When the Reckoning Comes

by LaTanya McQueen

Mira knew what her mother meant, as if that was all it would take to alter her life’s trajectory, as if as long as she did these things—lived a life of yes and no ma’am pleasantries, of never speaking beyond the answer to a question, of being watchful of her tone, even when upset, of never asking, never challenging, of being polite, respectable—somehow, in some way, she would be saved.

Every day the world reminded him, both directly and subtly, that because he was black his life held different rules, and Jesse behaved the way he did in defiance of this reality.

what Mira learned that day was how easy it was to let someone convince you of their truth instead of believing in your own.

They chose this, always this, because they knew it was better to drown in the rivers and swamps. To meet the sanctuary of wild animals who would tear their flesh to bits. Choosing to end themselves rather than go back, because at least death would be at their own hand, and there was freedom in that choice, and they would be free.

Who could look at this and not see it for what it was? To not see the slave system the cabin represented? Instead of a slave cabin they saw a modest-looking room they could have lived in and ignored the truth. None of them wanted to see anything else because the narrative that had been created affirmed whatever falsehoods people wanted to believe.

To marvel at the twisted limbs of the surrounding trees, their branches climbing toward the sky, toward their heaven, and not see lynching trees.

She felt shame for participating, for coming and being complicit. She felt shame for the circumstances that had led to a place like this existing. Shame for the realization that even after all these years of progress, this was where we’d come, to this corrupted version of the past we all thought we’d left behind.

what’s been buried will rear itself again.

Any action, however small, carried the weight to alter a life.

Yet, there was a story they heard, one spoken during their weakest moments when they could do no more—a fish’s heart could beat after it had died.