Conyers, Georgia, 1847
TWO WEEKS AND I haven’t told Jeremy that I forgive him yet ’cause when you love the way we love, been through what we been through, you ain’t got to say it. Staying is enough.
EVERY DAY SINCE that day with Mr. Shepard, I been waiting for him to come back to work. It’s almost noon and he ain’t been here today, either. I scooch back on his piano stool, slide open the cover, and fall on a key. It tings.
I press another lightly.
Ting.
I start playing the only song I know. The same song I learned from watching him play. He up to four songs now but his music never gets old. But my song don’t sound like his.
That man with the satchel came by yesterday at sunrise. A Freedom Fighter. The one Albert told me was gon’ come and escape us from here. He came a week late. When he rattled the door, I was hung over my broom sulking. The noise made me jump ’cause don’t nobody come ’round that early. Almost 8:00 a.m. And we don’t open ’til two on Mondays and Tuesdays. So when he knocked, I didn’t answer.
I started sweeping my broom toward the door instead, leaned into the crack of it to peek at him. He must have heard me ’cause he took a step back, arms held up, a leather satchel in his hand, and let me look. He was a white man, plain as any but honest-looking—not like those around here. He had a boy’s face on a man’s body, the only giveaway to his age was the thin creases in his wide forehead. His blonde hair was groomed but not too much to mistake him for not-a-hardworker. Just cut nice, is all.
His brown leather vest laid over his blue-buttoned shirt and above his trousers the round of his silver belt buckle shined.
He said, “I’m looking to hire out a blacksmith and a nurse for the day.” He went on about needing help for his young son, needing horseshoes. “Soon as possible,” he said.
His satchel had an orange stripe across the flap where Albert said it’d be and he shifted it from one hand to the other as he talked, casual-like, made sure I saw it.
He pointed to the wagon behind him where two dark negroes was already in the seats, ones I ain’t never seen around here before. Twelve or thirteen was the girl, and the boy was nine or so.
He asked if he could at least see who he was talking to so I cracked the door open and let him see a piece of me. He nodded. I remembered what Albert said, “Nobody’ll suspect us if we travel this way. Not only are we traveling in the daylight, we’re going the wrong way. Hired-out day laborers, we are. Fancy word for borrowed slaves. And by the time Cynthia realize we wasn’t coming back, we’d be long gone and too far away for her to care. Maybe she wouldn’t care, no way. She don’t own us. But that fact don’t keep some folks from acting like it.”
“You do nursing?” the satchel man asked and shifted his bag again. “Is there somebody I can talk to about hiring you out? A blackmith, too. I heard y’all had a blacksmith.”
I looked beyond the man to out near his wagon. Albert weren’t on it. He was standing out in the field across the road near his workshop. I suspect he was waiting for me to decide. He’d never push me the way my sister Hazel did that night she told me to run, and this satchel man was my chance to make her sacrifice worth something, make James’s and Momma’s killings meaningful. Make it so I belong to myself and my future.
But I already got freedom here. With Jeremy. He’s my future.
I can still smell him all around this room. On these piano keys, my fingertips. My face. His scent reminds me of how our love lingers.
Satchel Man said again, “Somebody here I can talk to?”
I didn’t answer.
Don’t need his help.
Freedom is where the heart is and I got the man who loves me. Whoever heard of running anytime beside night, anyway? And what am I supposed to make of him coming to the front door like this? Got negroes in the wagon. Reckless.
I closed the cracked-open door ’til there was just a line of light between us. I pushed my lips to the space and said, “We ain’t open.”
EVEN THOUGH THIS is the longest time me and Jeremy ever been apart, longest we been without lovemaking, I know he’ll be back for me. I shouldn’t have made him mad, said what I said. But I was mad, too, at what happened with Mr. Shepard. It stayed fresh in my mind. Dirty.
AND I WAS sorry that I couldn’t get past my condition when we tried to lay together, pretended to be like we was. Jeremy went soft and I stayed dry.
I don’t remember what I said to make him so angry, but he stormed out, dressing hisself as he went, had me running behind him telling him sorry, then good riddance.
But he’ll be back for me.
He’ll forgive me.
Nobody can love him like I can.
I’m wearing the pretty yellow dress Jeremy bought me. I’ll wear it again tomorrow and the next day, if I have to. Every day ’til he comes back here so he can see me in it and know how much I love him.
This feels like the longest two weeks ever.
For now, though, I got to finish cleaning the parlor before Cynthia wake up and start yelling at me again for spending too much time pushing the broom. “Pretending to be cleaning,” she say. It’s one of the only things she’s had to say to me. She mostly sit in her room ’til five minutes before opening.
Sometimes I catch her sitting on the edge of her bed mumbling to herself. She probably asking herself why she didn’t stop Jeremy and me before it happened. I never promised her nothing and if God don’t forgive her for the things she did wrong in her life, it’s her own fault not mine. I don’t see how she could think what Jeremy and I found has anything to do with her.
