The Loom (6 page)

A ladybug crawling, fluttering, flying away. Then just as suddenly, the crushing sound of a rifle against skull.

Lydia shot straight up and shook the picture out of her head, but tiny wings fluttered and flickered in the pit of her belly for the rest of the night.

It was the cold breeze, the cover she was stripped of that woke Lou. She wrestled up next to her wide-eyed granddaughter.

“Lydia. You all right?”

Lou shook her head. Dreaming again. About them men and their guns, she knew it. What she’d give to wipe out the whole bloody nightmare. She shivered. “I thought you was gonna wake me?”

“I was but you were sleeping so good, I couldn’t bring my heart to do it.” Even though it was dark, Lou could see her smile. “I must’ve fallen asleep myself.”

Lydia lit a large candle in the corner next to the low wooden stool that Lou found near impossible to lower herself onto. She managed somehow.

The girl wiggled between her knees like a child. “Plait it straight down the back,” she said.

Seeing Lydia sitting on the dirt floor in the dark, her head resting against the burlap between yawns and stretches, made her smile. No matter where the missus made her sleep, this old cabin was still her grandbaby’s home.

“You know and I know you can do this yourself, girl.”

“Not like you can.”

She wasn’t lying. Years ago, Lou made sure every strand was woven. Every strand. Whatever her hand found to do… But now she raked her crinkled hands over the girl’s frizzy braid not knowing how she would muster the strength to complete the task. She could barely see a thing in the dim candlelight. “Take it down for me then.”

Lydia swung her hair loose. Deep dark waves fell down her back. She laid her head against Lou’s knee, wrapped her arm around her calf.

“All this hair on the sweetest face. Always said your daddy should’ve been a girl.” Lou laughed and squeezed Lydia’s shoulders. “I got my girl after all.”

Slowly, Lou gathered and wrapped lock over lock until she winced. “You finish up, hear?” She wrung her hands and sighed.

“I miss you here with us.” She slid to the edge of her chair and smiled at the girl at her feet. “I ain’t never got used to you not being here. Sometimes at night, it’s like I can still feel you right here with me.” It hurt. She wasn’t sure what hurt more. The girl being gone or the feeling she was near when she wasn’t. Would never be again. This life! She shook her head. Soon. Her only comfort rose inside her, lifting her spirit. Soon it would all be over. “Don’t imagine it will matter too much longer.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh, Lydia. She would miss her. And her son. Isaiah and Lydia. Hoped to meet her other children again on the other side.

“I mean, don’t nobody live forever.”

“Don’t say that.” Lydia gripped her knee.

“Don’t say it?” She laughed. “It’s all I should be saying. Best hope I got going.”

“I’ll come by more.” Lydia grabbed her hand, held it against her cheek. “Much as I can. I’ve been spending too much time at the loom.”

Lou hated the thought of that place. She had sat at the loom on her old plantation like all the women heavy with child, no longer able to work in the fields, but this place here was different. The images she conjured about The Room haunted her, kept her from its grounds, far from ever stepping foot across its threshold. The fact that everyone who dwelled within its walls died there unnerved her. Lou imagined their spirits hovering like breath at first, then swarming in a frenzy, tumbling about the cabin like a gust of wind, trapped in darkness, bound beneath a roof that suppressed sad souls that couldn’t even reach heaven. She couldn’t allow her mind to think too long of her friend Ruth, good ol’ Dessa rotting away in a pit they couldn’t escape. The only reason she hadn’t joined them was the Lord’s favor of a healthy son on the property supplying her needs. Isaiah, her savior from the pit of death.

“Thank You,” she whispered.

“Ma’am?”

“I ain’t talking to you.” She grinned. “You do just fine, baby, coming to see me. And I’m happy for you. Always been happy you living in the Big House. Can’t hope for much more.” The lie soured in her mouth. She always prayed more, pleaded more for her grandbaby.

“I met somebody.” Lydia wound her tresses into a knot at the back of her neck and spun around. “Name’s John.” Her head tilted when she said it. Oh, yes, Baby Girl was sweet on him. Lou shook her head and chuckled.

“He says I’m different. Says he don’t much care what I look like, but still, I wish my skin was like yours. I can’t help but wish I looked more like you, Grandma.”

“Chil’, don’t ever wish for nothin’ God ain’t gave you. Only the fool wanna be what he ain’t.”

The girl sat up on her knees. “Only fools want to be free?”

Stop it. Just stop it.

“Only fools want to fly away?”

“Lydia…”

“Grandma, I want to be free.” The pleading, the yearning in her voice. Lou couldn’t take it. Stop it.

“I know. Listen to me, Lydia. You don’t got to fly away. Life’s gonna take you on a path all its own if you just stay put.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I mean stay put.” Lou rubbed her crooked fingers and tapped her chest. “On the inside. Stay with your heart and listen real close and let life take you where it whispers. And stop that worrying about what you look like. God made each and every one of us different. And you special. You a perfect pearl. Yes, sirree. Lou’s perfect pearl.”

Lydia stepped outside The Room with her latest design, a cream satin weave dress with capped sleeves draped across her arm.

It was perfect. This one, even before it graced her body, even before it ever had a chance to woo her, reflect to her all she imagined a dress could be, this one was special. Made for her and her alone. Never had gathered cloth and stolen hours resulted in a piece just for her. She would wear it, hide it, dream about a day she could present it to the world. For John.

