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The sun rose with Shelone a married woman, and Clance already out in the fields, leaving her to get the extra rest she may need for the day. Shelone ended up startled by her location and the fact that she hadn’t seen her children for hours. Even though they were in great hands, they never were without her for so long, therefore, she jumped out of bed, got dressed, but when she exited Clance’s cabin and went further up the lush green grass, she saw in plain view Clance and Cosah. Her heart became overjoyed to have a man able to look after him night and day, but not just any man, but her husband.
She then skipped to her hut while she giggled at her girlfriends laughing at her as she passed by. Everyone was too busy getting ready to go to the cotton fields, so they would always plan to talk either in the fields or after the picking. When she stepped into her hut, Lily was cleaning off Abraham and the twin girls were eating.
“Mama, Lily gettin’ us ready this morning. She said you would be back.”
“Well, I’m here, sweet puddins. I’m here, and thank you, Lily.”
“Ain’t nothing, Shelone. Lady Rose left us good and with a lot more to do, didn’t she? Somebody has to do it, and I ain’t complainin’. Good to see you with company...that loves you.”
“Mama, Poppa Bigun came and woke us. He got Cosah...”
Immediately, Shelone shot Sadie a glance that made her daughter stop talking. “Who is your daddy? What’s his name?”
Lily was busy with Abraham but stopped moving, going dead still, as she hesitated at her friend’s stern words toward her daughter. Little Sadie looked like she saw a ghost, glanced at her sister, and then answered her mother.
“Marcus. My daddy name Marcus, Mama.” Then she looked down to the ground, ashamed at something that she didn’t understand.
Suddenly, Shelone snapped out of her anger as she noticed her daughter’s head hanging low and immediately dropped to her knees before her daughter in order to remedy the situation that caught her off guard.
“Oh mama’s sorry. I’m sorry...” Then she looked back at Lily who abruptly continued to care for Abraham. She then turned back to face Sadie to continue her apology. “I forgot that I’m married, ain’t that funny? Bigun is your poppa now, ain’t it?
Sadie’s eyes lit up and her head popped back up with a peculiar expression. “You forgot?”
“Yep...I guess I did. When Mama is wrong, you correct her, okay? That there is your poppa, and you can call him Poppa Bigun if you want to.”
“We can?” the twins jumped around excited.
“Yep, as good as I’m gonna always be your mama, that there is gonna be your poppa,” she replied pointing out of the hut. “Now go on and finish to run out there next to your poppa. Just remember your real daddy’s name for me okay?”
“Yes ma’am. Love you, Mama.”
“I love y’all, too.” She stood up from the ground and slowly walked toward Lily, with her hands outstretched for Abraham. “I didn’t mean for that to come out like it did,” she stated with her eyes lowered, but Lily grabbed for her hand and squeezed it tightly.
“What matters is that you fixed it. We know you still love Marcus. Shoot, Bigun know that much ‘cause he love him, too. They was friends, but you gotta know he ain’t trying to take that memory from them. He givin’ ‘em new ones. Brand new ones that will ease the pain is all.”
Shelone took a deep breath. “I know. It was just my first time hearing it is all. Made me scared for a minute. You know how I love my family.”
“And I sure do. And look at Abraham. Look just like Marcus.” She placed her hands on her hip and smiled as Abraham embraced the smell of his mother. “You know Mr. Marksman gonna want you to keep making children now.”
“Don’t he try to lay claim to enough from my womb? I would think so.”
“They like us to make them slaves...”
Shelone slapped the wooden wall with her bare hands, so hard that Abraham started to cry. “I don’t make slaves for no white man! I made children for my family! And when you have some, you will see just what it feels like. You ache! Do you hear me, Lily?”
“I’m sorry...I know that. I just picked the wrong words...”
“Well, pick the right ones next time! God willin’, my children won’t have to do this all their lives. No more! Sometimes, I’d rather ‘em dead...you hear me?” Shelone glared fearlessly at her good friend. Afterwards, she took her by the hand, and a tear rolled from her eye. “Sometimes, I look at ‘em and rather they be with God. You understand, Lily? Your children...as soon as you marry...don’t need to come up like this. You run.” Shelone forcefully dropped her hand and squeezed Lily’s jaw as if she was her child and not a woman of the same age. “You run for freedom or die tryin’ before you ever do as I did. Only half the women or less than that been blessed enough to have theirs with them for as long as I’ve had mine. You run or you die first. I promise you, either way, you’ll be better off.”
