Take the Long Way Home

by Rochelle Alers

Genres: African American Historical; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

From a cloistered 1950s Mississippi town founded by freed slaves to the striking diversity of Paris and Rome, through Wall Street’s glittering Roaring 80s to the present day, this sweeping, unforgettably moving novel chronicles one Southern Black girl’s remarkable journey through turbulent decades—and the four men who challenge her to fight for happiness.
Freedom fighter, brilliant businessperson, devoted wife, master of languages, and ultimately, savior of a European dynasty. Claudia Patterson would become all of these—spurred on by the fiercely powerful loves and losses along the way …
Denny Clark. An abused thirteen-year-old White boy whose life twelve-year-old Claudia saves—complicating her own life for years to come.
Robert Moore. A young Black lawyer who becomes Claudia’s beloved husband and partner on the explosive front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Amid the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, Claudia has a shocking personal encounter—with unimaginable consequences.
Ashley Booth. A Wall Street executive who brings the glamour of New York alive for the now-widowed Claudia, introducing her to an elite circle of Black peers. But their long yet uncommitted romance leads Claudia to move on—to an overseas assignment at an Italian bank.
Giancarlo Pasquale Fortenza. An Italian automobile industrialist, once enamored of a young Claudia—handsome, worldly, and twelve years her senior. A man with whom Claudia reconnects, bringing her life full circle in the boldest, bravest, and most unexpected ways …
Rich with history and timeless emotion, here is an epic tale of rising through poverty, racism, and heartbreak—and the awesome role of our most significant relationships throughout our lives.

Release date: October 24, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 576

Sample

Claudia Mavis Patterson made an auspicious entrance into the world in the small, all-Negro town of Freedom, Mississippi, in the spring of 1940, surprising her parents because her mother had had no indication she was even pregnant.

As an only child she’d grown up pampered by her business-owner parents. Earl operated Freedom’s only barber shop, as his father had before him, while Sarah was the owner of one of two beauty parlors in the town of 1,837 residents.

Claudia was troubled by an indiscernible restlessness not found in many children, and by the time she’d turned eight she had become aware of it for the first time. She loved Freedom, but she wanted to be elsewhere whenever she opened a book. Books had become her lifeline to the outside world. Her aunt Mavis, her mother’s older sister, gave her books as gifts rather than toys or dolls.

Mavis Bailey, who taught grades one through eight in Biloxi, told her niece that books enabled her to glimpse into a world beyond the boundaries of Mississippi. Claudia read about people who lived in China, England, Germany, and Italy. She’d overheard some of the older residents talk about bad White people, but her parents usually hushed them up or sent her away so she wouldn’t listen to their private conversations.

She was curious about some of the White people she occasionally saw whenever her family left the environs of her hometown, seeing repeatedly the WHITES ONLY and COLORED ONLY signs, signs that were unnecessary in Freedom. Resigning herself that Freedom was her home, giving her all she could wish for as a child, with its own school, movie theater, business district, and a hospital with a permanent staff of two doctors and three nurses, she felt protected. However, everything that was safe and idyllic came to a startling end in the spring of 1952 for twelve-year-old Claudia.

It happened as she walked home from school with her best friend, as she did every day. She always looked forward to her walks with Janice Mason, because Janice knew things most girls their age were not exposed to until after they were married.

“Why must you fib about things?” she asked Janice.

“I’m not fibbing, Claudia. I swear I saw—”

“Don’t swear, Janice,” she interrupted. “You know God will strike you dead if you swear.”

Janice stopped, resting one hand at her waist. She stared at the long-legged girl whose body had yet to begin to show the feminine curves of a young woman on the threshold of puberty. It was apparent Claudia Patterson was going to be a beautiful woman. Her thick, curly brown hair was styled in two braids that were pinned across the crown of her head. Her face was slender, with exceptionally high cheekbones, her nose short and straight and her mouth wide and handsomely generous. Her complexion reminded Janice of a baked peach. It was as if the sun had kissed her cheeks, turning them a velvety red-gold brown.

“I did see them doing it,” she continued in a soft whisper.

Claudia’s large, light brown eyes widened. “Doing what?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know, Janice.”

Janice moved closer to Claudia as a battered pickup truck came down the dusty road toward them. The driver slowed and executed a U-turn. His passenger stuck his head out the window. Grinning and displaying a mouth filled with tobacco-stained teeth, the man’s light blue eyes squinted at the two girls. He pursed his lips and a stream of brown spittle landed only inches from the toes of their black patent-leather Mary Janes.

