The floor creaked in the hallway and I heard somebody out there breathing high and fast, the way Miss Sarah breathed. I eased up on my elbow and craned my neck, and there she was—her shadow blotted on the hall window. I lowered myself back to the mattress and mauma went on telling her story with Miss Sarah listening in.
“Your granny-mauma got sold to some man for twenty dollars, and he put her in the fields near Georgetown. They eat boiled black-eye peas in the morning, and if you ain’t done eating in ten minutes time, you don’t get no more that day. Your granny-mauma say she always eat too slow.
“I never did know my daddy. He was a white man named John Paul, not the massa, but his brother. After I come, we got sold off. Mauma say I be the fair side of brown, and everybody know what that mean.
“We got bought by a man near Camden. He kept mauma in the fields and I stay out there with her, but nights she teach me everything she knows ’bout quilts. I tore up old pant legs and dress tails and pieced ’em. Mauma say in Africa they sew charms in their quilts. I put pieces of my hair down inside mine. When I got twelve, mauma start braggin’ to the Camden missus, how I could sew anything, and the missus took me to the house to learn from their seamstress. I got better ’n she was in a hurry.”
She broke off and shifted her legs on the bed. I was afraid that was all she had to say. I never had heard this story. Listening to it was like watching myself sleep, clouds floating, mauma bent over me. I forgot Miss Sarah was out there.
I waited, and finally she started back telling. “Mauma birthed my brother while I was sewing in the house. She never say who his daddy was. My brother didn’t live out the year.
“After he die, your granny-mauma found us a spirit tree. It’s just a oak tree, but she call it a Baybob like they have in Africa. She say Fon people keep a spirit tree and it always be a Baybob. Your granny-mauma wrapped the trunk with thread she begged and stole. She took me out there and say, ‘We gon put our spirits in the tree so they safe from harm.’ We kneel on her quilt from Africa, nothing but a shred now, and we give our spirits to the tree. She say our spirits live in the tree with the birds, learning to fly. She told me, ‘If you leave this place, go get your spirit and take it with you.’ We used to gather up leaves and twigs from round the tree and stick ’em in pouches to wear at our necks.”
Her hand went to her throat like she was feeling for it.
She said, “Mauma died of a croup one winter. I was sixteen. I could sew anything there was. ’Bout that time the massa got in money-debt and sold off every one of us. I got bought by massa Grimké for his place in union . Night ’fore I left, I went and got my spirit from the tree and took it with me.
“I want you to know, your daddy was good as gold. His name was Shanney. He work in massa Grimké’s fields. One day missus say I got to come sew for her in Charleston. I say awright, but bring Shanney, he my husband. She say Shanney a field slave, and maybe I see him sometime when I back for a visit. You was already inside me, and nobody knew. Shanney die from a cut on his leg ’fore you a year old. He never saw your face.”
Mauma stopped talking. She was done. She went to sleep then and left the story bent perfect over me.
Next morning when I eased out of bed headed for the privy, I bumped into a basket sitting by the door. Inside it was a big bottle of liniment and some medicine-tea.
That day I went back to tending Miss Sarah. I slipped into her room while she was reading one of her books. She was shy to bring up what happened to mauma, so I said, “We got your basket.”
Her face eased. “Tell your mother I’m sorry for her treatment, and I hope she’ll feel better soon,” and it wasn’t any toil in her words.
“That mean a lot to us,” I said.
She laid the book down and came where I was standing by the chimney place and put her arms round me. It was hard to know where things stood. People say love gets fouled by a difference big as ours. I didn’t know for sure whether Miss Sarah’s feelings came from love or guilt. I didn’t know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing. That day, our hearts were pure as they ever would get.