NO AMOUNT OF PLEADING moved Ma or budged Pa. “It is natural for your mother to want you to meet your grandfather, Robert. This trip will be a strain for her and I expect you to help in any way you can.”
“Then why don’t you go, Pa? You know meeting Grandfather isn’t the real reason she wants me to go. She’s trying to keep me away from—from helping here!”
“Your mother’s wish is all the reason you need. That’s final.”
I knew Pa was not happy about us going, and I knew my anger grieved him. But I didn’t care. Nobody asked me what I wanted.
Pa drove us to the Elkton train station two days later. Ma had washed and ironed and packed every speck of decent clothing we owned. She’d made Aunt Sassy cut my hair. When I complained, Aunt Sassy only sighed and said, “I’ll miss you, Robert. But you know the saying, ‘What don’t kill us makes us stronger.’” I hated that saying.
Pa and I lifted our trunks from the wagon. The engine blew its mournful cry of Steam! Steam! The conductor called above the noise, “All aboard!”
Pa held Ma close and breathed in her hair, then handed her up the steps of the railroad car. He shook my hand, a new thing, and said, “Take care of your mother, Son. She needs you now.”
“Yes, sir.” I wanted to say something more, something to let Pa know that even though I thought he was wrong, even though I was still angry and didn’t want to go, he could count on me. But the words wouldn’t come.
The whistle cried again. The train jerked, shuddered, then rolled forward. I raised my hand to Pa as long as I could see him. When the last town building gave way to houses, then fields, I closed my eyes, feigning sleep. I needed to clear my head and think on what William Henry had said the night before. It made no sense. Just after midnight he’d hoot-owled outside my bedroom window. “I’m sorry you’re going away, Robert.”
“I don’t believe you, William Henry,” I shot back. “You’ve been shunning me like I was the devil himself.”
“You know we not supposed to be together,” he whispered. “They’re afraid, that’s all.”
“Afraid of what? I already know what’s going on.”
“Not all. It’s dangerous. But I think they ought to let you help.”
That comforted me some. At least William Henry wasn’t treating me like a toddle baby. “I don’t want to go.”
“I know. But keep your eyes peeled. You might give more help there.”
“What? How?” But I heard Pa stir in the next room, and the glow of a newly lit lamp danced through their window, across the yard.
“I got to go, Robert. Remember what I said.” And then he was gone. I pretended to sleep when Pa brought the lamp to check my room.
What did William Henry mean? How could I help more than four hundred miles away?
Sometime after we crossed the Susquehanna, I really did fall into a fitful sleep.
The cry of the steam whistle approaching Baltimore woke me. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and pushed away the ache behind them. I lowered the window, but a sharp burning smell made me close it in a hurry. Ma held her handkerchief to her nose as we climbed down. I liked the slap of my shoes on the platform’s wooden planks, and was glad to stretch the kinks from my legs. I wanted a good run but Ma took my arm, so I kept myself to a steady stroll, like I’d seen Pa do.
We bought fruit from a fast-talking, plaid-vested platform vendor and added it to our boxed lunch. Starving, I wanted to eat standing, but Ma declared we’d wait until we’d settled on the next train. A four-horse station coach carted us across cobblestone and mud streets to the next line. I admired the pounding of hammers raising new buildings, the whinny of so many horses, and I thought the rattle made by endless bouncing carriages was a fine thing. I’d visited Baltimore two years before with Pa, but even this small part of the city had grown mightily since then. I’d never seen so many people, never heard so much noise in one place.
We were nearly to the new line when we passed a street corner where three colored men, ragged, and dripping from the muck and heat, slumped inside the wall of an oversized cage. There was no shelter from the July sun, and they looked like prisoners in a dog-pen jail cell.
“Ma?”
“Slaves, or will be.” A man opposite me spoke before Ma could, as though he’d read my mind. “Some there for debt. Some, maybe, broke the law. When they collect enough of them there’ll be an auction. Then they’ll start collectin’ again.”