Lily slowly broke away from the penetrating peer of Shelone as she moved her hands toward her jaw and peeled her friend’s hands from her face. “I love those chillin’ out there,” she said as she lowered Shelone’s hands. “I love ‘em just like I love you, and truth of the matter is...” she continued, turning her eyes toward the floor. “ ‘Fore I got here, the whites tore me up inside.” Tears began to stream down her dark brown cheeks, and it wasn’t seconds later that Shelone placed Abraham down and sealed Lily’s sorrows with her own skin.
Their faces touched as she hugged her terror worn best friend, and as Lily continued to talk, the tension of her story shook Shelone like thunder shook the skies. Lily’s hands felt like rocks as she gelled them into fists on Shelone’s backside, and her teeth chattered as she remembered.
“They threw me down on the ground, Shelone, and my mama couldn’t hear me cryin’. She couldn’t hear me because they had their hands over my face, forcing the back of my head into the dirt to wheres I couldn’t move my neck or nothing. Then they put their white parts in me, all of ‘em, so many that I couldn’t count, and jus’ so I wouldn’t get no babies...they shoved a stick up me and rip me ‘part. I near ‘bout died. I was only fourteen. Ain’t no man want me, friend. Ain’t none...”
“No! No you don’t! Them white man ain’t take nothing from you, hear? You still got everything you need in God. Everything!” Shelone broke down in tears along with Lily, stroking the back of her short curly hair. “Oh God!” she screamed, unable to fathom the hurt Lily had been going through for so many years, and no one on the plantation knew about it. “Is that why you never...”
“I don’t mess with no men around. I mean, I see some lookin’ but I can’t...”
“Who told you that?”
“It hurt so bad, Shelone,” she cried out. “The medicine man said it ain’t likely, so I figure why waste my time with no love or tryin’ to love?” She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly, but then pretended to smile with no reason to do so. “My life ended back there, so I lives through everybody else. Like to see folk happy, no matter what’s going on inside me.”
It was then that Shelone knew that the whites had broken her. There was one thing she learned a while ago, and that was when someone smiled when there was absolutely nothing to smile about, it meant that inside, the pain was so deep until they had to live in a fantasy to make it. Lily wasn’t on the plantation. She was in another world, most of the time anyway. Shelone finally understood why she was always meddling and making people laugh. She was creating a good time over the bad.
“You sleep at night?” Shelone asked backing away from her, yet keeping her eyes pinned in the most central area of her face. “Answer me, Lily. You sleep good at night over there in the quarters? Lots of people there with you.”
“Sometimes...”
“Well, sometimes ain’t good enough. Come stay around here, take care of my younguns some. You’ll sleep better. And here. Care for Abraham, would you? I need to pick after I feed him. I’ll get your cotton for today.” She handed Abraham over to her, and Lily finally smiled.
“Thank ya’.”
“Now I know why you love children. Call me when he eats all that mush so I can feed him again.” As Shelone walked out the door after kissing Abraham. “Have yourself a good time and take care of my baby real good,” she smiled.
Trying her best to hold back tears, she ended up sobbing anyway. “I try not to ask nobody...thank ya’, friend. Thank ya’.”
Shelone walked out the door, leaving her baby in the arms of a woman who needed someone to care for. She understood what it felt like being slave with a family, but she didn’t ever want to know what it felt like being a slave with none anywhere around. Both were full of pain, but one could take all hope away.
––––––––
Things were bad, but they could’ve been worse. Shelone felt the grass beneath her feet, and then she stared out at the rows of cotton once again. Her mornings were the same since she’s been a child. There was hardly a day off, and the sun only chose to have mercy when the clouds came out to play. Shelone thought about the clouds and how, although they were white, were unlike the whites on the ground walking around on two legs. Those whites on the ground had no mercy. The whites on the ground were similar to the cotton though. They came out of something hard and sharp, but only appear to be kind and gentle to those who didn’t know them like the Negroes did. Just like the cotton, they would make you bleed and strike you hard if you didn’t watch it. The cotton and the whites were almost the same to Shelone except the cotton had no choice. The whites did have a choice, and they chose to do the Negroes evil, at least the whites she’d always known. They loved to keep the Negroes trapped within the whites of the fields, the whites of the cotton fields.
