The House of Eve (54)
As my feet carried me forward, I realized that it had been nearly five months since I saw my mother at Nene’s for Fatty’s birthday party. The celebration had been nothing more than boiled crabs with butter, brown liquor and bottles of beer, ashtrays overflowing with wet butts, slices of red velvet cake, and heated arguments over hands of Tonk. I had sat in a folding chair next to the phonograph, watching my mother grin up at Leap as she announced that she was having his baby.
“He wants a girl, but I’m hoping for a boy. Girls are too much trouble,” she muttered to Fatty, and they slapped five in agreement.
Her words had made me shudder as I tried to make myself smaller against the wall in the corner.
Since she had not confiscated my key when she put me out, I trampled up onto the uneven porch and let myself in.
I walked in to find Inez standing over a pot that smelled like chili. It was a bit hot out for the dish, but it sure smelled good. Inez wasn’t much of a cook, but chili was her specialty, and my mouth watered for the comfort of it. I shifted on my feet, waiting for something. A smile, a hug, her voice cooing that it was good to see me.
“What you doing here?” She held the wooden spoon in the air.
“I… I just wanted to see you,” I admitted, realizing as I said it how true it was.
“Well, you see me.”
Her belly had grown, and the thought that fluttered through my mind was that her baby and mine could grow up like siblings. The apple don’t fall far from the tree, Nene always said. The idea sickened me, and I squeezed my fingernails into the back of the kitchen chair.
The smell of Leap’s cigarette wafted from the next room, and I tried to put the memory of him forcing his tongue in my mouth out of my mind.
“Who is it?” he called out. Knowing it was me.
Inez said, “Nobody, honey. Dinner be ready soon.”
She closed the lid over the pot, keeping her back to me. “Go on back to where you came from, girl. Roaming around in the middle of the night like you asking for problems. Ain’t no room for you here.”
“Mommy, I—”
She turned toward me. I wanted her to say something that would relieve the feeling that burrowed deep in my chest, but then her eyes cut through me.
“Get, now. And leave the key.”
It fell from my hand onto the table, and I walked out of her apartment. No, that never had been my home. And I’d never want the egg inside of me to feel so alone, so motherless.
CHAPTER TWENTY STILL THE WATER
Eleanor
Eleanor made herself a cup of chamomile tea and then carried it back into the den. Over the past few weeks, she had found such pleasure in her work with Mrs. Porter that she had William lug a few bags and boxes home so that she could organize important pieces on the days she was not on campus.
Working on the library’s collection connected Eleanor to the ways of her mother. She understood why she loved to bake. Kneading dough and pressing out pie crust weren’t just a means of income; they brought peace and order to her life, and that’s how archiving felt for Eleanor. When she read the essays of the ancestors, studied their photographs, drawings and linguistic codes, she felt charged to preserve history.
She loved reading about independent women in particular. Mrs. Porter had sent her home with the biographical pieces of Dorothy Creole’s life to appendix and classify. Eleanor pulled the documents from the protective sleeve, then tucked her feet under her thighs on the sofa while she read.
Dorothy Creole was one of the first Black women in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan. She arrived around 1627, brought with the other enslaved women because the males needed wives, and the Dutch women needed housekeepers. Dorothy married Paulo d’Angola. D’Angola was the most common surname among the enslaved, and it meant that he came from Angola, Africa. One day in 1643, Dorothy went to the Dutch Reform Church to serve as godmother for a Black boy named Antonio. When the boy’s parents died a short time later, Dorothy and her husband adopted him and raised him as their own. This is one of the first times when the public records show Black people stepping in to take care of each other.
Eleanor touched her belly. She couldn’t imagine anyone else taking care of her baby besides her. She shuddered just thinking about it.
In 1644, Paulo petitioned for their freedom and won. As Black farmers they owned a two-mile stretch of land from what is now Canal Street to 34th Street in Manhattan. It was known as the Land of the Blacks. Although the free slaves were not treated as white, they were landowners. Blacks who were still enslaved looked at Dorothy and Paulo with hope. There was a way out of slavery.
Under the Dewey decimal system, Dorothy’s story would have been classified simply under 326: Slavery and Emancipation. But like many of the subjects Eleanor filed, the story of Dorothy Creole contained multitudes. Eleanor wrote down: Slave, Former Slave, Adoption, Landowner, Estate Executor, Dutch/New Amsterdam History.
All she had left to do was write up a brief appendix and then she would return to bed. But somehow, she had managed to doze off, because the next thing she knew William was tugging on her arm.
“Babe, come to bed.” He wiped his eyes.
Eleanor removed the documents from her belly, carefully placed the pages back into the protective sleeve and then followed him upstairs.