Chapter 8
8
B utts, Mississippi – February 1949
“Time to rise!”
Kathy peeled her eyes open. Big Mama’s face hovered in the doorway, her smile warm as grits on a cold morning. The feather bed beneath Kathy felt like heaven—soft, forgiving, a far cry from the bus she had slept on when she travelled in. If she’d known sleep could cradle her like this, she’d have traded her late-night scribbling for it sooner.
“Git up, chile. We gotta feed the boys ’fore the rooster hollers,” Big Mama said, her voice honey-thick with Mississippi rules. The door clicked shut, leaving Kathy alone with the pitch-black window. No streetlamps here, no clatter of garbage trucks—just the deep, breathing dark of the Delta. Back home, her mama would’ve yanked the covers off by now, scolding her lazy bones while bacon sizzled. Here, the quiet pressed down like a quilt.
She dragged herself up, her body still humming from yesterday’s laughter—Ely’s jokes, the cousins’ stories, the way the kerosene light had danced on Big Mama’s face. But as she shuffled down the hall, the ache for Carmelo hit her like a fist. Where was he? The questions gnawed: Did he know she’d been shipped south? Did he care? She bit her lip hard, trapping the tears.
Downstairs, voices tangled in the kitchen. Kathy froze on the creaky step.
“Start her in the fields this week. Show her how we survive,” Big Mama was saying. “Come sunup, take her to town to get the right clothes. I seen them fancy dresses her mama sewed her up in Harlem. Girl can’t be a princess picking peas or cotton. Jensen’s expect her Wednesday.”
“Yes’m,” Ely mumbled.
“You got a problem with my plan for her, boy?”
“N-no’m. Just… Kathy’s smart. I ah, just thought, she went to a really fancy school up in Harlem. We need a teacher. Maybe instead of her sharecropping, she could get the school up and going again for the kids?—”
Big Mama’s laugh cut sharp. “Ain’t no schoolin’ in lean times. Land don’t care ’bout no book smarts. She works like the rest.”
Kathy’s heart dropped to her feet. Sharecropping? Her hands—soft from penning letters and flipping library pages—weren’t meant for cotton thorns and calluses. She nearly bolted back upstairs, her mind racing: Jump out the window. Hitch to the train tracks. Find Carmelo’s Queens home, slip into his window, bed, and let his promises about visas and steamships to Sicily then Africa, drown out this nightmare.
“Kathy!” Big Mama’s holler snapped her back into her dreadful reality. “Git in here ’fore the biscuits burn!”
She stumbled into the kitchen, eyes burning to suppress tears. Ely stood at the sink, coffee cup in hand, his gaze darting to her like he knew her torment. Big Mama had earned her name right. She was over six foot tall, and very shapely. Her wide hips swayed with every move she made in her flour-dusted apron. She rolled dough with hands that’d buried five husbands whose backs were broken over the hard living.
“Apron on,” Big Mama ordered. “These men ain’t gonna feed themselves.”
Kathy obeyed, her fingers trembling as she shaped the biscuits—French-style, crossed like tiny church steeples.
“Ely, go on and get the men; we will be ready when you round ‘em up,” Big Mama said.
“Yes, ma’am, see you soon, Kathy,” he said, noticing her sadness.
“By Ely,” Kathy said softly.
Big Mama wiped her hands on her apron and came over. “What are those?”
“The French make them. You roll the dough and cross over. The biscuits bake, and with some butter and sugar glaze, they are a good breakfast treat.” Kathy explained.
“Your mama’s sisters could make a cake sing, pies too, best little bakers in Butts, all of them. It’s how she raised them,” Big Mama said, watching her. “Sweetness runs in y’all’s blood. That’s why my Henry followed your mama North. Couldn’t resist her sugar.”
Kathy glanced up, bracing for bitterness. After all, her daddy killed a white man for her mama—a sin that still haunted her daddy. But Big Mama’s face and voice held no blame. “Your daddy sent you here ’cause he loves ya,” she said softly. “Better this dirt than a white man’s grave.”
