Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Wench

When she heard that both Reenie and Mawu were missing, Lizzie felt as if her insides had been broken into a thousand pieces. She wanted to crawl inside herself like a turtle. Later, she would describe it to Glory as time moving at an indescribable speed, carrying buckets of water one minute and carrying her heart in her hands the next.

After the news spread through the resort, Drayle changed toward her. Everything became a barked order and she was locked in a room at night.

Lizzie ran the day over and over through her mind. From the girl with the burned legs-the way the skin merely looked sunburned-to the oozing sores on Mawu’s arms. From the dark smoke rising from the cottage to the empty feeling in her stomach that came with the knowledge that she was the only one of the four left. She could not understand what she had missed, why they had not included her in their plans. She wasn’t sure how she would have responded if they had, but she mourned the lack of invitation.

The only thing she could come up with was that they had not forgiven her for the summer she told on Mawu. They still thought of her as a traitor.

After the cottage fire was put out, Drayle had told her to make her way back. She had considered sneaking off to Reenie’s cottage, but she had thought better of it. Drayle’s eyes had made two holes in her back, and she’d figured it wasn’t smart to anger him at that point.

She couldn’t keep her face out of the window that night. Drayle followed her home soon after and made her come to bed. But after he was asleep, she got up and sat in the window again. The smell of ash was still in the air and the moon was bright enough for her to just make out Tip’s cottage where two men were still dousing the smallest flames. It wasn’t really a cottage anymore, just a black shell standing.

How long had they known they were making a run for it?

Two days later, Drayle shouted orders to George to get their trunks up to the hotel where the omnibus would pick them up. There was still no news of Reenie and Mawu’s whereabouts, but every day she could hear the dogs. The same dogs they’d used to hunt wild birds and pheasants and possum were now being used to hunt her friends. She had heard that the reward money was so big, every slave catcher in the county was out looking for the women.

She hoped Mawu had covered her hair. In her mind, she warned the woman like a mother would a child. She advised the two to split up. She wrapped hot biscuits in a cloth and tucked it into their aprons.

Tip walked around the resort with a righteous anger on his face, as if someone had kidnapped his mother. She wondered if he was angrier that Mawu had escaped or that she had tried to kill him first.

You ain’t the only one wondering about a betrayal, she wanted to say to him. But she didn’t say anything because whatever rights she’d had before Reenie and Mawu had escaped had ended. Now it seemed everyone was watching her. Reenie’s Sir even tore a piece of her dress one day and gave it to one of the dogs. The dog smelled and licked it while she watched. Then Sir grinned at her, as if to let her know that he could find her, that he would find her if she had a mind to take off after the others.

Each hour that passed by that she didn’t hear they had been caught was like a jubilation. She hoped they made it all the way to Canada. She had heard that in Canada coloreds and whites could marry. She wondered if there was a country north of Canada, and what possibilities existed there.

She also wished for two more things: that she could be with them and that she could return to her children. It felt like her right arm was being pulled one way and her left arm being pulled the other. She knew it wasn’t a right way to feel.

While she was packing her trunk, she tried to pack her fancy dress, but Drayle told her to leave it behind. Leaving the dress, saying goodbye to it, was like leaving a part of her new self. She wished she had given the dress to Sweet to tear up and sew. Maybe it would be of better use in the ground where they’d buried the clothes in honor of her children.

On the day they woke up to leave, it was still dark outside. As she walked to the hotel, she found no joy in the early morning bird chirps.

She moved slowly because she wanted to remember every moment of the free soil. She remembered Reenie asking Philip to tell her what freedom tasted like, and she felt a thrill at the knowledge that Reenie would be getting her own taste now.

Drayle watched her. He appeared to be half asleep, his eyes drooping low, but when she glanced his way, she sensed the alertness. What did he think she was going to do? Try to make a run for it? There were dogs and slavecatchers throughout the woods. She supposed that Drayle was already regretting his decision to sell Philip. His eyes were saying he had no intention of letting her go.

The walk from the cottage to the hotel seemed longer than it had ever been. Even though the air still carried an early morning chill, she felt sticky beneath her breasts. Drayle walked behind her, and it felt like he would walk behind her for the rest of her days.

Once the omnibus was loaded, she climbed onto it. Drayle sat beside her the way he always did, as if she were his real woman. She pulled the cloth tight around her hair and the sides of her face.

As the omnibus rolled forward, she thought to herself that this would be the final time she would feel this human. She thought about her children and how overjoyed they would be to see her again. Both of them. The slate board was wrapped carefully in a cloth and tucked into her things. Drayle had taken the dress, but he hadn’t known about the slate. She had also managed to bring along two pieces of chalk. She thought of the free child at the picnic and wondered if she could read. The girl had been about Rabbit’s age.

And there was one more thing she had managed to escape with: the pamphlet. She needed to find a safe place for it, somewhere it could sit for a few years. She planned to give it to Nate once he was a man, so that he too could feel the heat of the words and channel his young anger into the righteous fury of this Wendell Phillips.

She tried not to look back at the cottages or the hotel because she did not want to feel any worse. She just wanted to think of her children and not think about Reenie or Mawu or anybody else. She took solace in knowing that there would be no more goodbyes.

But just as they rounded the bend in the road, she couldn’t stop herself. She looked back anyway. It was too late. The hotel and cottages were too far back behind the trees.

But there was a figure. Lizzie closed her eyes and opened them again. The woman was still there.

In the middle of the road, smaller after she opened her eyes the second time, was Glory. She didn’t have on her bonnet, so Lizzie could just make out her face, the square of her chin. Glory lifted her arm up and did something like a wave.

Lizzie waved back. There had been someone to say goodbye to after all.

They returned to the resort that summer for the fourth time, after all. And this time, Fran came with them.

On the ship, Lizzie slept in the servants’ quarters adjacent to Fran and Drayle’s stateroom. She wondered where she would sleep once they got to the resort. She pictured Fran in her cottage, tucked into her sheets, soaking in her bathtub, drinking from her cups.

Leaving her children had been more difficult than ever. Nate was almost eight years old-big enough to work in the fields and to look after his sister. Rabbit was a year younger, but she had an old soul. Lizzie sometimes felt the girl could see right through her mother’s put-on strength. As if the girl could sense the most cowardly part of her. As if the girl already knew the secret that Lizzie had not told anyone, had not even half admitted to herself.