CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“HOW I SUPPOSED TO clear if I ain’t got no plow, no ox?” Big George asked his mother one morning, the sweat from his brow dripping salt into his eyes. A cutlass dangled loosely from his palm, the remnants of freshly cut grasses and roots still on the blade.

The two older boys, who had worked in the fields back home, had similar responsibilities here. The only difference was there was no overseer to whip their hides, tell them to pick faster, move down the rows with more ease, or stop talking to each other. Yasmine clung to that distinction. Here in the motherland, they were in charge of their own destinies and their own field for the first time. And the children detested it.

They were in the middle of a massive slash-and-burn project, which would leave the ground charred and open. “This some savagery, Mama, working like this. It take us upward of a month to clear this whole area, and even then, we don’t know if the corn and greens gonna come up here,” said Little George. “This soil all wrong.”

The longing in his voice was as sharp as the hunger pains that wracked them at night. The meager rations of millet and dried herring that the colonization society agent had given them when they left the communal house were almost gone. When she had time to think about what they would do once it was gone, Yasmine was filled with terror. Nuts and greens would not fill their bellies.

“I wanna go back to Master Scott’s,” said Big George. He slumped down into the ground. “I miss Penny and hoecakes. I miss bacon, and I miss church.”

On the far edge of the field, Nolan played with a stick in the dirt, beside Lani. He was prancing around, yelling at her to pick up this imaginary pot, cut this onion, stir the stew. “Get to work, girl,” he shouted. Lani appeared to be happy to be included, and diligently did as she was told.

Suddenly Yasmine realized that Nolan was imagining he was back in Virginia, like everyone else. She blinked, trying to get her bearings, trying to remember how to be a good mother to her children. Even time itself was different here—she noticed that in the second it took her to blink, her entire adulthood stretched out in her mind. Jumping the broom with James, her mother’s shriek as she took her last breath and entered the kingdom of heaven, the agony of pushing each little body out of her. And then in the next instant, she was back. Back to a place where the sun was burning them to ash, back to her aching and impotent hands, back to freedom, and a four-acre plot of land that was made of clay and sand, but out of which was going to sprout plantains, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, and American corn—even if she had to squeeze all the blood out of her body slowly to make them grow.

“Ain’t no going back,” Yasmine told them solemnly. She hoped they couldn’t see that she was telling herself at the same time, hoping that she would start to believe it soon. “We dead to Master Scott, we dead to Penny, dead to everyone back on that godforsaken plantation. And we gonna be dead soon ourselves, if we don’t get some of these seeds in the ground.” She struggled to get a hold of her words and the emotion behind them, to convey a sense of control to her children—a belief that they were in God’s hands now and that He had not forsaken any country or any people, no matter how remote. Build up the body of Christ, the preacher had said. And that was exactly what she intended to do. “Ain’t nothing here for us that we don’t make ourselves. That the price of freedom.”

Little George began to cry, which hadn’t happened since they left the other shore. It surprised both of them. For the most part, he appeared to be content in his new life, chasing chameleons and spying on colonists and heathens alike. Still, there was something soft in his gut; a dull ache for home that she worried would never leave him. “But we was more free back in Virginia—”

Before she even knew what she was doing, Yasmine reached up and slapped him. The sharp snap of it was as final as the sound of the whip on their bare backs, and it startled them all. But she could not let them venture down that road, not even a little. It was one thing to visit home in dreams and quite another to express that longing in waking life. It was dangerous: Before too long, the need to go back would consume the dreamer. None of them could afford that now. “Boy,” she said quietly. “Don’t never let me hear you say them words again.”

Little George gathered his knobby knees to his chest. He put his head on his knees and began rocking back and forth, sniffing. His big brother put his hand on his shoulder and glared at his mother.

You all can hate me, Yasmine thought, as long as we make it. They ain’t understand, but they ain’t have to. God do. “Now get up offa them miserable behinds, and get back to clearing this field, both of you. I don’t care how it get done. Just see that it does. I wanna see our vegetables, from our field, in our new home steady growin’, get it?”

The two boys nodded, neither one meeting her glance.

Yasmine felt her stomach roll over, because she knew what she needed to do. She had been able to protect Nolan from fieldwork at Master Scott’s by making him Mrs. Barnes “special helper” in the kitchen. That was another dream she couldn’t afford now.

She strode over to the other side of the field, where he was humming quietly to himself, laughing at something Lani had just said. “Nolan,” she said, and her voice startled him. He jumped up quickly and brushed off his pants. She handed him her cutlass silently. He looked at her in confusion, clearly wanting to say something but deciding against it. The instrument weighed down his small six-year-old arm, and Yasmine’s hand flew to cover her mouth to contain a scream.

“Mama?” Lani asked cautiously. When Yasmine didn’t answer, she toddled over to her mother and held out her arms, her gesture to be picked up.

Yasmine’s eyes never left Nolan’s. “You got to work,” she said evenly.

Nolan blinked at her slowly, taking in the words.

“Go with your brothers,” she said, trying not to look at his soft brown palms. “You the only men here now, and you got to provide for us womenfolk.”

Nolan smiled at that, which made Yasmine smile, in turn. She thought that he would like that—he always wanted to think of himself as a Little Man, so helpful to his brothers and family.

“Mama!” Lani yelled, angry and impatient. She swatted Yasmine’s hip with both hands. Still, Yasmine ignored her. Something had changed between them of late, since Lani abruptly decided to stop nursing. Of all her children, Lani had nursed the longest, and the gentle but firm tug at her nipple had been a calming and steady fact of life these past two and a half years. Now there was only pain in her breasts. Still, Yasmine had to admit that she was ready to be done. She was exhausted and had nothing left to give the girl.

“Ain’t no men anywhere here, Mama? In the whole land?” Nolan asked, looking up from his cutlass. “What about the heathens? The ones by the woods outside of town? The ones took us ashore, when we first came?” He turned around and scanned the horizon, searching for a human figure hiding somewhere in the bush.

“No,” she told Nolan firmly. “They ain’t real men. They . . .” She struggled to find the words. “They heathens what don’t know right from wrong, reason from insanity. You the only man here. You and your brothers.”

Nolan looked shocked, but also proud. He puffed up his chest and gripped the cutlass handle with intention. “Well,” he said. “Let me get to helping.” And then he turned away from her and walked over to Little George and Big George, who were bent over, hacking the dry, dense brush.

“Mama, no!” Lani cried, tears streaming down her face now. Yasmine knew that in a few seconds, things would degenerate down into a full-blown tantrum. But right now, she was not interested in that. Right now, she wanted to watch her youngest boy walk away from her, his shoulders seeming to grow wider and more imposing with each step. She sighed. As Yasmine watched Nolan, she recognized her own self-determined gait in his, the way he walked on this new earth as if he owned it, and she was surprised to realize that it scared her.