“If they broke the law, why aren’t they in jail?”
“Jail’s for white men, Boy, and major crime. Why would you feed and house a colored when they can be sold and fetch a good price? Pays their debt, sends a warning, helps things along.”
“There’s no water or food in there,” I said.
“Keeps them settled.”
“All day? All night?” The man didn’t answer me. Ma touched my arm, a signal to stop talking. The men in the cage never looked up. One man, his shirt shredded down his back, slapped away flies plaguing his crisscross of sores.
I’d known that free black men could be sold into slavery to pay their debts, but I’d never seen anybody caged. I didn’t feel hungry anymore. Settled on the new line, we pulled out of Baltimore. I was not sorry to go.
Mile after mile we rolled on, each more of the same. Closed windows stifled the air, baked the heat, and made breathing hard. But each time we lifted a window, showers of sparks and cinders poured through, covering our faces and clothes. We choked on the black smoke, gave it up, and closed the window again, our throats stinging. I wished mightily for a dip in the run.
By the time we pulled into Washington, D.C., we were done in. Ma kept her spirits up as ladylike as she could, but I knew she was worn and vexed. I’d seen enough sights for one day, and even wished for a basin wash.
We slept over in a hotel as near the train station as we could find, then ate a late supper in the dining room of a fancy hotel a few blocks away. “Your father and I dined here on our honeymoon.” Ma smiled, her dimples flashing for the first time in a long while. “We heard Miss Jenny Lind sing that night. What a voice! The newspapers called her the ‘Swedish Nightingale,’ and with good cause!”
It was hard for me to think of Ma and Pa young and just married, without me.
A colored waiter in a short white coat bowed and asked us for our order. Ma told him what we wanted. I studied on keeping my napkin in my lap. I grinned to imagine William Henry toting one of those large silver trays above his head, swishing in and out through the swinging doors. I imagined him cutting a fancy figure in that dandy white jacket, but could not imagine him pulling such a blank face, at least not for long.
That got me to wondering what William Henry might do when he came of age, or for that matter, what I might do. Stay on at Laurelea? Take a town job? Move someplace far away like my folks did? It was the first I’d thought on such things.
We spent the next night in Weldon, glad to find a room. We made Raleigh the day after. At every stop, posters advertising runaway slaves lined the walls and poles along the platforms. Each one offered a reward and gave a description of the man or woman who stole away. I thought it near impossible to run away with everybody and their brother out looking for you, eager to get that reward and knowing what you looked like right down to your missing teeth or scarred hand.
The train finally left us on the platform in High Point, trunks and all. “I can’t believe it’s the same place,” Ma said. “Things change so much in fifteen years!” I didn’t know if she meant for good or ill, but I didn’t pester. We stopped that last night in a boardinghouse Ma remembered. Then, in the morning, I found the livery and hired a driver to cart us to Ashland.
Ma drank in every mile. She fretted how things had “gone down,” then marveled over new homes built where she remembered fields or woods. When we reached the boundaries of Ashland she complained about the peeling paint on the outbuildings, and there were many. “That’s not like Papa to tolerate neglect in any form.”
I didn’t know about that, but the fields were truly fine. Row upon row of bright green tobacco stood like short soldiers, the leaves heavy, full, and properly curled. Though it wasn’t Laurelea’s cash crop, I’d grown up planting tobacco. But this looked different. I wondered if it was the soil or if this might be some different strain.
When we reached the drive, the buggy turned down the maple-shaded lane to Ashland. Ma stopped fretting and grabbed my arm, as excited as a toddle baby. “In autumn these trees form a golden arched canopy! Nothing, nothing, Robert, is so lovely in all the world!”
The buggy had barely stopped when Ma pushed her reticule into my hands, jumped down, and flew up the porch steps, past white pillars and through the front door of the three-story white stucco house. I paid and thanked the driver. I’d hoisted one trunk when a white-haired colored man in a dandy suit rounded a porch pillar. Despite a game leg, he hurried down the front steps, bowing to me. “I be taking those, Masta.” I stepped back. No one had ever called me “Master.”
