The Invention of Wings(163)

            When the two guards lumbered in, I heard Sky’s breath pick up. One guard patrolled the left side, one the right. They nodded at folks, making talk here and there. Looking down, I saw the toes of Sky’s slave shoes sticking out from under her fine dress. The scrabble brown shoes, the scraped-up sadness of them.

            He stopped before us. He said, “Where’re you traveling to?” Talking to me.

            My slave tongue would be like the tip of Sky’s shoes, giving us away. I lifted my head and looked at him. His guard cap was cocked sideways on his head. He had new blond whiskers and green eyes. Behind him, through the smudged window, I saw the water shimmer.

            “Mam?” he said.

            Sarah shifted on the bench. I worried she was winding up to say something, that Sky would start humming now, that the fright spring-coiled inside me would break loose. Then I remembered the widow dress I was wearing. I made a sound with my lips like I was trying to give him an answer, but choking on the words, seized by my grief, and I didn’t have to pretend that much. I felt sorrow for my life, for what I’d lived and seen and known, for what was lost to me, and the weeping turned real.

            A soft wail came from inside me and he took a step back. He said, “I’m sorry for your loss, mam.”

            As he moved on, a white drop fell from my chin, flour plopping on my skirt.

            The engine caught and a shudder ran through the bench. Then came the smell of oil and spewing smoke. The passengers left the salon for the deck to wave their hankies farewell, and we went, too, out where the wharf slaves were tossing the heavy ropes. Far off, the church bells rang on St. Michael’s.

            We stood at the bow, the three of us, holding the rail tight, waiting. The gulls wheeled by, and the steamer lurched, pitching forward. When the paddles started to roll, Sarah put her hand on my arm and left it there while the city heaved away. It was the last square on the quilt.

            I thought of mauma then, how her bones would always be here. People say don’t look back, the past is past, but I would always look back.

            I watched Charleston fall away in the morning light.

            When we left the mouth of the harbor, the wind swelled and the veils round us flapped, and I heard the blackbird wings. We rode onto the shining water, onto the far distance.