The Kitchen House (45 page)

“I know we’ve got to do this, but I’m so afraid of how Miss Martha …”

“Jamie still come up to see her,” Mama reassured me.

“Can we wait a few weeks? Summer will be here in a month, and in the heat, she sleeps most of the day. She might not miss him as much.”

Mama was silent.

“I promise that if you agree to wait until June, I will speak to Jamie then.”

“I countin’ on you for this,” she said.

I gave her my word.

We did not know that Jamie, on his way out of the house, had listened to our conversation.

F
OLLOWING THAT MORNING
, J
AMIE BECAME
moody and sullen. Often he left the house in the early morning and stayed away all day. On his return, he stubbornly refused to tell anyone his whereabouts. I wondered if he had somehow gained knowledge of the impending change; I wondered, too, exactly what he knew of his parentage.

On the first of June, I knew I must uphold my promise to
Mama. That morning Jamie was alone with Miss Martha. Knowing that the others were down in the kitchen house, I bolstered my courage with a dose of laudanum, then went in to see him. Miss Martha had been upset by his absence in the past few weeks, and this morning she was clearly overjoyed to have him at her side. When I asked Jamie if, on Fanny’s return, I might have a word with him, his face paled, and I felt my resolve weaken.

I went back to my room to await Fanny’s return and decided to give myself yet more courage. I found that the small brown bottle at my bedside was empty. Quickly, I pulled up a chair to get another from the back of the linen press, where I kept a supply. I was already unsteady on my feet, and the chair wobbled under me as I reached for a bottle. My fingers felt the envelope that contained Belle’s papers. Suddenly inspired, I pulled them out, thinking they might somehow help Jamie understand something of his true mother.

Jamie startled me when he unexpectedly opened the door. I swung around, clutching the air as the chair wobbled, then I tumbled over. Before I crashed, Belle’s envelope flew out of my hands. When my head cracked against the hardwood floor, I lost consciousness.

As Marshall was not at home, Mama took it upon herself to send for the doctor. After the examination, Mama was instructed to observe me closely and not, under any circumstances, to give me laudanum.

A day later, I woke with a terrible headache. My body trembled at the slightest sound, and I ached in every bone. I pleaded with Mama for laudanum. She was firm in her refusal, and for the next week, I was too ill to argue.

When Marshall came home at the end of the week, he was informed of my accident but did not feel the need to see me. Now, though, I began to plead in earnest with Mama for laudanum. Tired of my begging, she stood at my bedside. “You don’t get the drops from me no more,” she said, “and that be that!”

I had no choice but to acquiesce to her dictate, and each day
following I began to feel somewhat better. One day I had a visit from Fanny, and after one of her candid observations, I laughed aloud. After she left, I heard her say to Mama, “Maybe that bump on her head do her some good. She soundin’ again like the girl I grow up with.”

“You right,” Mama said. “I just hate to think when that doctor come and say she can get those drops again.”

It was weeks before the dizziness passed enough that I could be seated in a chair. For the first few minutes, the room whirled but eventually steadied itself. That day, on Elly’s insistence, Mama brought her to me. I heard Mama instruct my daughter before entering the room, “Now, you don’t go upsettin’ her, else she wantin’ the drops again.”

The words struck me like a blow. I had no idea that Elly knew I used laudanum. As my daughter cautiously approached me, my heart ached at her fear for me, and I smiled to reassure her.

“Are you finished being sick?” she asked.

“I am almost well, sweetheart.” I reached for her small hand. “Mae said that tomorrow I’m going for a walk.”

“Will you be all better then?”

“I believe I will,” I reassured her.

“Will you take the drops again?” Her voice shook.

“The drops? Why do you ask, darling?”

“I don’t like it when you take drops,” she said.

I forced myself to ask the question: “Why don’t you like it, Elly?”

I saw that it took all of her courage to tell me. “Then you sleep all day, or else you cry and tell me to go away.” Her eyes filled with tears, and her chin quivered.

