He wants you to be a maid! Ruth paces across
their room. Her dress rustles, crisp as broken patience.
He didn’t use that word. I’m to help around the house
in exchange for room and board. You always said
scrubbing floors is nothing to be ashamed of.
I clean to pay for classes so I’ll never have to push
a mop again. They won’t even let you stay
long enough to get a diploma?
I need to go where no one knows what happened.
Edmonia looks out the window. She wishes she could
camouflage herself like a white hare on snow,
a brown toad by a tree trunk. She opens a drawer
and grabs her pencils like a fistful of arrows.
She packs her spare dress, her sewing basket,
a mended comb, a nightgown; she doesn’t have much else.
She says, I’ll start again.
People can’t choose where they start or stop.
Edmonia, we didn’t have mamas who told us
we mattered, or pas who said:
You can do what anyone else can
or even what’s never been done.
But if two girls can be family, let me say
that I’m proud. You see more than most people.
You can change things with your hands.
Edmonia wonders if she’ll ever again hear
another girl brush her hair, kneel on the floor,
set clasped hands on a coverlet for prayer,
breathe in a way that tells her she’s included
in the entreaties. All she really wanted
was one friend. She says, Come with me.
You know I can’t. This is the only chance
I’ll ever have to go to school, at least one like this.
If something happens to Thomas,
I’ll be all alone and must earn a living.
Maybe you’ll see him in Boston.
Even if the regiment hasn’t left Massachusetts yet,
a soldier can’t leave the army
just because a girl wants to hold his hand.
I need to graduate. Teaching is the only way to rise.
You should teach, too.
You know I hate classrooms.
They must be different if you stand at the front.
Promise me you won’t clean kitchens.
Don’t tell me what to do. Edmonia can’t say No
enough. She’ll practice the word the way she memorizes
the rules of perspective. Her neck aches,
the way it had when waiting for the judge to speak.
I have to disappear. That’s what could happen
to girls behind mops and brooms.
I suppose this is a chance to leave the past behind you.
My past is all people see. And it’s not over.
They only admitted there wasn’t proof to jail me.
I have to show everyone I’m innocent.
How can you do that?
I don’t know. Or even remember exactly
what was said, who poured spices in the cider.
It wasn’t right that Hagar had to leave.
She did nothing wrong. What happened to her?
Didn’t I tell you? She found a safe place.
You’re lying.
The good book doesn’t say everything.
But Hagar made a new home.
She was in the desert,
but an angel brought her a cup of water.
Did she ever stop being angry?
Water wasn’t enough.
Was she ever happy?
You will be, Edmonia.
No one knows. She runs her hand
over her hair, dark, curling like smoke.