“But Carmelo ain’t like that!” The words burst out unintentionally, and she corrected her tone. “He’s Italian—different. He loves me, Big Mama. We didn’t?—”
“Love?” Big Mama sank onto her stool, ankles swollen as overripe figs. “Chile, I buried five men. Two, I loved so deep it near kilt me. One, I had to put down cause he had the nerve to raise a hand to me. Love’s a summer breeze—feels good but doesn’t last long enough to stop the heat. What lasts?” She thumped her chest. “What’shere? I’ma teach ya grit.”
Kathy pressed her lips tight. Carmelo’s different , she screamed inside her head. But Big Mama had already turned the radio on—gospel voices swelling as she hummed and watched Kathy, absorbing the lessons on how the French make biscuits.
* * *
Twenty field hands crowded the porch—Black, white, faces leathered by the sun. Eight white boys, no older than her, shuffled in behind the rest, their overalls as frayed as anyone’s. Big Mama’s rule was simple: Hunger don’t see color. The men ate silently, quickly, their eyes flicking to Kathy until Ely’s glare shut it down.
The farm had always been a refuge for men with no kin, drifters chasing harvests, or souls too bruised to leave. They earned their keep in David Jensen’s fields from sunup to sundown, their sweat buying them a spot in the weathered cabins dotting the property. Big Mama’s kitchen fed them all, same as she’d done for thirty-odd years. “Ain’t charity,” she’d told Kathy earlier, counting coins from Jensen’s monthly envelope. “Just good business. Hungry men work mean; fed men work clean.”
Kathy lingered at the sink, scrubbing biscuit pans raw. As Ely approached, the clatter drowned out the creak of the floorboards.
“Kathy?”
She turned. Big Mama had retreated to her room an hour ago, her back bent like a willow branch. The house felt lighter without her watchful gaze and barking voice.
“Yeah?” Kathy said soft.
Ely dropped his hands deep in his pockets. “Big Mama wants me to take you into town when I drop the men at the fields. Get you some clothes for working. Then show you the lay of the land—fields, storage barn, the whole lot.” He hesitated, then softened. “You’ll start in the fields Wednesday… but I talked to my mama. She’ll put in a word with Miss Lottie. Get you moved to the washhouse ’stead.”
Kathy stared at the soapy water. The Jensens’ cotton rows stretched in her mind, endless and suffocating. Washing rich white people’s sheets from neighboring towns with the other girls meant blistered knuckles instead of sunburned shoulders, and neither felt like the life she’d known.
“Oh,” she said finally. The word hung between them, thin as porch-screen mesh.
Ely shifted, boots scraping hard floor. “Ain’t forever. Just till…” He trailed off. “Talked to Rev’rend Edwards ’bout the school. We lost our teacher, and it’s been closed for a season. I know Big Mama doesn’t want it, but the Rev always has a way of sweet-talking her. The kids really need it round here. So, he’ll?—”
“Don’t bother,” Kathy cut in. “Carmelo’s comin’ for me, Ely. I told you that. We leavin’ when he get here. Gonna sail for Sicily, then Spain, and then Africa in that order. Got a map he gave me that shows the path.”
Ely’s face fell like a dropped stone. She didn’t care. Let Big Mama preach survival. Let the Jensens own the dirt. She’d burn her dreams on hope before she let this place claim her.
Queens Hospital, Queens, New York – 1949
The antiseptic sting of bleach clung to the air, sharp enough to make Lucia Ricci’s eyes water as she adjusted her son’s pillow. Carmelo lay propped up in bed, his face a patchwork of bruises and swelling, his right leg suspended in a plaster cast. The doctors had wired his shattered jaw shut, silencing the boy who’d once hummed Sinatra tunes while polishing his father’s Cadillac. He would also need some false teeth on that side of his mouth. Lucky for them, the catholic church has stepped in to help at Cosimo’s request.
Now, Carmelo’s only voice was the frantic blink of his less-swollen eye— one for no, two for yes —and the guttural moans that escaped when the pain cut too deep.
Lucia smoothed his matted curls, her rosary beads clinking softly against the bedrail. “ Mannaggia , look at you,” she whispered, her Neapolitan accent thickening with grief. “My beautiful boy.” She dipped a spoon into the lukewarm broth the nurses had brought, her hand steady. “Open you lips a little, piccirillo .”
Carmelo turned his head, a strangled sound rattling in his throat.
