“Take that back!” he shrieked.
“Oh yeah? You take that,” Julia said as she wound her arm and threw the ball back straight at him, before sticking her tongue out to make the insult complete.
The ball smacked into his glove and he glared at it for a second before howling and turning to hurl the ball into the outfield.
“Junior, what’s your problem?”
“Why’d you go doing that?”
Disgruntled voices rose from the far edges of the yard, and Junior stormed from the game.
Uncle Freddie shook his head. “Junior? Come on back here and pull yourself together,” he called, but a moment later, the back door slammed and Junior’s wail rose from inside the house. Uncle Freddie chuckled. “Julia, you’ll be the one playing in Playstead Park if you keep throwing like that.”
Louise could see the whiteness of Julia’s teeth as she grinned, and then her younger sister turned and wandered into the outfield in search of the baseball.
“You looking forward to moving to California?” Louise asked.
“It’ll be a good adventure. I’m going to miss being close to all of you, but I’m restless. I figure it’s time to try something new, find new work. I’ve stayed in touch with one of my friends from the army, and he finished his engineering degree when he returned home to Chicago. Now he’s in flight school in Los Angeles and believes there are opportunities for more coloreds in aviation. Says he can get me some work.”
“You going to be the next Lindbergh?”
“No, but my friend writes about promising opportunities. I’m ready to take my chances and join him.”
Big, bold headlines in Friday’s newspaper had reported a crash in the stock market, and despite President Hoover’s assurances, people were jittery. Uncle Freddie’s plans for California had been in the works for over a month, but a new urgency seemed to underlie all his talk of the future.
“California sounds grand. All that sunshine.”
“I won’t miss our winters, that’s for sure.” He paused and lifted a fallen elm leaf from the step of the porch and studied the swirl of vivid colors bleeding along its surface. “I’ll miss fall, though. Not much can beat the beauty of these colors.”
“It’s not going to be the same around here with you gone,” said Louise. As the bachelor of the family, Uncle Freddie could be counted on to pay attention to his nieces and nephews. He’d help with geometry homework, debate the merits of chewing Chiclets versus Juicy Fruit gum, and provide exercises to strengthen pitching arms—these were the important things the kids could entrust to Uncle Freddie.
“Don’t worry, this isn’t the last you’ve seen of me, but I wanted to give you something before I go.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. When he saw Louise’s face brighten, he laughed. “Don’t get too excited, I’m not giving you money.” He pulled out a photo and handed it to her. “Maybe you don’t remember because you were pretty young, but I showed you this photo after I took you to a Fourth of July parade, the one where they unveiled the Great War memorial in 1920. Remember?”
Louise looked at the photo’s younger version of Uncle Freddie, sitting in a café with a friend. Both wore their army uniforms, and they looked handsome and confident, content. “I remember this. After I saw it, I thought the war didn’t look so bad.”
“True, if you only saw this photo, no one could blame you for thinking that. Do you remember what I told you about why I served in the war?”
Louise nodded, though her uncertainty must have shown because Uncle Freddie continued. “I told you I served because I felt it was important to show my respect and pride for my country, even if the same type of respect and pride wasn’t necessarily returned to me by my countrymen?”
“I remember.”
“You’ve been racing awfully well, and this whole running business could lead you to something bigger. I saw some of those newspaper stories in the Globe about women competing in the Olympics. Maybe you could be one of them. You’re strong, fast, and have a good head on your shoulders.”
“I didn’t see anything about girls like me competing in such important races.”
“You mean colored girls? It’ll happen someday.”
“Really?”
“Sure, change may be slow, but it’s coming.”
It sounded like a long shot, but if her uncle wanted her to try, she could do that. Since she’d started practicing with the team, she felt stronger and her mind was quieter, freer of the worries that had nagged her. She was tired at the end of each day, but tired in a good way that helped keep her bad memories at bay. She no longer climbed into bed and replayed that awful afternoon of Grace’s accident in her mind. Now she fell asleep quickly and slept hard. “All right, I’ll stick with it.”
“Good girl. If you ever end up heading to California for races, I’ll come and cheer you on.” He put out his hand to shake hers. “Deal?”
Louise nudged his hand aside and embraced him. “Deal.”
11.
October 1929
Fulton, Missouri
ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON, HELEN SHAMBLED TOWARD the barn. The air felt warm on her bare forearms, but there was a crispness in the wind, a feeling that the weather would turn soon. An eerie silence hung over the farm. Pa was off working in a distant field. Ma had taken to her bed the day before, complaining of a headache, and one of Pa’s sisters had taken Bobbie Lee to her house for a few days. Helen couldn’t remember the last time Ma had taken to bed. Even after Bobbie Lee’s early morning arrival several years earlier, Ma had been back in the kitchen by lunchtime making Pa his midday meal.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a red-tailed hawk’s scream cutting through the whisper of the surrounding cornstalks. She glanced at
