The Loom (5 page)

Lydia wrapped her arm around her father’s waist. He nodded at John. “I see you met my daughter.”

“Yes, sir.” John smiled at Lydia, glanced back at her father.

“Daddy, where’s Grandma?”

“Asleep. She didn’t feel up to it tonight. I think it’s just too much noise for her sometimes.” He looked around and chuckled.

“Too much noise for me sometimes. I’m heading in myself. You coming by tomorrow, ain’t you, Lydia?”

“I am.”

“Good night, Baby Girl.” He squeezed her to him and kissed her cheek. “John. See she gets back safely, hear?”

“Yes, sir. I most certainly will.”

When her father slipped through the crowd, she turned to the man at her side.

“He’s a good man. Your father.”

“Yes. Yes, he is.” She looked at this stranger her daddy had entrusted her to. She could see why. There was gentleness in his eyes. She wanted to know him. Everything about him. Wanted him to be a stranger no longer. “What about you? Your father?”

“Never knew him.” He said it matter-of-factly. “My mother died a few months back, just before I was sold here. I’ve been moved around a few times.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “A male like me is worth a lot.”

Lydia thought back to the day before, seeing him out on the field, working. Even tonight, in his thin cotton shirt, she could see the outline of his tall frame, the muscles in his arms, the evidence of strength.

The near sounds of a harmonica rose above the final tune of the fiddle. A young man with closed eyes and thick lashes leaned into the solemn song he blew through the wooden rectangle. Each note hunched him lower.

“My mama died early too.” The slow music, the words carried weight, a sadness. Joy was quickly setting like the evening sun.

She willed it to rise. “But I have my grandmother. My daddy’s mama. She’s good to me. I get to be with her by week’s end.”

“Let’s sit. You hungry?”

John returned with a wooden bowl of chickpeas and cracklin’ bread. He straddled a chair in front of her.

“So you work inside. What’s that like?”

“It’s fine.” Lydia ate a few bites of bread before she continued. “My sleeping quarters are nice, but I still miss staying with my daddy and grandma.”

“You can’t miss sleeping on a dirt floor.”

“Well, no, I don’t miss that.”

“How are they? They good to you in that house?”

“The Kellys? They treat me all right.” If she ignored her master’s gawking. “Their daughter, Lizzy, Elizabeth, is a good friend.”

He raised his brows. “You sure about that?”

“Yes.” This she knew for sure.

He nodded slowly. “Well, good.”

Lydia balanced the half-empty bowl on her lap and looked back into his eyes. “What about you? What’s life like for you here?”

“Haven’t been here long. I don’t know. Like any other place, I suppose. Except one.” He looked down. When he looked back up something had changed. No smile, just eyes focused in the distance.

She moved in closer to him, waiting. “Which one is that?”

“The one place I’m going.” The words hovered between them until they floated away like sparkling dust. “Let me take that.”

He reached for her bowl like they were never spoken. Like she had imagined them and this other man with the serious eyes. She watched him, his back to her, and a pang shot through her chest. He wouldn’t be here for long.

“You ready?” he said much too cheerfully. “It’s getting late.” A tall couple entangled like the branches of the tree they stood under remained and a handful of youth.

“Sure.”

They walked in silence until they reached the back steps of the Big House. She looked up at him and smiled.

“I enjoyed the evening,” he said.

“Yes. So did I.”

“I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve never seen nobody like you. No girls I know carry themselves like you.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. You’re different.”

“In what manner?” She hated to ask, knew what he was going to say. The same thing everyone said. “You mean because I’m a White Colored.”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s not what I mean at all.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “It don’t much matter to me what shade a woman’s skin is.”

“Really?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Well, you’d be the first. You’re the only one in the whole world who don’t care what color skin is.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think so?”

“I mean, I can’t be the only one. There’s nobody else out there who can see a little deeper?”

“A little deeper?”

“Yeah, a little deeper.” He tilted his head and flashed a smile. He leaned forward on the balls of his feet. “I’m trying to see what’s behind them green eyes.”

“Is that right?” she asked too softly. She bit her lip and looked down, could feel warmth flush her body.

“Good night, Lydia.”

“Good night.” She walked up the steps. One, two, three, four, five, six, and opened the door. Was he watching? Just before she stepped inside, she turned around. He was. She waved. He nodded with his hands still in his pockets and turned away.

Twice in one night, his back to her. It was a sight that already stung.

Lydia sat on the dirt floor in the unlit cabin across from her father, tugging on the itchy burlap against her neck and the new patch of denim now securely fastened to the pocket of his overalls. She placed them beside her and stretched. The smell of cornmeal mush still clung to her dress hours after the supper Grandma Lou prepared.

