They returned to the resort that summer for the fourth time, after all. And this time, Fran came with them.
On the ship, Lizzie slept in the servants’ quarters adjacent to Fran and Drayle’s stateroom. She wondered where she would sleep once they got to the resort. She pictured Fran in her cottage, tucked into her sheets, soaking in her bathtub, drinking from her cups.
Leaving her children had been more difficult than ever. Nate was almost eight years old-big enough to work in the fields and to look after his sister. Rabbit was a year younger, but she had an old soul. Lizzie sometimes felt the girl could see right through her mother’s put-on strength. As if the girl could sense the most cowardly part of her. As if the girl already knew the secret that Lizzie had not told anyone, had not even half admitted to herself.
Fran had been pestering Drayle about putting the children to work, and even though Drayle had held her off, Lizzie could tell that the woman was wearing him down. Drayle had never gotten over losing Philip. Even though he had sold his favorite slave at a fair price, he acted as if Philip had escaped. He didn’t even like for Lizzie to mention Philip’s name. Recently, Drayle had started training Nate to care for the horses. It was exactly what Lizzie had expected.
Nate was eager to bid Drayle’s wishes. Lizzie could see how much her son wanted his father’s attention and how he would jump the sun and the moon to get it. If he wasn’t busy showing off how strong he was by lifting something too heavy for him, he was reciting something from a book. Lizzie was proud of the fact that he talked like a white boy with nary a touch of slave in his speech. She only wished that the other slave women were there so she could brag about him in a way that she could not brag about him to other slaves.
She leaned her forehead against the train car window. She passed the time by counting the houses built along the banks of the Little Miami River. Her stomach pitched with each tumble of the train. The glass was hot against her skin. She missed Philip’s stories.
Drayle had warned her this wasn’t a vacation this summer, mysteriously saying that he had unfinished business. She hoped that it had nothing to do with trying to buy Philip back. She wanted Philip to enjoy his freedom with his new wife. At the same time, she didn’t want to offer up her son as a replacement. As usual, she found herself having to choose between her interests and another’s.
She wondered why Drayle had brought her along at all. Since Reenie and Mawu’s disappearance the summer before, they had not spoken about the two women. She had been afraid to ask lest he think she had a mind to follow.
As soon as they got to the hotel, she planned to make her way to the kitchen so she could find out the latest news.
When they finally arrived at the resort after eight days of travel, the grand white hotel did not look the same to Lizzie. The paint was not fresh, and a yellowed curtain blew through a broken window pane. The grass was not trimmed very low, and some of the flowerbeds were empty. A gaggle of geese sauntered by, following a servant carrying bread.
Fran looked about her, as if disappointed that the resort did not appear the way she had expected. Lizzie wished the woman could have seen the place at its height. When Drayle entered the hotel to sign the register, Fran instructed Lizzie to fan her while they waited. Lizzie stretched over the trunks in the back of the omnibus so she could reach her. The leather was hot. Her lip twitched. Lizzie wished there was someone there to fan her. I suppose I am the spoiled nigger she says I am.
When he came back, he pointed to Lizzie and said, “They fixed up your bed” as if she was supposed to know what he was talking about. She hopped off the back of the omnibus and grabbed the square of cloth pinned around her belongings.
In the kitchen, the head cook Clarissa smiled at her and while Lizzie had waited for such a warm welcome for the past three summers, she found that it did little to ease her mood.
“You looking good,” the older woman said to Lizzie. “You done gained some.”
“I reckon so,” Lizzie responded. The cook put up her arms to stretch, and Lizzie pretended to take it for a hug. She pulled Clarissa close, and when the woman squeezed her back, Lizzie felt a flower open up inside of her.
She asked if Lizzie had eaten, and when Lizzie told her no she fixed a plate. She motioned for Lizzie to go outside and wash up. Lizzie stepped into the sideyard. The spigot on the water pump was rusted and a bee circled its mouth as if it held the attraction of something other than water. She put her hands beneath the cool liquid, and closed her eyes.
Clarissa served mashed potatoes, gravy, and chicken. Lizzie was hungry. A chambermaid on the ship had brought her a plate of leftover food every evening, but once she’d boarded the train, there had been no more meals. After she finished the chicken, she felt sick. She tried to hide it from the ex-slave, thinking it wouldn’t take much for the woman to guess her condition.
Lizzie indicated she was ready to go upstairs. Clarissa called out for a servant who showed Lizzie up the back stairway. As she led the way, the girl asked if she had ever seen where the hotel servants slept. Lizzie answered no. When they opened the door, the girl pointed out that the men and women slept on opposite sides of the attic. The wall between the two spaces had been erected after Clarissa explained to the hotel manager that no self-respecting free colored woman would share a bedroom with a man. The servant pointed to a narrow bed that was sinking in the middle.
“I guess a bed, even a sinking one, is better than a dirty old pallet any day,” the girl said softly, watching Lizzie.
Lizzie slid her bundle under the bed and thought of her bedroom at home. This free girl was assuming that because she was a slave, she slept on a pallet. She wondered what the girl would think if she saw the spacious room Lizzie called her own in Drayle’s house. The drawer of underwear. The wooden horse on the dresser.
Lizzie wasn’t used to being idle, but the new sleeping situation had her off balance. She was used to tidying the cottage and washing Drayle’s clothes and warming his dinner. Why had they brought her here?
She considered asking the girl her name, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was another friend who would desert her.
She wanted to kill Drayle. While she was sleeping that night, she made up in her mind that she didn’t want to kill it. She wanted to kill him instead. He was the one who had gotten her into this mess. He was the one who had been lying to her for all these years, who wouldn’t let her children go free.
She had to kill him. And unlike Mawu, she had to succeed.
She caught herself mumbling when she woke up. The room was so hot, she felt as if she were boiling. There wasn’t a window that opened in the attic and even though the door was ajar, the air wasn’t moving.
She pushed her way out of the bed, pulled off the sheet, and walked down the back stairs. She was used to finding cool spots in the kitchen, so she had no problems locating one here. She balled up the sheet and made a bed of it.
But still she couldn’t sleep. Because in her dreams, she had done it already. She had killed him. Would doing something like this weigh on her children’s spirits? Would they pay for her decisions? Big Mama always used to say that the sins of the mother and the father rained down on the heads of the children.
She finally gave up on trying to sleep and stepped out the back door. Everything was quiet except for the occasional sound of a dog barking. She walked, stopping when she saw a piece of paper nailed to a tree.
$100 REWARD FOR NIGGER WENCH.
RANAWAY FROM TAWAWA HOUSE RESORT, NEAR XENIA SPRINGS, OH
ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST, 1853. ANSWERS TO THE NAME
REENIE
5 FEET 6 INCHES HIGH WITH A STRAIGHT NOSE FOR A NEGRO;
NO TEETH REMAINING BUT DOES WEAR A SET OF FALSE ONES;
DEEP VOICE LIKE A MAN. SHE WAS RAISED IN THE HOUSE
AND WILL LIKELY LOOK FOR WORK AS A COOK.
The paper made Lizzie go cold.
She had only meant to walk to the pond and back, but her feet had their own mind. Before she knew it, she had arrived at the cottage and was peering in the window. She wasn’t sure if Drayle would be staying in the same cottage as the one he had shared with Lizzie. A part of her had hoped they wouldn’t, that Drayle would be sensitive enough to know the cottage had been special to them. But there lay the couple, sleeping as sound as babies. Drayle’s arm lay across his wife’s chest. They didn’t look any more comfortable than she had felt in the attic above the kitchen.