Shelone took her place in the cotton with the huge bag draped on her shoulder for another long sun up to sun down day. She was to pick faster than usual because she wanted to give Lily’s soul a break. The weight on her was so big, having to walk around alone and raped all the way to the only thing closest to her soul – her womb. It made Shelone exceptionally sad, but when she saw her own children beside her playing in the fields, she smiled. For the very first time, she didn’t stop them. She wanted them to have a good time for a change under the light of day instead of the dimming of it.
Sadie and Seena played a game of hand clapping while Cosah ran up and down the rows of cotton, behaving as if he was in the race of his life. He knew he was fast and loved to run. When he got to the end of the row of cotton, he jumped up and down in the air with his arms up in applause for himself. She continued picking cotton while listening and watching her girls play and Cosah run, and then when she felt Clance’s hand across the small of her back, she turned around and kissed him passionately, without a thought of who was looking.
It was her very first time creating a freedom for herself directly under the eyes of the slave owner and overseers. She was taught never to let her guard down, especially in the “seen” places. Negroes lived their lives in the darkness, having to forever hide their light on the inside. For once, just this once, especially after learning of the darkness trapped inside Lily, she didn’t want to die with hidden light. She wanted to live, really live, directly under the sunlight with the people she loved most – her children and her new husband.
Clance backed up. “Shelone?” he smiled, adoring his wife as he continued to pick cotton. She knew what he was alluding to as he nodded his head toward the cotton that grew from the ground at her feet.
“I’m not worried about them right now,” she said referring to the Marksman’s massive house that looked out over the fields. “I just wanted to take in just a little bit of freedom, just for once.”
“Well, we’re gonna get there soon.”
“Or die trying,” she responded, finally leaning back over to work, but then changed her mind once again. “Come over here, Sadie and Seena.” The girls ran over to their mother who took them both into her arms and kissed them all over their hot cheeks. “I love you, girls, and don’t y’all forget it neither. I love you with all my heart, right in here,” she hugged on them while pointing her hand to her chest as Clance looked on. “And Bigun here loves you, too. He loves you very much. If somethin’ ever happens to me, you let him care for you, okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” they responded simultaneously.
“Now, enough play. Get your brother from running, and y’all get the cotton,” she ordered, disturbed at the fact that she had to do it as she caught the Marksman’s children run outside to play. As her twins ran toward Cosah to start working again, she bent over toward the cotton, completely frustrated once again, at the fact that her children couldn’t just be children. Clance noticed and took her by the hand.
“We getting’ outta here, Shelone. Trust me. If it kills me. We married now, and it won’t be nothin’ hard for us to move out. Just gimme some time.”
“I had a talk with Lily back at the cabin. It made me see things different, Clance. I don’t want my girls growing up under no massah. Not Cosah or Abraham either. I don’t think my heart could take...”
“It won’t have to take it. Over my dead body, and for Marcus, too, I won’t let nothing, with all my power, happen to you. You the only family I had since a long time now, and I protect you like you me.”
Shelone adored how her hand was cradled in his, and she wanted to believe him more than ever, and it was in that second that she chose to believe every word. She found herself wanting to be just as instrumental in helping them escape as he was. “I wanna help, Clance. Whenever it’s time though,” she stated, removing her hand from his to pick cotton again, “You run with the girls, and I need to run with the boys. Cosah’s fast. Abraham will be on my back. We go different ways, just in case. Make sure you plan for that.”
“Why me with the girls?”
She sternly stared him in the eyes. “Because you can tote ‘em, even drag ‘em if you have to, and they won’t slow you down. You strong enough. Cosah don’t need my help. I need his. He know them woods probably better than you.” They stared at each other in silence...until they heard horses coming. They buried their hands back into the cotton as their bags dragged the ground.