“A strike!” someone called out. “That’ll show ’em.”
“It isn’t easy,” Jack said. “Cotton is spread out over thousands and thousands of acres and the growers stand together. They pick a price to pay and stick with it. So we need to stand together. Our only chance is to join forces, all of the workers. Everyone, everywhere. We need you all to spread the word. We have to shut down the means of production completely.”
“Strike!” Loreda yelled.
The crowd joined in, chanting, “Strike, strike, strike.”
Jack saw Loreda at the same time someone grabbed her arm. Loreda yelped in pain and wrenched free, turning.
Her mother stood there, looking angry enough to blow smoke. “I can’t believe you’d do this.”
“Did you hear what he said, Mom?”
“I heard.” Mom glanced sideways, across the room, saw how many people were here.
Jack pushed through the crowd, coming their way.
“Your speech was great,” Loreda said as he drew near.
“I noticed you showed up alone,” he said. “It’s late for a girl your age to be out by herself.”
“Would you say that to Joan of Arc?” Loreda said.
“You’re Joan of Arc now, are you?” Mom said.
“I want to go on strike, Jack—”
“Loreda,” Mom said sharply. “It’s Mr. Valen. Now go upstairs and let me speak to him. I’ll deal with you later.”
“You can’t make me—”
“Go, Loreda,” Jack said evenly. He and Mom stared at each other.
“Okay, but I’m striking,” Loreda said.
“Go,” Mom said.
Loreda turned away and trudged up the stairs. She didn’t care what her mother said. She didn’t care how much trouble she got in or how dangerous it was.
Sometimes a person had to stand up and say enough was enough.
* * *
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU been back in Welty?” Elsa asked Jack when they were alone.
“A week or so. I was going to send word to you.”
“Oh, I’d say you sent word.” She stared at him, wishing that things were different, that she was different, that she had her daughter’s fire and courage. “She’s a fourteen-year-old girl, Jack, who snuck out in the middle of the night and walked a mile to get here. You know what could have happened to her?”
“What does that tell you, Elsa? She cares about this.”
“What does that prove? We all know it’s wrong, but your solution won’t make our lives better. You’ll just get us fired, or worse. Our survival hangs by a thread, do you get that?”
“I get it,” he said. “But if you don’t stand up, they’ll bury you, one cent at a time. Your daughter understands that.”
“She’s fourteen,” Elsa said again.
Jack lowered his voice to match hers. “A fourteen-year-old who is picking cotton all day. I assume Ant is, too, because it’s the only way for you to feed them.”
“Are you judging me?”
“Of course not,” he said. “But your daughter is old enough to decide for herself about this.”
“Says the man with no children.”
“Elsa—”
“I’m making the decision for her.”
“You should teach her to stand up for herself, Elsa. Not to lie down.”
“And now you are definitely judging me. If you thought I was a brave woman, you’ve misjudged me.”
“I don’t think so, Elsa. I think you believe it, though, which is tragic.”
“Stay away from Loreda, Jack. I mean it. I won’t let her be a casualty in this war you’re playing at.”
“No one is playing, Elsa.”
She walked away.
He started to follow her.
“Don’t,” she snapped, and kept walking.
Outside, she grabbed Loreda’s arm and half dragged her out to the street, where they began walking home in the dark. Automobiles rumbled past them, headlights bright.
“Mom, if you’d listen to him—”
“No,” Elsa said. “And neither will you. It’s my job to keep you safe. By God, I’ve failed at everything else. I will not fail at that. Do you hear me?”
Loreda stopped.
Elsa had no choice but to stop, too, and turn back. “What?”
“Do you really think you’ve failed me?”
“Look at us. Walking back to a cabin smaller than our old toolshed. Both of us skinny as matchsticks and hungry all of the time. Of course I’ve failed you.”
“Mom,” Loreda said, moving close. “I’m alive because of you. I go to school. I can think because you want to make sure I always do. You haven’t failed me. You’ve saved me.”
“Don’t you try to turn this around and make it about thinking for yourself and growing up.”
“But it is about that, Mom. Isn’t it?”
“I can’t lose you,” Elsa said, and there it was: the truth.