The Invention of Wings(9)

            When I woke, the bluish tint of the Delft tiles around the hearth gleamed with light. I sat up into the quietness. My ecstatic burst of the night before had drained away, leaving me calm and clear. I couldn’t have explained then how the oak tree lives inside the acorn or how I suddenly realized that in the same enigmatic way something lived inside of me—the woman I would become—but it seemed I knew at once who she was.

            It had been there all along as I’d scoured Father’s books and constructed my arguments during our dinner table debates. Only the past week, Father had orchestrated a discussion between Thomas and me on the topic of exotic fossilized creatures. Thomas argued that if these strange animals were truly extinct, it implied poor planning on God’s part, threatening the ideal of God’s perfection, therefore, such creatures must still be alive in remote places on earth. I argued that even God should be allowed to change his mind. “Why should God’s perfection be based on having an unchanging nature?” I asked. “Isn’t flexibility more perfect than stasis?”

            Father slapped his hand on the table. “If Sarah was a boy, she would be the greatest jurist in South Carolina!”

            At the time, I’d been awed by his words, but it wasn’t until now, waking up in my new room, that I saw their true meaning. The comprehension of my destiny came in a rush. I would become a jurist.

            Naturally, I knew there were no female lawyers. For a woman, nothing existed but the domestic sphere and those tiny flowers etched on the pages of my art book. For a woman to aspire to be a lawyer—well, possibly, the world would end. But an acorn grew into an oak tree, didn’t it?

            I told myself the affliction in my voice wouldn’t stop me, it would compel me. It would make me strong, for I would have to be strong.

            I had a history of enacting small private rituals. The first time I took a book from Father’s library, I’d penned the date and title—February 25, 1803, Lady of the Lake—on a sliver of paper that I wedged into a tortoise-shell hair clip and wore about surreptitiously. Now, with dawn gathering in bright tufts across the bed, I wanted to consecrate what was surely my greatest realization.

            I went to the armoire and took down the blue dress Charlotte had sewed for the disastrous birthday party. Where the collar met, she’d stitched a large silver button with an engraved fleur de lis. Using the hawk bill letter opener John had left behind, I sawed it off. Squeezing it in my palm, I prayed, Please, God, let this seed you planted in me bear fruit.

            When I opened my eyes, everything was the same. The room still bore patches of early light, the dress lay like a blue heap of sky on the floor, the silver button was clutched in my palm, but I felt God had heard me.

            The sterling button took on everything that transpired that night—the revulsion of owning Hetty, the relief of signing her manumission, but mostly the bliss of recognizing that innate seed in myself, the one my father had already seen. A jurist.

            I tucked the button inside a small box made of Italian lava rock, which I’d received one Christmastime, then hid it at the back of my dressing drawer.

            Voices came from the corridor mingled with the clink-clank of trays and pitchers. The sound of slaves in their servitude. The world waking.

            I dressed hurriedly, wondering if Hetty was already outside my door. As I opened it, my heart picked up its pace, but Hetty wasn’t there. The manumission document I’d written lay on the floor. It was torn in two.





Handful


            My life with Miss Sarah got off on a bad left foot.

            When I got to her room that first morning, the door hung open and Miss Sarah was sitting in the cold, staring at the blank wall. I stuck my head in and said, “Miss Sarah, you want me to come in there?”

            She had thick little hands with stubby fingers and they went up to her mouth and spread open like a lady’s fan. Her eyes were pale and spoke plainer than her mouth. They said, I don’t want you here. Her mouth said, “. . . . . . Yes, come in. . . . . . I’m pleased to have you for my waiting maid.” Then she slumped in her chair and went back to what she was doing before. Nothing.