As she tried to make her way back, she tripped over something in the dark that sounded like metal. It clanged loudly. She looked down and saw Drayle’s metal camping dishes, lined up against the outside of the house, still dirty from the last visitor. Surely Fran would wash them for him, she thought, as she put the cup back in its proper place.
“Who’s there?”
Jesus! It was Drayle and there was no place to hide. She stepped closer to the side of the house and pressed up against it. She figured if he went left, she would go right. If he went right, she would go left.
He came out the back door and walked to the water pump, as if he figured he would get himself something to drink while he was up.
She couldn’t help herself. She needed to claim him, needed to know there was still that connection between the two of them, even if she was angry at him. She crept up behind him and put her arms around his waist.
He jumped and turned around. “Girl! Don’t you sneak up on me like that. Are you crazy? What are you doing out here this time of night?”
His eyes moved past her shoulder.
“You spying on me?” he said.
Then he pushed her back into the shadows and kissed her. It had been a while since he had kissed her on the mouth. Lately, their lovemaking consisted of a few grunts and then he was through. Most of the time it was from the back with her dress still on. She had noticed that sometimes he couldn’t seem to get it going good enough. Then he would tell her it was her fault.
She let him kiss her for a few minutes until she started to feel sick again. She pushed him back and lay an arm across her stomach.
“What’s wrong with you woman? You ain’t-”
“No!” she said. “Something I ate.”
He grabbed her shoulders. In the dark, his face looked boyish. He seemed to be enjoying the secrecy of the meeting. He told her to turn around and bend over. She didn’t say what she wanted to say, that she didn’t feel like it.
It lasted a little longer than it had lately. While she was bent over, she spied a sharp piece of metal on the ground. While he was carrying on behind her, she stared at it. It was just close enough where she could reach it. Swing it around. Hit him with it.
But she couldn’t do it. I’m not Mawu.
And then he was quiet. And she knew he was through.
It was the Quaker woman who led her to Mawu. Lizzie had started to know the Tawawa Woods, the deep ravine in its center, the five mineral springs, Massie’s creek, but she still did not know them well enough to navigate directions. Once they arrived, she was surprised Mawu was so close. With that hair, she’d figured Mawu would be long gone by then. All of this time and she had been living right under the slavecatcher’s nose. Only Mawu could do something like that.
The first thing Lizzie noticed as Glory approached with the two horses was that she was pregnant. The woman’s rounded belly made her pause. Lizzie wanted to share in the news, touch it, give her a silent prayer. But she was in no place for such celebrations. She tried hard to feel warmth, especially since she’d known how much Glory wanted a child.
She forced words from her lips, “You’ve done it I see.”
Glory smiled and put a hand on her middle. “Yes. My very own. I’m hoping it’s a girl.”
“A girl?” Lizzie wanted to chastise her for such talk.
“Yes. If it is, I’m going to name it Eliza. Like your given name.”
Lizzie didn’t bother to hide her surprise. Why would this woman want to name a baby after her? Why not Mawu or Reenie or Sweet?
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t,” Glory said. “But I want to. I need this baby to have a strong love like yours.”
Lizzie shrugged and climbed onto the horse. It was a gentle mare and not as large as the one Glory rode. As they started off, Lizzie noted she was a better rider than Glory. And she took pleasure in the fact. She had learned a lot about horses from Drayle over the years. The one-eyed horse had finally been sold, and Lizzie remembered him now. This mare felt much less solid beneath her. She coaxed it to follow Glory’s horse off the trail.
Glory was delivering fresh goods to the hotel again. Her husband wasn’t sick anymore, so he was back in the fields. As they rode at a leisurely pace, Glory described the turnips and tomatoes she grew in her garden. Lizzie asked what Glory and her husband would do once the resort closed this summer. Perhaps they would return to taking their goods into town and selling them, Glory answered. Some were hoping the hotel would be sold to new owners who would maintain it and keep some of the help. Glory hoped for the same thing.
They picked up the pace a bit, and rode until they got tired. Then they rode some more. Just when Lizzie was about to suggest they stop for a rest, they came upon a cabin. It looked run over. Deserted. A tree grew right out of its side edge, as if the cabin had been built on top of its roots. It cracked the wall and angled south toward the sun. Mold covered the gaping hole. Glory jumped off her horse and tied him up. Lizzie descended more slowly, suspicious all of a sudden. Although she trusted this white woman, they were still in slavecatcher territory and she didn’t want to be mistaken for the wrong runaway slave. If she disappeared, Drayle would assume she’d run away. And Glory would be able to collect a reward.
A curtain moved in the window. When Glory was certain none of the sounds around them were human, she walked up to the door. It opened without her having to knock. She motioned for Lizzie to follow. They stepped into the dark cabin before they could see who opened it. Behind the door was Mawu, a cloth wrapped around her hair, earrings dangling from her ears. She looked exactly the same, only thinner.
“Mawu!” Lizzie whispered. Mawu reached out for her. The embrace did not end quickly. Lizzie wanted to kiss her face, wanted to cover her up with joy.
“Miss Lizzie,” she said.
When they let go of one another, Lizzie looked around. The cabin was dark because the curtains were made out of a thick, opaque cloth. But even in the darkness, she could see its coziness. There was hardly any dust. The wood plank floors were swept clean. Lizzie wondered if Mawu had been expecting them. How did Mawu and Glory communicate? That had been a long ride.
“You looking good, Miss Lizzie,” Mawu said.
Something about her diction sounded different. Lizzie looked in the corner of the room. Three books sat neatly stacked. Had she learned to read? Or did those books belong to somebody else? Lizzie searched for signs of somebody else living there.
“It’s just me,” Mawu said, watching Lizzie. “Reenie long gone.”
Mawu brought out three jars of cold tea and the two slave women settled themselves into two ragged armchairs while Glory sat on something that looked like it was carved from a tree stump. A beetle came up through the floorboards. Mawu stomped it with her foot before sitting back down.
Lizzie crossed her arms over her stomach. “I think I might be having another one.”
Mawu’s eyes traveled down Lizzie’s body and back up again. “How long have you knowed?”
Lizzie unfolded her arms. She hadn’t talked to anybody about it yet, and it hurt to let her secret go.
“Not long. I don’t even feel it moving yet,” she said. “What am I going to do?”
“That’s the same thing I was gone ask you.”
Glory looked from Lizzie to Mawu.
“Kill it,” Lizzie said, before she could think.
Mawu’s face didn’t change, but Glory choked on her tea.
“Don’t,” Glory said. “Give it to me. I’ll take care of it and raise it right alongside this one. Don’t kill a baby from God.”
“Ain’t from God,” Mawu snapped. “From the devil, if anything.”
“You don’t know about God. You left your boy behind,” Glory said.
“He’ll be all right.”
“What kind of mother.” Glory left the statement unfinished.
Lizzie had never heard Glory speak so angrily before. She, too, wanted to know how Mawu could have left her son behind. Had she sent him word of her whereabouts? Did she plan to try to buy his freedom? Did she even care?
Glory was still staring at Lizzie as if to say don’t you do that. Lizzie knew she ought to feel bad about it, pitiful as Glory’s face was, but she didn’t. She really couldn’t say that she felt anything at all. It seemed like lately, her feelings had been drying up.
“Ain’t no other choice now, Lizzie. You got to escape. You got to get out now,” Mawu said.
