Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Wench

Fran had been pestering Drayle about putting the children to work, and even though Drayle had held her off, Lizzie could tell that the woman was wearing him down. Drayle had never gotten over losing Philip. Even though he had sold his favorite slave at a fair price, he acted as if Philip had escaped. He didn’t even like for Lizzie to mention Philip’s name. Recently, Drayle had started training Nate to care for the horses. It was exactly what Lizzie had expected.

Nate was eager to bid Drayle’s wishes. Lizzie could see how much her son wanted his father’s attention and how he would jump the sun and the moon to get it. If he wasn’t busy showing off how strong he was by lifting something too heavy for him, he was reciting something from a book. Lizzie was proud of the fact that he talked like a white boy with nary a touch of slave in his speech. She only wished that the other slave women were there so she could brag about him in a way that she could not brag about him to other slaves.

She leaned her forehead against the train car window. She passed the time by counting the houses built along the banks of the Little Miami River. Her stomach pitched with each tumble of the train. The glass was hot against her skin. She missed Philip’s stories.

Drayle had warned her this wasn’t a vacation this summer, mysteriously saying that he had unfinished business. She hoped that it had nothing to do with trying to buy Philip back. She wanted Philip to enjoy his freedom with his new wife. At the same time, she didn’t want to offer up her son as a replacement. As usual, she found herself having to choose between her interests and another’s.

She wondered why Drayle had brought her along at all. Since Reenie and Mawu’s disappearance the summer before, they had not spoken about the two women. She had been afraid to ask lest he think she had a mind to follow.

As soon as they got to the hotel, she planned to make her way to the kitchen so she could find out the latest news.

When they finally arrived at the resort after eight days of travel, the grand white hotel did not look the same to Lizzie. The paint was not fresh, and a yellowed curtain blew through a broken window pane. The grass was not trimmed very low, and some of the flowerbeds were empty. A gaggle of geese sauntered by, following a servant carrying bread.

Fran looked about her, as if disappointed that the resort did not appear the way she had expected. Lizzie wished the woman could have seen the place at its height. When Drayle entered the hotel to sign the register, Fran instructed Lizzie to fan her while they waited. Lizzie stretched over the trunks in the back of the omnibus so she could reach her. The leather was hot. Her lip twitched. Lizzie wished there was someone there to fan her. I suppose I am the spoiled nigger she says I am.

When he came back, he pointed to Lizzie and said, “They fixed up your bed” as if she was supposed to know what he was talking about. She hopped off the back of the omnibus and grabbed the square of cloth pinned around her belongings.

In the kitchen, the head cook Clarissa smiled at her and while Lizzie had waited for such a warm welcome for the past three summers, she found that it did little to ease her mood.

“You looking good,” the older woman said to Lizzie. “You done gained some.”

“I reckon so,” Lizzie responded. The cook put up her arms to stretch, and Lizzie pretended to take it for a hug. She pulled Clarissa close, and when the woman squeezed her back, Lizzie felt a flower open up inside of her.

She asked if Lizzie had eaten, and when Lizzie told her no she fixed a plate. She motioned for Lizzie to go outside and wash up. Lizzie stepped into the sideyard. The spigot on the water pump was rusted and a bee circled its mouth as if it held the attraction of something other than water. She put her hands beneath the cool liquid, and closed her eyes.

Clarissa served mashed potatoes, gravy, and chicken. Lizzie was hungry. A chambermaid on the ship had brought her a plate of leftover food every evening, but once she’d boarded the train, there had been no more meals. After she finished the chicken, she felt sick. She tried to hide it from the ex-slave, thinking it wouldn’t take much for the woman to guess her condition.

Lizzie indicated she was ready to go upstairs. Clarissa called out for a servant who showed Lizzie up the back stairway. As she led the way, the girl asked if she had ever seen where the hotel servants slept. Lizzie answered no. When they opened the door, the girl pointed out that the men and women slept on opposite sides of the attic. The wall between the two spaces had been erected after Clarissa explained to the hotel manager that no self-respecting free colored woman would share a bedroom with a man. The servant pointed to a narrow bed that was sinking in the middle.

“I guess a bed, even a sinking one, is better than a dirty old pallet any day,” the girl said softly, watching Lizzie.

Lizzie slid her bundle under the bed and thought of her bedroom at home. This free girl was assuming that because she was a slave, she slept on a pallet. She wondered what the girl would think if she saw the spacious room Lizzie called her own in Drayle’s house. The drawer of underwear. The wooden horse on the dresser.

Lizzie wasn’t used to being idle, but the new sleeping situation had her off balance. She was used to tidying the cottage and washing Drayle’s clothes and warming his dinner. Why had they brought her here?

She considered asking the girl her name, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was another friend who would desert her.

She wanted to kill Drayle. While she was sleeping that night, she made up in her mind that she didn’t want to kill it. She wanted to kill him instead. He was the one who had gotten her into this mess. He was the one who had been lying to her for all these years, who wouldn’t let her children go free.

She had to kill him. And unlike Mawu, she had to succeed.

She caught herself mumbling when she woke up. The room was so hot, she felt as if she were boiling. There wasn’t a window that opened in the attic and even though the door was ajar, the air wasn’t moving.

She pushed her way out of the bed, pulled off the sheet, and walked down the back stairs. She was used to finding cool spots in the kitchen, so she had no problems locating one here. She balled up the sheet and made a bed of it.

But still she couldn’t sleep. Because in her dreams, she had done it already. She had killed him. Would doing something like this weigh on her children’s spirits? Would they pay for her decisions? Big Mama always used to say that the sins of the mother and the father rained down on the heads of the children.

She finally gave up on trying to sleep and stepped out the back door. Everything was quiet except for the occasional sound of a dog barking. She walked, stopping when she saw a piece of paper nailed to a tree.

$100 REWARD FOR NIGGER WENCH.

RANAWAY FROM TAWAWA HOUSE RESORT, NEAR XENIA SPRINGS, OH

ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST, 1853. ANSWERS TO THE NAME

REENIE

5 FEET 6 INCHES HIGH WITH A STRAIGHT NOSE FOR A NEGRO;

NO TEETH REMAINING BUT DOES WEAR A SET OF FALSE ONES;

DEEP VOICE LIKE A MAN. SHE WAS RAISED IN THE HOUSE

AND WILL LIKELY LOOK FOR WORK AS A COOK.

The paper made Lizzie go cold.

She had only meant to walk to the pond and back, but her feet had their own mind. Before she knew it, she had arrived at the cottage and was peering in the window. She wasn’t sure if Drayle would be staying in the same cottage as the one he had shared with Lizzie. A part of her had hoped they wouldn’t, that Drayle would be sensitive enough to know the cottage had been special to them. But there lay the couple, sleeping as sound as babies. Drayle’s arm lay across his wife’s chest. They didn’t look any more comfortable than she had felt in the attic above the kitchen.