The End of the Line (29 page)

“Look
at the name on the bottom.”

She
squatted down and read the inscribed name of Moses Thomas. “Oh, my God,” she
said with a shocked expression. She looked at the carving of the woman and
lightly traced her fingers over her face. “This must be Rashida. She was the
girl who was abducted in Africa.”

“Rashida,”
Peter said. “That was the girl your father mentioned.”

“That
must be her husband, Silko, and their son, Hector,” Latesha said, her heart
pounding. “He ran, but they caught him. Look, see, his right ear is gone. ” She
shook her head in awe. “Hector’s son was Dembi, and he was known as a gifted
artist. Dembi ran, too, but they didn’t catch him. He made it to The End of the
Line Station in Beechwood. His son was Moses and he was the master door maker.
Dembi must have drawn pictures that Moses used.”

Peter
nodded and told her everything he knew.

“This
makes it even more real,” she mumbled in amazement, lightly tracing her fingers
over Rashida’s face. “I can hardly believe what I’m seeing.”

“The
question is what happens now?” He opened the door to the studio and flicked on
the lights. “Come in, Latesha.”

She
walked into a large, empty room with walls covered by mirrors and a railing
along one length. Above the mirrors were hundreds of photographs, each
depicting a smiling little white ballerina standing next to the Moses Thomas door.
Underneath each picture was a date. Some of the pictures were clear and sharp
and taken within the last twenty years, others were old and faded, and had been
made before the sinking of the Titanic.

“This
door belongs to your family,” Peter said. “Everyone has agreed to that. But
it’s up to you and your father to decide what happens with it.” He sighed.
“This door has special meaning here, Latesha. It’s cherished.”

“I
see,” she muttered, only then noticing the other side of the door. “Look,” she
said, pointing at a full-length carving of an African man and his little girl
walking near a river. “Moses must have imagined this from the stories Dembi
told him. I’m sure it’s Rashida when she was young, before the slave traders
came. That must be her father, Talib.”

“You
seem to know a lot,” Peter said, studying the carving.

“He
was the village chief and he had only one child. She fell in love with someone
her father didn’t approve of and a great misery befell their family.”

“Oh,”
he mumbled. “Do you want me to tell your father about this door, or do you want
to tell him?”

“I’ll
tell him,” Latesha replied instantly.

“As
you wish,” Peter said as they walked out of the room and turned off the lights.
He then walked with her out of the building and locked the door.

Once
they reached a dark area near the parking lot, Latesha stopped and looked into
Peter’s eyes. “You didn’t have to tell me, you know.”

“It
was the right thing to do.”

As
if drawn by an irresistible force, Latesha suddenly put her arms around Peter
and hugged him closely. He put his arms around her and they held each other in
the darkness for a long time, not a word spoken between them. As they were
sharing the moment, loud sounds reached them as a couple left the clubhouse.
When the door swung shut behind them, all was quiet again, except for their
laughter and conversation. They got into their car and rolled down the windows.
The couple turned on their stereo and as Latesha and Peter stood unseen nearby,
the soft words and music of George Michael’s
A Different Corner
wafted across the grounds. They listened to it
until the couple drove away and then walked to the truck.

Peter
drove through the tight city streets and stopped at the waterfront. They looked
out at the ocean, lights from the city shimmering on its ebony surface. Up the
street, a lone musician began playing his violin, its haunting notes drifting
along the waterfront and echoing off the tall buildings. Several couples
strolled by, stopping to listen to the melancholy sounds. And in the mellow glow
cast from the floodlights, Peter suddenly leaned toward Latesha. She didn’t
move back or forward, but when his face neared hers, she slightly parted her
lips.

The
kiss was impossibly tender, like a flower opening to the sun for the first
time. Their lips were moist, warm, seeking. It was a new love, a fresh love, a
love yet to be explored. Latesha and Peter parted slightly and then she kissed
him again, more urgently this time, abandoning herself to delicious sensations
of mutual acceptance. She could feel his masculine heft, the power of his body,
the beating of his heart. And never in her life, from the first day to this,
had Latesha ever felt so complete. She felt invincible in a strange kind of
way, as if they were a team who could conquer any challenge.