The old woman kicked up gray puffs of dust around her thick ankles, pattering her way back to the only other room in their home. Stringy raven locks swung behind a thick frame. Though Lou had seen too many harvests to count, her hair remained black as the night.

“Grandma, don’t forget I need you to do my hair.” Lydia always felt like a child here, like nothing had changed.

“Wake me up when you ready.” Grandma’s voice faded when she was no longer in sight. “I’m just gonna lay down a minute.”

She turned back to her father.

“She all right?”

“She’s fine.” He tapped her nose. “Stop that worrying.”

Daddy propped himself against the log wall, beside the hearth. In the dark, Lydia could make out the withered wooden table, the stool, and a crate, but something was missing.

“Where’s the bench?”

“Cracked. Needs to be replaced altogether, but I don’t think it’s right here. Makes this space too tight.”

“You could put it out front.”

“Could.”

She looked around the room and felt the familiar rise of guilt that always climbed up the back of her throat when she was here.

They had so little. Little food. Little space. Not even room enough for a bench, a place for a seat. Not even room for rest.

She swallowed the shame of living away from them, eating, working, sleeping in the Big House. She had so much more than they ever would. And even what she had was not enough.

Lydia heard stirring in the other room and could see her father shift toward the coughing. She watched him in the dark. He crossed his legs and reached for the hands she hid in her lap, blew air into them. The hard calluses on his palms scraped against her skin. “How are your hands, Daddy? Still numb?”

Even with gloves, the poison of tobacco seeped into his pores, stiffened his joints.

“I’m fine.”

“Why you quiet, Daddy?”

He shook his head, twining his fingers with hers. “Just tired.”

Their house grew silent again, except for the chirping of crickets. Lydia spotted one, hopping, hopping toward the window.

Why did hopping look so happy? So fun and free? Even the crickets were free.

“Why you think God made us to belong to somebody?”

“I don’t think He did.” Daddy paused. She could barely hear him breathing. “I know we ain’t meant to. One day…”

“God’s gonna do it.” Lydia nodded and squeezed his fingers, thought of the raising of rods she had lifted, she had hoped, believed would part the creek as a child. One day, He would let her people go. “I think so.” When he didn’t respond, she released her hand from his and patted his knee. “What do you think freedom’s like?”

“Listen, Lydia.” He sighed. “You’re not thinking about running again, are you? I’m not willing to lose you over nothing.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy.” If she could, she would. Given the chance, she’d be gone before night turned to day. With everything in her, she’d run free. “Don’t worry, all right?” She scooted closer until her knees were against his and whispered. “Come on, tell me. What do you think it’s like? I know you think about it.”

“Good.” His head dropped. “Real good.”

“Like heaven?”

He chuckled. “Not that good.”

“Well, that’s funny.”

“What’s that?”

“Dead is better than us alive.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He didn’t have to. She already knew some things were worth dying for.

Daddy didn’t say another word. She could see his face turn away. He pressed his palms against his eyelids.

“Daddy.” Lydia inched next to him and stroked his back. “I’m sorry, Daddy. Let’s not talk about it.”

“We almost lost you.” His words, each syllable, broken.

“Let’s not talk about it.”

After a few moments, he wrapped his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “I better get some shut-eye, Lydia. I got tilling to see to first thing in the morning. Kelly’s orders.” He stood up, stretched, and pulled her to her feet.

Lydia hated to leave him. No one, nothing in her world was warmer, sweeter than Daddy. She stood shivering for several seconds, looking up at him.

“Cold?” Her father rubbed her back. When she nodded, he reached down and grabbed a dark, worn blanket. Wrapping it around her, he kissed the top of her head.

She dragged several feet toward the back room. Her father yawned, already stretched out on his back beneath a quilt, his feet flexed against the hearth.

“Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, Baby Girl. Love you. It’s always good to have you here with us even if it is just for a day or two.”

She swallowed hard and nodded. “Love you too.”

Lydia inched forward, sweeping the dirt with the tattered blanket as she walked away.

In the next room, draped in the dark covering, she wiggled under a thin patchwork quilt with her grandmother. She lay still, perfectly still, a game she liked to play as a little girl to see how long she could remain. She recalled not having a clue whether she improved each time, but she praised herself if it felt longer and it always did. She smiled at the memory. She turned and watched the woman next to her snoring on her back with the cover shimmying a nervous dance above her nose. It moved in short rainbow waves, up and down around her, and just when it looked like it was going to fall and cover her completely, the breath in her lifted it and kept it from coming any closer. Lydia watched until she dipped in and out of drowsiness before plunging into a world, light and fuzzy around the edges.

Daddy’s laughing face. He was walking toward her, reaching for her. Then he startled. His smile slid into anger, slipped into sadness. He froze. What is it? What is it, Daddy?