“Sweetheart , ” Lucia huffed, though her touch stayed gentle. “Your padre … he’s a hard man, but he adores you. He wants you to be more careful and make wiser choices in the future.” The lie curdled on her tongue. She’d thrown out the bloody hammer herself.
Carmelo’s good eye fixed on the crucifix above the door, his chest heaving. Lucia followed his gaze. The Christ figure’s chipped paint mirrored her son’s brokenness.
“You pray with me,” she said, pressing her rosary into his unbroken pinky. “For strength.”
He jerked his hand away, the motion sending a spasm through his ribs.
Lucia crossed herself. Madonna, forgive him. She’d spent nights on her knees at St. Raphael’s, begging the Virgin to purge Carmelo and his father of the anger and rage. Was it even possible? Her son was in love, and she never knew. She’d found the young girl’s letters and read them. Beautiful letters, and sweet. She nearly cried at the innocence and purity she read. If only Cosimo could have read those letters and seen what true love looked like.
Instead, he was obsessed with the Mafia and the prejudices that they once faced when trying to come into America. During Carmelo’s healing, she had to find a way to make Cosimo see reason. And if not, she had to do the unthinkable. Open her sons’ eyes to the fact that fairytales do not exist. Harden him from being the boy who loved and dreamed big, to the man his father would want him to be.
She’d soften that life lesson by finding him a nice Italian girl— Rosa Esposito’s daughter, maybe —instead of Kathy .
A nun bustled in, snapping gloves onto her hands. “Time to change the bedpan, Mrs. Ricci.”
Carmelo’s face flushed crimson as the nun lifted the sheets. Lucia didn’t turn away at the sour stench. She soothed her boy and comforted him through the humiliation.
Earlier –
“You want to stay overnight at the hospital? For months? Leave me behind? For months?” Cosimo narrowed his eyes at his wife, his voice edged with suspicion.
Lucia felt her heartbeat quicken, but she kept her tone gentle as she packed. “We just agreed to this, Cosimo. It will only be until he’s through the worst of it. Ha bisogno di cure speciali —he needs special care. We can’t trust the nurses and nuns to understand what our son is going through.”
She could feel his gaze heavy as she pulled her dress back on and picked up her torn underwear off his office floor. Since returning to his bed, she'd been dutiful, obedient. She no longer had the luxury of choice. Whatever love had once been there, once made her heart race at his touch, had long since evaporated, replaced by cold pity for the man who’d emerged after he secured his place as Don Ricci under Lucciano’s brutal regime.
“Lucia,” Cosimo spoke again, softer this time, coaxing. He zipped his pants and stepped to her. “ Guarda mi . Look at me.”
She closed her eyes briefly, gathering herself, then turned slowly with practiced ease, meeting his eyes with a gentle, practiced smile.
Cosimo face still flushed from their intimacy, hair damp at the temples. He extended a hand toward her.
She hesitated only a moment before stepping forward. He took her hand, brought it gently to his lips, and pressed a tender kiss against her knuckles. Then, without warning, he pulled her into him for a more intimate embrace. Lucia preferred sex with him than intimacy. When he wanted to love on her, she wanted to scream.
“I know this is hard for you, amore mio . Non volevo ferire il ragazzo —I never wanted to hurt our boy. You believe that sì ?”
She couldn’t speak. He’d said the same tired line to her a hundred times now. Each time, staring hard into her eyes to see if there were any ambers of rebellion. To give voice to her pain would invite his madness. Instead, Lucia simply nodded, offering him another delicate smile, perfected through years of marriage to a man capable of unimaginable cruelty.
Cosimo brushed her cheek with his thumb. “I didn’t tell you. When I went to see him. Gli ho detto che lo amo —I told him I love him. That we’ll be okay. He’s a Ricci, Lucia. Forte e coraggioso —strong and brave, our family’s future. He understands. So, stop worrying so much.”
“ Cosimo, per favore ,” she whispered, desperation slipping into her voice. “Give me this. Just let me stay all day, all night with him. Verrò a casa nei fine settimana —I’ll come home on weekends. I promise. I am his mother. Se avesse solo un mal di stomaco sarei lì con lui —even if it were just a stomachache, I'd be at his side. è così che amo questa famiglia —this is how I love this family.”
She touched his chest gently, kissing him with all the tenderness she could muster, hoping it was enough.
