Abigail's Shame

Abigail heard the cars as they drove up the gravel driveway. They had awakened her from a deep sleep. She glanced over at the clock. The time read 3:45. Who would be coming at this hour? She got out of bed and looked through the blinds to see three cars in her neighbors’ driveway. She frowned. Why couldn’t those people keep their guests quiet? She had church in the morning and needed sleep. She turned to return to the comfort of her bed but then heard one of the men say “You got those rocks, Jake? That should let the niggers know they aren’t wanted here.”

“Shush” answered Jake, then whispering with a smirk, “I got everything we need.” Abigail returned to the window. She saw the two men clearly as the streetlight hit them. They were soon joined by three more. “I should call the police” Abigail whispered into the darkness when she heard the glass break as the first rock sailed through her neighbor’s picture window.

She turned to pick up the phone on the nightstand next to her bed but stopped. The voice in her head told her that someone else would call. She shouldn’t get involved. She was a single woman who lived alone, and they might come back after her. Abigail returned to the window as the porch lights in the house came on and the men ran back to their cars and hightailed it.

She knew that someone else would have seen the men, so she returned to bed and back to sleep. After all, she convinced herself, this was Long Island, New York not the backwater town in North Carolina she had come from.

The next day as she was on her way to church, Abigail saw the damage that had been done and guiltily watched her neighbor, she thought his name was Harold, sweeping up glass outside. He looked up at her and murmured “Good morning”. She waved, got in her car, and drove away without saying anything.

The next day after returning home from her job as a teacher in the Elizabeth Montgomery Private School for Girls, there was a knock on her door. She opened the door to find two Nassau County police detectives standing on her porch. “May I help you?” She answered politely. “Hello, we are investigating the vandalism committed next door. We’d like to ask you a few questions, may we come in?” The police detective inquired courteously then told her his name was Detective Abrams.

Abigail held the door open as the police entered her house. They spent several minutes asking her if she had seen or heard anything. She told them she slept through the entire incident. The detective didn’t look convinced and sighed. He left his card and told her if she remembered anything to please call. She ushered them out.

After the detectives left, Abigail sat at her kitchen table holding the card and thinking. She knew two of the men. She was certain they were the fathers of two of her students. She thought about calling the detective and telling him, but why destroy her students’ families. This was a one-time incident, and no one was hurt.

Two months passed and Abigail forgot about it. She put the detective’s card in a cluttered drawer in her kitchen. Abigail continued to wave at her neighbors, never speaking to them, never asking how they were, ignoring the fact that the incident ever happened.

They were the first and only black couple in the neighborhood. They had two children, a girl, and a boy age 7 and 9, respectively. When they moved in they knocked on Abigail’s door and introduced themselves; that had been nearly six months ago. Not once had Abigail invited them in for a cup of coffee, even though they had invited her not only for coffee but to a barbecue. She had not accepted their invitations.

On a Friday night, again after she had gone to bed, Abigail was awakened from sleep by cars driving up the driveway. Her neighbors were not at home, they had gone on vacation. She knew that because she had seen the suitcases loaded into the taxi and when she asked the mailman, he told her they asked for their mail to be held until Monday. Their car was still in the driveway.

The men got out of their cars. Abigail peeped through the blinds. They were carrying pieces of wood. She saw them assemble the large cross and stake it into the ground. Several of them had spray cans and sprayed something on the front and sides of the garage and house. Abigail then saw one of the men with a baseball bat in his hand. Horrified she went to get her camera. She would capture a photo of them for the police. 

Abigail went downstairs and retrieved her camera from the kitchen drawer. She wondered how to get a photo without them seeing the flash. She began smelling gasoline and when she surreptitiously peeked outside the side door of her house she gasped and put her hand over her mouth to stop the scream that wanted to escape from her lips as she saw the men light the cross. This was her opportunity and as all the men were looking up at their handiwork, she quickly took several photos. One of the men thought he saw something, but Abigail had already quietly shut the door. She would get the pictures developed that morning and turn over the photos to the police. The men left soon after and Abigail went back to bed. It took a long time before she fell asleep.

Later that morning, Abigail awoke to police, camera crews and neighbors standing outside looking at the damage. Dressing quickly, Abigail went downstairs and looked horrified at the words scrawled across the front of the house, “Get Out Niggers” and on the side “Leave”.

The car had been damaged beyond repair. Again, the police knocked on her door. Abigail told them she had not seen or heard anything as a black police officer looked accusingly at her, Abigail lowered her eyes. Her inner voice told her to tell the truth and give them the camera, while another voice told her to just wait and develop the pictures to make sure she had the right shot. She was a single woman and should not get involved.

A few hours later, Abigail’s neighbors returned. The wife, Henrietta, fell to the ground, clutching her chest as tears fell down her cheeks while her husband shielded his children. Abigail watched from the safety of her doorway. She did not come outside to offer to help clean up, she didn’t even speak, just returned inside to the safety of her house closing the door behind her.

Harold, that was his name, knocked on her door a day later. Abigail did not invite him in. At the threshold of her door, he asked her if she had heard or seen anything. She shook her head no, mumbled a guilty apology, and shut the door before he even moved away.

Abigail got the photos back a few days later. There were three, one of them showed a clear picture of the men’s faces while another one showed the man holding the bat. Yes, it was Michael Bent. His daughter Lisa was Abigail’s student and the man holding the bat was Joseph McKinley, father of JM, Jr, also a student. Abigail gasped as she recognized another man, he was a teacher at her school. She didn’t know him very well, he was the gym teacher and coach of the basketball team, which the neighbors' son was part of. She had seen him play.

