Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I’m not sure how long it is before I become used to his constant surveillance. Does a hunting dog remember the freedom before training? Does a slave remember their leisurely life at their mother’s breast? Over the next nine years, Mr. Allen uproots and drags us to England in search of better tobacco markets. Fanny becomes extremely homesick, while I adapt to the loneliness that grows within me. Once the business collapses, we return to Richmond, where we rely on the kindness of Uncle Bill, who provides us with a house to live in.

The only time I have to myself is when Mr. Allan leaves for the tobacco fields or warehouse to watch Uncle Bill’s slaves instead of me. I wait for the back screen door to slam and his heavy boots to punish the porch slats. The whole house takes a breath. Slaves stagger to a much-needed rest on stools. Fanny flees into her special spot, called the sun porch. Thankful, her body servant, fluffs the pillows on the chaise as Fanny falls into it. I race up to my room on the second floor as fast as my razor-thin, thirteen-year old body can take me, not worrying about the clamor of my hard soles on the bare wood.

There, hidden beneath a small, loose piece of floorboard, is where I hide everything Mr. Allan despises. Little trinkets Fanny, holding a defiant finger to her lips with a wary look in Mr. Allan’s direction, has let me keep: my mother’s portrait, her letters, and the painting of the majestic city. I worked so hard to learn my letters so as to solve the secret of what those black letters on the back of the painting hide. Smiling now, knowing their meaning, I say it out loud again, as though it’s Ma saying them to me herself:

For my little son Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his birth, and where his mother found her best, and most sympathetic friends.

I line her letters with my small finger, over each tiny piece of evidence that she did exist. She seemed to love me. I study her portrait again and see such excitement and warmth in her eyes—a spark unseen in this house. How terrible it is, wishing so hard for something that can never be. No way to turn back time to be with her again and, this time, commit more to memory. I peer in at the letters I’ve promised myself not to remove, for fear they will crumble from the constant re-reading. I know what they say by heart anyway.

My heart squeezes at the sight of all I have left of my family. My real family. This little bundle of paper and paint means the world to me. All that I am. I never see Henry or Rosalie like Fanny keeps promising. Too many excuses why a reunion can’t take place, usually due to one of Fanny’s headaches. Tucking the precious pile away, I slide out the journal that fell off the overseer’s wagon, half-full of numbers—counting slaves like chickens. This journal is now the papyrus pasture where my pen sways and curls in a forbidden dance. I take my spot by the window, where I keep a watchful eye and scribble away a little phrase that has been taking flight in my mind all day.

Pleased, I rush downstairs to share it with Fanny. Thankful now fans her, even though it’s a breezy spring day. I bounce up to her side, basking in the sweet cloud of her orris root perfume.

“Edgar, dear. You’re making me hot just looking at you with all those warm clothes on. Don’t stand too close, sweetheart, I could be contagious.”

I take a step back and glance to Thankful, who has no choice but to stand close.

“Fanny, I wrote a poem. Would you like to hear it?”

“You’ve got your little book! I would love to hear some of your sweet poems, but I’m in the middle of a wretched fever.” She points for Thankful to refresh the wet towel on her forehead. “These are the same aliments Mrs. McArdle had before she passed on. Hit her so fast she couldn’t even send for the doctor.”

Fear flashes through me, she might actually be sick this time. “Do you need me to go for the doctor?”

She puts a cool hand up to my forehead and swipes the hair out of my eyes. “No, dear. I just couldn’t bear him telling me it’s what I fear. I’ll wait to see if it improves first.”

I flash my book at her again to remind her of my poem and she gives a weak smile, “When I’m all better dear.”

However, she’s never better. Not even after all the water cures Mr. Allan takes her to.

A gurgling noise bubbles up from inside of her and her eyes widen toward Thankful, who grabs for the elixir bottle and pours a spoonful into Fanny’s over-puckered lips. I turn with the impulse to distance myself, but not before I overhear her say, “It’s just a matter of time, Thankful. This world won’t be long for me.”

Thankful clucks. “Don’t say such things, missus.”

The back door slaps close, and I quicken my step to reach the stairs before Mr. Allan. I know better than to run up the steps, and I fight the urge to panic. I hear his footsteps on the stairs as I’m shoving the journal down into the floor and cover it as the latch on my door lifts.

You never can slow your breathing when you need to.

“Whit’s all the commotion up here?” He peers around the room to find something amiss. Finding none, since all my clothes are put away and my bed made, he gives a frustrated suck of his front teeth. He sets his sights on me. “Ye look like a sheepdog. Hair in yer mopey eyes. When’s the last time Thankful’s cut yer hair?” He has to find something to fume about.

“I think it was two weeks ago, sir.”

“Ye think or it was? Ye can’t give answers like that.”

“Two weeks, sir.”

He grabs my arm and drags me downstairs with his double-gait, calling, “Fanny,” as though she’s a dog.

Thankful rushes out into the hall. “She’s lying down with a fever, sir.”

“Sick again!” His shaggy eyebrows knit together as he pulls me toward her “sickroom,” as he calls it. Fanny sits up with the towel sliding down the side of her face.

“Please don’t upset me, John. I can’t withstand it in my condition.”

“Yer condition. Whit is yer condition? Ye won’t see the doctor, because when ye do, he doesn’t see anything the matter with ye!”

Fanny looks light-headed and rests back on the chaise. “John, you know I’m suffering.”

“A’ll tell ye who’s suffering—me! A’ve a broken wife who’s too sick to breed but too healthy to die so I can get a more useful one.”

Fanny erupts into tears, and I wish I could pull my arm out of his grasp to run outside. Out to where I usually go when he’s in these bad moods after problems with the business. And there have been plenty of problems lately.

Thankful slips in to bring Fanny her handkerchief and jumps when he barks her name suddenly.

“Thankful! I told ye to keep this boy’s eyes clear.”

She bows immediately. “Yes, sir. I’m mighty sorry, sir.”

Fanny stares out the window, wishing all of us away.

His clutch releases and I run out the back, out to watch the overseer treat his slaves better than Mr. Allan treats his family. Why couldn’t some kinder family have come for me? I wonder if Rosalie and Henry are in better hands.