“ Per favore, Cosimo. Ti supplico.” She pleaded softly against his lips.
But instead of replying with words, he took her hand and led her out of his office. She let him escort her back upstairs. Once in their room he unzipped her dress again, this time with gentleness and touched her with care. Lucia felt herself drift elsewhere, far from this bed, far from this city, far from the love he now wanted to give. She envisioned Italy, her parents’ small home, the comforting smells of basil and rosemary from her mother’s kitchen, the laughter of her sons untouched by the darkness of their father’s world.
When it was over, Cosimo released another satisfied grunt—his consent. She lay beside him in silence, eyes fixed on the ornate ceiling above, as tears threatened to spill. Lucia understood clearly that wishing was useless. Cosimo would not change. Only sacrifice could shield her sons from further harm.
And she would sacrifice everything to keep her boys safe from their father. This was her fault. She’d been too soft. Let Carmelo roam Queens with his jazz records and big dreams. Let him think love could bend the world’s rules. He needed to see the world for what it really was. And who his father would make him be.
* * *
When the nurse left, Carmelo grunted, his gaze darting to the window. Snow blurred the view of the parking lot, where his father’s black DeSoto sat like a hearse.
“Yes,” Lucia said, sharper than she meant to. “It’s another day. Tuesday. The snow is still here, but it will be gone soon. And hopefully, you will be, too . This place reeks. I can take better care of you than these nuns. ” She said with the toss of her chin. “Forget everything, caro . You are safe, and with your family. Where you belong. You heal. We find you a good job, a good wife?—”
Carmelo’s fingers twitched inside the cast, a raw, animal sound tearing from his wired jaw. Spit and blood flecked the bandages.
Lucia reacted out of fear, rushing to him to soothe him. For a heartbeat, she saw her husband in him surfacing—the same wild rage in his eye. Dio , how would she ever heal the pain in her son?
“ Ti amo, ” she whispered, the words paper-thin. “I fix this. I swear . I heal you, from it all.”
Six Months Later: Butts, Mississippi –
Kathy wiped the sweat from her brow, the washroom’s steam clinging to her skin like a second layer. Around her, girls pressed irons to linens, their laughter swallowed by the hiss of hot metal. Kathy’s hands moved mechanically, folding sheets into crisp squares— one, two, three —her rhythm syncopated with the ache in her lower back. Six months in Butts had calloused her palms and dulled her skin and hair. She looked as if she had aged, so she stopped checking herself in the mirror.
The town’s heartbeat thrummed in her bones: 860 souls, most Black and bent over farmland or scrubbing white folks’ floors. Only two Black families owned land—a fact Big Mama spat like scripture. The Jensens, Weavers, and Elliots still ruled Butts, their names carved into every deed and dollar. Kathy’s “promotion” from fields to laundry had earned her fifty cents more and a view of the Jensen’s’ manicured lawn through the washroom’s grimy window.
Letters from Debbie were lifelines, ink-stained and crumpled from rereading. No word from Carmelo , her cousin wrote. Bumpy smoothed things over. Your daddy’s back running numbers, and my daddy is still going around enforcing Bumpy’s orders. They at it like nothing happened. Like you aint gone and we aint suffering. Kathy traced the words, imagining Harlem’s pizzaz—the jazz spilling from records, the attic’s dust motes swirling in stolen sunlight. Here, there was only the iron’s hiss and Ely’s Saturday night drives, his truck rattling down dirt roads as fireflies winked in the dusk.
“Evenin’, Ms. Kathy.”
Ely stood in the washroom doorway, hat in hand, his overalls dusted with feed. He’d traded field dirt for trade work—hauling grain, bartering livestock—and carried himself like a man who’d outsmarted the Jensens’ ledger.
“Evenin’, sir,” she grinned, though her cheeks burned with exhaustion.
“Your chariot awaits,” he gave a performative bow.
“Let me collect my things,” she said, curtsying. He chuckled. She quickly gathered her things and followed him out.
The truck ride was quiet, the last streaks of sunset bleeding into indigo. Kathy slumped against the passenger window; eyes closed. Ely’s surprise was a shadow in her mind, unwelcome as a splinter. She just wanted supper, a bath, and the mercy of sleep.
