The Invention of Wings(109)

            I’m alarmed at Mother’s escalating temper, but I also fear Handful is engaged in something dangerous that involves frequent trips over the gate. I saw her slip away from the house myself on another occasion. She refuses to speak to me about it. I doubt I can shield her if she’s caught again.

            I feel alone and helpless here. Please come to my aid. I beg you, come home.

            Yours in need and with sisterly love,

            Nina

            I laid down the letter. Pushing back the chair, I went to the dormer window and stared at the darkening grove of cedars. A little swarm of fireflies was rising up from it like embers. I feel alone and helpless here—Nina’s words, but I felt them like my own.

            Earlier, Catherine had sent my trunk up from the cellar, and I busied myself now pulling belongings from the wardrobe and the desk, strewing them across the bed and onto the braided rug—bonnets, shawls, dresses, sleeping gowns, gloves, journals, letters, the little biography of Joan of Arc I’d stolen from Father’s study, a single strand of pearls, ivory brushes, bottles of French glass filled with lotions and powders, and dearest of all, my lava box with the silver button.

            “You didn’t come down for supper.” Israel stood in the doorway, peering inside, afraid, it seemed, to cross into my small, messy sanctum.

            My possessions were puny by Grimké standards, but I was nevertheless embarrassed by the excess, and in particular by the woolen underwear I was holding. He fixed his eyes on the open trunk, then swung his gaze to the eaves as if the sight of my packing stung him.

            “. . . I had no appetite,” I said.

            He stepped, finally, into the disarray. “I came to say, I’m sorry. I should’ve spoken in the meeting. I was wrong not to. What Catherine did was unpardonable—I’ve told her as much. I’ll go before the elders this week and make it clear I don’t wish you to leave.” His eyes gleamed with what I took to be anguish.

            “. . . It’s too late, Israel.”

            “But it isn’t. I can make them understand—”

            “No!” It came out more forcefully than I intended.

            He sank onto the end of my narrow bed and plowed his hand through his rampant black hair. It filled me with a sharp, almost exquisite pain to see him on the bed, there among my gowns and pearls and lava box. I thought how much I would miss him.

            He stood and took my hand. “You’ll still come and teach the girls, won’t you? A number of people have offered to board you.”

            I pulled my hand away. “. . . I’m going home.”

            His eyes darted again to the trunk, and I watched his shoulders curve forward, his ribs dropping one onto the other. “Is it because of me?”

            I paused, not knowing how to answer. Nina’s letter had come just when the bottom had fallen from things, and it was true, I welcomed the excuse to leave. Was I running away from him? “. . . No,” I told him. I was sure I would’ve left regardless, why dissect the reason?

            When I recounted the contents of the letter, he said, “It’s terrible about your mother, but there must be other siblings who can tend to the situation.”

            “. . . Nina needs me. Not someone else.”

            “But it’s very sudden. You should think about it. Pray about it. God brought you here, you can’t deny that.”

            I couldn’t deny it. Something good and right had brought me north, and even to this very place—to Green Hill and Israel and the children. The mandate to leave Charleston was still as radiant as the day I’d first felt it, but there was Nina’s letter lying on the desk. And then there was the other matter, the matter of Rebecca.