The Invention of Wings (25 page)

She took a deep breath and stared at me for a moment, then she went over and dipped the pen in the ink.

First time I squeezed through the window and went over the wall, Sarah had been gone a week. The worst part was when I had to flop myself over the top of the bricks with nothing but the white oleander for cover. I had the rabbit cane and a thick burlap bundle tied on my back that made me cumbersome, and when I dropped to the ground, I landed on my bad foot. I sat there till the throb wore off, then I slipped out from the trees to the street, just one more slave doing some white person’s bidding.

I chose this day cause missus had a headache. We lived for her headaches. When they came, she took to bed and left us to our blessed selves. I tried not to think how I’d get back inside the yard. Mauma had waited for dark and crawled over the back gate and that was the best remedy, but it was summertime and dark came late, giving plenty of time for folks to wonder where I was.

One block down East Bay, I spotted one of the Guard. He looked straight at me and studied my limp.
Walk steady. Not too fast. Not too slow.
Squeezing the ears on the rabbit, I didn’t breathe till I turned the corner.

It took me twice as long to get to 20 Bull. I stood cross the street and stared at the house, still in need of paint. I didn’t know if Denmark Vesey had got out of the Work House or what had happened to him. Last memory I had from that hellhole was his voice shouting, “Help the girl down there, help the girl.”

I hadn’t let myself think about it, but standing there on the street, the memory came like a picture in a painting.
I’m up on the treadmill, gripping the bar with all the strength I got. Climbing the wheel, climbing the wheel. It never will stop. Mr. Vesey is quiet, not a grunt from him, but the rest are moaning and crying Jesus and the rawhide splits the air. My hands sweat, sliding on the bar. The knot that lashes my wrist to it comes loose. I tell myself don’t look side to side, keep straight ahead, keep going, but the woman with the baby on her back is howling. The whip slashes her legs. Then the child screams. I look. I look to the side and its little head is bleeding. Red and wet. That’s when the edges go black. I drop, my hands pulling free from the rope. I fall and there ain’t no wings sprouting off my shoulders.

In the front window of his house, a woman was ironing. Her back was to me, but I could see the shape of her, the lightness of her skin, the bright head scarf, her arm swinging over the cloth, and it caused a hitch in my chest.

When I got up on the porch, I heard her singing.
Way down yonder in the middle of the field, see me working at the chariot wheel.
Peering in the open window, I saw she had her hips swishing, too.
Now let me fly, now let me fly, now let me fly way up high.

I knocked and the tune broke off. She opened the door still holding the iron, the smell of charcoal straggling behind her. Mauma always said he had mulatto wives all over the city, but the main one lived here in the house. She stuck out her chin, frowning, and I wondered did she think I was the new bride.

“Who’re you?”

“I’m Handful. I came to see Denmark Vesey.”

She glared at me, then down at my twisted foot. “Well, I’m Susan, his wife. What you want with him?”

I could feel the heat glowing off the iron. The woman had been hard done by and I couldn’t blame her not opening the door to stray women. “All I want is to talk to him. Is he here or not?”

“I’m here,” a voice said. He stood propped in the doorway behind her with his arms folded on his chest like he’s God watching the world go by. He told his wife to find something to do, and her eyes trimmed down to little slits. “Take that iron with you,” he said. “It’s smoking up the room.”

She left with it, while he eyed me. He’d lost some fat from his face. I could see the top rim of his cheek bones. He said, “You’re lucky you didn’t get rot in your foot and die.”

“I made out. Looks like you did, too.”

“You didn’t come to see about my health.”

He didn’t wanna beat the bushes. Fine with me. My foot hurt from trudging here. I took the bundle off my back and sat down in a chair. There wasn’t a frill in the room, just cane chairs and a table with a Bible on it.

I said, “I used to come here with my mauma. Her name was Charlotte.”

The sneer he always wore slid off his face. “I knew I knew you from somewhere. You have her eyes.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“You have her gumption, too.”

I squeezed the burlap bundle against my chest. “I wanna know what happened to her.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Coming on seven years.”

When he kept silent, I undid the burlap and spread mauma’s story quilt cross the table. The squares hung nearly to the floor, bright enough to set a fire in the dark room.

People say he never smiled, but when he saw the slaves flying in the air past the sun, he smiled. He gazed at granny-mauma and the falling stars, at mauma leaving my daddy behind in the field, me and her laying in cut-up pieces on the quilt frame. He studied the spirit trees and the one-legged punishment. Didn’t ask what anything meant. He knew it was her story.