She do treat her son Johnny better now. Gave him his own room and put me in it with him.
I don’t care.
I ain’t got to hear her snore no more and I can pray in silence. I promised God that if he send me Jeremy back, I’ll start going to church even if it mean going near those hateful ladies that curse us most Sundays.
Maybe I’ll stop doing the things Jeremy and me already do and wait ’til we married.
The jingle and click of a turning key starts at the front door. It excites me ’til I remember Jeremy ain’t got no key and we don’t open for another two hours.
It’s only Albert.
He stands in the doorway, his hair is red and wild as ever. I know what he got to say about me not leaving with Satchel Man yesterday and I don’t wanna hear none of it so I don’t start no conversation.
I wipe down the tables, mind my own business. I hear him sniffling like he sick. “They captured them slaves and the Freedom Fighter,” he say. “The boy and the girl. The gal they maimed before returning her to her master. The Fighter they hung by his satchel. Tied it around his neck. Burned his body. Left it blackened and hanging. I don’t know about the boy.”
I cain’t breathe.
“And I don’t know what’s worse, burning to death or being left up there with no proper burial. He’s still there. Up the road.”
I have to sit down.
I bow my head over an uncleared table, take a swallow of water left yesterday by somebody else. I whisper, “I thought you said it was safe? That nobody would suspect nothing?”
“He was turned in. Somebody knew the plan. The route. It’s the only way it coulda happened . . .”
“It wasn’t me,” I say.
“You didn’t know the route, Naomi. It was a risk for all of us.”
“If he wouldn’t have stopped here for me . . .” I say. “Oh! That little girl. That boy. Have mercy, I saw ’em. Jesus! It’s ’cause of me!”
“’Cause of what he believed in,” Albert said. “Cause of the freedom those children deserved. What every person deserves.”
“We should’ve been with ’em.”
“You saved both our lives,” Albert say.
“You stayed ’cause of me?”
Heavy clicks of heeled shoes come up the porch steps behind Albert. Albert leaves directly, down the hallway. The back door opens and closes. The old priest—Preacha Man—is here. He’s wearing a wide-brimmed black hat.
“How do, suh?” I say. “We not open. But Sam’ll be in in another hour or so. I could help you, though. Remember you take bourbon.”
“I came to see Cynthia,” he say, sliding his hat off.
“She might already have a customer, suh. Or sleep. Folks don’t usually come for her or the girls ’til after two. It’s just noon.”
“I’ll wait.”
“If that’s your pleasure.”
I step around the bar and pour him a bourbon. Slide it to him.
He takes a sip and stares at me like he gon’ say something, got questions, maybe about Cynthia or this place. I don’t want him watching me no more so I say, “I’ll go and check on her for you, suh.”
On the way up the hall to Cynthia’s room, I can smell her liquor. I knock on her door. “Cynthia?” and push the door open.
She’s still in her nightgown. Ain’t been dressed yet.
“What the hell you want?” she say with gin spilling out her mouth.
“That priest is here to see you.”
“What the hell for?”
“I told ’im you was busy but he said he’d wait.”
She laughs too loud, snorting now. “A goddamn priest. That’ll be a first. Help me up.”
She throws her robe on and stumbles up the hall in front of me. I say, “Don’t you want to get dressed first? Put some shoes on?” But she keeps walking, her drunken legs crisscrossing in front of her like sticks with no knees to bend with. She’s been drinking more since we stopped talking, since she found out about me and Jeremy.
The first thing she say when she get to the saloon is, “You come for a piece of this, Preacha Man?”
He stands and wrings his hat. She go right up to him with her eyelids drooping, wearing a closed-lipped smile. She grabs his hat-holding hand and puts it between her legs, sliding it back and forth.
When he pulls away, her gin grin becomes a flat line.
“I’ve come to apologize,” he say. “I haven’t been obedient to the word of God and I failed you. I should have been a vessel for your confession the other day, not a hindrance.”
“So you apologizing to me?” Cynthia say.
“Yes, ma’am,” he say, wringing his hat again. “Even the faithful struggle sometimes.”
“I charge by the hour,” Cynthia say. “And since you confessing some bullshit, you’re gon’ have to pay upfront.”
He reaches in his pocket and slides a wad of money across the bar, surprising me and Cynthia both. She flicks through it like she ain’t impressed. “That’ll do,” she say and falls back on the stool in front of him.
From over her shoulder, she tell me, “Get me a drink.”
I make her a shot of gin, the brand she already drinking so she don’t get sick, and after she swallows it down, she say to the priest, “Proceed.”
He unrolls his hat and peels a small sheet of paper from the inside flap and puts it on the bar top. He say, “It’s the address to a temple nearby. Up the road. The rabbi there’s expecting you. Got some from the women’s group you might talk to. Could help.”
“What the hell?” she say. Her whole face, her body, slouches in disgust. “What the mother fucking hell! You speaking for me now, Preacha Man?”