He doffed an imaginary hat. “Afternoon, ladies. Wanna ride?”

Both girls shook their heads, too frightened to speak. They knew not to speak to strangers, especially White ones. And these two were what colored folk called cracker trash.

“Leave ’em ’lone, Bobby,” the driver ordered, squinting at Claudia and Janice. “They ain’t nothin’ but babies.”

The man the driver had called Bobby licked his thin, stained lips. “Not the blacker one. Look at them tits on her.”

Janice pulled her books closer to her chest to conceal the swell of growing breasts that had become her greatest source of pride. Her body had begun developing at nine, and now at twelve was full and lush with a feminine ripeness some women twice her age would never claim.

“I said leave ’em ’lone,” the driver repeated.

Bobby winked at Janice. “I likes them black and ripe. And you sure is a beauty. I’m going . . .”

Whatever he said was lost in the noisy sound of the truck’s engine as it sped down the road, raising a cloud of lingering dust. The books in Janice’s arms fell to the unpaved road. The tears filling her eyes spilled over and streamed down her silken ebony cheeks. The sound of the books hitting the ground pulled Claudia out of her shocked stupor.

Lowering her own books, secured by a leather belt, to the road beside her best friend’s, she pulled Janice against her body, holding her tightly. The two girls comforted each other once they realized how close they had come to harm.

“The Lord is punishing me,” Janice cried against Claudia’s shoulder. “He’s punishing me for sneaking out at night and peeking through the window when Mister Bill and Miss Hester were in bed together doin’ it.”

Pulling back, Claudia stared at her friend. “You were spying on them?” Janice nodded. “That’s a sin!” she said accusingly.

“I know.” Janice pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief from the pocket of her dress, wiping her runny nose. “I ain’t gonna do it no more. I swear, Claudia.”

“Don’t swear, Janice!” she screamed, temporarily forgetting her fright.

“I know. But I’m so scared.” She gave Claudia a questioning glance. “Wasn’t you scared of those men?”

She wanted to lie but didn’t. “Yeah. I was plenty scared, too.”

“You going to tell your daddy?”

Biting down hard on her lower lip, Claudia shook her head. “No. I don’t want trouble. Daddy would go hunting for those two rednecks and he would wind up dead. And you know we’re not supposed to take the long way home.”

“You’re right,” Janice agreed. “We don’t say anything. Cross your heart and hope to die.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Claudia repeated, making an X over her left breast.

Picking up their books, the two girls quickened their pace and turned off at a clearing and took a shortcut to the residential section. They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when both heard a weak, wavering cry for help. It sounded like the mewling of a kitten, but then a kitten couldn’t talk.

Janice’s slanting dark eyes widened as she stopped and turned slowly. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Claudia replied.

The burning rays of the hot spring sun did not reach the ground through the overgrowth of towering pine trees as the girls listened, trying to discern where the noise had come from.

There was another moaning sound. Janice shook her head, taking a step backwards. “I’m going, Claudia.”

“Don’t . . .” Her words died on her lips as she stood and watched Janice run away. “Fraidy cat,” she whispered.

What she did not want to admit to herself was that she also was afraid. But her curious nature always got the better of her. She’d asked her mother why, so many times that Sarah would say, Hush, baby. Just accept it. But what she did not want to do was accept it. She had to have an answer. That’s why she’d suggested taking the longer road home from school instead of the more direct route. She wanted to see as many places as she could beyond Freedom’s boundaries.

She heard the sound again and followed it to a dilapidated building leaning at a right angle in a clearing nearly obliterated by an overgrowth of trees and shrubs, and moved closer. A small shriek of fear escaped her parted lips as she stared at the body of a White boy curled into a fetal position on a pile of dirt. She gasped, then clapped a hand over her mouth when she saw hunks of flesh hanging off his back. It was apparent that someone had whipped him and then had left him to die.

He raised his head from the dirt at the sound of her voice. Opening his eyes, he stared up at her, his tortured gaze filled with a suffering she’d never seen. Not even in an injured animal. Her dog had broken away from his restraint several months before and wandered into a trap set for a raccoon, breaking his front legs. The pain in her pet’s eyes was not as intense as the one she saw in the boy’s eyes with his bared back festering with open wounds. An army of insects had invaded the blood pooling around him.

