Carry Me Home

It's Valentine's morning, 1925, and Mae is carefully cutting out red paper hearts at the kitchen table. The South Side stirs outside their window—the rattle of the train, a fruit vendor's call, and the faint strains of jazz skipping through the crisp February air.

Mae begins to softly hum the melody of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" — weaving serenity into the quiet.

Eleanor freezes, the plate of eggs and bacon trembling in her hand. The tune fills their small apartment, blending with the aroma of coffee and breakfast, and suddenly Samuel is there, his voice glowing in the morning light. She steadies herself against the counter, remembering how he’d hum that hymn while polishing his silver pocket watch—now tucked safely in her apron pocket.

"Mama, is it time yet?" Mae's voice breaks through the memory. She's holding up a perfectly cut heart, her brown eyes beaming. The mason jar sits high on its shelf, catching the winter sun—a secret keeper of love and letters waiting to be shared.

"Not ‘til four-thirty, sugar. You know how Daddy liked to keep things just so." Eleanor pulls out the watch, running her thumb over its engraved initials. "That's when Daddy—" She pauses, pushing down the lump in her throat. "When we have our special time."

Eleanor sits at her sewing machine by the window, watching life unfold on the street below. Women in smart coats hurry to the streetcar, bound for domestic work in white folks' homes up north. Men gather at the corner store, their laughter rising to her fourth-floor perch. The needle’s rhythm recalls Samuel’s hands. The hands that guided her that night. The hands that taught her how to survive.

The afternoon brings a biting chill. Eleanor stokes the fireplace, and the smell of smoke makes her hands tremble. In the wavering heat, she sees another fire, feels the weight of Mae in her arms, hears Samuel's whispered urgency: "Go north, honey. Don't come back." She opens the watch's back cover, where a small photograph shows the three of them in front of their old house. The image is creased from constant handling, but Samuel's smile remains clear—one hand on Mae's shoulder, the other holding Eleanor close. The memory makes her shudder, and the photograph slips from her fingers, fluttering to the floor.

When Mae returns from school, Eleanor notices how her nose scrunches against the cold, just as it did when she was a baby. Mae clutches a handful of Valentine's cards from her classmates. For a moment, Eleanor’s heart lightens—here, Mae can just be a child.

At precisely four-thirty, they settle at the table. Mae reaches for her finest paper while Eleanor lifts the mason jar off its high shelf. Over the years, it has filled with their careful scrawls of love and hope, forged in loss.

"Can I read my first letter, Mama?" Mae asks. "The one from when I was little?"

Eleanor nods, admiring Mae carefully unfold the paper, her small fingers treating it like treasure.

"Dear Daddy, Happy Valentine's Day! I miss you so much. Mama helped me write this. I been real good and I think about you every day. I miss playing with my friends, too. Mama say we safe now and… "

Mae’s voice trails off as she picks up the fallen photograph, studying it with quiet intensity—a look so much like Samuel’s. Her lips moved silently, tracing the words on the paper, as if searching for missing context. "Safe how, mama?"

The question wisps through the air like smoke from an extinguished flame. Eleanor sees the sun setting over the city—their new city, where they've built a life from the ashes of the old. The church ladies brought food those first weeks, and neighbors never ask about the past but understand the silence. The sweet potato pie and collard greens almost taste like home.

Safe. The word reminds Eleanor of Greenwood Avenue and the world they built and lost. In her mind, she walks those streets again, their rhythm steady as her heartbeat. Shoes clicking on sidewalks, shop bells ringing. Samuel stands in his shop doorway, a tape measure draped around his neck, his smile bright enough to light the darkest day. The memory is so vivid she can almost feel the warmth of the afternoon sun and smell the spring blooms in Miss Clara’s flower boxes.

A soft rustle pulls Eleanor back. Her gaze falls on the worn photograph in Mae’s hands. "That was our home in Tulsa," she whispers, her voice steadying. “Your daddy made sure we could write these letters. And you, baby—you’re going to build something just as fine. That’s what we do. We rebuild.”

She pulled Mae close, the soft beat of her daughter’s heart grounding her. "You see, baby, we had a whole world there—beauty shops, grocery stores, doctors, lawyers, all our own people. Your daddy had a tailor shop on Greenwood Avenue. Called it 'Harris & Sons' because he always said you might have brothers someday." She smiled, a memory tugging at her lips. "It wasn’t just a place—it was a kingdom. Folks walking proud in Sunday suits, little girls in ribbons and lace, church bells ringing louder than the trains. And your daddy… oh, he could make a suit that would turn heads all the way to Paris."

She placed the watch in Mae’s hands, watching her study it like she might uncover its secrets.

“Do you think Daddy would let me sew the buttons?” Mae asked, breaking the quiet.

Eleanor chuckled, tracing Mae’s frayed braid. It reminded her of herself at that age—full of questions and dreams. Some stories must be told, she realized. Some memories preserved, even when they burn like fire in the telling.

So she continued.

Because from the razing of a forest springs the seeds of tomorrow’s harvest. And her daughter, with her determined eyes, was beginning to sprout.