SWNOVELS Chapter Reel: Epilogue
Birthplace of Dessi Blue
The small green roadside sign is as unassuming as I am these days. Break the speed limit and you’ll miss it, but the law-abiding citizens will catch this tribute to my life the city planted along Highway 31. And what a life it’s been. When Mama and Daddy left Alabama for New York City, I had no idea what was in store for me.
You ain’t got no crystal ball, Bama.
Tilda’s voice teases me even over the applause of the crowd gathered around the sign. Even over the mayor’s kind words. That girl was something else. Despite how we ended, I always smile to think of her.
I never saw her again, except in black-and-white newsprint. The clippings of her wedding announcement and obituary are tucked away with the letters she sent me all those years ago. My little secret. Oh, never from Cal. He always knew there was a tiny sliver of my heart that stayed behind in Harlem. I gave him everything else, and he said it was more than enough. More than he could handle sometimes, bless his heart.
I caress the ring on my finger, the one he placed there on our wedding day in London. That seems like another life. We left behind the glamor of Paris for the call of home. Mama lost her battle with cancer, but we had two years together, and I took care of her like she took care of me. Good daughters do that, don’t they?
I guess we could have returned to Europe after Mama passed, but by then we had answered another call, Cal and me. Alabama during the civil rights movement was a perilous place, but we chose to stay. We had to stay. Nothing wrong with fame and fortune in Europe. We did it, but when we saw this fight our people were in, we wanted to be soldiers, not civilians. This state was, in many ways, the epicenter of the war against racial injustice. Boycotts, bombings, the march from Selma to Montgomery—we found ourselves in the thick of it. Overseas, we counted the world’s talented elite among our friends—James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, Sidney Bechet. All fled this country to thrive in France, but ultimately we returned to fight.
If I were white, I could capture the world.
When Dorothy Dandridge said that, I almost cried because I knew exactly what she meant. Felt it in my bones. We lived in a time of limits and barriers young folks now can’t even comprehend. Ceilings there were no ladders tall enough to ever reach. Oh, there’s still work to do and a ways to go, but what we endured? The way they tried to hold us back and deny us, blunt and dull us? It was always one step forward, start all over again. You couldn’t get far here, and for those who did break through, we held them up and thanked the Lord. I only pray that what we did accomplish cleared the path for those behind us.
I’ve never regretted leaving our apartment in the 6th arrondissement, but I do sometimes wonder about that alternate existence in the City of Lights. We, all of us, were not only the stars. We were the night—the dark sky without which no star can shine. In Paris, we ruled the heavens, but I never saw coming home as a fall. We marched with Martin. Locked arms with the likes of Fred Shuttlesworth. Worked alongside women like Rosa Parks down south and Dorothy Height up north. As a young woman when I left Harlem, I wanted to see the world, but it was when I came home that I changed it.
Katherine leans down to whisper, “You alright, Mama?”
“I’m fine, Kitty.” I smile and squeeze my daughter’s hand. She will be our legacy, along with all Cal’s music students. I taught voice and led the church choir. We set down roots, planted ourselves in this community, and grew like longleaf pines. For so many here, we were shelter and we were shade.
When I was young, I wondered where I would find my home. Was it in the nocturnal haunts of Harlem? London? The French Riviera? Paris? For years I chased the music, thinking anywhere I could sing could be my home, but I was wrong. Home is not a song, and it’s not a place. It’s people. It’s community. It’s the bond of blood and the friends we choose. It is that feeling—that knowing you are never alone. I’ve lost those I held dearest—my first love and my last. My daddy and my mama. The friends I laughed and lived alongside, all gone, and still, I’m not alone. Love lingers and I feel them all with me even now. I can almost see Tilda standing at my side, wearing a wicked grin and her rent-red dress. Almost hear Cal’s trumpet, blowing like the Angel Gabriel. Even death cannot steal, even time cannot erase the peace I found in all the people I have known and loved.
The ceremony ends, and after a while, the crowd dwindles until Katherine and I are the only ones left standing on the side of the road.
“I guess we better get on home,” she says, tucking her arm through mine. “It sure is a pretty sign.”
It glows and glints, fired up by the setting sun. The raised text sketches only the briefest of details. That I was born. How I lived, and soon, I guess it will say I died. My memory reads between the lines, fills in the gaps, keeps my secrets, and I am content.
Maybe I didn’t ever gain the fame of that other life, but this little roadside sign in a small Alabama town—it says I was here and it will tell my story.