The Red and the Black
On Memorial Day 2009, my mother and I had the house to ourselves. She is a retired doctor and thirty-five years ago was the first African-American woman to open a private medical practice in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her home office holds a mammoth pine desk and a guest bed I was arising from that morning. I heard her downstairs in the kitchen clanging dishes, running water, opening and closing cupboard doors. The teakettle whistled.
