Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay
“You know, it's good that we have good neighbors, because then when stuff like this happens, you know you are just as safe in your neighbor's yard as you are at home!”
Seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow stood up and gave nine-year-old Milton Trent a big hug because he had come running to check on her because she had tripped and fallen.
“Hey, anytime, Amanda!” Milton said. “We gotta be good neighbors since we are going to be neighbors in Heaven anyway!”
“I see Rev. Obsidian Stone and Rev. George Flintlock, co-preaching at the Good Neighbors Fellowship, is getting some things across the color line,” Mrs. Maggie Lee purred to her husband, Col. H.F. Lee.
“I'm glad it's getting across to somebody,” he said grimly. “I just got a phone call … everybody in the Lee family is not with the progressive program relative to the end of slavery, and this election is bringing that out. The same cousin who made it his business to get Robert Wright Lee's phone number in 2017 and cuss him out for standing on the name of Christ and calling out those who have made Robert E. Lee an idol has made it his business to call me and talk about how my face should be used right now to restore our ancient rights.”
“Oh, I know he ended up cussing you out, too,” Mrs. Lee said, and put a supportive arm around him … she knew he was a dead ringer for the uncle who was called 'the most handsome man in Virginia' in the middle 1800s… but he abhorred everything about the Confederacy and what it stood for, and so this was a trial to him.
“He wants me to co-splay our uncle, but forgot I'm actually a police captain until the conservatorship goes through, at least,” he said. “He cussed me out so long and so hard I had time to pull all his warrants, and his local sheriff, being able to triangulate his position, was able to give him another reason to be cussing as he got picked up. Cousin Robert W. is a gentle, kind soul … it cost him everything to make that stand, but he would never think of hitting back. I am just not that good of a man yet – I'm too much like Uncle Robert E. There's a limit with me, and when he started talking about coming over here, he hit it. He's going to have to cuss out his future cellmates for a few years and see where that gets him.”
By this time, the fellowship across the color line on the Trent yard was increasing because Amanda's siblings Lil' Robert (5), Grayson (6), Edwina (8), and George (9) had gone to check on her, and Milton's sisters Velma (11) and Gracie (8) along with his first cousin Vertran (9) had come out as well to make sure she was OK. Amanda was fine and hugging everyone, and then they all started talking and then playing … and the colonel's eyes overflowed with tears … but not from sadness ... he was so angry about the foolishness he had just been reminded of that he was suddenly livid.
“I have come so far, as a warrior, to be able to be a man of peace again, and have these days with my extended family … like I grew up in the mountains, and my family and the Jubilees-of-the-mountain who are the Trents' relatives played together in peace. I never desire to see conflict among human beings again … but I will tell you this, Maggie. If the forces of hate ever think of touching you or any of these little ones, you will see old warlord Lee come out of me again.”
“But that is as it should be,” she said. “I am not the Mrs. Lee who would spur you to do violence to preserve evil so wicked that it would see Velma, Milton, Gracie, and Vertran sold for profit even now, and even bought and sold your Ludlow cousins, same color as you, in the foster care system. I am the Mrs. Lee for you, that will encourage you to stand against all of that. I'm with you, Henry Fitzhugh Lee, to the hilt.”
Col. Lee flashed back to the day he discovered she had been standing with him in the fight from inside against police corruption, dropping him hints to certain information and leaving other clues for him to find – he saw red and then gold and then blue and all of it wrapping around his wife's image – his anger flipped over to another passion just that quick, and only because he knew he was outside could he contain himself.
“I know you are, my love, and that is why you are my Mrs. Lee.”
He would finish that thought later, in an ecstasy of passion she had not known he was capable of, and afterward, while he was still as high as the moon, he had told her … “now I know … oh, my love … if there is to be another child to wear this heavy name and burden of Lee, let it be yours … in your love as mother there could be no curse... oh, my love … my love … .”
She knew he had made up his mind before then … but also that, that day and that night, he had made up his heart.