Yellow Wife(67)

When I entered the shed, my helper, Janice, sat on the metal stool rolling out burlap and humming to herself.

“Morning, Missus. Marse said for we to make shirts, pants, and plain dresses.”

“Any girls today?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Did he say anything else?”

Janice looked me up and down. “You okay?”

“Did he say where he was going?”

She shook her head and picked up the shears. I decided that Janice could handle the simple task of mending basic clothing without me. I needed to find someone with answers. As I walked out the door, I saw Clarence, the Jailer’s right-hand man, unlocking the tavern. He wore a waistcoat and a shirt whose sleeves seemed too short for his long arms. When the Jailer left the premises, Clarence had the responsibility of running the property.

“Pheby.”

“Clarence.” I stared at him.

“Anything I can do for you?” He brushed crumbs from his red beard. He stood tall like a tree, and I was forced to look up.

“Did Mr. Lapier say when he would return?”

“No, he did not.”

“Usually gives some indication of when to expect him back.”

“Not this time.” His eyes took in my hair curled over my shoulder. That was when I remembered that I had not pinned it back up.

Beauty is a curse for a slave girl.

“I will be inside if you need anything. Anything at all.” His cheeks blushed crimson and his eyes lingered a beat too long.

I wrung my hands until they throbbed. I felt like I was being strangled by my own saliva. As I passed through the courtyard, the people to be sold for the day were standing at the water trough, bathing and grooming for auction. There were women with small, sparsely clothed children at their knees, an old woman who could barely stand without leaning heavily on her walking stick, a group of men with thick irons around their necks, wearing nothing but the look of malnourishment. Many of their lives would be changed for the worst today, and the sorrow of separation stretched beyond the Lapier jail in Richmond. Rumors had swirled for years that some free blacks from Philadelphia had even been kidnapped to be sold farther down South.

From the tobacco South to the cotton South, families would be torn apart and roots shredded. Mothers would hold their young for the last time and cry out for God’s mercy as they were stripped away. For the first time in a long while, I felt united in experiencing their pain. Living in the big house and bearing the Jailer’s daughters had given me a false sense of protection. Now that he had taken my family, I saw that we were all the same. Elsie had been right from the beginning. My children and I belonged to Rubin Lapier. We were his property. He could do with us as he pleased. Including our daughters, and especially my son.

I had wandered behind the stables—a habit I had of always checking for Monroe. Tommy did not hear me approach because he was chopping wood.

“Give me the axe.”

He turned, startled. “Miss Pheby.”

“I said give it to me.”

He handed it over to me by the wooden handle. I walked over to the wood he had been chopping and thrashed the axe in the air. It flew down hard onto the wood. There was something satisfying about seeing the wood split down to the fleshy middle. Like I was killing it at the heart. I swung the axe again and again. Chopped until my shoulder blades burned, and my palms were raw with blisters. My hair held onto the wood chips and was matted in sweat on my neck and cheeks. When I could chop no more, I sat on a stump with my knees pulled up to my chest. The midday sun was hot on my skin, but that did not give me the power to move. I had no place to go.

“Missus?”

Elsie tramped with a heavy foot. I could hear her long before she stood in front of me. Her green scarf was knotted at the front, where a patch of gray sprouted from her widow’s peak. She cupped a bowl covered with a cloth napkin and stopped in front of me, blocking the sun.

“Marse love him chil’ren.”

“You warned that he was the devil. I should have listened better.”

“No sense rakin’ ol’ bones. I could have been kinder.”

I regarded Elsie. It was the first time that I noticed the stoop in her back and the wrinkles set on her face.

She extended the bowl to me. “Brought you some mutton stew.”

I bit my lip. Aunt Hope used to make mutton stew.

“Try a little. Good for your nerves.”

I took the bowl and spooned up a small bite. Then another. The stew started coating my belly. It tasted delicious, and took restraint for me not to lick the inside of the dish.

“July done made you a bath. Go on ’fore the water get cold.”

“Did Sissy say anything to you about where they were going?”

“?’Fraid not. But Marse sweet on those girls, and Monty know how to be a good boy. Go on now,” she urged me.

I stood and did as I was told.





CHAPTER 32




Back Talk

When I entered my bedroom, the window was open to the breeze and the floor had been scrubbed of my waste, the awful odor replaced by the scent of the lavender flowers in the vase beside my bed. July must have heard my footsteps, because she knocked on the door the second I closed it behind me.

“Miss Pheby, ready for a bath?”

“No.”