The Loom (24 page)

“It’s past eight.”

“Sorry, sir.” Had it gotten that late, already? “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

She served her master mint tea, then scrambled about in the kitchen clanging pots and dropping silverware, desperate to serve in a timely fashion. Thirty minutes later, she brought four crinkled strips of bacon on rye and two eggs cooked over easy on a porcelain platter to the table.

“Will Miss Caroline be joining you this morning?”

“I don’t see her.” Annie stood back against the wall, her hands clasped together when he lifted his fork and shot a prayer to the good Lord above. Let him be pleased.

Mr. Whitfield continued to sip his tea and poke at his breakfast after the first few bites. He flung the deep fried pork back on his plate and sighed.

“Sir, is your food all right?”

“It’s fine, Annie. But I need something stronger.”

“Sir?” She knew. Didn’t want to know.

“Annie, get me something to drink.”

“Looks like you ain’t had a bite. Would you like me to cook a little more bacon for you? Did I make it too hard? I sure don’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine, Annie. It’s my mouth.”

“Tooth still hurting?”

“Only when I eat.” Mr. Whitfield looked up and shook his head. He was handsome, sure enough. “I’ll be fine.”

She rushed into the kitchen, poured rum from a tall flask into a dainty, flowered coffee cup he had her purchase for Caroline. It proved a nice disguise. No reason to remind anyone the liquid serpent was slipping down the back of his throat this early in the morning, hours before it was deemed proper for any gentleman. She would pour the rest of the devil out little by little when she got the chance.

“Whatever I can do, you just let me know.” She set the spill platter before him and handed him the cup. “It’s my job to please you.”Frowning at the delicate handle he gripped with large fingers, he sighed. “Actually, your job is to serve.”

“To serve you well. I give myself a little more to rise up to.” Annie thought of the words of a hymn she heard one Sunday morning from the balcony of that white paint-chipped church in the woods. The first one of its kind to allow Coloreds to worship with Whites—as long as they came nowhere near one another. The tune vibrated from her lips into a hum.

“Is there something else you could do?”

“I won’t be no good far off someplace else. Not trying to serve you.”

“I’ve been served. Go. Please.”

The sharpness pierced a little. He had been testy ever since Caroline arrived.

The thought of that woman churned her stomach. There was something about Caroline she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she felt it the moment she saw her, had served her that platter of roast. Something wasn’t right. Green eyes looking down, looking away. All that fidgeting and fretting got in her bones, made her just as restless. Every time she saw her leaning forward, her back curved in submission, batting her frog eyes big at Master Whitfield, something in Annie’s bones went cold. She wanted to snatch her straight and slap those lids back in her head.

But like lightning, Mr. Whitfield took a shining to her. The feeling struck him so fast Annie hadn’t seen it coming. Never in her life would she have expected a man of his class, of his caliber, to allow an unwed woman in his home, eating, sleeping under his roof for days, for weeks. It was shameful.

She watched the man drooped over his plate. He was now sipping that devil’s drink, that poison at all hours. Had never done such a thing before that woman arrived.

She was the poison. One Annie had to guard them against. Slithering in here messing up things.

Mr. Whitfield took a swig from the cup.

Annie shook her head. God help them all. And to think, he had been such a nice man.

Lydia was it for him.

It was an it that made John glance up from the tobacco leaves, catch her eye, and in that brief moment send a message that said I see you. He saw her. He saw everything. Had she ever been seen? Truly looked at from the inside, known, as bare as bones?

It was that thing that at first made his heart skip when she came around with that water but now made it beat steady, strong, and sure because this was it, and there wasn’t going to be no other way around.

It was the thing that kept him awake, stole his slumber earlier on, then made him lie down in the pastures of peace because he knew this one was for real.

It was that soft smile across the field for no one but him. I see you.

This one he knew before, had encountered her like no other. This one who could see him, sure enough, could feel him even from miles away.

