The Rocking Chair

My daddy was a kind and gentle man. The type who always opened the door for Mama and brought her flowers every Monday morning.

“A lady should start the week with fresh roses,” Daddy would say with a gleaming smile and sparkling eyes. He loved Mama; yes, he dearly did.

Often in the warmer months, Daddy liked to sit out on our worn wooden rocking chair on the porch, smoking a pipe while reading a book. He’d settle in just before the sun dipped too low, when the air was still soft and golden, and the breeze rustled through the trees like it had something kind to say. Sometimes, I’d come and climb onto his lap, my legs tucked to the side, and he’d read out loud. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was his favorite.

“American hero,” he’d say about her.

He read the book like scripture: slow, reverent, with pauses that let the words hang in the air. Mama would hum in the kitchen, sometimes wiping her hands on her apron just to come lean on the doorway and listen. Those were good nights. The kind you don’t know are golden until they’re gone.

I was twelve when Daddy passed.

They didn’t tell me how. Daddy had been out, and he didn’t come home. Mama said only that he was called to help. I didn’t ask more. Not then. I just remember her hands shaking as she boiled water for tea, the pot rattling gently on the stove, the rising steam curling into the air like a ghost.

I was surprised to see that nearly one hundred black folks came to the funeral. Some had traveled from as far as Pennsylvania. Some wore threadbare coats and others came in polished boots, but they all had stories.

“Your daddy is a hero to us,” one man told me, his voice deep and steady.

“He hid me when I fled to the North.”

I stared up at him. I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of it.

Another woman, with gray hair and kind eyes, knelt in front of me and said, “He gave my baby a second chance. Got her across the river one night so cold her breath was smoke.” She pressed something into my hand. A button. “It tore off his coat that night. I kept it all these years.”

More people came. A preacher with a scar across his temple. A young couple holding hands tight, their baby bundled against the cold. They spoke in whispers about midnight rides, safe houses, coded quilts, and the songs that told them when it was safe to run. Songs Daddy taught them.

After the funeral, I sat in Daddy’s rocking chair, the same one he used to read from, the same one that still creaked in rhythm like it remembered the weight of him. Mama came out carrying a worn shoebox. She sat beside me on the porch steps and opened it on her lap.

Inside were papers. Maps, names written in pencil, small cloth scraps with markings stitched into the corners. There was a compass. A Bible with pages cut out to hide messages. And at the very bottom, a folded letter.

“He never told you because he wanted you to be safe,” Mama said. “But your daddy… he was part of the Underground Railroad.”

I blinked, trying to understand. I thought the Underground Railroad was over, part of the past, like something out of the history books. But Mama shook her head.

“It didn’t end when the papers said it did. Not really. After the war, there were still folks running. From danger, from the people who thought freedom was a word you could undo.”

She handed me the letter. It was in Daddy’s handwriting, neat and careful.

If you’re reading this, I reckon I didn’t make it home. Don’t be afraid, little one. I did what was right. Not what was easy. If you grow up with anything of mine in your heart, let it be that. Love people enough to risk something for them.

I read that letter a hundred times that week. Maybe more.

I started noticing things around the house. The loose floorboard in the pantry. The ladder hidden behind the barn. The quilts Mama always kept folded on the cedar chest, each one stitched with patterns I now knew weren’t just for show.

Daddy had turned our home into a station. A quiet place on a dangerous road. And I’d been living in it my whole life without ever seeing it.

Later that spring, I walked past the porch and ran my fingers along the armrest of the rocking chair. It didn’t creak like it used to. Maybe it was waiting. Maybe it missed him, too.

I sat down and opened Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The pages still smelled faintly of pipe smoke and rose petals. I began to read aloud, slow and soft, just like he had.

Mama stood in the doorway, drying her hands on her apron. She didn’t say a word. She just listened.

And though the chair beneath me swayed gently on its own, it felt like he was still right there, watching the sun drop low behind the trees, listening to the story he never stopped believing in.

—

Notes

Read another historical fiction short story.

“The Rocking Chair” is a work of historical fiction. While based on real events, the story, characters, and incidents are fictitious.