Lizzie looked down into her glass. She’d heard somewhere that there were folks who could look at the bits of tea in their cup and tell the future. She counted the flakes of tea swimming in the bottom of her jar, but she didn’t see a sign. The leaves didn’t form into anything that resembled a hatchet or a rifle.
“Course if it was me, I’d kill it. If you sick, it’s gone make it hard for you to escape.”
Lizzie thought about her children like she always did when escape crossed her mind. How could she get word to them? Tennessee seemed so far away. Like a different world.
“I reckon that man fancy he love you. You don’t still talk that nonsense about loving him, do you?” Mawu watched Lizzie.
That’s what she’d told Mawu before. She’d told of Mawu’s plan to escape because she loved her, but also because she loved Drayle. But something was shriveling up inside of her. The love she did have left felt old and useless.
“Where’s Reenie?” Lizzie asked.
“I don’t know. Us was together for only that first night. Us didn’t have no plan. Us was just running for our lives. Then us split up cause all the slave catchers was looking for two women together. I do hope she made it. I had a vision the other night that us gone meet up again some day.”
So Mawu still believed in her heathen religion. Most folks would have said they would meet up again in heaven. Mawu probably meant she would meet Reenie in Canada or Africa. Lizzie had begun to believe that slaves had a right to venture off course once in a while when it came to religion.
Lizzie looked down at Mawu’s hands and saw the burn scars. They were raised and welt-like and lighter-colored than the skin around them, and she could tell that the scarring went up her sleeves. When Mawu caught Lizzie staring, she did nothing to hide her hands.
“This is what you got to do. Everybody expect you to leave at night. That be when there is the most men out looking for runaways so they can get that there reward money. But you got to fool them. You got to leave in the middle of the day. You got to walk just like you free. I got a man can make you up some free papers look just like the real thing. Course it’s gone cost money. You got money?” Mawu asked.
Glory took Lizzie’s empty glass and went to refill it. When she came back, she grabbed Lizzie’s other hand. Glory’s hand was cool and wet from where she had been holding the glass. She let go of Lizzie and sat back down on the stump.
“If you ain’t got no money, us can get some.” Mawu kept on without waiting for an answer. “You know Philip married that woman and now he a barber. Did you ever think he would go from being an outdoors man to cutting hair? They say he picked it up right quick. I bet he rich.”
“Philip?” Lizzie said absently.
“Yeah, Philip,” Mawu continued. “He’ll help if us ask him.” Mawu fixed Lizzie with a stare. “But my question is, is you ready? cause I ain’t gone help you if you is gone act the way you acted in the past.”
Lizzie tried to focus in on Mawu’s features. The woman’s face had not changed. It was still steady and cold. “Why did y’all leave without telling me, Mawu?”
Mawu stole a look over at Glory. Glory understood and announced she was going to check on the horses. When the door closed behind her, Mawu said: “Wasn’t no time.”
“What do you mean? You knew what you were doing long before you did it.”
“No. I mean, I knew what I tried to do. I tried to get rid of Tip once and for all.”
“You burned down that cottage to kill him.”
“He never said nothing bout it or they would have had the law after me. I would be a dead woman. But he knowed what happen. I believe the only reason he wants me back is so he can punish me hisself. Lord knows what would happen if he caught up with me now.”
“Why are you still around here then? You ought to be in Canada by now.”
Mawu put her glass down. She lifted out of her chair.
At that moment, Lizzie understood why her friend had remained. She had waited for her, the last of them.
“You got to leave, Lizzie. This your only chance. Promise me.”
Lizzie couldn’t say anything. She was too dizzy from Mawu’s love.
Mawu held on to Lizzie’s shoulders. “Promise me. Promise me, Lizzie.”
Lizzie shook her head. She couldn’t promise. She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even look Mawu in the eye.
As Lizzie and Glory rode back to the resort from Mawu’s cabin, the rain began. For the next three days, it rained without ceasing. The water came down in gusts, along with a tropical-force wind that sent wetness through open doorways and windows, created troughs of water between the hills, and swelled the streams. When the rain finally let up, mottled gray slugs emerged from the ground, leaving trails of mucus on steps and paths. Dozens of them appeared around the property, and the children who were visiting with their parents that summer collected a few and placed them in jars.
Drayle had gone on a camping trip with the men, and did not return as promised. While he was gone, Fran instructed Lizzie to tend to the cottage. Lizzie washed and ironed the clothes, scrubbed the floors, dusted the wood, beat the rugs. While she cleaned, Fran sat in the highback armchair with a cloudy look in her eyes.
In the afternoons, Lizzie spent time with the women in the hotel kitchen, helping them to prepare the evening’s supper. She liked sitting and talking with the free colored women while they peeled turnips, mashed squash, shelled nuts, sliced tomatoes, sifted flour. Lizzie had never spent so much time with them, and she was delighted by their tales. She begged them to tell her more about the men they courted or the monthly neighborhood dances.
The rain had a calming effect and lifted their moods. But it did not help to dissipate the overall gloom at the resort, the knowledge that the servants would have to find work elsewhere.
The first morning she woke and did not hear the pelt of raindrops, Lizzie dressed quickly and rushed outside to see the sky. She was hoping for sun, but was greeted with the same dark clouds scudding across the tops of the trees. She could smell another rain shower as she made her way to the Drayle cottage. As she walked, she saw the manager of the hotel and it looked as if he was walking toward her. She wondered what he thought about Reenie’s disappearance, and if Reenie’s master had blamed him at all for the unexpected disobedience of his favored slave.
Lizzie tried to walk in a different direction so she would not pass him. But he had already spotted her.
“Hey! You there!” he shouted.
She tucked her chin down as she neared him. Several pains sprang up at once: an ache in her knee, a shot in the elbow. She could feel herself becoming physically ill the nearer she came to him.
He pointed to a batch of firewood. “Gather up that wood and stack it outside the kitchen door.”
He walked away.
She pulled out her skirt and placed the wooden blocks onto it. She moved all the firewood in five trips. Afterwards, she looked around and didn’t see him. She hurried off to Fran, all the while picturing Reenie and the things he must have made her do.
Lizzie poured a cup of warm water over Fran’s shoulders.
“Back home, it’s unheard of to take a bath in the middle of the day. Up here in Ohio, I imagine the ladies do this sort of thing all the time. They probably don’t have to work as hard as us Southern women. I’m so tired of working. I’ve told Drayle that we need to sell the farm and all the slaves and everything else and just move to the city.”
“What city, ma’am?” Lizzie asked softly, scrubbing Fran’s back with a brush.
Fran waved a hand. “Oh, any city will do. As long as there’s no work involved. I want a husband who comes home at a decent hour. They say city men are always out in the streets, working and carrying on, but I wouldn’t allow that. I want to live in a house that doesn’t have a bunch of slaves walking around. Maybe one of those fancy houses like I saw in Washington, Dc. I think I rather like it up north. I like the way they…carry themselves.”
“Hmmm,” Lizzie responded. She tilted Fran’s head and cleaned her ears.
“Of course, my mother is a country woman, a Southern woman through and through. My daddy was always talking about his daddy’s Scottish heritage. I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland. I guess I’ll make it to Europe someday. The farthest I’ve traveled is…let’s see…here or Washington, Dc. I don’t know which one is farther from Tennessee. Now that I think of it, those are the only two important places I’ve ever been.”
Fran stood and Lizzie wiped her dry.
“In my next life, I’m not going to marry an ordinary horseman. I’m going to follow my parents’ wishes and marry some kind of aristocrat. Maybe I’ll marry a real European aristocrat. A count or a…or an earl.”