The
magic moment was broken by someone tapping on the window. Peter pulled away,
his eyes meeting Latesha’s for the briefest moment, and turned to see a young
girl dressed in colorful clothes. She was carrying a white basket of flowers.

“Would
you like to buy a rose for your wife, sir?” she asked.

Peter
took out his wallet. “Yes, thank you.” He paid her and she left, then he handed
the rose to Latesha. “Apparently we’re married,” he said with a handsome smile.

“I
must have had too much punch at the reception,” she returned cutely, “because I
don’t remember a thing.”

They
laughed.

“Can
you drive me home now?” Latesha suddenly asked, composing herself.

When
they got to Beechwood, she looked hard at him. “Hopefully I’m not locked out.”

“Latesha,”
Peter suddenly said.

“Yes?”

“Don’t
forget your flower.”

“Oh,
yes.”

She
went to the back and was pleased to see the outside light turned on and the
door unlocked. She opened the door, walked back to the side of the house, waved
at Peter, letting him know she was not locked out, and then went into the
house. Her father was waiting in the dark living room and when Latesha turned
on the light, the rose was the first thing he noticed. “He’s got all the right
moves, doesn’t he?”

“He’s
a nice man, Dad.”

“Where
did you go?”

“The
Old English Club.”

Mr.
Thomas bristled. “The Old White Bastards’ Club, you mean?”

Latesha
sighed and shook her head.

“Not
too much pepper in that salt shaker, I bet.”

Latesha
smirked.

“So?”
he asked antagonistically. “How many black people were there?”

“I
was the only one.”

“How
did they treat you?”

“They
treated me well,” Latesha said, smelling the rose and closing her eyes at its
wondrous aroma. Then she looked right at her father. “Better than you treat
him, that’s for sure.”

Mr.
Thomas narrowed his eyes at the comment. “I need to know. Is this just a
friendship or is something major going to come of it?”

Latesha
lightly touched the fragile petals and put the rose in a small vase. “I don’t
know what it is.” Suddenly she noticed something out of the ordinary. “You did
the dishes while I was gone.”

He
shrugged. “That friend of yours is no friend of mine, but he was right about
one thing. I need to get in better shape. I’ve let myself go. From now on I’m
exercising more and helping out around the house.”

“That
would be great.”

He
picked up the football and rubbed his hands over it. “There was a movie, I
can’t remember what it was called, but it starred Morgan Freeman and there was
this line that popped into my head today. Something like, ‘Get busy dying or
get busy living’.”

“
Shawshank Redemption
,” Latesha told him.

“Right,”
he said, nodding. “I did a lot of thinking today and I’m not happy with what
I’ve become.”

“You’re
a wonderful man, Dad.”

He
shook his head. “No, I’m not. Your friend is right. I sit here all day watching
television, shoving junk food down my throat, and feeling sorry for myself.”

“It’s
time for a change, isn’t it?”

“It’s
time for a change,” he agreed.

Latesha
turned back to her rose with a new joy in her heart. In the reflection of the
kitchen window she saw her father tossing the ball and catching it with a look
of studied determination. His would toss it, then reach up and grab it with a
smacking sound. He threw it high, to the side, forward. He dropped it once, and
then only because it was out of reach, but he quickly bent over, picked it up
and started playing catch with himself again.

“Peter’s
mother doesn’t like me,” Latesha said, suddenly turning around and facing her
father.

He
went stiff. “How could anyone not like a princess?” he said angrily.

“Bigotry,”
she replied, looking him right in the eye. “It’s an ugly thing, Dad.”

His
features froze and Latesha carried the rose to her bedroom, looking at him from
the doorway. Mr. Thomas sat like a statue in the middle of the room, his hands
firmly wrapped around the football as his thoughts drifted a million miles
away. He looked at the ball, the dumbbells, the rose on the window sill. Then
he looked at himself in the mirror for a long time.

Latesha
called Peter after twenty minutes.