“Come here.” I opened my arms to her. As I held her, she sobbed without restraint. Her tears opened me to a painful truth. In my selfish escape, I had abandoned my own child.

“Do you know, darling,” I said, “Mae and I were just talking about those drops today. I do believe that I will not take them any longer. Truly, I am feeling so much better.” I took her face in mine and smiled. “Can you imagine? Your mother needed a good bump
on her head to make her feel better.” I reassured her that she was not to worry, that Mama Mae was taking excellent care of me and that I would soon be back on my feet.

I was drained after Elly left, but as Mama helped me back into bed, I made her promise to keep the drops away from me. Mama looked unconvinced. I asked her to bring Fanny to my room, and after she did, I asked the two of them to give their word that should I ask, they would refuse me the drops. They exchanged a skeptical look but gave me their promise. As a gesture of good faith, I told Fanny where I kept the extra bottles and asked her to retrieve them. When she was up on the chair, reaching to the back of the shelf, I had a momentary recall of Belle’s papers. I quickly decided that if Fanny brought them down, I would show them to Mama; I had forgotten that they had flown out of my hand with my fall, and I did not know that they were already in Jamie’s possession. When Fanny pulled out only the laudanum, I was so caught up in getting rid of the drug that I decided to tell Mama later about Belle’s papers.

And I would have done so had the withdrawal from the drug been less difficult. Though I was determined to follow through on my promise to Elly, I couldn’t have known that as my physical strength returned, so, too, would my obsession to take the drug. In the weeks that followed, in my darkest hours, I pleaded for release from my promise. But Mama refused me. At night she slept on Sukey’s cot, and during the day she would not leave me alone. After a time Mama began to insist that I walk outdoors with her. I was reluctant to go, afraid of seeing Marshall, but she assured me that he was seldom home.

When I relented and ventured forth into the healing sun, I realized how much of a recluse I had become. Then came the day when we walked to the barn to see Papa George. He greeted me so warmly that I wondered why I hadn’t come to see him sooner. I was surprised at the gray in his hair and told him so.

“Yup,” he said, smiling and brushing his worn hand over the top of his head, “time passin’.” He looked into my eyes, then nodded
his approval. “It sure good to see our Abinia again,” he said, and I knew that the use of my childhood name was intended. I wanted to hug him, but I knew that such a gesture could place us both in jeopardy. I spoke instead of the hot weather and of how the dry brown grass was in such need of rain that it crackled underfoot. I remarked that the sound reminded me of walking on dry leaves. Mama and Papa agreed, and I recalled the first dance that I had attended with them down in the quarters. I had a fond memory of watching the two of them dance together. That set us to remembering other good times, and as we did so, I was reminded of the many years they had cared for me.

“Mama, Papa,” I blurted out, “I’m so sorry about Sukey.”

They looked at each other, then Papa spoke. “We all sorry ’bout Sukey, but we know you don’t mean her no harm. We know you do the best you can when it come to Sukey. Now we askin’ the Lawd to make you strong again. We here all needin’ that.”

“Thank you, Papa,” I said. That day, with Papa’s words of forgiveness, my obsession for the drug began to recede.

Belle

E
ARLY MORNING, BEGINNING OF AUGUST,
I’m working in the garden. It’s so hot and dry this year, all I seem to do is carry water. I look over and got to smile at George playing the fool with the babies, splashing water on them, keeping them happy. All the time, though, I got this feeling somebody’s watching. I stop, look around. Nothing there, but I feel it strong.

When it’s time to eat, I bring out the food, and we all sit outside by the kitchen house. Today I don’t need to cook for the big house, just send up soup from yesterday and some biscuits from this morning. Lucy comes down from the big house to eat with us and to feed her last baby. I fix her some butter and ham on a thick cut of bread and give it to her to eat while she’s feeding. I know she’s hungry, ’cause nobody likes food the way Lucy do.

“Ain’t we havin’ those pickled cowcumbers today?” she asks.

