My aspiration to become a jurist had been laid to rest in the Graveyard of Failed Hopes, an all-female establishment.O The sorrow of it had faded, but regret remained, and I’d taken to wondering if the Fates might be kinder to a different girl. Throughout my childhood, a framed sketch of the Three Fates had hung prominently at the top of the stairs, where they went about their business of spinning, measuring, and cutting the thread of life, all the while keeping an eye on my comings and goings. I was convinced of their personal animosity toward me, but that didn’t mean they would treat my sister’s thread the same way.
I’d vowed to Mother that Nina would become the purpose of my life, and so she was. In her, I had a voice that didn’t stammer and a heart that was unscathed. It’s true I lived a portion of my life through hers, and yes, I blurred the lines of self for both of us, but there was no one who loved Nina more than I did. She became my salvation, and I want to think I became hers.
She’d called me Mother from the time she could talk. It came naturally, and I didn’t discourage it, but I did have the good sense to keep her from doing it in front of Mother. From the days Nina was in her crib, I’d proselytized her about the evils of slavery. I’d taught her everything I knew and believed, and though Mother must have had some idea I was molding her in my own image, she had no idea to what extent.
With her braid complete, Nina climbed into my lap and began her usual pleading. “Don’t go! Stay with me.”
“Oh, I have to, you know that. Binah will tuck you in.” Nina’s lip fluted out, and I added, “If you don’t whine, I’ll let you pick out the dress I wear.”
She fairly leapt from my knees to the wardrobe, where she chose the most luxuriant costume I had, a maroon velvet gown with three satin chevrons down the front, each with an agraffe of chipped diamonds. It was Handful’s own magnificent creation. At seventeen, she was a prodigy with the needle, even more so than her mother. She now sewed most of my attire.
As Handful stretched on tiptoe to retrieve the dress, I noticed how undeveloped she was—her body lithe and skinny as a boy’s. She didn’t reach five feet and never would. But as small as she was, it was still her eyes that drew attention. I’d once heard a friend of Thomas’ refer to her as the pretty, yellow-eyed Negress.
We weren’t as close as we’d been as girls. Perhaps it was due to my absorption with Nina, or to Handful’s extra duties as the apprentice seamstress, or maybe we’d simply reached an age when our paths naturally began to diverge. But we were friends, I told myself.
As she passed the fireplace with the dress in her arms, I noticed the frown that seemed permanently etched in her features, as if by narrowing her enormous eyes she felt less of the world could reach her. It seemed she’d begun to feel the boundaries of her life more keenly, that she’d arrived at some moment of reckoning. The past week, Mother had denied her a pass to the market for some minor, forgettable reason, and she’d taken it hard. Her market excursions were the acme of her days, and trying to commiserate, I’d said, “I’m sorry, Handful, I know how you must feel.”
It seemed to me I did know what it felt to have one’s liberty curtailed, but she blazed up at me. “So we just the same, me and you? That’s why you the one to shit in the pot and I’m the one to empty it?”
Her words stunned me, and I turned toward the window to hide my hurt. I heard her breathing in fury before she fled the room, not to return the rest of the day. We hadn’t spoken of it again.
She helped me now step into the gown and slide it over my corset, which I’d laced as loosely as possible. I was of average build, and didn’t think it necessary to obstruct my breathing. After fastening me in, Handful pinned a black mantilla of poult-de-soie to the crown of my head and Nina handed me my black lace fan. Flicking it open, I swanned about the room for them.
Mother entered at the moment I pirouetted, trampling on my hemline and pitching forward—the picture of grace. “I hope you can refrain from this kind of clumsiness at Mrs. Alston’s,” she said.