Her first reaction was to run. Why, she thought, was she suddenly coming face-to-face with White people within a span of minutes when in all her twelve years of living she had never exchanged a word with them?

“Help me,” he groaned, closing his eyes at the same time his head fell back to the ground.

“I . . . I can’t,” she stammered.

“Please. Oh, God—let me die.”

Even though he’d closed his eyes, Claudia still saw them. They were the same blue eyes as the man in the pickup truck. Staring at the fallen body, she realized the boy posed no threat to her. He lay bleeding, unable to move. Although he appeared taller than she was, she doubted whether he weighed more than she did. She could see every rib in his emaciated body. But who, she wondered, had whipped him, and dumped his body near a colored town? And she was mature enough to know that any White person found beaten in a town filled with Negroes was trouble for her people.

“I’ll be back,” she promised. Turning away from him, Claudia took the same route as Janice, running in the direction of her grandmother’s house.

Slowing her steps as she approached the large white house with the wraparound porch, she spied Earline Patterson sitting on her rocker, sewing, and listening to her favorite series on the radio, which sat on a table inside the house close to the screened door.

“You’re late,” Earline stated, not looking up from piecing squares of fabric together for her latest quilting project.

“I’m sorry, Grandma.” She climbed the half dozen steps while trying to slow down her runaway pulse. “I stopped for a minute.”

“It was more than a minute.” Earline stared at her over the top of her glasses. A slow smile creased her unlined dark face. “No harm done as long as you are all right.”

Dropping her books to the porch floor, Claudia leaned over and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “Afternoon, Grandma.”

“Afternoon, grandbaby.” Earline waved her away. “Go in and change outta those clothes. You hot and sweaty. What you do? Run home?”

She bobbed her head. “Yes, Grandma.”

“Who was chasing you?”

“No one, ma’am. But I found someone who needs help.”

Earline dropped her sewing to her lap and gently removed her glasses. Snow-white hair blended attractively with her mahogany-brown complexion. At sixty-two Earline Patterson was still a fine figure of a woman. She was tall, five-nine, and full-figured. Her skin was still smooth and youthful looking. There were only a few laugh lines around her dark eyes.

Claudia recalled her grandmother talking about her first and only love, Joe Patterson, who’d passed on in 1939, and Earline continued to cherish his memory by not marrying again or taking up with the men who’d occasionally come calling on the attractive widow. Her grandmother bore Joe two sons, Joe Junior and Earl. Joe Junior lost his life to a Japanese bullet in a jungle in the South Pacific during the Second World War, and there was a time when Earline said she would never get over losing her son four years after burying her husband.

“Who, child?”

“A White boy in the woods.”

Vertical lines creased Earline’s forehead. “A white what and where?”

“A White boy in the woods,” Claudia repeated. “Someone whupped him bad and left him in the woods. He’s going to die if we don’t help him, Grandma.”

“Did he say who whupped him?”

Claudia shook her head. “No. He just asked me to help him.”

Earline blew out a breath. “I’ve lived long enough to know if that White boy did die near Freedom, colored folks would be blamed and lynched even if they didn’t do it. Who else knows about him?”

Nobody, Grandma. Janice was with me, but she didn’t see him.”

“Where is she now?”

“She ran home.”

“I hope that girl knows to keep her mouth shut.”

“She will,” Claudia said confidently. She knew Janice’s mother and father would beat her senseless if they knew she hadn’t come directly home. They claimed she was “too fast” for her age, and both kept a close eye and tight rein on her.

“Go change outta your clothes while I get my medicine sack.”

Claudia picked up her books, and then ran inside the house, letting the door slam noisily against its frame. She raced up the staircase to the second-floor bedroom that she occupied whenever she stayed over at her grandmother’s house.

Unbuttoning her shirtwaist dress, she kicked off her patent-leather shoes at the same time. Within minutes she’d changed into a sleeveless white blouse and cotton pants. A pair of white tennis shoes had replaced her Mary Janes.

Her grandmother was seated behind the wheel of the old Packard, waiting for her when she pushed open the screened door, this time holding it before it made the annoying bang against the frame.

“It’s not far into the woods, Grandma,” she said, slipping onto the seat beside Earline.