For a few days, Abigail went back and forth in her mind about what to do with the photos. Again, she talked herself out of turning in the photos to the police. She didn’t want to get the teacher fired. They had done this craziness, now surely, they would stop, especially with all the press attention. She was concerned about what would happen to the students if their breadwinners went to jail. So, Abigail tucked the detective’s card and the photos into her family bible and forgot about them.

New Year’s Day several months later as Abigail was having a quiet celebration at home, she heard screaming. She peeked through the living room curtain to see Harold being dragged from his house, his wife screaming and the children crying. The five men had returned, this time wearing masks. One of the men had a gun and held it on Henrietta and the children as they watched horrified as Harold was beaten. Henrietta told the children to run and as the man with the gun went to shoot, Henrietta pushed him. She was shot and crumbled to the ground. The young girl banged on Abigail’s side door yelling, “Please help me.” Abigail started towards the door but just as she was about to open it, that inner voice told her they would come for her, so she went back to watching. A minute later, one of the men grabbed the girl and dragged her behind the house. 

Horrified Abigail shrank back and covered her mouth. With tears in her eyes, she returned to her bedroom. The screams had stopped. She did not look outside, she did not call the cops, she just sat on the edge of her bed for hours until finally she got under the covers and went to sleep.

Abigail did not wake until the afternoon to find news crew and police outside once again. This time the FBI arrived. They knocked at her door. Shakily she answered. She told them she saw nothing. She had, had too much to drink and passed out onto her bed. She thought she heard what sounded to her like fireworks. She was told they were gunshots. Later, watching the news she learned that Harold had been beaten to death, his wife had been shot but would survive, their 10-year-old daughter, Mary had been raped and beaten. She was alive but in critical condition, while their son, Marcus had escaped and was saved by a neighbor three blocks away.

Abigail saw her neighbors twice more. She saw Henrietta and the children return from the hospital. Henrietta’s arm in a sling, her daughter, a child who always had a bright smile was now subdued and still wore the black eye they had inflicted on her. Marcus had his arm protectively around his sister. Abigail did not speak to them.

The second time she saw them was the day of the funeral. There were lots of people and cars arriving. Abigail watched it all from the safety of her house. A few weeks later moving vans arrived. Abigail was at school, so she didn’t see them leave. She never spoke to them, never offered her condolences, never saw them again. No one was ever arrested for the murder or the crimes that occurred to the only black family in the neighborhood.

For an exceptionally long time, the house remained vacant, but a year and a half later the house was sold to a white family with three kids.

Abigail lived her life. She met a man at church and got married. She had two daughters and just once she looked in the bible and saw the detective’s card and the photos. She put the bible away in the attic.

Time passed and Abigail died of cancer. Her daughters came to empty their childhood home. Katy, Abigail’s eldest was the one who found the bible, the photos, and several other items in the attic packed in a box. There was also a letter addressed to her and her sister which Katy noticed had been written several months before her mother's death. Katy opened the letter and as she read the words, tears fell from her eyes. She yelled to her sister, Barbara, who ran up the stairs thinking something was wrong and seeing her sister on the floor sobbing, Katy handed Barbara the letter and a photo which was also in the envelope. This is what the letter said:

My darling daughters:

Your mother is a coward in more ways than you can ever know. I have kept many secrets in my life that I should not have. I have denied who I was and ashamed of what I became. All I can say is I am sorry. Both of these things have haunted me my entire life. I should have been proud; I should have been brave. I should have wanted to stand up and tell the truth, but I did not. I let fear rule my actions and my heart. I have no one to blame but myself and don’t know how to make things right.

A very long time ago I changed my life because I could not live with the fact that I was different. I wanted to be like the rest and not like the minority. I wanted to hide that part of myself that should have been proud. 

God sent me a message; a crime that had I reported it would have saved a life for one person and the innocence of another, but I was afraid even though I had proof.

At first, I told myself that some other neighbor would report the crime, as a single woman living alone I was certain if I reported it I would be next, Later I was so ashamed of myself for not reporting it that I couldn’t admit it to anyone, not even your father.

Guilt ruled my life so completely that even after your father offered to buy us a bigger house, I could not move, could not leave this one and tied up to all of this was the feeling of being discovered. I need to apologize to my mother for denying her. I loved her, but I hated myself.

Even now at my age, when I could and should report this, I am still a coward. I hope you, as my daughters, are braver than I am and will take the photos to the police and apologize to the family. I have no excuse for my behavior.

Please forgive me,

Mother

Inside the envelope was an aged color photo of a white man, with his arms around an exceptionally light black-skinned woman holding the hand of a young girl. On the back was written, mama, daddy, and I age 3. Katy and Barbara knew this was their mother with her parents. She had never told them she was half black. She had passed all her adult life as white.

The sisters were in shock. They got angry, then resolute, they cried and held each other. They decided to do the right thing and went to the police. The detective on the card had retired but was still alive. He came to meet them, and he told them the story about the only black family who had lived on that street and how they were treated.  

The story got national coverage, the men, three of whom were still living were arrested, the other two had died. Marcus, grown with five children was found living in New Jersey. His mother died a few months earlier. He could not forgive Abigail, but he thanked her children for bringing the men to justice. His sister Mary had never recovered from what happened to her and had died several years before of a drug overdose. All of this, he told Katy and Barbara could have been avoided if their mother had spoken up.

The three men, one of them the father of Abigail’s student and the former gym teacher were sentenced to life in prison. They were all in their 80’s.

Katy and Barbara never spoke their mother’s name again and never visited her grave. They never forgave her for betraying her own race, destroying the lives of a family, and not saving a life when all it took was courage.

“Justice delayed is Justice denied”