“That would be something else,” Lizzie said. Lizzie followed Fran into the bedroom. She powdered the woman from the neck down. The rain beat against the closed window as if asking to be let in.
“My sister sure does live an exciting life. Sometimes I wish I could trade places with her. Sure, her husband left her. But she’s got that blessed child. And she travels all over the place. I wonder if Drayle would mind if I traveled with her sometime. I’d probably be gone at least a year, but oh what a year it would be! I could probably see the world in a year’s time! I wonder what one of those big ocean steamships look like. They probably look entirely different than a Mississippi rowboat.”
“Yes, I reckon they do,” Lizzie said and reached for Fran’s dress.
Lizzie could not believe it. A letter from Reenie? how could this be? Reenie could not read or write. Surely this was something that would endanger Reenie. Clarissa had gotten the letter from the butler who had gotten it from the porter who had picked it up in Xenia. It was addressed to “Lizzie Drayle.” The letters on the envelope were smudged, but she could clearly read the postmark: “new York.”
New York! even Miss Fran had never been to new York. Lizzie tried to picture what this new York must look like. She had read about it in newspapers, but she found she could not come up with convincing images. So she just thought of cincinnati-the biggest city she had ever seen-and imagined it was new York.
The letter brought to mind Reenie’s story of how she lost the edge of her finger. On the night Lizzie had visited Reenie’s cottage and discovered the runaway slave girl, the two women had sat up talking after the child went to sleep. Sir had issued a rule on their plantation that no slaves were to learn to read. Reenie had always wanted to read. Her mother had been taught by Sir’s daddy when he was alive, but the woman had never passed it on to her daughter. Reenie kept the primer with her mother’s letters in it, and it was this book that Sir found in her cabin. He burned it right in front of her, knowing that he was also burning her mother’s memory. She’d hated him for it.
But what he hadn’t destroyed, she said, was her desire. She’d gotten another book, stolen from the house that she believed no one would miss. It was more difficult than her last one and didn’t have any pictures. She kept it in her skirt so that she could pull it out whenever she had a spare moment. When Sir felt the book’s hardness while grabbing her from behind one day, he’d taken it from her. She’d fought him to get the book back, and when he slapped her, she picked up a flower vase and hit him in the head with it. It broke, and the man was astonished to find he was bleeding. Furious, he ordered her down to the stables where a slave was made to slice the tip of her finger right off.
Lizzie sat on the porch of Drayle’s cottage, cupping the open letter in her palm, remembering Reenie’s story. She read the name at the end first.
“With love I remain, Reenie.”
“I remain, Reenie.”
“Reenie.”
The first thing Lizzie noticed was the penmanship. It was perfect, with looping gs and tall hs. She wondered if she would be able to write like that if she studied long enough.
She took a moment to thank God for her ability to read. She didn’t want to have to share this bit of heaven with anybody:
May 8, 1854
My dearest Lizzie:
I hope this letter finds you. I have asked my friend-to write and mail this letter in my stead because I am still learning to read and write properly! But I so desired to get a letter to you and let you know that I am doing fine. I am a free woman, Miss Lizzie, and I have a job as a maid in a rich family’s residence. They treat me fine, and gave me my very own room. I cannot go into detail how I escaped, but just know that I met many kind people along the way. There were many times that I thought I would not make it, but someone always appeared ready to give me a helping hand. My faith in the Lord is stronger than ever. I do hope that you will lean on him in your darkest hour. How are your children? have you heard anything about Mawoo? I know that I will never receive an answer from you as I cannot give you my address, but I thought I’d ask so that you know that I am thinking of you, my dear friend. Whenever I think of you and Mawoo and Sweet, it makes me happy and is about the only thing that I can remember from my past days, other than my darling girl, that brings me Joy.
Miss Lizzie, you will always remain in my thoughts. I do hope to see you again one day, in this life or the next.
With love
I remain,
Reenie
Lizzie wanted to hold on to the letter, wanted to take it back with her to the plantation, and tuck it into her things. But she knew she had to get rid of it. Keeping it could only bring harm to everyone involved. She would have to burn it.
Before she did, however, she wanted to read it again.
Lizzie started drinking the tea the next morning. First, she prepared herself as much as she could. She said her goodbyes and prayers. One moment she was thinking of it as a baby-a boy or a girl, a younger brother or sister to Nate and Rabbit. The next minute she was thinking of it like a seed-a large seed, perhaps-but a seed no different than what one found in the middle of a plum or peach. Whenever she felt doubt, she brought up the image of this seed in her mind.
There really had been no decision to be made. If she kept this baby, she would not be able to escape very far. Everyone knew the journey north could take weeks or even months. She would also have to figure out a way, once she was settled, to make enough money to buy Nate and Rabbit’s freedom. If she kept the baby and returned to Tennessee, she would be adding another slave to Drayle’s plantation. And she had no intention of doing that. No intention whatsoever.
So she followed the instructions given to her by Mawu, used the herbs gathered by the red-headed woman before she left her cabin that day. Drink the tea every four hours for several days. The only thing she knew the tea contained were squaw root and pennyroyal. And it was bitter. She brewed it in the hotel kitchen, holding the bag of herbs close to her chest in case anyone noticed. At first, she felt the same. Would this really work? But on the second day, she began to feel nauseous and the bleeding started. It was a heavy bleeding that threatened to travel down her leg if she didn’t wrap up tightly enough. It soaked her rags so thoroughly she could smell the dark, rich scent of the blood once it dried.
Each day, when Glory delivered the goods, she met Lizzie on the back steps of the hotel kitchen and asked how she was doing. Lizzie tried not to look at the white woman’s pregnant belly when she answered.
“Fine,” was her answer each day. Then she would take the food off Glory’s cart and place it inside the kitchen.
On the third day, the cook sniffed the jar with the steeping herbs while Lizzie was tidying up the pots.
“Bless you child,” was all Clarissa said.
On the fourth night, Lizzie cramped so badly that she had to take to the bed. The young girl on the bed next to hers placed a pile of rags beneath her so her blood would not soak through to the mattress. Lizzie felt hot and feverish, and her entire body tingled. Every few minutes, her stomach cramped up into a knot and she had difficulty breathing. Then it would pass.
Clarissa sent Glory up to check on her the next morning.
Glory knelt beside Lizzie.
“How are you feeling?”
Lizzie shook her head. “Not so good. I can’t stand to drink this tea anymore.”
Glory spread Lizzie’s legs and pulled back the rags. The blood was thick and clotted and lay curled in bulbous lumps like tiny dead mice.
“How much have you bled?”
Lizzie started to cry. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Glory dried Lizzie’s forehead. “You’ll be fine.”
Lizzie reached for Glory’s hand. Glory patted it. “Shhh. Hush now. You’ll be fine. Just don’t drink any more of that tea. Let the Lord take away your pain.”
Lizzie nodded.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll tell Clarissa in the kitchen to send you up something to eat. You’ve got to keep your strength up.”
Lizzie nodded and let go of Glory’s hand. A few minutes later, Clarissa sent up a bowl of soup. Lizzie tried to sit up in bed and drink it.
The same girl who had shown her to the attic on that first day now cleaned and changed Lizzie.
“I don’t even know your name,” Lizzie said to her.
The girl smiled, but did not respond. It was her turn to reject the intimacy.
