The Invention of Wings(146)

            I kept going past Market Street. The sun was dripping orange on the harbor, the green shadows falling off the garden walls. Up and down the street, the horses were hightailing home.

            I didn’t hurry. I knew what was waiting on me.

            Near the Grimké house, I saw the steamboat landing and the whitewash building with a sign over the door, Charleston Steamship Company. A man holding a pocket watch was locking the front door. When he left, I wandered down to the landing and sat hidden behind the wood crates, watching the pelicans dive straight as blades. When I took the booklet from my pocket, little charred flakes came off in my hand. I had to work hard at some of the words. If one tripped me up, I stared at the letters, waiting for the meaning to show itself, and it would come, too, like pictures taking shape in the clouds.

            Respected Friends,

            I address you as a repentant slaveholder of the South, one secure in the knowledge that the Negro is not chattel to be owned, but a person under God . . .



            Little missus had me whipped by the light of the moon.

            When I showed up late at the gate without her import scotch or the money she gave me to buy it, she told Hector to take care of me. It was dark out, the black sky full of sharp-edge, tin-cut stars and the moon so full Hector’s shadow lay perfect on the ground. He had the bullwhip wound up, hanging off his belt.

            I’d always taken my hope from mauma and she was gone.

            He lashed my hands to a post on the kitchen house. The last time I was whipped was for learning to read—one lash, a taste of sugar, they said—and Tomfry had tied me to this same post.

            This time, ten lashes. The price to read Sarah’s words.

            I waited with my back to Hector. I could see Goodis crouched in the shadows by the herb garden and Sky hidden up next to the warming kitchen, the flash of her eyes like a small night animal.

            I let my eyelids fall shut on the world. What was it for anyway? What was any of this for?

            The first strike came straight from the fire, a burning poker under my skin. I heard the cotton on my dress rip and felt the skin split. It knocked the legs from me.

            I cried out cause I couldn’t help it, cause my body was small without padding. I cried out to wake God from his slumber.

            The words in Sarah’s book came fresh to me. A person under God.

            In my head, I saw the steamboat. I saw the paddle turning.



            Next day, I was measuring little missus for a dress, a walking costume made of silk taffeta, just what everybody needs, and her pretending nothing happened. Being obliging. Handful, what do you think about this gold color, is it too pale? . . . Nobody sews like you do, Handful.

            When I stretched the measure tape from her waist to her ankle, the tore-up skin on my back pinched and pulled and a trickle ran between my shoulders. Phoebe and Sky had laid brown paper soaked in molasses on my back to keep the raw places clean, but it didn’t turn the pain sweet. Every step I took hurt. I slid my feet on the floor without picking them up.

            Little missus stood on the fitting box and turned a circle. It made me think of the old globe in master Grimké’s study, the way it turned.

            The clapper went off on the front door and we heard Hector’s shoes slap down the hallway to the drawing room where missus was taking tea. He called out, “Missus, the mayor’s here. He say for you to come to the door.”

            Mary stepped off the fitting box and stuck her head out to see what she could see. Missus was old now, her hair paper-white, but she got round. I heard her cane fast-tapping and then her toady voice drifted into the room. “Mr. Hayne! This is an honor. Please, come, join me for tea.” Like she’d caught the big fly.