The woods were close to the house, but Earline had no intention of walking in the heat. Things were going on in the world that did not directly affect Freedom, but something told her Freedom was about to change. She prayed the change would not begin with the White boy in the woods. Turning on the engine, and shifting into gear, she slowly let out the clutch and the shiny black car rolled forward.

A strained silence filled the inside of the car as Earline and Claudia stared straight ahead, each lost in their private thoughts. Earline wanted to reprimand her granddaughter for walking through the woods. If she hadn’t, she would not have come upon the White boy. But then she could not chastise her for wanting to help another human being, even though she doubted whether the favor would be returned if the boy had found a Negro begging for help.

She had lived long enough to have witnessed the evil of racial prejudice that her people had endured and continued to suffer throughout the South, first under slavery and now Jim Crow. Fortunately, Freedom’s cloistered all-Black environment had spared it from the reports of an occasional lynching.

“Was I wrong, Grandma?” Claudia’s voice broke the strained silence.

“Wrong about what, child?”

“Wanting to help that White boy?”

A smile softened Earline’s tightly compressed lips. “No, baby. You are not wrong. God loves all of us, white or colored, good and bad. We will let Him do the separatin’ and judgin’ when the time comes for Him to set this evil world straight. Right now, we must do what we can to keep the Devil from gatherin’ as many souls as he can before the Lord Jesus stops him.”

Claudia nodded, pleased with herself. She had done the right thing to want to help the White boy. “Over there, Grandma,” she said, pointing and directing Earline to the clearing where the boy lay.

Slowing and stopping the car, Earline put it in neutral and applied the brake. “Stay here,” she ordered, reaching for the burlap sack resting on the seat between them.

“But, Grandma. I saw him already.” There was a hint of panic in her voice. Earline gave her a warning look that spoke volumes. It was a don’t cross me, girl look that older folks gave whenever children sought to challenge their authority.

“I’ll wait here.” Everything about her was resignation as she fumed inwardly. It was she who had found the boy. It was she who had gone for help. And it was she who knew where he lay hidden near the abandoned shack.

A shiver of fear caused the hair to rise on the back of her neck when she saw her grandmother reach under her seat and withdraw a large handgun. She had seen the gun enough to know it had belonged to her Grandpa Joe. She never met her grandfather because he’d died the year before she was born, but she had heard stories about his courageous exploits when he was in the Great War and had received a bright shiny medal for his heroism. Her grandmother had a faded photograph of Grandpa Joe standing proudly at attention, the medal pinned on the shirt of his uniform while Joe wore a proud, tight-lipped smirking grin.

She had overheard her grandmother say to some of the other grown folks that she kept the gun because it was trained to shoot White folks with deadly aim. All she had to do was squeeze the trigger and the bullets found their mark. Now she wondered whether a bullet would end the life of the boy in the woods the way some people shot an injured horse or dog whose life could not be saved. She prayed he would not die, and she prayed he would not be put to death to end his suffering like her dog whose legs were crushed in a neighbor’s trap.

She sat in the car, praying and waiting for what seemed hours when it had been only fifteen minutes. Staring at the towering trees draped in Spanish moss, Claudia failed to see the beauty of the surrounding landscape. The woods were dark and cooler, while the trees and underbrush concealed one from prying eyes and wagging tongues. She knew some of the older kids spent time together in the woods after dark, doing things they did not want their parents to know about—things she’d heard whispered about but did not yet fully understand.

Her eyes grew wide when she saw her grandmother coming toward the car, carrying the boy in her arms as if he weighed no more than a tiny infant. Her burlap sack, hanging from her wrist, swayed and bumped against her thigh.

“Open the back door,” Earline ordered. A sheen of moisture beaded her forehead as she carefully made her way to the parked automobile. Claudia jumped from her seat, raced around the driver’s side of the car, and opened the rear door. “Spread that quilt out on the seat. I don’t need him stinkin’ up my car.”

Claudia noticed the odor coming from the bruised body for the first time. It was the sickening smell of drying blood and body secretions mingling with infected flesh. Working quickly, she unfolded the handmade quilt and laid it over the rear seats. She swallowed back a rush of nausea, struggling to keep from losing the contents of her stomach because of the overwhelming stench.

Earline laid the boy on his belly, wrinkling her nose. Dirt and grime lined the back of his neck and matted hair. It was apparent he did not bathe regularly. Dirt had darkened his skin and he could have been taken for colored if one did not see his eyes. But then there were Negros in Freedom who had inherited their light-colored eyes from White ancestors who had been unable to resist a Black woman’s body.

