The Loom (9 page)

For the first time, she felt it. Something sweeter than Grandma’s apple fritters. This was sweet that stayed long after the first taste.

Love for a man.

Lou sat on the porch in a grand wooden rocker Daddy had made her. “Girl gone and fell in love.” She slapped Lydia’s thigh with the rag she used to mop the sweat trickling from her scalp.

Lydia flinched and giggled. She swatted at a fly. It was much too warm out here on the porch. Funny how it didn’t bother her as a child. She pulled the sticky front of her dress away from the circle of sweat it clung to and looked up at her grandmother.

“You loved PaPa like that?”

“Oh, honey, yes. I sure did. Looonggg time ago.” Her head fell back with laughter as she rocked. “Oh yes, indeed. Had all them babies ’cause of it.”

Daddy had been the only one who hadn’t been sold off, stripped from her. Lydia couldn’t imagine how she was able to bear it.

How her people were able to bear any of it.

“Well, I don’t want no babies.”

“What you say?”

“I don’t want not one child.”

“Why not, girl?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Now don’t you sit up here and tell that lie. You know you know why.”

“I don’t want to bring another slave in the world.”

“Girl…”

“Really, Grandma. Ain’t nothing good about being a slave.”

“Something good about being alive. I know that! How you gonna deny somebody the right to be alive?”

“I’m not denying nobody nothing. I’m just saying I’m not having no babies. If they want to come in the world they’ve got to come from between somebody else’s legs.”

“Watch yourself, now.” Lou threw the rag at her. “Don’t be grown.”

“You know I know about babies, Grandma. You taught me everything I know.”

“Fine you know. You just keep your own particulars to yourself.” She smiled and shook her head. “You thought about how you gonna keep yourself from having a child? Lust and limbs got a way of deciding things for themselves.”

“I know what to do.”

“All right, then.” She crossed her arms and swung a good four or five swings in her rocker without a word before she leaned down close like a little girl and grinned. “So tell me. He makes you happy, don’t he?”

She hesitated.

“He don’t make you happy?”

“Yes, Grandma. He does the best he can.” John loved her something good. He would do anything for her, but as wonderful as love was, she wasn’t sure it was enough.

The moment John’s foot hit the soil, his heart raced. The warm night breeze of August whipped through his shirt as he crept across the fields, the thin cotton billowing around him though tucked into his faded work trousers. Every few feet, he gripped the handle of the trowel in his back pocket and shoved it further from view.

He searched ahead and looked behind him. If he was caught without a pass, he could face a punishment he didn’t want to remember. He would never forget the sting of rope around his wrist, the strike against his back, would always recall how he struggled to break free, but the grip was too tight. Not this time. He was careful, smarter, prepared. He was certain no matter what life brought, no grip would ever hold him again.

Crossing over the tobacco field, he slipped between large green leaves that pressed the musky odor of nicotine into his pores.

Working on the row each day, he would reek of the scent for hours. Only after a hard lye soap scrubbing could he cleanse himself from the smell that caused Lydia to crinkle her nose.

At the edge of the field, John slipped through the trees into the forest, safer from the ropes of catchers, the guns of hunters, if he could remain quiet. The rustling of leaves dangling around him, and the ones crunching underfoot, could give him away, could

ensure overseers of his exact whereabouts.

He was parched after several miles but the thirst ceased when he saw it. He stopped and caught his breath. It was beautiful, as beautiful as the first time he discovered it and decided it was the perfect place.

John walked toward the tree. The silver maple towered over him, made him feel like a child beneath strong, dark branches raised like arms of Africa to the heavens. He stood under the rounded crown of leaves and exhaled. It was the perfect place.

On his knees, he looked around before removing the flat, metal blade he’d swiped from Kelly’s storehouse. He pushed the debris of dry twigs and pebbles away with the palms of his hands until the earth was cleared and smooth, soft, and damp to the touch. He looked around before jabbing the tool into the ground. The soil crumbled with ease as he dug, hollowing out the special spot. For a moment, the thought of his hope being swiped sent a shot of fear through him, but his heart steadied when metal tapped against metal. He scraped the dirt away with the tip of the instrument, paused when the moonlight shone on his treasure.

John forced his fingers into the ground around the box and yanked it free from its grave. Reverently, he lifted it to his heart, to his lips.

She should not have come.

Lydia pulled strands of hair over her scar and stared at Jackson and Andrew across the oblong, formal table she was used to serving. Lizzy sat at her side, oohing and ahhing, grinning and nodding at every statement the two uttered. She would never have agreed to dinner had she known it was to be just the four of them.

A great candelabra sprawled like a spider with crystal legs over them, shone against wine-stained walls, casting a rose tint on White faces. Seemed the men suspected nothing, though Jackson’s constant staring was beginning to tickle icicles down her spine again. She pressed against the back of the mahogany chair, shivered when she encountered the house slaves.