“Thanks. Where should we take them?”
“No, sir! Old George get those for you.” I was of a mind to argue, but thought that might not sound polite and didn’t want to start off wrong. It wasn’t right, but I set those trunks down by the old man and trailed Ma through the door of the house.
“Nanny Sara! It’s so good to be home!” Ma nearly hugged the life from a round little woman the color of molasses sugar.
“It’s glorious you here, Miz Caroline! Glorious!” Nanny Sara’s deep voice didn’t fit her tiny frame. She reached on tiptoe to pull off Ma’s bonnet and shawl. “I never thought to set eyes on you this side Jordan, Miz Caroline. And here you be with your baby.”
Ma pulled me to her. “This is my son, Robert Leslie Glover.”
Nanny Sara bear-hugged me to herself. “It surely is! My, oh my! You surely do look like your daddy!”
“Yes, he does,” Ma said, smiling. I felt my face heat up.
“How is Papa, Nanny Sara? The truth, now.”
Nanny Sara dropped her smile. “He be poorly. You best steady yourself, Miz Caroline. Masta Marcus not the man he once was. He might not know you.”
Ma’s brow furrowed. “I wish someone had written me sooner.”
“Don’t know about writing, Miz Caroline. Masta Marcus too proud. After Mr. Slocum go north Masta Marcus take a bad turn. I don’t believe Mr. Troy—that no-account man Mr. Jed left in charge of the fields—I don’t believe he writes nothin’. Mr. Albert find your address amongst your Papa’s papers and say Mr. Slocum near your backyard door. Then Mr. Albert tell me and Old George to keep an eye in case you come along.”
Ma nodded. “I’ll send word to Albert that I’ve arrived.” Ma looked around the room. “Where is everybody? Where’s Rebecca and Hattie? And Old Zebulon? Is he still alive? And Ruby! Where’s Ruby, Nanny Sara?”
Light passed from the old woman’s eyes and she drew in her breath. “Rebecca sent to the fields. Old Zebulon, he gone to rest ten winters back. Hattie, two. Masta Marcus sold my Ruby Deep South near fourteen year ago. Just me and Old George in the house now.”
“No, no.” Ma shook her head, unable to take it in.
Nanny Sara lifted her chin. “Lots of things change since you been gone, Miz Caroline. Masta Marcus took to his bed two weeks past. You go see him, now. I’ll brew you and Masta Robert some tea, fix somethin’ to eat. I be out back in the kitchen. Let me know when you want it.” Ma nodded to the old lady’s back.
“Who’s Ruby?” I asked.
“Ruby is Nanny Sara’s daughter. She is my age. We grew up together. We—”
“Like me and William Henry.”
“Yes.” Ma didn’t even correct my grammar. We stood at the foot of the grand staircase. Ma gripped the banister, then ran her hand over its polished mahogany. The war Ma waged within seemed to be running again. She didn’t hurry up the steps.
Heavy drapes in Grandfather’s room blocked the fierce summer sun. No air moved. The heat strengthened the smell of years of cigar smoke and lemon oil, added to the more recent odors of unwashed flesh and vomit and something I couldn’t name, and it all made me want to gag. I wondered how he breathed.
Ma lit a wall lamp near the bed. Hesitating, she brushed wisps of gray hair from the old man’s forehead. A chill ran over me, even in the stifling heat. I’d seen old people before, and sick. But I’d never seen anyone so carry the color of death.
“Papa,” Ma whispered. “I’m here.” Then, “Caroline,” like he might have forgotten her name. His eyes didn’t open and he didn’t move—only the broken rise and fall of his chest. “I’m home, Papa. I’m here to take care of you.” She stroked his cheek. Ma dipped a cloth into the bedside basin, wrung water from it, and sponged his forehead. I shifted my weight and stretched, trying to breathe without taking in the smells.