“Hello,”
he said breathlessly, having apparently run to the phone.

“Were
you out for a jog?”

“No,”
he said, laughing. “I just got home and heard the phone ringing, then I made a
mad dash. I was hoping it was you.”

Latesha
loved the familiar way in which he addressed her. “I just wanted to apologize
for the way my father acted.”

“We
can’t control what other people do. If we could, my mother would not have acted
the way she did.” He paused. “I was so embarrassed, Latesha. I wanted to
apologize to you on the drive to your place, but it’s hard. You know what I
mean.”

“I
know what you mean.”

“Not
to make excuses, but my mother has had it hard since the accident.”

“It’s
all right,” Latesha said. Suddenly her tone brightened. “Do you take a lunch
break at work?”

“Noon
until one every day.”

“Could
we meet at the university tomorrow? Are you in the vicinity?”

“I’ll
make sure I am.”

“How
about I meet you by the football field in that little park with the picnic
tables?”

“Sounds
good.”

When
she hung up, she looked at her rose. Never had she seen a more beautiful
flower, one with more depth of color. Sitting beside it in the sanctity of her
room, far from the madding crowd, she began to systematically recite the lines
she would soon be saying on stage.

“Good
night, Latesha,” her father said on his way to bed after brushing his teeth.

“Dad!”
she called.

“Yes?”

“There’s
something I have to tell you.”

“Oh?”

She
came out of her room and took a deep breath.

“What?”
he asked suspiciously.

Latesha
explained the situation surrounding the door, including the fact that it had
basically been stolen from Moses Thomas by Garfield Rutherford.

Mr.
Thomas gritted his teeth and a dark cast came over his furrowed brows. “See!”
he snapped, his jaw set. “I knew there was something! That’s what I mean about
the white man. You cannot trust him. He is no good, Latesha.”

The
words hurt her. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s
true.”

“No,
it’s not true, Dad.”

“It
is true!” he exclaimed.

“It’s
not true,” she insisted. “They didn’t have to tell us about it. We would never
have known. And Peter was adamant that the door is ours.”

Mr.
Thomas sighed, but was not convinced.

Latesha
took a deep breath. “In the mid-sixties, three civil rights activists were
murdered in Mississippi. One of them was a twenty-one-year-old black man from
Meridian, Mississippi named James Chaney. But two of them were white. Andrew
Goodman was only twenty years old and Michael Schwerner was only twenty-four.
They were white men from New York City, Dad. What did they have to lose if
black people were being denied their rights? Nothing. Not a blessed thing.” She
looked hard at him. “But the rights of those black people meant so much to
those two young white men that they put themselves in harm’s way and ended up
paying with their lives. Do you understand what that means?”

He
sat motionless.

“They
gave up everything for black people they had never even met, Dad. Everything!
For you to be a bigot against all white people is an insult to those men and
the parents who lost their children.”

Mr.
Thomas did not respond.

“And
I’ll tell you something else,” she continued with an unstoppable determination,
“when I first read Mom’s whole book and I learned something that shocked me. It
was at the back, in the Amendments section. Did you read that part?”

“No,
I didn’t,” he said quietly.

“It
was a white man who helped Dembi Thomas run away back in 1840,” Latesha said.
“He risked everything for a man he had never even met. A white man did that, Dad.
If it wasn’t for that white man, you and I wouldn’t even be here because Dembi
wouldn’t have gotten away. He would have been killed. Do you know the price
that man paid, Dad?”

“I
don’t want to talk about it.”

“No,
I’m sure you don’t. Just go along on your merry way pretending life is all
black and white when we both know that life is really gray.”

Mr.
Thomas bit his lip. “It’s one thing to not hate someone, it’s another to watch
him take away your daughter. You are the end of the line, Latesha. Our family
started in Africa, but you are the last of it. How am I supposed to feel at the
thought that you might fall in love with this man and end it all? Should I be
happy? Should I encourage you to destroy your heritage?”

“I
don’t know what’s going to happen, Dad, but I do know I like him more than I
thought I could ever like any man.”