyllic youth end and adulthood begin?”

I paused. We all knew that something happened to end the wide-eyed days of our childhood. But when? It was more a series of moments, of days, years.

I shifted my gaze to the murals and landed on a young man with a smile that lit up his face. He held a fishing rod in one hand, a rifle in the other.

“It began the summer of 1912,”

I began. “A life-changing summer.”