“Rumors are running rampant that you’ve returned,” Mary was saying. “It’s only a matter of time before the sheriff arrives to inquire about it, and if you’re here, I’m not sure what you expect us to say. We can hardly hide you like a fugitive.”
I turned to Mother, watching her eyes veer away toward the piazza. The windows were open and the chocolaty smell of the oleander streamed in, sickeningly thick.
“You wish me to leave?”
“It’s not a matter of what we wish,” Mother said. “If the authorities come, I wouldn’t give you over to them, of course not. You’re my daughter. You’re still a Grimké. We only suggest it would be easier all around if you cut your visit short.”
To my surprise, her eyes filled. She was plump now with thinned white hair and one of those ancient faces that’s deeply cobblestoned. She peered at me as the tears started to spill, and I left my chair and went to her. Bending down awkwardly, I put my arms about her.
She clung to me an instant, then straightened. Instead of returning to my seat, I paced toward the window and back, gathering my bravery.
“I won’t put you at risk, I’ll leave on the next steamer, but before I go, I have a request. I would like to purchase Hetty and her sister, Sky.”
“Purchase them?” Mary said. “But why? You hardly barter in slaves.”
“Mary, for heaven’s sake, she means to free them,” Mother said.
“I’ll offer you any amount.” I walked to Mother’s side. “Please. I would consider it a great kindness to me.”
Mary rose and came to the other side of Mother’s chair. “We can’t possibly do without Hetty,” she said. “There are few seamstresses in Charleston to match her. She’s irreplaceable. The other one is expendable, but not Hetty.”
Mother stared at her hands. Her shoulders moved up and down with her breath, and I began to feel a prick of hope.
“There are laws that make it difficult,” she said. “Emancipating them would require a special act of the legislature.”
“Difficult, but it could be done,” I responded.
Something inside of her seemed to bend, to arch toward me. Mary sensed it, too. She placed her hand on our mother’s, linking the two of them. She said, “We can’t do without Hetty. And we must think of her, as well. Where will she go? Who will take care of her? She has a home here.”
“This is not her home, it’s her prison,” I said.
Mary stiffened. “We don’t need you to come here and lecture us about slavery. I won’t stand here and defend it to you. It’s our way of life.”
Her words infuriated me. I wondered for a moment if holding my tongue would help my cause with Mother. Was it ever right to sacrifice one’s truth for expedience? Mother would do what she would do, wouldn’t she? I wondered how it was possible I’d found my words out there in the world, but could lose them in the house where I was born.
It gave way inside of me—years of being here, co-existing with the untenable. “Your way of life! What does that justify? Slavery is a hell-concocted system, it cannot be defended!”
Small red wafers splotched along Mary’s neck. “God has ordained that we take care of them,” she said, flustered now, spluttering.
I took a step toward her, my outrage breaking open. “You speak as if God was white and Southern! As if we somehow owned his image. You speak like a fool. The Negro is not some other kind of creature than we are. Whiteness is not sacred, Mary! It can’t go on defining everything.”