Red White and Black

Chapter Eight

Estelle

In the cool darkness Estelle Morris rolled her wheelchair down the hall, grateful Sammy had finally succumbed to the pain medication and drifted off to sleep. The house was quiet and peaceful now, a welcome respite from the ranting loon he had been earlier in the day. It pained her when her son flew off the handle--not that it happened often--but when it did, his fiery Irish genes made themselves manifest in a spectacular display of crackling emotion.

The windows were open a crack admitting a slight breeze, mercifully cooler than the scorching heat of the day. She would have liked to throw the windows wide open but Sammy had rigged stops to prevent that. He was worried about break ins and rightfully so, she supposed. Her argument was that if someone were going to break in, they could just as easily break down a door or even crash through the window glass above the stops. It didn't matter. Sammy had made the decision and once made, it was set in stone. Every so often it occurred to her she would have been wiser to marry someone other than an Irishman. Her husband, long since passed, was every bit as stubborn as their son had turned out, making the two of them the trial of her life.

Not that she would have changed a thing, no. For the most part, the men in her life were thoughtful and loving, each with a rich appreciation of beauty and poetry. Sammy did his best to hide it, believing others would consider him less manly should they realize the roses outside were his. He passed them off as hers, but reality was different and she readily forgave him this tiny fib, knowing the fragile state of his ego. It always puzzled her as to why her men were cursed with such a strong sense of pride, even if it were misplaced more often than not.

She would have liked to pose that question to a friend, and years ago, she could have walked next door to ask one. At one time this had been an Irish and Scottish enclave where everyone knew everything about everybody else. When someone was injured or laid up, helping hands pitched in while meals and money found their way to bare tables and needy pockets. When a son or daughter walked the aisle, the entire community gathered in joyous celebration, it became a neighborhood family affair. It wasn't uncommon to see neighbors and friends together on holidays, the women carrying a covered dish and the men a hidden pint, erroneously believing the furtive nips could go undetected.

As the years rolled by, those neighbors and friends sold and moved out, convinced the influx of black buyers would adversely affect the value of their homes. Of course it was a self-fulfilling prophecy; values plummeted and became easily affordable to lower income buyers. Soon the whole neighborhood, even the whole city, was filled with black faces and they were left alone.

The lone white family in a sea of black skin.

It didn't matter much to Estelle--black or white--it just really didn't matter. What did bother her was the isolation. Compounded by the pain from two broken hips and arthritis in every conceivable joint, she became confined to the wheelchair and sometimes felt like a prisoner in her own home. It was the curse of the elderly, she realized, to be alone. She was forced to sit behind her windows and watch her neighborhood crumble around her as poverty and neglect ate away at the neat and tidy houses like rust on an old car.

Unlike Sammy, she didn't blame the city's decline on skin color. She took a mother's point of view, always the most pragmatic in her opinion. She realized a woman trying to raise a houseful of kids couldn't very well repair the gutters, repave the sidewalk, and patch the siding all while trying to put food on the table. Sometimes it just came down to that: food and clothes for the children versus taking care of the leaking roof. For a mother, the choice was always easy.