It had been several long days for Davie Robinson.  He knew that he should have picked up the phone and given John a call.  As soon as Andy began snapping pictures of the girl, there should have been no hesitation as to what happened next. Had he not been suffering the flu, or had he been twenty years younger, he would have stepped out and taken the camera from the strange little duck that was their new neighbor.

The truth was, he was nothing like the man who had once lived up on the hill. Unlike THAT particular gentleman, when it came to standing up for what was right, Davie was a bit of a coward.

He and his wife came from a time when it was not okay to speak one’s mind. They had been harassed for the color of their skin in those days.  Hell, their very lives had been threatened on more than one occasion!  No, even after Sammy D. made his stand, even after the black man had been given their equal rights, he simply couldn’t bring himself to take the first step.

“Davie, honey,” Keesha had finally said to him, “why don’t you just give John a call?  Talk to the man and let him deal wit him..”

It made perfect sense, of course, but there was even a reason for him not to do that.  It was an outdated reason, but he wasn’t in his normal state of mind either. The fever had spiked again, the nausea had returned, and even though his body temperature was dangerously hot, he shivered as if he had just participated in the local Polar Bear’s Challenge.

“It not our place, Keesha,” he argued without conviction.  “If they wan’ let they young’un play wit dat white boy, then it be none our biz-ness.”

She had let it go after that, but that thought was in the back of her head.  She didn’t have any love for their new neighbor.  She suspected that not many of the adults did, and much like her husband, she didn’t like to meddle in the affairs of others. That old ghost of hatred remained in her heart, just as much as it did in his, and it would take something much less innocent than taking a few pictures to spur her into action.

Some time later, after Davie had fallen into a restless sleep on the couch, she went to the kitchen, made a hot cup of tea, and mulled over whether or not she would call Marsha with their concerns.  He was right to worry.  If it had been their little one, she would have chased him off in a heartbeat.

Tea in hand, she went out to the front porch for some fresh air.