When he found her beaten, bloody, in the leaves in the same woods he ran, breaking free of the same shackles, he tore the sleeve of his shirt and wrapped her head, tied it tight, bound the wound that would leave the scar that she hated. The scar that she needed. A reminder of all she had been through, how she had suffered but survived a pain great enough to snuff out her life. If she touched it and let it touch her, she would remember that a boy with black skin wanted her, loved her. She would remember who she was in him.

Of all the people in the world, many good, fewer great, finally there was one. There was one he dreamed of. He looked to find this one who knew him, who could breathe him in and keep on moving because she was him and he was her. She didn’t even notice the moment he entered in, began to swim through her blood because he was always there. Always. Before the beginning, they were one. All he ever wanted was in the eyes of this one who understood, who knew him. Before he could speak, she heard. Before he could reach, she touched. Before he could cry, she wiped the tears. A breathing, a moving of spirit, that sealed for life not two separate souls but a different manifestation of one self. A oneness unlike any other.

She saw him, and he saw her. He saw her so clearly it was seeing himself. Anything, everything she needed, he would give.

All of him, he would willingly offer to finally see peace in her eyes, a rest in her spirit.

He knew where she was. Charles had seen her, had followed her because he had to. Somehow, some way they would be together. Nothing would keep them apart. Like goodness and mercy he followed and he would wait all the days of his life because she was it. The crinkling of papers in his palm kept him moving toward the woman he had to go after, he had to get back.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t let go, it was that he couldn’t, even if he tried.

Tiny glass bottles of cinnamon and nutmeg clouded in Caroline’s slippery grip. She pinched the bonnet further over her eyes with the tip of her thumb and briskly stepped from the wagon she rode in town and walked past the barn and slave quarters, pleading she wouldn’t see John.

Heaven was deaf to her prayers.

She knew even with his shoulders, his back, to her, it was him sitting on the rusted fence. He sensed her. Turned to her.

“Lydia.”

Slowly, slowly, she lifted her head. How could she look at him?

He was standing now, his buttoned navy shirt half-tucked, half-hanging from his denim slacks, his hands in his pockets. He carried no trace of sadness or anger, just a softness in a chiseled face. As beautiful as ever. She looked away.

“Lydia.”

John. She felt herself warming in his presence. She wanted to smile. She didn’t.

“You’re alive,” he said, stepping closer.

“Yes.”

He nodded. She bit her lip and looked down. His boots. The same scuffed boots that had been tossed aside near their bareness.

“It’s good to see you.”

She stared at him. How could it be? It had been near two weeks since she’d kissed his lips. Touched those lashes.

“Don’t you want to ask how could I?”

“Sure.” He swallowed, shifted forward, one leg slightly bent in front of the other, his hands at his waist. “How could you, Lydia?” The words came out scratchy, gritty.

“You didn’t…I didn’t think you wanted me anymore.”

“Did you ask me?”

“I tried—”

“Did you ask me?” There it was. The anger she expected, she deserved. She clutched the glass jars tighter.

“I just thought—”

“You didn’t ask me.” His voice quaked. “You’re my wife. You don’t just walk away.”

“I’m sorry.”

For a moment, they stood in silence.

“So what?” He glanced up at her. “You’re a White woman now?”

“What?” She looked down at her attire. “Oh.” She straightened her dress with the tips of her fingers and swallowed. She did what she had to do. Didn’t know what to say. “John. I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Or are you happy now? A free woman. It’s what you’ve always wanted, Lydia. More than anything.”

She lowered her head and turned back to the manor.

“Again, Lydia? Again? You’re going to walk away again?”

His words pierced as she stepped farther away. How many tears could one shed? Hurt and shame lumped in her throat so thick, she could not swallow. Focused on her new life, she forced them down, but they shot to the pit of her stomach and soured.

When she passed the last log house and turned the corner, she doubled over, dropping the bottles of seasoning at her feet. She crouched to the ground, yanking the hem of her skirt above the shards of glass and brown sprinkles against her ankles and vomited.

She squatted there coughing, gagging, until she was able to swipe the last line of spittle from her lips and stand again. But she found she wasn’t standing. All day, she was still stuck stooped in her sickness.