Wild, Beautiful, and Free(22)

“Why?” I wailed. “They’re dead.”

“’Cause it’s the last thing you can do for her.” She pulled on me. “Come on now. You don’t want her going into the ground looking like this, like some animal Boss Everett slaughtered.”

Mucus streamed from my nose, and I couldn’t see for the tears. I stood, and she handed me one of the clean cloths. I wiped my face. I was still crying, but I was able to move and to help. We took the baby and unfolded its crouching form enough to see Fanny had been right—it was a boy.

Some of what Aunt Nancy Lynne had brought from the big house wasn’t rags but clothing. She’d brought my housekeeping dress and hers too. When we were done, we washed our hands and put on the clean clothes. After I had settled some, I realized the lash wounds I’d gotten from Missus Everett still burned.

“Come on now,” she said, but I sat at the table awhile longer. I didn’t want to leave Fanny.

“You done good. Come on.”

We walked down the lane back to the big house. I said, “I won’t go back there again. I’m not sleeping where she died.”

“All right, honey. Don’t think about it now.”

It wasn’t just the shack. I couldn’t stand where I was. Fanny’s death had crushed me. I felt reckless. If Aunt Nancy Lynne hadn’t been walking me back to the big house, I would have kept on walking down the road and then God knows where. I didn’t care how or where I’d end up. I was leaving there. But Aunt Nancy Lynne had me by the arm. She brought me into the kitchen and sat me down with a bowl of green beans in front of me. I was supposed to snap off the ends, but I just sat there. When night fell, she put me on the pallet where I used to sleep for the night work. I kept on staying there and never went back to where I lived with Fanny.

I was heartsick after that. Nothing felt good. The sound of laughter was like cold water poured all over my soul. I know that’s selfish, but that’s how I felt.

“I know you thinking of running off,” Aunt Nancy Lynne said. “You should wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“To make a plan. You run out of here without a plan, you liable to end up back here like Monty and Laney. Back here in a day. You don’t know a real whippin’. You’ll know it if they catch you, though.”

I shrugged and said nothing, but I waited. I didn’t see how anything might change or what kind of plan would get me away from Holloway’s without getting caught.

A few weeks later, when we were sewing, Aunt Nancy Lynne said, “Can you wait a year, maybe two?”

Two years seemed so far away. “Why?”

“Because you need to grow up a little.”

“I can handle myself!”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean you need to get a little bigger, look like a woman and not a little girl.”

She glanced at my work. “And you need to be more careful with how you do things. Like you need to pull out them crooked stitches on that hem and do ’em over.”

I put a hand over my eyes and sighed. I started picking out the thread. “Yes, ma’am.”

“She right!”

Silas startled us. We heard his voice at the open window before we saw him. He came striding in and sat at the table.

“How long you been out there listening to business that ain’t yours?” Aunt Nancy Lynne asked.

“Long enough to make it mine.”

He looked at me and said, “I been thinking about Montgomery and Laney—about what the rest of their running woulda been like. No matter where they ended up, it woulda been trouble. They didn’t look like nothin’ but a couple of ragged runaway slaves. The kinda work you doin’ there?” He indicated our sewing. “That’s the key.”

Aunt Nancy Lynne stopped and stared at Silas. Her eyes got really small, like she wasn’t looking at him. She was thinking.

“When Massa take me with him somewhere, what the first thing he do? Make sure I’m cleaned up, wearing good clothes. Nobody say a thing because people see we’re together.”

“Yeah, but he white—” I didn’t finish the sentence. I gasped and looked down at my sewing and then my hands. Aunt Nancy Lynne and I were now staring at each other.

“You can do it,” Silas said. “If you wearing the right clothes, people would see nothing but a white gal.”

“I could.” I stood and paced around the kitchen. Aunt Nancy Lynne closed the window and checked that no one else was outside. Then she opened the drawer of the desk Missus used when planning menus for her parties.

“Girl, stop that. Come write some things down for me.”

I went to the desk, and she called out types of cloth and measurements and colors. I wrote down types of buttons and lace.

“Silas.” She gave him the list. “Don’t make no special trip. It’ll call attention to yourself. And don’t take it into town. Wait until the next time Massa send you to Monroe. The mercantile man there won’t ask no questions.”

She checked the window and the door again, then went into another room. I looked at Silas and shrugged. When she came back, she was holding some paper bills.

“I’m gonna have to trust you with this. You gotta have it with you all the time. No telling when you’ll get to go.”