Yellow Wife(39)

“Come in,” he commanded me.

I slithered in with my back nearly scraping the wall.

He twirled the whip in the air, then brought it down on her back. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.

The woman cried out after every lash. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.

He stared at me, his eyes daring me to look away. Thwap.

Her skin opened and blood seeped from her stripes. Thwap.

Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.

She screamed until her throat was nothing more than a hiccup. His face became more alive with each swing of the whip. It took everything in me not to shrink to my knees and hide my face in the corner. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.

Her voice was no longer audible but her body twitched out her pain, her back completely soaked. The Jailer did not appear to slow down or tire. He tore into the woman like he was engaging in his favorite sport.

Thwap. Thwap. Thwap.

Dear God, had it been an hour? The woman barely moved and I feared she had passed out. My knees wobbled against each other and just when I thought I could not stomach a moment more, the woman gave a shout that sounded like a goat being strangled. Out from between her legs a red mass slithered against the ground. I blinked. It was a baby. It flailed, squirmed, but then fell still.

He looked at me to make sure he had my audience. The vomit in my mouth seemed hard to swallow back, but I forced it down by grinding my teeth. He dropped his arm and called to the two white men who stood outside.

“Get rid of that thing and return her to her master. Let him know I will gladly punish anyone who teaches slaves to read.” He looked at me then. “It is against the law.”

The men unchained the woman. She appeared dead, but then one of them threw cold water on her to revive her. She jumped and hacked as they carried her away.

He put down his whip and then folded his hands behind his back while taking a step closer to me, his face redder than I had ever seen it. Aglow. Like on fire.

“Something you want to tell me?”

The book. Oliver Twist. It had been a trap and I had fallen for it.

“How come you did not disclose that you could read?”

“My mama said to keep it a secret. Now I see why.” I looked at the spot where the woman’s fluids gathered.

“There are no secrets between you and me.” He grabbed hold of my chin and brought his face so close to mine that I was forced to breathe what he exhaled: the scent of her blood.

“If I catch you aiding any slave in learning how to read, I will forget my affection for you and flog you myself.”

“I understand.”

“We cannot educate these niggers, lest they forget who the master is. Guessing that is what happened to you.” He stroked my cheek. I tried not to flinch. Then he had his hand around my neck and was crushing his lips into mine. I could feel his manhood grow against my thigh. I thought he would take me against the wall right there, but then Basil called to him.

“Marse, they ready.”

“Mmmm.” He pulled back. “Go pretty yourself for supper. I will be up to the house shortly.”

As I turned to go, he patted me on my ass so hard, it caused me to fall forward into the daylight. My feet felt spongy, but I willed myself to walk quickly. When I made it to the sewing shed, I closed the door behind me and dropped my head into my hands. Who could whip a woman until she lost her child? Only a monster.

When I crossed my hands over my lap I felt my diary with the log of girls in the hidden pocket of my skirt. What if he had discovered it? I looked over the shelves in the shed and my eyes landed on an old canister covered with dust and cobwebs. I stuffed the diary in the canister and covered it over with old scraps of material.

That evening, his appetite for me was insatiable. The skin on my shoulders and neck were bruised crimson from his teeth. When he finally left my bed, I could not feel my legs. Could not find sleep either. My eyes stayed fixed on a crack in the ceiling. There I watched the dead baby slip from the woman’s womb.

Elsie’s voice played over in my head. They call this place the Devil’s Half Acre. Now I knew the devil.





CHAPTER 18




Deliver Me Lord

It only took four months of his regular visits for me to know I carried his child. I felt the pressure across my lower back and my cheeks were fuller, puffy like Mama’s, even though I did not eat much. Food stopped agreeing with me again. My breasts throbbed, and the pain his lips caused when he sucked and pulled on them was excruciating. He acted like a baby in that way, always reaching for my breasts, like they gave him life.

He had started falling asleep on my pillow some nights, too exhausted to walk across the hall to his own room. That’s when I tried to make sense of him. Besides insisting I watch that awful whipping, he had been consistent in doing things he believed would please me. When he discovered me sniffing flowers out behind the kitchen house, he had Abbie arrange pretty bouquets that she changed out every few days. Gifts of fancy gloves, lace corsets, new shoes, hairpins, and chocolate waited for me weekly on my nightstand. Some days, it felt like I had been living in the jail for two lifetimes, not a few weeks short of a year.

This new pregnancy also made me fret over Monroe’s future. The Jailer mostly pretended like Monroe did not exist. I hoped he would honor my request and not separate us. I hated having to rest my hopes on another white man. But it was not up to me. In this world, the men called Master held all the power.