In her quarters, she peeked out her bedroom door. Behind it, her fingers rested against the knob as she steadied her breathing.

Holding the dress up against her, she walked to the mirror, wrapping her arm across the waist of the gown.

Slowly, she slid out of the old into the new.

When she pulled the cool graze of satin up over her shoulder, the door creaked open. She shrieked, stumbling over the hemline.

“Lydia?”

She turned to see Lizzy standing on the threshold. Her friend’s eyes widened as she glanced over the gown. When her lips parted, Lydia sought to fill them with words, anything, something to say.

“I was just—”

“What? You were…”

“I was just seeing if this would be… I’m sorry. I was— I don’t know what I was thinking.” She wasn’t thinking, had forgotten to block the door with the stool.

Lizzy walked toward her, her mouth still slightly ajar. Would she tell? Snitch to Mrs. Kelly? Dr. Kelly? Lydia’s fingers trembled. She squeezed them steady, gripped them against wet palms.

“Lydia.”

“I know. I know I shouldn’t have. It won’t happen again.” She was panicking. “Please don’t tell your mother or father about it, Lizzy. Please!”

“Lydia.” Lizzy stepped closer. “Lydia.” It was all she had said in the few minutes she’d walked in. And as much as her name on her friend’s lips had comforted her in the past, it now evoked fear in the same measure, thumped terror through her heart.

“Have you seen yourself in this?”

Lydia stared at her.

“Have you looked at yourself?”

She was standing in front of the mirror.

“No, Lydia. I mean, really looked at yourself.”

Lizzy gently spun her around toward her reflection.

“Look. Look at yourself.”

Lydia looked into the mirror. This one, just as she had predicted, fit her perfectly. Unlike the yellow, it gathered under her bust and creased down the front, billowing around her like a queen upon her throne. Her heartbeat slowed. She unclasped her hands.

“Do you see?”

She could see Lizzy behind her, her large blue eyes blinking rapidly. “Lydia. You look like…me.”

She glanced at her blond friend, her own dark hair twisted back in a bun under a scarf. The wide blue eyes, her green ones.

Lizzy’s round face, her high cheekbones. They looked nothing alike.

Except for one thing.

“Take your hair down.”

Lydia hesitated.

“Go on. Take it down.”

She yanked the scarf from her head and raked her braid loose with her fingers. Auburn waves tumbled over pale shoulders.

Lydia swept strands of hair across her scar.

Lizzy ran to the door and fastened it shut before dragging the stool over to the mirror. “Here. Sit,” she instructed. At Lydia’s worktable, she grabbed knitting needles and with a few quick strokes of her hand, secured her hair into a tousled chignon.

Lydia rose to her feet at the transformation. Green eyes blinked back in amazement.

“Do you see it?”

She saw it.

“Lydia.”

She saw it. Before her very eyes, she was changed. Others had spoken of her beauty, but it was the first time she saw it, staring back at her, boldly in the arch of her brow, in the pout of her mouth, the lift of her breasts. No longer a slave. In all the times she had tried on the dresses, she had never thought to arrange her hair. Lady was always in her mind. Never had it manifested before her eyes.Lizzy slipped the pearl necklace from her neck and draped it across Lydia’s. Ivory against ivory. She straightened her back, her neck regal. She grazed her finger over a nose and lips as narrow as any on the side of power. Something flickered in her eyes. And then she knew; she was not like them. She was them. There was no difference. She was not a slave. She was a lady.

The moment she thought it, that very second, her heart fluttered. Was her African ancestry nothing? Was it nothing to be disconnected from the people she loved? She thought of her father in the tobacco fields, her grandmother in the confined slave quarters. She thought of John. “It don’t much matter to me what shade a woman’s skin is.”

Really? What if he saw her now? A sadness overtook the moment. A death of sorts.

“Oh Lydia, you don’t look at all like a slave anymore. You’re beautiful now.”

Was she not the same woman with the same features that she had been only moments before?

“You look White.”

But she was not. Not on the inside. She slipped the dress off her shoulder.

“What’s wrong, Lydia? Don’t you like how you look?”

“I do, but…”

“But what?”

“Never mind, Lizzy.”

“No, tell me.” Lizzy plopped back on Lydia’s bed, her eyes wide with wonder. “I want to know.”

“It’s hard to make clear.” She shook her head. “I love looking like a lady. Just not a White one.” She had come full out of the formal dress now and stood shrugging into her old clothes.

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“I thought everyone wanted to be White.”

“Lizzy.” Such foolishness.

“Well, I did. I’m not trying to be funny, Lydia. I just thought—”

“You really thought we wanted to be White? We don’t want that at all. Just freedom. We want to be free.” I want to be free.

“I’ve never wanted to be White.”

It sounded ridiculous coming from her, a woman as near light as the one on the bed. Even still, it was true. “Never, Lizzy. I just want what you have. I want the same rights as you.”

“As me?” Lizzy laughed. “I’m as much a slave as you in this house. Most women don’t have their say neither. If you’re wanting rights, ask for those my daddy’s got. Now those are rights.”

They both laughed. The thought had never occurred to Lydia. Dr. Kelly was the only one able to come and go as he pleased.

To do whatever godforsaken thing he wanted.

“Lydia.” Lizzy slid to the edge of the bed. “I met a man.”

She laughed again. They were mirrors. Funny how life was.

“You did? Tell me about him.” Lydia joined Lizzy on the bed, sitting on her legs.

“He’s handsome. Charming. Just a perfect gentleman.”