“Maybe you’ll find what you need there,” he say, putting his hat back on.
“You asking ’round about me, Preacha? You’re the one up here in my bar. Drinking my drinks. Smelling the pussy I sell. You’re getting God for me?”
“Have a good day, ma’am,” he say, nodding to me when he go out the door.
“Well, goddamn,” she yell to the empty doorway. “You don’t know me, asshole. Come in here like you’re God. Fuck you!”
She turns to me, grabs my wrist, ripping the stitches on the sleeve of my yellow dress, Jeremy’s dress. My face flushes red. My tears come instant.
She point her long white finger in my face. “Don’t you come get me for no more bullshit,” and she starts toward the hall.
“You should be used to it,” I say, before I can stop myself. Cain’t believe myself, “That’s all that ever comes for you!”
She stops.
“You think you smart?” she say. “First piece of ass you ever had and it’s got your nose open. You think that Little Dick Jeremy is the shit and you the toilet? You think you got that, huh? Well, I been there, done that. That loser will sew you up and sell you for his first bad hand. He ain’t all you think he is.”
“You’re jealous ’cause this is all you have. And you cain’t buy me. You ain’t got no friends, no family, no nothin. And now you cain’t have what I got.”
“No. That’s what I just said. I’ve had that. And like I also said, Little Dick will do whatever he can to get over another bad hand.”
I spit in her face. She slaps me.
“Don’t you touch me!” I say.
Before I can move, she’s got her arms around my neck, throws us to the table. Drinking glasses crash to the floor. She’s drunk and I pull her hair. She won’t let go of me. I send my forehead into her cheekbone. Her hands follow to the spot.
I cain’t see.
“Bitch!” she say.
I wriggle out from under her, wiping the wrinkles out my dress. “Don’t you ever touch me again!” I say. “Not my dress. Not my body. Not ever!”
“This is my house!” she say. “I do what I damn well please and what I’m gon’ do is send your black ass back to Alabama so they string you up for what you did.”
“How about I send your cracker ass back to Charleston for what you did to your own daddy.”
Her eyes widen.
Then a soft voice behind me say, “Mimi?”
I fall into him, crying. “Jeremy.”
He smells of new cologne. This shirt I’ve never seen before. I kiss his lips, see his hair’s combed different. He don’t hold me the way he should. Loose, like. He don’t look at me.
“Sorry I’m late,” he tell Cynthia. “Had to finish helping Geraldine this morning. Was on the road back from Athens yesterday. I appreciate the extra money.”
“Just get to them keys and play something fast and loud,” she say. “Anything. And when you leave tonight, take this trifling whore with you. Ungrateful bitch!”
She staggers up her hallway, holding her face, still yelling, “Ungrateful! I don’t care if I never see you again. In fact, don’t you never come back here.”
Her door slams shut.
“What happened?” Jeremy say.
“Where you been?” I say.
“What happened to your hair?” he say.
“How you like my dress?” I turn around in it for him. “I knew you’d come back and I wanted you to see me pretty. Don’t mind this ripped seam. I’ll fix it.”
“Mimi, I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“This is my last day.”
I don’t understand.
“They found gold in San Francisco. A bunch of us is headed up that way to try our luck. Get my head clear.”
“You leaving ’cause of me?”
“There’s some things I need to sort out. I need money. And . . .”
“I’ve never seen San Francisco before,” I say.
“Mimi . . .”
“Ain’t got much to pack. My brush. Some clothes. You use our money if Cynthia want you to pay for me . . .”
“Naomi . . .”
“A few pieces . . .” I say.
He grabs the sides of my shoulders. “You ain’t comin.”
I shake my head. I don’t understand. If it don’t make sense, it’s a lie.
“I can’t take you with me,” he say.
“That’s not true. You don’t mean that.”
He slides his hands down from my arms to my hands and holds them together.
“We getting married,” I say. “Me and you fooling the world.”
“People will know,” he say, softly.
“We gon’ have babies. A family. Our gamble, you remember that?”
“We can’t hide our feelings . . .” he say.
“We’re gonna make vows to God because we love each other. Jeremy, tell me you love me.”
“Dammit, Naomi!” he say, throwing my hands. “Are you dumb or something? Can’t you see me suffering here? I’m going to California without you. Why can’t you just be happy for me, wish me luck? Give me a sweet word to hold onto?”
“We both escape,” I say softly. I don’t even recognize my own voice. “Both escape our suffering.”
He opens the door and goes to the porch like I ain’t even here.
He turns around to me, looking at me like he don’t know me, then lingers there. One last glance. He’s gone.
What’s happening here? I don’t understand.
I just gave up my peace for him.
My protection.
All those chances at freedom I gave up for him. My body—to him, almost to Mr. Shepard—for him. I left part of my soul in a gambling room and now I don’t understand.
What’s love supposed to cost? What’s freedom cost? I’ve already paid it all.
And I don’t understand.