Yellow Wife(27)

I wanted to hold Mama, but just like that she disappeared. When I asked Elsie for the tea, she grumbled about having to go find the herbs. “If Marse wasn’t worryin’ me sick ’bout you.”

A young girl appeared the next morning with the tea and onion.

“I’s July. Marse told me to sit wit’ you till you feelin’ well.”

“Thank you.”

Her kind smile soothed me. She was a pretty girl with strong hair woven together into two long braids. Her skin brought to mind gingerbread, and her eyes were like two chocolate drops. She served me tea four times that day and stayed while I slept. As I dozed, she swept and sang a song that Lovie used to hum while she worked. By night, I felt well enough to sit up a little and eat the stew. The tea drew the fever out and had me feeling myself again by the next morning.

Elsie lifted the curtain. “Most sleep you ever gon’ get. I hears you can sew.”

I nodded.

“Left a pile for you up front that need mendin’. No time for lazin’ ’round here. Work to be done.”

The sickness still clung to me, but I resolved to do something useful. Once I dressed, Elsie directed me out into the courtyard. The light of day took me by surprise and I had to pause to let my eyes adjust. A gang, much like mine, passed me by; chained, hungry, feet so worn they left footprints of blood trailing behind them. As I followed Elsie, the click-clack sounds of their iron confinements rang in my ears. The moaning from inside the jail cell cried steady and constant. I clutched my ears, wishing it would all stop.

“You will get use’t it,” Elsie huffed over her shoulder. “Just be glad it ain’t you.”

She showed me to a small spot in the supply shed. A tiny space in comparison to the loom house, but it gave me some breathing room from her. Overseer Snitch had snatched me up so fast I had left without my sewing tools. As if she’d read my mind, Elsie dropped a bag in front of me.

“See if’n this will work. Abbie, the house girl, goes to the market once a week. She can get what ain’t there.”

After sifting through the implements, I selected the best needle and started picking through cords. It eased my mind to do something familiar. Slipping the thread through the needle, the needle through the fabric, pulling, knotting, tying, looping. A little song popped into my head. I hummed to block out the memories of home, the sounds of the jail, and to push back the despair that seemed lurking at the door ready to choke me. I had just stitched the hem on a pair of men’s trousers and bent for a shirt when a shadow appeared in the doorway. I glanced up and saw the white man who had removed me from the auction block. He had a protruding belly and wore spectacles perched on the edge of his thin nose.

“Nice to see you feeling better.” He fingered his gold pocket watch, carrying with him the scent of bergamot and cigars.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Even though Elsie had told me he was my new master, I did not see him as such. I looked at his face to see if he objected to sir, but his expression did not change.

“I do not believe we made a proper acquaintance. I am Rubin Lapier.”

“Pheby Delores Brown.”

“Folks call you Pheby? Pheby Delores? Or Pheby Delores Brown?”

I could tell he was fooling with me by the way his dimples spread across his cheeks. If I guessed accurately and Elsie was ten years my senior, then he had to be twenty years more than me. Not as old as Master Jacob, but definitely older than Mama.

“Just Pheby is fine.”

“Well, Pheby, I brought you something.” He took the few steps toward me and held out his hand. Inside there was a thimble. Silver, shiny, and quite honestly the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given me.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You are welcome,” he said, and then turned out the door.

Once I felt sure that he had gone, I slipped on my new thimble, and for the first time in weeks, I smiled.



* * *



In the days that followed, I quickly fell into a routine. After breakfast, I sewed in the supply room straight through to supper, so consumed with my task I did not have time to think about my situation. I learned from sweet-faced July that the jail cell that I had spent my first night in held folks waiting for auction, and others who were sent by their masters for harsh punishment. Rubin Lapier (who I simply thought of as the Jailer) was the master of it all. From what I could see from my little sewing shed, the Jailer ran his operation from the tavern. It housed the auction room and his office, and served as a place to entertain the men who came to make purchases. I watched him from a distance, but our paths had not crossed since he gave me the thimble.

I liked my sewing spot; it was nothing more than a little shed, but it felt all mine. I mostly hemmed and mended socks, pants, shirts, and a few drapes and blankets. Plenty of work to keep me busy and my mind from wandering off. Elsie sent food to the room with July, but whatever I chewed came right back up. Most dishes I pretended to eat and then gave the rest to July.

From my shed, I figured out that there were six people who tended the jail and lived on the property: Basil was the Jailer’s manservant; Abbie worked in the house; July and the boy Tommy were children who did what they were told; Elsie was in the kitchen; and then there was me. I did not intend to get to know any of them too well. My only plan was to keep busy and be helpful until Master Jacob arrived for me. But that did not stop them from trying to get to know me. When that first Sunday rolled around, Elsie sent July to fetch me so that I could eat with the others behind the kitchen house.