Lizzie stayed in bed all day, mostly sleeping and resting, sometimes staring at the wall. What if she wasn’t pregnant after all? What if she had panicked for nothing? Mawu had said it was better to drink the tea than worry, that she had to drink the tea before she started feeling the quickening movements in her belly.
When she felt low, she pulled Reenie’s letter from beneath her mattress and read it again. It gave her hope, if only for a second. Reenie had been able to escape because she had no children to mess with her mind. She made a clean break because the only daughter she had ever known had been sold off from her. Lizzie wondered if Reenie was trying to find that daughter now. Surely, she was. Surely any free slave would work to find their family. But where would she start? how did you find someone who may not even have the name you gave them when they were born?
Lizzie could tell the time of day by the color of the light in the room. Even though she had just awakened, she knew it was an hour after supper when Drayle appeared in her doorway. He was freshly shaven and wore the trousers she had washed and pressed for him the week before. His blond hair lay neatly combed to the side, its thinness camouflaged.
He sat on the bed beside her and took her hand.
“I hear that my little Lizzie has been sick,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Just a bellyache is all.”
He stood up and closed the door. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. What if one of the women returned? And how could she tell him she had just gotten rid of the child he never knew he had?
He unbuttoned his shirt.
The girl had just cleaned her bedclothes, so they were fresh. But Lizzie was still bleeding, and although the cramps had subsided for the moment, she was nauseous. She felt that she would vomit at any moment, as if the vomit sat right at the back of her throat.
He had to lift her to move her because she was nestled in the center groove of the bed. He lay beside her naked and stroked her chin as if she wore a light beard.
“I’ve missed you. I wish I hadn’t brought Fran this summer. This is our place,” he said.
She had wanted to hear those words from him, but now that she got them, she did not know what to do with them. She did not feel the satisfaction she had thought she would.
He lifted her gown and fumbled with the rags tied around her. He was naked and she was fully clothed.
“You’re bleeding?” he asked.
She nodded.
“That’s okay,” he answered. “I don’t mind.”
She had always hated that Drayle was foul enough to occasionally take her when she was bleeding. Men were not supposed to do such things. And she did not know how to tell him she was not bleeding in the way he assumed. Her stomach rolled, and she fought at the bitter taste in her throat as he pushed his way into her.
She screamed out, and he put a hand over her mouth.
“Quiet!”
He did not move his hand from her mouth, and she felt she could not breathe. She wanted to stop breathing, so she would not have to deal with this anymore. She would lose Rabbit and Nate, but she would join her unborn baby. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath.
When he was finished, she could smell the stink of her own body.
He used the end of her gown to clean himself, leaving streaks of red.
“My Lizzie,” he said, not looking at her. He left the door open.
The next day, Lizzie felt worse.
Clarissa was climbing the stairs to her room. Lizzie could tell by the way the steps creaked. Every other step, the woman stopped to get her breath. When Lizzie heard her coming, she knew it was important.
“Your mistress want us to move you. She want you to come to the cabin.”
Lizzie shook her head, remembering Drayle’s visit. “Tell her I can’t work just yet.”
“She know that, Miss Lizzie. She want you to come over there so she can get you better. At least that’s what they tell me.”
The only thing that was going to get her well, Lizzie thought, was the proper expulsion of this baby. Once the baby and all its remnants were gone, she would be better.
If Drayle would just leave her alone, it would be a matter of time before she got better. In that cottage, she was more vulnerable to his desires. Fran would make her a pallet on the floor and fuss over her for a while before using her as a giant ear. The real problem, Lizzie knew, would be the night. Drayle would have no problem taking her on the floor of the living room while Fran slept on the other side of the wall.
“I ain’t going,” Lizzie said.
Clarissa shook her head. “Oh no. You not gone get me in trouble. You going. That’s why I came up here to tell you myself.”
Lizzie tried to sit up, and Clarissa helped her. “Miss Lizzie, this just the life you got. Until you do something about it, you got to deal with what the Lord bring you.”
Lizzie she was surprised to hear these words from the woman. Until you do something about it. Was that a message?
“Miss Clarissa, you can’t help me down those stairs. You better send that young girl up here.”
“You best believe I ain’t gone help you nowhere. I just came up here to deliver the news and let you know I’m here for you if you need me. And I’m gone send over food for you each day now. You hear?”
Lizzie nodded weakly.
You know we were only supposed to stay here two weeks. We’re lengthening our trip on account of you,” Fran said.
Lizzie sat in the bundle of sheets on the floor and leaned back on the sofa. Fran had done a good job of securing the rags around her private area. But neither wanted to risk her getting blood on the couch, so she sat on the floor for the time being.
“I appreciate that, Miss Fran.”
Fran sat at the table staring at Lizzie. She sipped from a glass of water. Every now and then, she looked as if she wanted to ask a question.
“Where’s Mr. Drayle?” Lizzie asked. She was still nervous that he would return that night and try to have his way with her.
“He’s with the men.”
“Oh.”
Lizzie looked down again. She wanted to be alone.
“You know, I was always jealous of you.”
“Jealous?”
“Of course. You never knew?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just a slave, Miss Fran, and an ugly one at that.”
Fran looked down into her water. “So many things. I was jealous because you gave him children when I couldn’t. Jealous he brought you to this summer resort without me. It was downright disrespectful!”
Lizzie had thought about this, but she had never questioned the unwavering rule of white men. They did what they wanted. That was the way of the world.
“Lizzie, envy and hate are two different things. I envied you. But I did not, and I do not hate you.”
Lizzie nodded. She understood the difference between the two words. What she did not understand was the difference in how Miss Fran would treat her based on the distinction. If Miss Fran did not hate her, why was she trying to make her children go work in the fields?
That night, Fran slept on the sofa in the living room while Lizzie slept on the floor. In the other room, Drayle slept alone in the bed. Lizzie woke to the strange arrangement, startled. She could hear Drayle snoring. As soon as Lizzie moved to rearrange her gown, Fran woke up.
“Lizzie?”
“Yes, Miss Fran?”
Fran opened her eyes and pushed up onto her elbows. Her eyes were swollen, as if she had not slept well.
“Everything fine?”
Lizzie realized that Fran was keeping watch over her, making sure that Drayle did not try anything. Fran had never done such a thing before, so Lizzie was confused.
“Well, I am a bit thirsty. But I’ll get it.”
“No.” Fran swung her legs off the sofa. “I’ll get it.”
Lizzie listened to the pump outside. It made a swishing noise. When Fran returned, she had a glass for both of them. She sat on the sofa beside Lizzie and they drank quietly.
The water refreshed her. Lizzie remembered what Fran had told her earlier, and she felt an urge to reassure her in some way.
“Miss Fran?”
“Yes?”
It was dark, but the moon shone through the window and before long, the shadows in the room had brightened. Fran’s curly hair had become unpinned, and there were a few tendrils framing her face. Lizzie looked at her and thought to herself that it was she who had envied Fran, not the other way around. It was she-Lizzie-who would have given anything at one point to be in Fran’s place, to have Fran’s lustrous hair and skin and position.
In this unfamiliar setting, Lizzie could clearly make out Fran’s vulnerability. The white woman stared at Lizzie as if she needed to know what the younger slave woman wanted to say to her, as if she didn’t have a closer friend in the world who understood the problems of her intimate domestic life better than Lizzie did.
“The reason I’ve been sick is because I drank a tea.”
Fran nodded. But Lizzie could see that she did not understand. She had never been pregnant, and she did not make the connection.
“A tea that gets rid of a baby.”