A good hour passed before Ma straightened and motioned for me to follow her. She pulled the door softly until the knob clicked, trying not to disturb the old man who couldn’t hear anyway. She leaned against the paneling. “I had no idea he was so far gone.” She cried, soft at first, then sobbed outright. Not knowing what to do I touched her shoulder. She buried her head against mine.
Nanny Sara’s supper of jellied tongue and warm beaten biscuits was welcome. The food, sweet tea, and rest seemed to help Ma muster her courage. “Nanny Sara, I want you to send George over to Cousin Albert’s with this note.”
“He need a pass.”
“A pass? But it’s just next door.”
“Don’t matter now, Miz Caroline. Those pattyrollers out day and night. If Old George got no pass they whip him then run him into jail.”
“So much has changed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ma wrote the pass. Old George returned within the hour with my new cousins. The man stood tall, over six feet, broad shouldered, with eyes the same bright blue as Ma’s. The girl resembled Ma, perky and pretty, but darker, with brown eyes. She looked about my age. The boy looked a year or so younger, stocky, a little pale.
“Albert!” Ma held her hands out to the man. “It’s so good to see you again!”
The man took both Ma’s hands into his and kissed her full on the mouth. “Cousin Caroline, a delight! You have not changed since the last day we danced in my father’s orchard!” My mouth dropped. Ma blushed, pleased.
“This is my son, Robert Leslie. Robert, our Cousin Albert.”
“Why, he’s the spitting image of Charles. Welcome to Ashland, Robert!” Cousin Albert extended his hand, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Pleased to meet you, sir.” I stretched my manners.
“Caroline, Robert, these are my children, Emily and Alex.” Emily dropped a curtsy and Alex nodded, then lifted his chin.
“Welcome to Ashland, Cousin Caroline.” Emily searched Ma’s face, for what I wasn’t sure.
Alex offered me his hand. “Another boy in the family.”
“What beautiful children, Albert! And your wife?” Ma blushed. “I declare, I don’t even know who you married!”
Cousin Albert’s face blanked, then went solemn. “Rose died shortly after Alex was born. It’s been eleven years.”
“Oh, Albert. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
Cousin Albert nodded. He smiled, a little less, and wrapped Ma’s arm around his, leading her toward the parlor. “We have a lot of catching up to do, Caroline. It’s been too long.” At the door he turned and said, “You young folks enjoy the summer evening on the verandah. Cousin Caroline and I have matters to discuss.”
I stared after them, wondering if I should follow, thinking Ma might need me, thinking that the things they would discuss had to do with Grandfather and us.
“So what do you think of Ashland, the esteemed home of your ancestors?” With the click of the parlor door Alex’s voice lost its friendliness.
“It’s real nice—grand, even.”
“Well, don’t get used to it. It will be mine one day. Don’t think that because you’re Uncle Marcus’s grandson that he’ll leave it to you. He’s never laid eyes on you and likely never will. Besides, he’d leave nothing to the son of a dirty abolitionist.”
“Alex!” Emily was horrified. But Alex had already turned, slamming the front door behind him. “I’m sorry, Cousin Robert. That was unforgivable! Alex is spoiled and greedy, though that is no excuse. Please don’t pay him any mind.”
“I didn’t come here to inherit anything,” I said, stunned. “I never wanted to come here in the first place. He doesn’t even know my pa!” My words slapped Emily and she reddened. Right away I was sorry. I wasn’t angry with her.
“It’s just the things he’s heard Great Uncle Marcus say. I’m sorry, Robert. Truly, I am. I’ll leave you alone, if you’d rather.”
“No, wait. I didn’t mean you—” I stumbled all over the place.
Emily looked up, and the lights in her brown eyes drew me in until my breath caught. I didn’t care about Alex anymore, or what he thought or said. I only wanted Emily to like me, and I wanted that very much.