“Sure,” I say, “I’ll get them.” I go in, take down a jar, and cut up a few, then bring them out. This time, for sure, I know somebody’s watching. Again I look around, but I see only Lucy eying the pickles. Then I start to laugh. “Oh no!” I say, looking hard at her. “You getting big again, Lucy? Last time you wanted those pickles morning and night!”

Lucy rolls her eyes and says, “Up at the big house, Miss Martha calls it a blessin’. I calls it more work.”

I laugh again, but truth is, I feel sorry for her. Her last one’s still nursing. “You know you got me to help,” I say.

“If you not here, Belle, I don’t know what I do. You like a sista to me.” Lucy’s eyes fill up. This happens easy when she’s getting big. Her tongue gets sharp, too. Ben comes to me some days, says
he don’t know what’s going on with her. I say, “You try walking around big as a privy in the Virginia sun, and we’ll see how much singing you do.”

“How’s Will’s Martha doing?” I ask Lucy.

“She doin’ better, but the more her stomach grow, the more her legs get big. Her head hurtin’, too. That stuff the doctor give don’t do her no good. Maybe make it worse.”

I say, “Next time Fanny comes, I’ll ask her if Ida got something for that. Maybe she’d try it?”

“Maybe she do. I know she scared. Her own mama die like this when she have her last one,” Lucy say.

“I sure do hope that this baby comes easy,” I say. “You know it’s gonna be on us to help her out.”

“Maybe we get Mama Mae over?”

I shake my head. “It’s too hard for her to get here. Last time Eddy’s here, he says there’s so much trouble going on over there that everybody’s scared to walk out. Marshall already sells most everybody from the fields.”

Lucy asks, real quiet, “You worried ’bout your Jamie?”

I nod ’cause sometimes just saying his name hurts too much. “I can’t sleep some nights thinking about him,” I say. “But Will Stephens promised me that if Marshall ever sells Jamie, he’ll find him and get him for me.”

Lucy hands the baby to me. “I got to get back up there,” she says.

I head into the kitchen house, turn back to tell George to watch the little ones, and out the corner of my eye, back in the trees, I see a boy. Just for a minute, mind you. He sees me looking and he’s gone. I got to sit, my heart’s pounding so hard. It’s my Jamie! I know it’s my Jamie!

Next morning I go to the garden and tell George to stay back in the house with the little ones. He don’t like it, but I say, “You do this, and later, I’ll make those sugar cakes you like.” He’s still not happy, but he’d do almost anything for my sugar cakes. That way he’s just like Lucy.

I pick up my hoe, and facing the trees, I chop away at the weeds.
Sure enough, there he is. I keep my head down, look at the dirt, and start to talk real loud. “If that’s Jamie Pyke in those trees,” I say, “he don’t have to be scared. I’m gonna keep weeding my garden, but I sure do wish Jamie Pyke would come over here and show me what he looks like now that he’s a growed boy.”

I don’t look up, just keep working my hoe, but I hear him coming out the woods and walking toward me. I don’t know why he’s scared of me, but when he gets closer, I start feeling scared of him. What’s he doing here, anyway? What’s he want?

“Are you Belle?” he asks.

I look up real slow, afraid he’s gonna run. I hang on tight to my hoe, my head spinning, my mouth dried up. Standing there in front of me is a white man. My Jamie. Thirteen years old. Not a boy, not a man.

“I is,” I say.

Quick, he holds out some paper. “Then this is yours,” he says. “I believe these are your emancipation papers.”

I stand, just looking at my boy’s face. I don’t hear what he’s saying. I got to take him in.

“Here,” he says, “take them. You’re free.”

I take the paper. My hand’s shaking. “Jamie?” I ask.

“Yes?” he says.

“Do you know who I am to you?”

“Yes. You’re my mother.”

I nod.

“I don’t remember you, though.”

“That’s all right,” I say. “You was little when he took you.”

“All of these years … Papa George told me … I thought I was Miss Martha’s son.”

I look good at him then. He’s white as Marshall, but Jamie got the same face of the captain’s mama. Seeing his face, in some way, is like seeing my white grandma here again. I can’t stop looking, but I know I got to say something.