“Oh!” Fran’s hand flew to her mouth and the sound that escaped was enough to stop Drayle’s snoring. Lizzie heard him grunt, shift, and settle again.
Fran leaned forward and her breath blew across Lizzie’s face. “I ought to slap you!” she said.
It was not the reaction Lizzie had expected. “But I didn’t want it. I didn’t want another baby.” She wanted Fran to know she was not intentionally having any more children with the woman’s husband, that something inside of her had changed. Couldn’t Fran see it?
“How could you?”
Lizzie was silent. She didn’t know what to say. She could see the shine of Fran’s eyes.
“Did Nathan know?”
Lizzie shook her head. Would it make Fran feel better if Drayle had known? Lizzie tried hard to figure out the right thing to say.
Fran wiped an eye. She touched Lizzie on the shoulder. “I am sorry. I am sorry for you.”
Fran lay back down on the couch and pulled the covers up to her neck although Lizzie could see that the woman’s eyes remained open.
For the next two days, Fran acted as if their conversation had never happened. She continued to eat beside her at the table. Lizzie had never sat at the table with Fran, so this was uncomfortable for her. In the evenings, Fran made her bed on the sofa beside Lizzie. Lizzie slept on the floor, wrapped up tightly so that her blood would not stain the wood.
During the day, Drayle left the two women, unusually quiet as he observed them. As Lizzie’s strength picked up, she became more relaxed as she felt that she could better handle any advances he might make.
Finally, Drayle announced to the women they were to begin packing up to leave. Lizzie had known they would be leaving soon. They had already been there almost three weeks. She had not seen Philip, so she assumed Drayle’s business had not been to buy his former slave back. She knew if Drayle really wanted Philip back, he could just claim him-with or without free papers-and put him on the first ship downriver.
Over the past week, Lizzie had bled so much that she was pretty certain if there had been a baby there, it was dead now. She tried not to imagine the pretty hair, fat cheeks, and toothless grin. But everywhere she went, she smelled it. The wetness of its slick head on a hot night. The quiet scent of baby piss and sour soiling after feedings.
And everything soft reminded her of it as well. Even her own hairy softness. Would it have had blue eyes and white skin like Rabbit? Or dark intense ones like Nate? how tight would the curls have been? And would it have been her first child to inherit her moles?
On the other hand, she was working on convincing herself that she had not been pregnant after all. The increase in urination, dizziness, nausea had all been a part of her imagination, delusions created by a brain that feared another pregnancy. The tea had merely brought her monthly cycle back, forced her to expel the blood that had accumulated. She concentrated on the seed.
And yet, she could not edge the feeling that she had done something terribly wrong. She walked around with the weight of her secret. Fran’s reaction had not helped, either. Neither of the women had told Drayle, and each time he spoke to Lizzie, she resented him for not seeing through the lie. She didn’t smile, didn’t talk, barely ate in the days following her admission to Fran. All she did was obey. Somebody told her to do something and she said “yes ma’am” or “yessir.” That was all she could bring herself to say.
She made up in her mind that she wanted to see Mawu one more time. She asked Glory to take her. This time, she rode on the back of Glory’s horse and they traveled slowly so the horse’s movements would not jar her tender belly or Glory’s hardened one.
Mawu did not seem to be expecting them. She cried out when she saw them dismounting the horse, and she waved them into the cabin quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Lizzie asked.
Mawu looked from Lizzie to Glory. “I’m moving on. Got word that the slavecatchers is checking cabins in these part of the woods. I been here long enough.”
“They searched my house,” Glory said. Lizzie looked at her, and it occurred to her that Glory could get in a lot of trouble for what she was doing.
“Where will you go?” Lizzie asked Mawu.
“I don’t know,” Mawu answered, staring evenly at her.
Lizzie took Reenie’s letter out of her dress. “I wanted to give you this. I burned the envelope, but it had new York on it.”
“What is it?” Mawu asked.
“A letter from Reenie.”
Mawu grabbed it from her. She pressed it to her lips.
“What does it say?” Glory asked.
Lizzie recounted the contents of the letter. She knew it nearly by heart.
Mawu looked up and smiled. “She fine. She fine.”
Lizzie would remember that look on Mawu’s face for many years to come. The letter had done exactly what she thought it would.
“And it came from new York,” repeated Lizzie.
Mawu nodded. She went to the wall and removed a plank. Behind it was a cloth folded up into a small square.
“Take this.” Mawu opened the cloth and revealed a thin metal necklace. Birds were carved around the length of its metal links.
“Where did you get this?” Lizzie asked.
“The man what taught me the magic. He say it bring me luck. Now I give it to you.”
Lizzie put the necklace to her lips.
“And this for you, too,” Mawu said, handing her a piece of folded paper.
Lizzie spread the paper out. There was a drawing-squares and triangles and octagons all linked together in a pattern. It wasn’t the prettiest drawing Lizzie had ever seen, but it looked carefully done. It reminded her of a quilt, only irregular, as if the quilter had gotten confused along the way.
“You drew this for me?” Lizzie asked.
Mawu cursed. “Girl, is you always thinking about love? That there’s a map. That’s how you gone find me. I done already remembered it. Now you remember it. Then burn it with Reenie’s letter.”
Lizzie studied it. “What does it all mean?”
Mawu explained that the triangles were houses where she could hide. Stay away from the squares. Circles were transporters, people who would take her to the next station.
Lizzie studied the drawing.
“How do I tell what direction I’m going in? What if I get off track?”
Mawu paused. “Look here.” She refolded the paper and then unfolded it again. She pointed to the crease. “That there’s the ravine. That will point you in the right direction.”
Lizzie looked doubtful.
“Or so they tell me. I ain’t started the journey yet my own self. But I hear tell that the families will point you north. As long as you is going north, you is going up the page like this here.”
“I don’t know,” Lizzie said.
“Is you coming or ain’t you, Lizzie? I ain’t got no more time for you. I is leaving tonight. I’ll be a day ahead of you if you leave tomorrow. Us is safer if us ain’t together. But I is gone leave a message for you with whatever family I meet. I is gone send you signs.”
Lizzie still held the drawing. “I’ve got a sister.”
“That sister done been sold,” Mawu said.
“Lizzie, has God told you what to do?” Glory interjected in a soft voice.
“Shut up.” Mawu grabbed Lizzie’s hand. “I ain’t gone make you. But I’ll be looking over my shoulder for you. You hear?”
Lizzie nodded.
On the way back to the resort, Lizzie did not say a word to Glory.
The indecision paralyzed her. They told her to mop the floor. She did it. They told her to sweep the steps. She did it. They told her to go help in the kitchen. She did it. They told her to go sit in the corner until somebody else told her what to do. She did that too.
After dinner, she helped clear the dishes from the main dining room. But she moved as if she were tied to the ceiling by strings.
The servants in the kitchen were talking. They stopped when they saw Lizzie. Then Clarissa took a look at her and said, “Your friend got caught. They found out where she was hiding.”
Lizzie dropped the plates in her hands. By some miracle they didn’t break, hitting the floor with a loud noise. “What?” she said.
“The one with the African name.”
“They got her?”
That part of her she thought was dead woke back up. She felt her knees give out. It took everything she had to keep standing.
Clarissa nodded.
“How did they find her?”
She shook her shoulders. “Child, I wish I knew. But you know it’s a lot of snakes in these here parts.”
The other women nodded and continued on with their business. Nobody liked to talk about such things. Only Clarissa stayed, holding on to Lizzie’s arm.
