My Monticello(32)
Up out of the woods, the storm felt closer. The wind reared up, hounding our backs. We kept our eyes low even as, to our right, we spied the wooden trellises that marked the head of the sprawling vegetable garden. Straight ahead, the first of several spotty monuments to slavery exposed themselves. The burnt-out ruins of a chimney. A reconstructed cabin made of roughly hewn wood. A bare plot of ground marked by the lowliest sign, with not even the remnants of a building: DWELLING FOR ENSLAVED PEOPLE. Sloped down to our right, we could see the full layout of the garden, rows of growing things with reddish-brown pathways in between like the parts in LaToya’s hair. Mr. Byrd told us that the unpaved stretch we were moving along was called Mulberry Row. I remembered the name as he said it: Certain slaves would have worked here, forging nails, weaving fabric.
Everything at the top of that hill felt new to me that morning, transfigured from the times I’d come before, for school trips, for work. Before, there’d always been some measure of distance, a wall between whatever Monticello was and my real life. Real life was Momma, MaViolet, my friends. Real life was school and my determination to do something that mattered. To do something for other people, especially people like the ones I’d grown up with, who were all too often undermined and undervalued. I’d kept real life in one place, and the imagined life of my ancestors in another unexamined place, like a room with no windows. Now my real life flailed and smoked behind me. Now this was my life. Walking up, I felt myself seesawing again between density and lightness, between Momma’s disavowal of this painful heritage and MaViolet’s cautious regard.
The rain blew in, pummeled our skin. We hunched in anticipation. The children ran ahead. Up the steps to our left, we could see the long L-shaped walkway of the southern terrace, with little rooms turned exhibits tucked beneath its bent arm. Above it, the grand white dome of the main house rose, like Monticello on the nickels I used to stack on my dresser as a child. Mr. Byrd led us up toward the eastern entrance: the way we would’ve come, in carriages or shuttles, had we been sanctioned guests.
We hustled toward the east porch, trying to beat the full force of the coming rain. Still I managed to take in that view of the house, its handsome brick and double-storied windows framed by green shutters. The foursome of sand-colored columns, which lifted a bright white triangle—the pediment—above the porch. The weathervane on the roof looked askew, but otherwise the building looked just the same, as if nothing had changed, or ever would. I couldn’t help but imagine black hands too, sunk in mortar. My Monticello. The words formed low and unbidden in my throat, barely parting my lips to escape.
VI.
We scrambled up stone steps, pausing beneath the east porch to recover our breath. From that entrance, all the unsavory evidence of slavery was hidden down the slope we’d just dragged ourselves up. The front yard looked feral, tall weeds rising from nappy grass. I imagined eight-year-old Momma waiting by the shuttle stop, beyond the linden trees.
Let’s go in, folks were saying.
I leaned against the nearest column, legs trembling, feeling hesitant again now that we’d arrived. That was when I heard a hollow rasping beneath the howl of wind. The sound was coming from MaViolet. Her face had gone rigid. She gripped my arm so tightly, I felt my own chest seize.
Together Knox and I shuttled her to the wooden bench built at the porch’s edge, ignoring the slant spray of rain. Everybody huddled around her, watching as she tried and failed to take in air.
What’s the matter with her? Imani said, tugging her mother’s skirt.
Help her already! Ira said.
Ms. Edith pressed her palms together. Lord have mercy.
MaViolet used to have these breathless attacks when I was younger, and they’d crept back in the last handful of years. But before the unraveling, we could call her doctor or 911. With her free hand, MaViolet clutched at herself, like she was trying to cradle her own body. All I could think to do in my panic was drop to my knees at her feet. Holding her gaze, I drew in my own breath, with deliberation, as if I could lavish my breath on her or coax her air to flow like mine. Then, fumbling, I remembered and dug in my pocket, producing that thing she could not find in hers. I uncapped her inhaler with jittery hands, shook it, and brought it to her parted lips.
For you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble, Ms. Edith said.
As MaViolet nursed the inhaler, I freed myself from her grasp. I rose enough to pull the messenger bag from Knox’s body, though I knew the answer already. Nonetheless, I paddled through his things like they were mine too, as if I had, in fact, grabbed what I now understood I most needed: that plastic bag the nurse had handed me guiltily at MaViolet’s last doctor’s visit. But of course, it was not there.
From my place at her feet, I looked up at my grandma’s honeyed face. Slowly, the color was coming back into her cheeks. We’re at the house, I said.
The rain fell loose and hard around us.
Watch your step, Mr. Byrd said. Let’s get her inside.
* * *
Walking into Monticello that first day felt like breaking a seal, our breath greeting hot, stagnant air. We moved into the entrance hall, a room faced in windows, MaViolet’s body light against mine.
Right away, I displaced a barrier near the door—a waist-high wooden stand connecting an arm’s length of rope—meant to cordon off that front corner. Some of the chairs had ribbon pulled tautly across them, blocking them from use. I asked Mr. Byrd for something sharp from his tool belt and used it to slash one ribbon, then another. MaViolet sat in the first freshly liberated chair.