Slamming the door with a solid thud, Earline reclaimed her seat behind the wheel, replaced the gun under the front seat, and handed Claudia her medicine sack. Her mouth was set in a hard, tight line. What she intended to do went against everything she had been taught about White and Black people. She would take a White boy into her home to save his life. And if she hadn’t been a God-fearing Christian woman, she would have left his dirty, scrawny butt in the woods to die.

Giving her only grandchild a quick glance, she shook her head. Claudia was a good girl, but she was too soft and trusting. She’d brought home more stray dogs and cats than any child in Freedom. Now she had her taking home a near-dead White boy.

Earline planned to save his life, and then send him back to wherever he came from. And if he died—she refused to think of what she would do if he did.

Claudia placed a hand over her nose. “Why does he smell so foul, Grandma?”

“Cause he’s po’ White trash,” Earline said, as she, too, scrunched up her nose at the odor coming from the boy on the seats behind them.

“How can you tell White trash, Grandma?”

Earline frowned as she drove slowly along the narrow trail leading out of the wooded area. “They don’t take a bath every day. And some are so po’ that they don’t eat right. The kids must drop out of school if their folks are sharecroppers and they have to help work the fields.”

“The Wilkins family is like that. And they are colored like us. So, does that make them Black trash?”

Earline shook her head. “No, grandbaby, they ain’t Black trash. They just lowlife, no-account colored folk. That is why your mama and daddy preach to you to get an education. With book learnin’ you don’t have to be beholden to no man or no woman. You can hold your head up and be proud that you somebody.”

“I’m already somebody, Grandma.”

“You are. But when you become a full-grown woman, you have to be somebody special. You must make your mark in this world.”

Claudia nodded, and she wanted to remove her hand from her nose, but with the sour, sickening odor, that wasn’t possible. She knew she would never be trash or no-account because no one in her family was lowlife. Her granddaddy Joe had had his own business even though he hadn’t had more than six years of schooling. Her grandmother managed to finish the eighth grade before she had to drop out to take care of her younger brothers and sister when their mama died giving birth to her twelfth child.

It was her mother’s people, the Baileys, who were educated. They came from Biloxi. Sarah Bailey completed high school but refused to go to college after she met and fell in love with Earl Patterson. Defying her parents, she married Earl and moved to Freedom. Earl worked in his father’s barbershop and owned it outright after his father died. He’d used the money from Joe Patterson’s life insurance to expand the business to include a beauty parlor for his wife.

Sarah Bailey Patterson was one of three girls born to the Baileys. The two remaining daughters attended and completed college, both becoming teachers. They were fiercely independent women who rejected the advances from men who sought to tame the uppity Bailey sisters. The attractive, intelligent women had many suitors, but never accepted any of the marriage proposals presented to them.

Claudia wanted to be like her aunts. She wanted to go to college; she wanted to be able to debate on any subject, and she wanted to set up a home like theirs and invite her close friends for elegant suppers or afternoon tea.

But then she also wanted to be like her mother, too. She wanted to have a business, make her own money, and marry a man like her father who loved his wife and wasn’t ashamed to admit it openly to all his friends.

“I’m going to drive around to the rear of the house,” Earline said, breaking into Claudia’s thoughts. “I want you to open the back door so I can carry him without someone seein’ me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Earline maneuvered the Packard until it was less than six feet from the rear door. She shut off the engine, and opened the back door. Using the quilt, she pulled the edge of it until the limp body hung half-in and half-out of the car.

Claudia stared at her grandmother as she lifted the injured boy. “Is he heavy, Grandma?”

“Not too much. It’s just that I don’t want to hurt him mo’ than he already is.”

Claudia figured he couldn’t weigh that much, the way his ribs showed through his flesh. Her grandmother was right about his kind not getting enough to eat. Even though colored families in Freedom were poor, few went hungry. They raised chickens and hogs and cooked big pots of peas, beans, rice, and stews along with biscuits and cornbread. Many of them had gardens with collard greens, cabbage, tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers.

She followed Earline down a flight of stairs to a root cellar. The space was dark and cool even during the hottest weather. It was on these occasions Claudia and her parents came to Earline’s to set up cots to sleep in the cellar. The last time was the prior summer. All the South was ravaged by a severe, unrelenting heatwave. Crops withered and died, and the loss of livestock and human lives shattered records.