James, the butler, a short, sandy-haired man, gazed over her once and then strode swiftly to the back of the room. She didn’t even notice when he slipped out, but Annie, a lanky maple-colored girl her age, kept her almond-shaped eyes on Lydia. When she set a plate of roast, steaming potatoes and carrots in front of her, she lingered. Lydia could hear her breathing over her, looking, staring at what? The tight wave of her hair at the crown of her head? The tremor in a hand that served the same meals, wiped the same tears, hid the same scars?

“Wine?” Jackson asked.

Lizzy lifted her glass. “We sure appreciate your hospitality, Jackson. It was perfect timing. We’re leaving in a month for Richmond.”

“You and Caroline?”

“No,” Lydia said, too quickly.

“No. My family and I. Caroline was there earlier this summer, isn’t that right?” Lizzy nudged.

Lydia nodded and tugged at the napkin in her lap. She heard few of the words around her, only the pauses and the clearing of throats when she failed to fill holes of conversation directed at her. She ate little, found her hand less on her fork than the pearls she’d once again borrowed, her nails entangled in the strand, grazing each gem. For every thought of John that tugged at her, she pulled, yanked at the white treasure at her fingertips.

“Caroline? Is everything all right? Your supper?” Jackson glanced at her plate. “Is the food to your liking?” His fork lay limp in his hand as he searched her. Steady eyes of blue like the sky she had shunned, just as blue as the one she had wished would turn dark, black—let it be night—she stared into, held their gaze.

“Everything’s fine.” She looked at him, wasn’t even sure she had spoken the words, until he nodded and resumed eating.

She watched him, chewing, chatting, lines streaking from the corner of his eyes and a bright smile of a mouth that let out a sound that made her sit upright, take notice.

This sound, heavy in strength yet light enough to fly free, lift to the high ceiling, was sharp enough to enter in, jagged enough to pierce her heart.

“Pardon me.” She pushed away from the table abruptly, the legs of her chair scraping against the hardwood. The room fell silent. She could feel their eyes on her as she stood, marched toward the doorway, the neckline of her dress slipping off her shoulder.

She pulled it straight and walked through a hall, through a dark sitting room, a study that smelled of pine. She didn’t know where she was going, didn’t know how she’d gotten where she was until she swung the heavy wooden door open, not waiting for the butler’s assistance, and scurried down the thirty front steps of the manor in the heels that made her ankles wobble. She stopped, out of breath, when she heard her name.

“Caroline!”

She stopped for a name that wasn’t hers at all.

“Caroline?”

She turned to the one calling. Jackson ran to her, gripped her forearms, his eyes darting from her face, her body. “Are you all right? What is it?” Just as quickly, he lifted his hands and stepped back, his brows crinkled.

“I want to go.” She swept her fingers through the hair above her forehead, hoped he hadn’t seen, hadn’t noticed the thing she was hiding. “I’m ready to go.”

“All right.” He paused, stared at her, then tilted his head toward the house. “I’m not so sure Elizabeth is ready.”

“I need to go.”

He nodded. Slowly.

Lydia clenched the necklace, tried to steady trembling hands.

“Do I make you uneasy?”

“No.” Yes.

“I’m sorry if I do.” The truth spoke louder than her lie. “I’m just mesmerized.” He smiled. Sharp features softened. “You’re a beauty.”

Her fingers fell from the strand.

“Truth is, I would love to get to know you. Formally, of course.”

She looked down. Why was she here?

“I need to fill this space.”

His house? She gazed up at the splendid Victorian behind him. His heart? She glanced at him. He was waiting, waiting for her to look into his eyes. She swallowed.

“I need a wife.”

She shook her head. John. “I’m not the one.”

“Maybe not.” He laughed. “Maybe so.”

“I’m not.” She turned, lifting her dress above her ankles, and walked away, crushing wet blades of grass under her feet.

She could still hear him laughing when she climbed into the carriage. That sound. She recognized it now. Knew precisely what it was.The sound of life.

In the darkest of night, Lydia sat among the dying.

The Room was still, and though all slept, rest escaped their faces. Sprawled against the back walls, not one of them had the space to recline in the midst of material without touching the foot or the arm of another. Gnats and mosquitoes had come through the gaps of the log walls and swarmed around their heads and the flickering candlestick they had failed to extinguish in the corner.

She sat with an unquenchable thirst, waiting for Ruth or Abram to stir, to utter a word for her to consume, to draw in like the suckling babe’s craving for mother’s milk, the field slave’s need of water after a full day’s toil beneath the hot beams of sun under a sky she prayed would darken. She thought of Jackson’s eyes. Was it darkness she wanted?

She waited for them to tell her to endure, that everything she needed was right where she was and not in a laughter she could still hear hours later. She needed the old folk to confirm Lou’s words to stay put, but they did not wake up and the reassurance never came. Lydia folded into herself and rocked against the churning, the knowing deep down. Wouldn’t matter if they had stated every word she craved to hear because she had seen the truth so many times in their eyes, the blinking away of wretchedness, in the tears that filled but rarely fell.