Once again, it was Lizzie’s fault. She had not been able to make up her mind, and Mawu had obviously tried to wait for her. And the woman had given her the lucky necklace. Lizzie didn’t believe in superstitions, but she did wonder if she had taken Mawu’s luck. She tried to block out in her mind what Sir would do to her. It hurt too bad to think about. She just hoped Mawu’s strength was real.
“They was all after her,” Clarissa was whispering as she neared close enough to Lizzie to continue working while she talked. “Her master ain’t come back this summer, but he upped the reward money. I suspect it’s the highest reward money I seen in these parts in a while.”
Lizzie asked one of the young women to help her up the stairs because she didn’t think she could make it by herself. Just as they were about to go, an elegant colored woman walked into the kitchen. She was dressed like a white woman, but she was passing through the kitchen door. Her sheer size made her dress seem even grander. There was a man with her who looked just like her. They were both dressed like free colored folks of stature. And from the looks of it, they were brother and sister.
If her mind had not been completely elsewhere, Lizzie might have recognized the face. She might have remembered the girl in the dirty head rag who used to work in the hotel and help her father on occasion when he came to cut the men’s hair. But there was something big sitting on top of Lizzie’s chest. Too big for her to see past.
The pretty colored woman with the smooth skin came right up to her. Lizzie stepped back.
“Lizzie,” she whispered.
Then it came to her. The barber’s daughter. Philip’s wife.
The woman leaned forward as if to say something in Lizzie’s ear. “Philip says for you to meet him by Sweet’s grave under the cover of night. He’ll be waiting for you.”
Then she put a bonnet on her head, her companion took her arm, and they were gone. Lizzie stood there looking after them, turning the words over in her mind.
Did Philip know they were leaving? he knew this was the last summer of the resort. Mawu must have talked to him.
She stood there weighing everything before her: Mawu’s capture, Reenie’s letter, Sweet’s death, Nate and Rabbit, Drayle’s touch, Fran’s admission. With Mawu gone, little seemed to matter anymore. And yet it did. Did Philip know that Mawu had been caught?
Lizzie put her hand on her belly. She wanted to ride Mr. Goodfellow again. She wanted to go back to the days when Drayle brought her gifts. She missed seeing her children throw horseshoes. She thought of Big Mama and how she had taught her to cook using next to nothing.
She made it to her room and took off her dress. She stretched out in the middle of the bed, naked, her belly poking out just beneath the navel. She put both hands on her middle.
The old me would have cried. The new me is all torn up inside.
How can I still love him?
Philip had his hat against his chest, and he was kneeling before the grave. Even though his head wasn’t bowed Lizzie could tell as she approached that he was praying. It was late, not quite middle of the night, and he was wearing a suit. She had never seen him in a suit before. She touched his elbow, trying to pull him up. She did not want him to get the knee of his pants dirty.
“Lizzie.” he hugged her to him.
“Your wife. She told me you would be here.” She said the word “wife” with a lilt.
“So glad you came, Miss Lizzie. So glad you came. Come on over here. I got something for you to sit on.”
He led her to a tree stump that he had covered with a red cloth. Lizzie did not want to sit on such a cloth. But he guided her onto it, and then stood looking down at her.
“You happy?”
“I sho am. I got a good woman. She come from a good family. They treat me right. Being free is…it’s something I can’t rightly explain.”
“Do you remember the old days?”
“What you mean? It ain’t been that long. Course I do.” he paused. “I miss my horses. They about the only thing I miss.”
Lizzie looked down at her lap.
“And the children. I miss them.”
“You ought to see Nate,” she said. “He’s almost a man.”
Philip looked off. She heard the clucking sound in his throat.
“Long as he a slave, he ain’t gone never be a man,” he said.
“You an abolitionist now?”
He set his hat on the stump beside her. “Ain’t no such thing as a colored abolitionist. That’s a word for the white folks. We ain’t got to distinguish ourselves.”
Lizzie nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
She fingered the edge of her dress. “You heard about Mawu?”
“Yeah. I don’t understand why she stayed round here. These is dangerous parts. She should’ve left long time ago.”
Lizzie heard an owl hoot. Owls were such precious birds. Even though she had heard owls plenty of times, she had only seen one once. It had not moved even though she was right near it. It stared at her blankly. She’d wanted to reach out and take it in her hands, stroke its feathers.
“You know why I come to you. I know you believe in Marsuh Drayle. I know you think he different than most white men. But I wants you to know that if you got a mind to leave, I can help you. We can go right now if you wants to. I can point you in the right direction.”
Lizzie felt the front of her dress for the drawing Mawu had given her. She had burned Reenie’s letter after hearing that Mawu was captured. But she still had the map.
She didn’t know how to explain to Philip how she had changed. She didn’t know how to explain that if she returned she would not be doing so out of loyalty to Drayle. She would not be returning just for the sake of her children. She would be returning for another reason, a reason she could not quite articulate. It didn’t have to do with God, but it did have something to do with the sky.
“Philip, I do appreciate your coming.” She stood and cupped his chin in her hand.
He stroked his face against her palm. “I know what that mean. That mean you ain’t coming. That mean you still can’t bear to leave him.”
She took the paper out of her dress. “Mawu gave me this before she got caught. She was waiting for me. She believed in me just like you do. Ain’t that something? everybody seems to think I’m somebody I ain’t.”
She pressed the paper into his hand. “Take it.”
“You know I can’t read.” he unfolded it and studied it. He slid it into the pocket of his trousers.
“This is what I want you to tell them. Tell Jeremiah that he still owe me from that game of checkers. Tell Young Joe that…” he proceeded to give her a litany of messages for the men back on the plantation. Lizzie tried to imprint the messages in her mind, associating them with the faces of the men he mentioned.
“…ain’t no chance?” he was saying.
If she left, there was no doubt in her mind that Drayle would find her. He would hire every bounty hunter in the country. She would not get far. Even with the speed of not being burdened with a pregnancy, she would have a difficult time outrunning the dogs.
Still, freedom beckoned to her. Even the thought of it made her feel lighter on her feet. It made her want to jump up and down, run screaming through the forest, hug the nearest person to her. If she could do it. If she could win the freedom of her and her children, she could have a real life. She was still young. The children were still young. They had all their adult years to be free.
But there was the sky. And there was no denying it. It had a say in this, too.
Lizzie sat in Drayle’s lap. He swung back and forth in the rocker on the porch of the cottage. She placed her toes on top of his. “My Lizzie, do you know why I came this summer?”
“No, I reckon I don’t.”
He clapped his hands on her thighs. “You are going to be so happy with me!”
She looked at him. Only one thing could make her happy. But Drayle lived in his own world. She had no idea what he thought would make her feel joy.
“They are selling this resort to a group of missionaries. Some holy folks who are going to turn it into a school.”
Lizzie nodded. She was still bleeding lightly, but Drayle had taken her on the floor of the cottage just moments before. She had lain there listlessly, thinking about the previous night’s meeting with Philip, trying to remember all the messages he had sent to the slaves back home.
“A school for colored.”
He stopped rocking and Lizzie turned to look at him. He nuzzled his nose in her neck, clearly looking for appreciation.
“What are you talking about? I can already read.”
He shook his head. “No. For Nate. My son. He needs to get his lessons properly. When we return, I’m going to get him a teacher to come to the house and give him his lessons. You’ve taught him just about everything you can. Now he needs a real education. After that, I’m going to…”
The words ran together. She needed to slow him down, but her lips wouldn’t move. What was that he was saying? Lessons? School? education?
