Excerpt from We Were Brothers by Barry Moser, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpted from
WE WERE BROTHERS
A MEMOIR

Verneta was a black woman. Mother called her a "nigress" (accent on the first syllable which rhymes with "pig") when she had to call her by something other than her name. She lived in a large green and white farmhouse at the top of the hill across the street from us. It was very rare for black and white families in the south at that time to live that close together. Rarer still when the black folks' houses were on the higher ground. Be that as it may, there was always a pleasant harmony between our families because, as my mother often said, we all knew our places, both black and white. Knew and respected them.

Verneta helped take care of Tommy and me after Arthur Boyd died, but not in any formal capacity as a nanny or a maid. She did make her living as a domestic, but she took care of us boys because she loved Mother and was Mother's closest friend. Tommy and I both adored Verneta.

She and Mother grew up together in the 1910's and 20's, a scant fifty years after Appomattox. These were the days of forced segregation when black and white children could not learn together, worship together, or eat or drink together in any public place, but they could run barefoot together in the summertime and play and laugh and become life-long friends, as these two little girls did.

* * *

I never heard the R in Verneta's name when I was a child. What I heard was V'nita—with a long I sound—and to this day when I say her name I pronounce it as I heard it when I was a little boy. The friendship between her and Mother never diminished over the years. In the privacy of our living room or sitting at the kitchen table they were equals and my mother treated her as such. Verneta called Mother Billie and Billie called Verneta, V'nita, just like everybody else did, even my brother and I. In the cooler months they sat and drank coffee; in the summer months they sat on the screened-in front porch and drank iced tea. I wish that I had listened to their conversations and could remember what they talked about, but I did not. I do remember that they got into arguments sometimes, but it never got heated and they never got angry with one another. I never heard Mother say, as she did to Tommy and me,

"Now you listen to me…."

On the other hand, if there was a car in our driveway that Verneta didn't recognize, or if she knew that there was a stranger visiting—a preacher, say, or maybe a salesman trying to sell Mother a new vacuum cleaner, or a Christian Science practitioner, Verneta would go to the back door and knock. She waited politely for "Miss Billie" to come let her in. She would not sit, nor was she invited to sit. In front of white company, Verneta would neither argue nor disagree with anything my mother said. It was always,

"Yess'm, Miss Billie," or "No'm, Miss Wilhelmina."

* * *

One summer night in 1957, Verneta did come to the front door while Mother and Daddy had company. They were playing Canasta with family and friends and debating whether or not Jesus was really a Jew—the consensus among them was that he was not—according to Mother he was just a "dark, Mediterranean type."

Tommy, now a twenty-year old with a red MG convertible and an endocrine system raging at full throttle, was out on a date with a woman named Maxine who worked for Wayland and was ten years older than Tommy. We didn't see much of my Tom-cattin' brother in those days.

The living room windows and the door that opened to the front porch were propped open to let out the cigar and cigarette smoke, and to let in some fresh air. An old, reciprocating fan grumbled on the floor and kept the smoky air circulating. The screen door of the porch was latched tight to keep out mosquitoes and moths. Lightning bugs blinked on and off in the front yard.

Excerpted from We Were Brothers by Barry Moser. Copyright © 2015 by Barry Moser. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.