22 November 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2929: trailing behind

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

Capt. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr. was not a man given to daydreaming. He had put 33 years in the Army, and even before that, his mind had unpleasant places to wander to, beginning in childhood.

But, in watching his ten-year-old cousin Glendella Ludlow, now his adopted daughter and therefore “bonus granddaughter” with his seven other grandchildren, running around in the yard, sometimes ahead and sometimes trailing behind different bunches of them with their friends the Trents and Stepforths, his mind wandered back to where his heart connected to Glendella and all his grandchildren … his grandmother had taken him from his home at five years old, for all intents and purposes, after his uncles her stepsons had made him witness to a triple murder in the streets.

Hilda Lee had dropped Mrs. Slocum-Bolling from her name just as soon as her husband was in the ground, and not because of him, whom she had loved. The children of his first marriage had been raised to be bigots of the most hateful kind – but he had come to Christ for real after his first wife's death, and thus had been ready to be husband to Hilda Lee-of-the-Mountain later on. His sons remained unrepentant and cruel, but they loved that the half-sister from Hilda – Helen Lee Slocum-Bolling – had snagged Edwin Ludlow in his second marriage, and enjoyed that access until they fumbled it by murdering three Black men in the street while one of them was holding Edwin and Helen's Baby Bob Ludlow in his arms.

The Slocum-Bolling sons had inherited plenty from their father. They would need it, for the calculating wrath of Edwin Ludlow would burn them out of Lofton County society and thus out of all further wealth-building opportunities. But Baby Bob was not to witness any of the scenes that went with that. For all intents and purposes, Hilda Lee took him and his elder full brother Henry home to the mountain with her for the next ten years … so for years, he had grown up as a Lee-of-the-Mountain, running around with his elder brother and all his Lee cousins, and also their Black and Native and Melungeon friends. There, he had forgotten what he had seen so completely he would not consciously remember for 53 years – the damage was done, but Hilda Lee and her circle had stopped it from advancing by taking him out of that same society that was just fine with murder in the streets.

Watching Glendella Ludlow in her new home, playing with a circle of friends that looked quite a bit like what he had been in when he was her age, helped him realize that he had reproduced for his own grandchildren what his grandmother had done for him and his brother: all of them had been damaged, but they had a safe place to heal and grow and learn love for other human beings.

Capt. Ludlow came from this moment of realization in tears, and got up from his watch of the children as Col. H.F. Lee his cousin came out in his porch with the snack his wife had made for all the children. The Ludlows, the Lees, and the Trents were living very much like their families had in the Blue Ridge, looking out for all the children … and, the timing was perfect, for the captain went upstairs and got down on his knees, overwhelmed with gratitude to God for having given him the foundation and also the correction – for he had a racist foundation too – that he would need to bring another generation of Ludlow little ones to safety.

Meanwhile, outside …

“This bruschetta from Cousin Maggie definitely works for me!” five-year-old Robert Edward Ludlow III was saying as he passed a plate to his new sister Glendella. “You gotta try this!”

“OK – never seen tomatoes on toast like this, but I'm definitely open to it,” Glendella said.