Larry Bassett’s Reviews > Hardball > Status Update

“Hate and bitterness, always wrong, Ella. Always wrong. Lamont with Jesus. I know it, I know in my heart. White girl, you did good job. Hard, I know. Hurt, burn, beaten, you stay working. I know, Pastor Karen tell me all. Good, good girl.”

Dornick told them that their other four daughters were as good as dead if either parent told anyone anything about the Newsome murder, the Sawyer torture, the death of Sister Frances, the coercion of Petra.

She handed me an envelope. Later, when I opened it and found a check for twenty-five thousand, I almost threw it out. The money was tainted, I told Lotty. I couldn’t possibly accept it.

The murder of Sister Frances, my own injuries, the invasion of my apartment had all pushed Ella Gadsden and her sister completely out of my mind.

My pleasure died as soon as I opened the door. I was so shocked that I couldn’t take it in at first. My home had been ripped to shreds. AGAIN!

The feds had been watching Sister Frances’s apartment and hadn’t intervened in the attack on her. Did that mean they wanted her dead or had they been out getting pizza and not noticed whoever threw the Molotov cocktails?

I had forgotten the letter. I read it through several times, missing him, missing the love that he and my mother surrounded me with. I thought with regret, too, of the many times I let my temper get the best of me, turning difficult situations into impossible ones.

It seemed as though everywhere I turned these days, I was being forced to think back forty years to those hot riot-filled days. Or to the January blizzard that followed.

Hate and fear. Always wrong, will destroy you. Ella knew she was saying that because she’d said it so many times in the eighty-five years of their life together. Pastor Karen thought some special gift of empathy lay between Ella and Claudia that helped Ella understand her sister, but it was only habit.

The room was tiny and crammed with the mementos of Miss Ella’s life—tables and shelves stuffed with Hummel figurines, china vases, glass animals, a large bronze head of Martin Luther King, Jr..