“Got a surprise,” he said again, turning onto a road fringed with pines.
“Ely, please ?—”
“Hush now.”
The truck jolted to a stop. Before her stood a raw wooden building, its skeleton lit by the last amber light. A steeple rose, unfinished but defiant, like a middle finger to the Jensens’ iron grip on black lives.
“What’s this?” she asked. He got out of the truck and came around to open her door. When she tried to step out, he swapped her in his arms and spun her. She laughed. He planted her on her feet and led her by the hand to the half-built structure. She let go of his hand and approached, inspecting it. “What’s it gone be? A church?”
“School.” Ely’s voice swelled. “Kindergarten to twelfth. State-funded. And you—” he stepped closer, “—you gon’ teach. No more scrubbin’ white folks’ drawers. This here’s yours .”
Kathy’s breath caught. Memories surged: bossing cousins through alphabet drills, chalk dust on her fingertips, Ely was one of the few boys that stayed around and played school with her. “You born to teach,” he’d said, twirling a stick like a baton. Ely was always wise.
“Why me?” she whispered.
“‘Cause I watched you trade dreams for ghosts.” Ely’s jaw tightened. “You think I ain’t seen you cry over letters you can’t mail that boy? Ain’t heard you whisper his name like a prayer when work get to hard for you? But this—” he gestured to the school, “—this is real. You stay here, you live here in Butts—not just wait to leave.”
Kathy spun toward the truck, and marched away, her feet kicking up red dust.
“Take me to Big Mama’s!” Her voice cracked, raw as the blisters on her palms.
Ely caught her arm, his grip firm but not cruel. “You hear me now?” he demanded, forcing her to face him. The setting sun haloed his silhouette, sharpening the lines of his jaw. “Do you know why I go this far? Keep my distance and let you walk around here with your eyes closed. Do you know?”
“I never ask you to do nuthin’ Ely!” she said trying to break free. Tears blurred the unfinished school behind him. She shook her head, the motion sending a hot droplet sliding down her cheek.
“I do it ’cause I want you to stay a dreamer, Kathy,” he said, his voice fraying. “To keep believin’ you and that Italian could carve a place in this world—even when I know y’all cain’t.” He stepped closer, his calloused thumb brushing her wrist. “Difference between me and him? I ain’t askin’ for nuthin’ back. This school—it’s yours . Free and clear. You ain’t got to marry me to be free or happy. It’s yours. Not mine, not Big Mama’s, and not his. Yours . But if you cain’t see that…” He released her, backing away. “…then you ain’t the dreamer I thought you were. You just what he left behind.”
Kathy’s chest heaved. The school’s skeleton loomed—unpainted planks, gaping windows, a future waiting to be filled. She crumpled, sobs tearing loose. Ely surged forward, wrapping her in arms that smelled of pine resin and hard work.
“I love him, why cain’t no one understand that,” she wept into his shirt, the confession sour on her tongue.
“I know,” he murmured, his chin resting on her head. “Lord knows I do cause you say it enough. I know what it’s like to love someone and cain’t have ‘em.”
“Why’d he abandon me? I lost everything ?—”
“You didn’t.” Ely’s hand cradled the back of her neck, anchoring her. “You still got you.”
Her cries slowed, the storm passing. She pulled back, wiping her face with her sleeve. The school stood clearer now; its bones lit by fireflies rising from the field. God knew her dreams , she realized. Maybe Butts wasn’t a punishment—just a different kind of soil.
“Thank you, Ely,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for bein’ ungrateful.”
He smirked, though his eyes glistened. “You ain’t ungrateful. You’re human. Hell, if that boy rides in tomorrow, I’ll hand you a bouquet myself. But if he don’t…” He nodded to the school. “…we need you here. Not the Jensens’ wash girl. We need the one who made us play school ’til our hands cramped. The one who still writes secrets in the margins of Debbie’s letters. That you, Kathy?”
She stared at the building, seeing chalkboards instead of raw wood, laughter instead of silence. Her heart split—not in half, but into more .
“Yes,” she breathed. Then louder, grinning through tears: “ Yes! ”
Ely whooped, sweeping her into a spin. Her squeal tangled with his laughter, echoing over the fields. For the first time since Harlem, joy surged—not borrowed, not fragile, but hers .