My Monticello(35)

Mr. Byrd spoke into his walkie. A beat of static, then I could hear Devin’s measured voice answer: All was quiet below.

I let the beam of my flashlight rove the chairs and books; by chance, it landed on a poster-sized photograph on the far wall, cheaply framed and hanging crookedly. Toward the middle of the image, I swear I saw an echo of my own face, lighter and wider but so familiar, as if I’d been projected into the future. I looked again and it was, for real, MaViolet’s face. In the picture, she stood in better health, on the west porch stairs, beneath Monticello’s dome. She was squeezed in a tiered row, along with a good number of other Black folks and a few fairer-skinned ones. In the image, MaViolet wore a pillbox hat, crowned with pale purple feathers. They must’ve taken that picture when they brought her here last spring.

Ms. Edith was standing near the door. That our Violet? she said.

Carol stroked the hen in her lap as if it were a cat. It does look something like her.

Mr. Byrd explained that the photo showed some of the known Black families of Monticello. Descendants of the more than six hundred slaves Jefferson had owned over his lifetime, most of whom had lived somewhere on this plantation, a few near the house, the majority in the vast acreage below. Among this group were a few of Thomas Jefferson’s own Black great-great-great-grandchildren, fathered with my namesake, a young slave he also owned. When Mr. Byrd said this, I felt everybody’s eyes on me, outed as I was by that grainy picture. Now they squinted in the dimness as if my shadowy features might provide clarity. Mr. Byrd dipped his chin like he was asking which group MaViolet and I belonged to. Sally Hemings, I said softly, turning her name over in my mouth. My middle name is Hemings. I told them, like I’d told Knox, who was holding one of my hands so hard it felt like he was squeezing the blood from my fingers. My stomach hurt, still I kept talking: My whole name is Da’Naisha Hemings Love.

Had Momma gifted me that middle name grudgingly or defiantly? What am I supposed to do with these ancestors, I wondered, and what would these neighbors make of me and MaViolet now that they knew? Would they see us as more worthy, or less worthy, as the descendants of a founding father and a slave? And what did it even matter now?

I looked at MaViolet’s small bright face in the picture.

We are descendants, I said.

When I said this, Ezra was like, Damn, and Carol, for some reason, broke out in a slow clap. I must’ve shot her some kind of look because she stopped at once, her hands still pressed together. Papa Yahya moved closer to inspect the picture, sucking his teeth. But how do you know? he said.

There were oral histories, corroborating facts, rumors, and published accounts going all the way back to Jefferson’s own time. There had been a commission and a counter-commission, along with DNA analysis connecting Jefferson’s known descendants to one of Sally Hemings’s known descendants. But mostly I knew my lineage the way most families know theirs: I knew because Momma told me, because MaViolet told her.

Someone from Monticello called my grandma, I told them.

I thought Papa Yahya might question me further or scrunch up his face like I imagined Momma’s third-grade teacher had. Instead he nodded obligingly, like he was impressed. As if, on the word of someone from Monticello’s staff, he could accept my claim as legitimate.

I might have said more, but Jobari and Imani both jumped up, their limbs flinging out with excitement. Are our pictures here too, somewhere in this house? We shall go and find them! Ira pushed up from his recliner, lifting a fat bird in his arms. Rose-gold LaToya uncrossed her pale limbs. So y’all are like hood royalty or something, she said.

Knox kept hold of my hand, and I wanted it back, just for a moment.

We are descendants, I said once more.

I tried to keep my head up.

I decided to keep my head up.

Damn, Ezra said again.



* * *



The wind wore itself out quickly, scattering brush and fallen branches across the yard before dying down. But the rain kept on, wavering between downpours and jumpy showers. It must’ve been afternoon when I wandered out on the southern terrace, a planked boardwalk, with one bend in it, that extended toward Mulberry Row. From there I could see Ms. Edith, under a heavy mist. She was tromping along the ridge above the garden, surveying the once-tidy rows. She’d found rain boots and now wore them, along with a clear plastic leaf bag fashioned into a poncho. With translucence billowing around her thin frame, she shouted across the distance to me and to Mama Yahya, who stood behind me under the eaves. Arms thrust into a giant Y, Ms. Edith announced that there were stray stands of chard in the garden, peas climbing, a hedge of blackberries. All of it half ravaged by heat or rain or rabbits or birds, but still. Cheering, the children followed her down the hill to accost the bramble, filling their mouths with purple. Later we would find hand tools and dig for radishes, yams.

When I turned to walk back in, Mama Yahya was gone, and there was Knox, looking right at me. I realized I’d avoided being completely alone with him since we’d gone inside the house. Now everybody had separated again, and he stood by himself at a large open window, which rose from the floor to make a doorway. He lifted the glass higher. I made my way to him, ducking to enter.

Are you okay, Da’Naisha? he said.

Inside it was too warm, the small room dominated by windows. There was slate flooring, a desk, a chair. A few ceramic pots held dwarf lemon trees, their desiccated bodies bowed and leafless.