Chapter 2

Two

Q ueenie

Dread coursed through me to the point of wanting to vomit. I couldn't believe I was being forced to do this. I thought the drive to church would feel like any other, but with each passing mile, it became painfully clear what today was.

Days of the past maybe once felt like freedom. Today felt like a death sentence. The only escape from it likely was death. A tear rolled down my cheek as I quickly wiped it away before my father could bear witness. Half the ride there, he warned me to stop my crying or he'd give me something to cry about.

"You want to wear a slap across the face on your wedding day?" he questioned. "Then I suggest you stop all that crying. You could do a lot worse."

My father wasn't a large man. Five-ten at the most. But he had no problem keeping you in line with his fists if he had to, so I forced whatever tears I had left not to shed. I knew he wasn't kidding when it came to making sure I obeyed.

I favored him more than my light skinned Creole mama, but if I were being honest, I never believed Mama was Creole. I think she just said that because back in North Carolina, it felt like anything was better than being Black. Here in Boston, it wasn't no different. Only up here with all the Irish and Italians, Black was just Black.

They didn't see light skin or dark skin, all they saw was Black. And with that, they treated you accordingly. My father never let us forget how much he worked his tail off to become a leader in our community. He could go where no other Colored men could because he spoke well and dressed nice.

It's too bad the person he was for the world, wasn't the man he showed to his family. Certainly not to his eldest daughter. I was just a means to an end for him. Made to feel like there was no use for me except to fulfill his selfish ambitions. Knowing what lay at the end of this car ride, I chose to say nothing. Be nothing. Because to him, that's all I'd ever be.

They say no good deed goes unpunished. I regretfully learned that the hard way ever since I came forward as a witness in that murder case. Taking it to the grave would have been my best option, but I couldn't live with the guilt that an innocent man would never know justice. A man of God, no less.

What I didn't account for was being asked to recant a year and a half later. It was surprising enough that they'd even take the testimony of a Black girl seriously, let alone put a white man in jail because of it. But none of that mattered once my father learned he could gain something from it. Recanting gave my father something he couldn't get on his own.

A seat at the table.

Only I was the only one paying the price for such power. A bargaining chip so men could get their business deals met. Sometimes I wish I'd been born a man. If I were a man, no one would be forcing me to marry someone I didn't want to. Especially not a white one.

Straightening in my seat, I prayed my voice didn't crack at my next question.

"Papa, can you please tell me which one it is?" Still unsure which of those Sullivan men I'd be marrying. I'd only met one of them in passing; likely the one with the least reservations with marrying a Black girl. But I'd made it clear if I had to marry a stranger, I didn't want to be with some old man.

"It would just make me…feel more at ease if I knew which one I was dealing with," I said, as I pinched at the skin on the back of my hand. Mama cut her eyes at me warning me with a look not to push it, knowing with my father being the controlling freak that he was, she knew better not to talk over him before he got any words in.

"Queenie. Why does it matter? It ain't like you ain't never seen one of them before. It don't matter which one of them Sully boys it is, you're gonna marry who I tell you to. The boy ain't but a year older than you that's all you got to know." Dismissing me before I could even get a chance to follow up.

"By the way, when we get to that church? Keep all that question-asking to a minimum. I promised that boy's brother that you were quiet and obedient. Don't no man want a woman asking him a hundred and one questions. I swear to God if you mess this up for me," He threatened, forcing me to slouch back into my seat.

My parents didn't understand the state of unease I was going through. Silently, I was just praying that it wasn't him .

My father was wrong. I had seen another one of them before. In fact, I don't think I'll ever forget that face. Killing a priest was bad enough, but killing a priest when your father was Oisín Sullivan made headlines. Even if I could forget a face, constantly seeing that family in the papers wouldn't allow me the peace to.

Cruel blue eyes. Violent stains of blood that covered his cold face. A priest begging for mercy as even then, he committed to ending that man's life. White men already scared me, but I don't think I'd ever seen a scarier man until that night.

I pleaded, prayed to God I would never have to see that face again. Please let it not be him. Passing the safety net of South End, I curiously looked back, wondering where we could possibly be going since all the respectable churches were in the Black part of Boston. Or at least all the Baptist ones were.

"You didn't tell me we weren't getting married in South End," I griped. Not only were we leaving the safety net of a Black town, we were gambling with our lives. Sundown towns weren't as common as where my parent's people were from, but you still knew which areas not to chance it in Boston. Whatever these men had promised my father, he was willing to risk the safety of all of us.

"That's because you're not getting married in no Black church. Why do you think we driving in the dead of night? Ain't no priest gonna risk his congregation marrying some Colored girl to an Irish man in the daytime. The ceremony was arranged this late so it could safely be hosted while not having to deal with wall-to-wall traffic during business hours. And the Sullivans made it clear to me you were marrying in a Catholic ceremony. A priest owes them a favor and this was the only time he could do it without prying eyes."

Anger clawed its way through me at such a revelation. What about our heritage and traditions? Just because I was marrying some white man didn't mean I wanted to lose sight of who I was, lose sight of who I am. Call it small, but even marrying someone I didn't find of my choosing, I thought I'd at least be able to jump the broom.

"Papa you didn't say anything about getting married in no Catholic Church. I'm all about respecting someone's customs and culture, but what part of me do I get to keep? I'm not gonna have none of my friends there. I'm not marrying in a church of my choosing. I don't even know who the hell I'm marrying! Your ambition doesn't have you seeing right, Papa. What they promised you can't be so important that you go against your own values," as an unexpected screech flung me and my Mama forward.

Papa took a sharp left at the fork of a road, and turned to me with a violent fire in his eyes that told me if I kept talking, and I wasn't the one who would pay for it, my mama surely was going to later.

"You listen to me, young girl. You're too young to understand that the nice house we live in, those clothes you wear, don't come from your daddy slaving in some factory. What they promised me is something that even the best of us don't ever get close to. I make a friend with the Sullivans and doors open for me. They own the Boston. They're giving me a slice but they don't do shit like that for free. Our kind don't trust each other, so this is the only way to gain that trust.

If you don't control that temper of yours, I'm sure your new husband will control it for you. They ain't no fucking choir boys, they're stone cold killers. All this back talk makes me glad you'll be their problem now. I'm so sick and tired of raising a fast, spoiled little brat who don't know how to listen when you tell them you know what's best for her. Now shut up until we reach the damn church."

If my father's intention was to humble me, he'd certainly achieved it. I swear I wanted to cry, but I just wanted to disappear more. I wasn't quiet like my mama. And I wasn't good at pretending to be stupid. But most of all, I hated that if a boy even looked at me, I was just fast . I'd never even gotten to hold a boy's hand before. And now I was just going to married to some stranger who was probably going to make me do things I didn't want to do.

Being a woman was hard enough, but being a Black woman, it's like I had no power. No one to speak up for me. No one to stand up for me. At least when you had the right amount of money or power, as a man, you could convince other men to follow you.

Which I suppose is what Papa wanted most. To be the most powerful Colored man in Boston. He couldn't achieve that goal without breaking bread with the Irish. No Colored man after Papa would be able to do it without him .

I was all for my rights getting better in the name of progression, but I regret the day the government ever passed those damn miscegenation laws. This wouldn't even be an option if Black and white people weren't allowed to marry. Not that either race was rushing to walk down the altar with one another; there was too much tension to just expect us want to be with each other, despite it being legal now.

But the law basically said, "You better get used to seeing Black people as human." So, I prayed my future husband did. And to think, if only I had just taken that murder to the grave with me, I wouldn't even be in this mess.