Earline laid the unconscious boy on his side on a narrow cot in a corner. There was enough light coming from a high, narrow overhead window for Claudia to see the deep lacerations crisscrossing his bony, narrow back. Her grandmother retrieved a kerosene lamp from one of the many shelves lining the cellar walls, turned up the wick, struck a match, and lit it. She bit down on her lip to keep the strangled cry from escaping. Whoever whipped the boy sought to kill him.

Earline glanced at Claudia over her shoulder. “Get me a couple of towels, a bar of lye soap, and two sheets. I’m going to take off his clothes and then clean him up.”

She waited for her granddaughter to race up the cellar steps, allowing her to undress the boy without Claudia seeing him naked. He hadn’t worn a shirt or shoes, and only having to remove his grime-caked blue jeans made her task an easier one. His penis was cradled in wisps of light-colored hair. He was developing into a man while the rest of his body had yet to catch up. His hands and feet were large, indicating he could grow up to be a tall, large man if properly nourished. She concealed the lower part of his body with the quilt.

Earline had filled a small metal washtub with water from an outdoor pump by the time Claudia returned with what she’d asked her to bring. “Go upstairs and do your homework while I wash him up.”

“It’s Friday, Grandma. I don’t have homework.”

“I made some lemonade. Get a glass and have a few gingerbread cookies with it.”

Claudia didn’t move. “I’m not hungry or thirsty, Grandma.”

“Get outta here, girl, and let me get to work.” Earline gave her an angry scowl. “This boy don’t have no clothes on under this quilt.”

Needing no further prompting, Claudia turned and fled up the cellar steps. She did not want to be like Janice Mason, spying on naked people. As she made her way to the kitchen, Claudia was unable to forget the dirt-streaked boy whose face resembled those of angels she’d seen in a book. It was hard to tell the exact color of his hair, but it didn’t appear to be too dark. His lashes were long and lay on high cheekbones like feathered silk. But it was his nose and mouth that had reminded her of the angel. His nose was straight and narrow, and his mouth was pink and too beautifully sculpted for a boy. Claudia decided it would look a lot better on a girl.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, Claudia stared at the new stove and refrigerator. She loved her grandmother’s house—especially the kitchen. And she loved coming to the house after school rather than going to her own house, which was closer to Freedom’s business district. She’d told her parents that she didn’t like being home alone once classes were dismissed for the day, and she had gotten them to agree to let her go to her grandmother’s and to sleep over on Friday and Saturday nights. These two days were the busiest for the barber shop and beauty parlor when folks made appointments for haircuts, press and curls, marcel, and finger waves. All the primping and preening was for Friday and Saturday parties or dances, or for Sunday church service. Claudia rarely visited the barber shop or beauty parlor. Her mother washed her hair at home and pulled a barely warm comb through the strands to straighten her curls. The few times she had ventured into her parents’ businesses she was astounded by the spirited energy of men debating everything from the world’s situation to baseball, music, religion, and Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare. The women were different. They were more subdued, talking quietly and shaking their heads when someone disclosed some well-kept secret. What surprised Claudia was that her parents rarely contributed to the discussions. They listened and sometimes grunted in agreement or wagged their heads vigorously in disbelief.

Earl and Sarah Patterson claimed barber shops and beauty parlors were places where lives and reputations could be ruined by misleading information coming out of the wrong mouth. They could ill afford to lose a customer by having someone accuse them of I heard that you said I said—

Janice Mason insisted the Pattersons were rich, even though Claudia denied it. She had explained to her friend that her family did not have money problems that some other Freedom citizens experienced because her parents were good businesspeople. All she knew was that her parents were friendly and treated their customers fairly, and each paid their employees a decent wage. What Claudia had not understood was the abject poverty affecting many colored families in Mississippi. Many worked as sharecroppers, owning little or no land of their own. Land they’d toiled on when their ancestors were enslaved. They were the first to experience the ravages of tough times if crops failed or if the national economy fell into a recession.

What she did not tell Janice was that the woman who assisted her mother at the beauty parlor, or the young man at her father’s barber shop, were not permitted to handle any money. Customers knew to pay Earl or Sarah directly. The money was stored in cigar boxes, was counted after closing and secured in a secret place in the Patterson home before it was deposited in a Biloxi bank on Monday mornings. A percentage of the proceeds were always deposited