“After that you’re going to what?” she asked.
“You didn’t hear me? I’m going to send him here for school.”
She had been waiting so long for this kind of news that she wasn’t prepared for it. Her head didn’t feel as if it were properly attached to her body. It was as if it would break off and roll across the floor if she moved an inch.
“F-f-free him?”
Drayle chuckled. “I didn’t say that. He is still my son, and so still my rightful property. But if he does well in school and doesn’t get any notions in his head to run off, I’m going to bring him back south and give him his own plot of land to work. I imagine he could build himself a house and find him a woman to bear his children.”
“Oh?”
“My grandchildren. I’m hoping he’ll get him a sweet yellow gal.”
“Oh.” Lizzie felt her eyes begin to moisten. It was too much to take in. Had he told Fran? What did she think? Would she approve?
“But.” She was breathing rapidly. “Rabbit.”
Drayle shook his head. “Lizzie, you are something else. You know that? You are never satisfied. I give you an inch and you want to take a yard.”
Lizzie knew what that meant. There were no such plans for Rabbit. So what did he intend for her? Surely, he had thought of her getting properly married and bearing his grandchildren, too. A scene came into her head of Rabbit playing on the grounds of the nearby colored resort. “But she’s smart, Drayle. She needs education, too.”
Drayle pulled her to him and closed his eyes. He was ending the conversation.
Lizzie knew him well enough to understand what his silence meant. Rabbit would be the bait that would bring Nate home. Rabbit would bear children that would give him house slaves, while Nate would bear the children that would inherit Drayle’s name. He had worked it all out in his mind.
Lizzie knew she should feel excited about one of her children escaping the plantation. And she was. But she wanted more. She felt she deserved more.
Lizzie had been told they were leaving that very day. Drayle wasn’t taking any chances. He’d had Lizzie tied to the front porch of his cottage all morning long. She’d been sitting there all day, lapping up water out of a bowl like a dog. She put her whole face in it trying to cool off. Could she drown in that bowl if she stuck her face in it long enough?
“You ought to be happy about seeing your children,” Fran said through the window. “They’ll be waiting on you.”
My children ain’t the only thing I love. If I was allowed, I reckon I’d love myself, too.
It was clear to Lizzie that Drayle had not told Fran about his plan to send Nate to Ohio to be educated. Did Drayle really think Lizzie would try to escape when her son’s future rested on her decision to return south with him? She supposed he had her tied up because he did not want to risk having his plan disrupted. Lizzie scoffed at his ignorance. Surely he realized that if she had planned to escape, she would have done so long before then.
Drayle had a cart brought around to carry the trunks up to the hotel. Lizzie wondered about her rag bundle. Her two dresses. The necklace Mawu had given her.
“I need my things,” she called out to Fran.
“What things? You act like you own something,” Fran said as she came out of the door. She squatted and placed a cracker on Lizzie’s tongue. “I put them in my trunk,” she added.
Lizzie chewed and looked out over the pond. The cabin that Mawu burned down the summer before was gone. There wasn’t anything there now but a square patch of dirt with weeds shooting through. The other cabins looked empty, doors swinging back and forth in the wind. Lizzie was glad the hotel had been sold to a missionary group for a colored school. The land would belong to God now. She looked over at the spot where Sir had beaten Mawu in front of all of them, and she hoped the missionaries could bring some holiness to the place.
The water wheel turned.
She remembered how she used to want to learn to be a lady. To learn to hold her skirt over the ground. It had never worked for her. It seemed like each time she had tried to grab a fistful of fabric, it got caught between her feet and tripped her up.
A thought stopped her. What if he had lied? What if he had told her he was going to educate Nate just to make sure she returned?
She dismissed the thought. Drayle had told the truth. She could feel it.
As she leaned against the porch post, she thought of Rabbit and what she would teach her. This was what she would say: Don’t give in to the white man. And if you have to give in, don’t give your soul over to him. Love yourself first. Fix it so you don’t give him children. If you ever make it to freedom, remember your mammy who tried to be good to you. Hold fast to your women friends because they are going to be there when ain’t nobody else there. If you don’t believe in God, it’s all right. God believes in you. Never forget your name. Keep track of your years and how old you are. Don’t be afraid to say how you feel. Learn a craft so you always have something to barter other than your private parts.
What kind of craft could Rabbit learn? Big Mama had made soap, but she had lost both eyes because of it. Philip had trained horses. Lizzie could cook. She thought of Sweet and her ability to sew. It had sustained her while she was mourning. Maybe she would make certain that Rabbit knew how to sew. Then she thought of Reenie’s ability to birth a baby. That was a skill that could come in handy, for sure.
Drayle climbed the steps of the cottage. He leaned down and kissed Lizzie on the head.
“How is my darling?”
“Not understanding why you tied me up. I ain’t going nowhere.”
“I know. I just don’t want to have to go looking for you. You ready, Francesca?” he called.
“I’ll walk on up by myself,” she answered.
He smiled at Lizzie. She tried to make sense of it, this smile of his that looked for all the devil like he meant it.
She watched him walk in the direction of the hotel. He disappeared into its crumbling whiteness.
Mawu told her this story the last time she saw her. It was about her name. She said that she was named after an African god who made everything and everyone-man, animal, and plants. She said she didn’t believe in Adam and eve. The old root doctor who lived on her plantation had told her this story and renamed her after an African god named Mawu. He said this Mawu had a twin named Lisa. So when she met Lizzie, Mawu suspected she was her other half because of her name. But then Lizzie told on her and Mawu became doubtful.
When Mawu returned to Louisiana, the doctor told her Lizzie might still be the one. Even if she were a traitor. So she came back to Tawawa and gave Lizzie a second chance. To learn Lizzie’s true heart, not the one that had been tainted by slavery. So during the entire second summer of her visit to Tawawa house, Mawu studied Lizzie to see if she had this strength. And she concluded that Lizzie did. She said she recognized it. That’s why she waited on her in the end. Because Lizzie’s heart was her heart. Her twin. Lizzie was Lisa.
So according to the hoodoo man, these two-except they weren’t really two, they were one-made everything in four days. On the first day, they made mankind. They made everyone out of clay and water and gave them features like kinky hair and brown skin. On the second day, they made the earth so mankind had somewhere to reside. They put plants and animals on the earth so the people could eat and live. On the third day, they gave mankind reason, separating them from the animals. They gave the people the power to speak and think. On the fourth day, Mawu-Lisa gave them the tools they needed to farm the land and clear the forests in order to build their houses.
Mawu was the moon and Lisa the sun. Mawu cold, and Lisa hot. Mawu the night and Lisa the day. Mawu the earth and Lisa the sky. Mawu the west, Lisa the east. The rootworker told her that even though Mawu was considered to be the mother and the wise one and the creator, Lisa was the one with the strength. Lisa was as strong as a man!
All Lizzie could say was, a woman helped create the world?
The story made Lizzie believe in something. So even though she was going back to Tennessee, she wasn’t the same woman. She was something else.
When she thought of her two children, she thought of Mawu-Lisa and she prayed to them that her children could possess the same strength she had gotten on account of her name. All these years, she realized, she had been putting her faith in Drayle to free her children. Now she had to put her faith in herself.
At night, before she went to sleep in her cabin down in the quarters, she remembered Mawu’s story and told herself that she was a god, a powerful god. Each and every day, she reminded herself of this so that she wouldn’t fall backward. She was more than eyes, ears, lips, and thigh.
She was a heart. She was a mind.