Dolen Perkins-Valdez - Wench

“Miss Clarissa, you can’t help me down those stairs. You better send that young girl up here.”

“You best believe I ain’t gone help you nowhere. I just came up here to deliver the news and let you know I’m here for you if you need me. And I’m gone send over food for you each day now. You hear?”

Lizzie nodded weakly.

You know we were only supposed to stay here two weeks. We’re lengthening our trip on account of you,” Fran said.

Lizzie sat in the bundle of sheets on the floor and leaned back on the sofa. Fran had done a good job of securing the rags around her private area. But neither wanted to risk her getting blood on the couch, so she sat on the floor for the time being.

“I appreciate that, Miss Fran.”

Fran sat at the table staring at Lizzie. She sipped from a glass of water. Every now and then, she looked as if she wanted to ask a question.

“Where’s Mr. Drayle?” Lizzie asked. She was still nervous that he would return that night and try to have his way with her.

“He’s with the men.”

“Oh.”

Lizzie looked down again. She wanted to be alone.

“You know, I was always jealous of you.”

“Jealous?”

“Of course. You never knew?”

“No, ma’am. I’m just a slave, Miss Fran, and an ugly one at that.”

Fran looked down into her water. “So many things. I was jealous because you gave him children when I couldn’t. Jealous he brought you to this summer resort without me. It was downright disrespectful!”

Lizzie had thought about this, but she had never questioned the unwavering rule of white men. They did what they wanted. That was the way of the world.

“Lizzie, envy and hate are two different things. I envied you. But I did not, and I do not hate you.”

Lizzie nodded. She understood the difference between the two words. What she did not understand was the difference in how Miss Fran would treat her based on the distinction. If Miss Fran did not hate her, why was she trying to make her children go work in the fields?

That night, Fran slept on the sofa in the living room while Lizzie slept on the floor. In the other room, Drayle slept alone in the bed. Lizzie woke to the strange arrangement, startled. She could hear Drayle snoring. As soon as Lizzie moved to rearrange her gown, Fran woke up.

“Lizzie?”

“Yes, Miss Fran?”

Fran opened her eyes and pushed up onto her elbows. Her eyes were swollen, as if she had not slept well.

“Everything fine?”

Lizzie realized that Fran was keeping watch over her, making sure that Drayle did not try anything. Fran had never done such a thing before, so Lizzie was confused.

“Well, I am a bit thirsty. But I’ll get it.”

“No.” Fran swung her legs off the sofa. “I’ll get it.”

Lizzie listened to the pump outside. It made a swishing noise. When Fran returned, she had a glass for both of them. She sat on the sofa beside Lizzie and they drank quietly.

The water refreshed her. Lizzie remembered what Fran had told her earlier, and she felt an urge to reassure her in some way.

“Miss Fran?”

“Yes?”

It was dark, but the moon shone through the window and before long, the shadows in the room had brightened. Fran’s curly hair had become unpinned, and there were a few tendrils framing her face. Lizzie looked at her and thought to herself that it was she who had envied Fran, not the other way around. It was she-Lizzie-who would have given anything at one point to be in Fran’s place, to have Fran’s lustrous hair and skin and position.

In this unfamiliar setting, Lizzie could clearly make out Fran’s vulnerability. The white woman stared at Lizzie as if she needed to know what the younger slave woman wanted to say to her, as if she didn’t have a closer friend in the world who understood the problems of her intimate domestic life better than Lizzie did.

“The reason I’ve been sick is because I drank a tea.”

Fran nodded. But Lizzie could see that she did not understand. She had never been pregnant, and she did not make the connection.

“A tea that gets rid of a baby.”

“Oh!” Fran’s hand flew to her mouth and the sound that escaped was enough to stop Drayle’s snoring. Lizzie heard him grunt, shift, and settle again.

Fran leaned forward and her breath blew across Lizzie’s face. “I ought to slap you!” she said.

It was not the reaction Lizzie had expected. “But I didn’t want it. I didn’t want another baby.” She wanted Fran to know she was not intentionally having any more children with the woman’s husband, that something inside of her had changed. Couldn’t Fran see it?

“How could you?”

Lizzie was silent. She didn’t know what to say. She could see the shine of Fran’s eyes.

“Did Nathan know?”

Lizzie shook her head. Would it make Fran feel better if Drayle had known? Lizzie tried hard to figure out the right thing to say.

Fran wiped an eye. She touched Lizzie on the shoulder. “I am sorry. I am sorry for you.”

Fran lay back down on the couch and pulled the covers up to her neck although Lizzie could see that the woman’s eyes remained open.

For the next two days, Fran acted as if their conversation had never happened. She continued to eat beside her at the table. Lizzie had never sat at the table with Fran, so this was uncomfortable for her. In the evenings, Fran made her bed on the sofa beside Lizzie. Lizzie slept on the floor, wrapped up tightly so that her blood would not stain the wood.

During the day, Drayle left the two women, unusually quiet as he observed them. As Lizzie’s strength picked up, she became more relaxed as she felt that she could better handle any advances he might make.

Finally, Drayle announced to the women they were to begin packing up to leave. Lizzie had known they would be leaving soon. They had already been there almost three weeks. She had not seen Philip, so she assumed Drayle’s business had not been to buy his former slave back. She knew if Drayle really wanted Philip back, he could just claim him-with or without free papers-and put him on the first ship downriver.

Over the past week, Lizzie had bled so much that she was pretty certain if there had been a baby there, it was dead now. She tried not to imagine the pretty hair, fat cheeks, and toothless grin. But everywhere she went, she smelled it. The wetness of its slick head on a hot night. The quiet scent of baby piss and sour soiling after feedings.

And everything soft reminded her of it as well. Even her own hairy softness. Would it have had blue eyes and white skin like Rabbit? Or dark intense ones like Nate? how tight would the curls have been? And would it have been her first child to inherit her moles?

On the other hand, she was working on convincing herself that she had not been pregnant after all. The increase in urination, dizziness, nausea had all been a part of her imagination, delusions created by a brain that feared another pregnancy. The tea had merely brought her monthly cycle back, forced her to expel the blood that had accumulated. She concentrated on the seed.

And yet, she could not edge the feeling that she had done something terribly wrong. She walked around with the weight of her secret. Fran’s reaction had not helped, either. Neither of the women had told Drayle, and each time he spoke to Lizzie, she resented him for not seeing through the lie. She didn’t smile, didn’t talk, barely ate in the days following her admission to Fran. All she did was obey. Somebody told her to do something and she said “yes ma’am” or “yessir.” That was all she could bring herself to say.

She made up in her mind that she wanted to see Mawu one more time. She asked Glory to take her. This time, she rode on the back of Glory’s horse and they traveled slowly so the horse’s movements would not jar her tender belly or Glory’s hardened one.