I stole a look at the last square where mauma had sewed the man with the carpenter apron and the numbers 1884. I watched careful to see if he’d recognize himself.

“You think that’s me, don’t you?” he said.

“I know that’s you, but I don’t know about those numbers.”

He chuckled outright. “One, eight, eight, four. That was the number on my lottery ticket. The numbers that bought my freedom.”

The room was stifle hot. Sweat dribbled on my temples.
So, that’s her last word, then. That’s what it came to—a chance for getting free. A fancy chance.

I folded up the quilt, wrapped it back in the burlap, and tied it on my back. I picked up my cane. I said, “She was pregnant, you know that? When she went missing, your baby went missing with her.”

He didn’t flinch, but I could tell he didn’t know.

I said, “Those numbers never did come up for her, did they?”

T
he ship ride was harrowing. We plied up the coast for nearly two weeks, sickened by heaving waves off Virginia, before finally making our way along the Delaware to Penn Landing. Arriving there, I had an impulse to bend down and kiss the solid ground. With Father almost too weak to speak, it was left to me to figure out how to retrieve our trunks and hire a coach.

As we drew close to Society Hill, where the doctor resided, the city turned lovely with its trees and steeples, its brick row houses and mansions. What struck me was how empty the streets were of slaves. The sudden realization caused a tightness inside of me to release, one I was not aware existed until that moment.

I found us lodging in a Quaker boardinghouse near Fourth Street, where Father relinquished himself to me—what he ate, what he wore, all decisions about his care. He even turned over the money pouches and ledgers. Every few days, I navigated us to the doctor’s house by hired carriage, but after three weeks of seemingly futile visits, Father still couldn’t walk more than a stone’s throw without exhaustion and pain. He’d lost more weight. He looked absolutely desiccated.

Seated in the doctor’s parlor one morning, I stared at Dr. Physick’s white hair and aquiline nose, a nose very like Father’s. He said, “Sadly, I can find no cause for Judge Grimké’s tremors or his deterioration.”

Father was not the only one who was frustrated. I, too, was weary of coming here optimistic and leaving dismayed. “… Surely, there must be something you can prescribe.”

“Yes, of course. I believe the sea air will do him good.”

“Sea air?”

He smiled. “You’re skeptical, but it’s quite recognized—it’s known as thalassotherapy. I’ve known it to bring even the gravely ill back to health.”

I could only imagine what Father would say to this.
Sea air.

“My prescription,” he said, “is that you take him to Long Branch for the summer. It’s a small, rather isolated place on the New Jersey shore known for its sea cure. I’ll send you with laudanum and paregoric. He should be outside as much as possible. Encourage him to wade in the ocean, if he’s able. By fall, perhaps he’ll be recovered enough to travel home.”

Perhaps I would be home with Nina before September.

The doctor had said Long Branch was small, but he’d exaggerated. It was not small, it was not even miniscule; it was barely existent. There were four farmhouses, one tiny clapboard Methodist church, and a dry goods store. Neither was the place “rather isolated”; it was woefully isolated. We traveled by private coach from Philadelphia for six days, the last one bumping over a foot trail. After stopping for toiletry supplies in the dry goods, we continued a ways further to Fish Tavern, the only hotel. It was perched atop a bluff overlooking the ocean—a large, sea-weathered edifice. When the clerk informed us that prayer meetings were held in the communal dining hall after dinner, I took it as a sign God had guided us.

Father had come willingly, too willingly, it seemed. I’d felt sure he would insist on returning to South Carolina. I’d expected him to quip, “Do we not have sea-air in Charleston?” but when I’d broken the news to him there in Dr. Physick’s examination room, careful to use the word
thalassotherapy,
he’d only looked at me for a long, strange moment. A shadow passed over his face, what I took to be disappointment. He said, “Let’s go to New Jersey then. That’s what we’ll do.”

That first afternoon before dusk, I brought cod soup to Father’s room. When he tried to eat it, his hand quivered so violently, spoonfuls splattered onto the bed sheets. He lay back against the bedstead and let me feed him. I chattered about the squalling ocean, about the serpentine steps that led from the hotel down to the shore, almost frantic to divert us from what was happening. His mouth opening and closing like a baby bird’s. Ladling in the colorless broth. The helplessness of it.

While I fed him, the crush of waves filled the room. Through the window, I could see a swatch of water the color of pewter, whipped by the wind into frothing swells. Finally, he put up his hand to let me know he’d had enough of soup and babbling both.

I placed the chamber pot on the floor nearby. “Good night, Father.”

His eyes were already closed, but his hand fumbled for my forearm. “It’s all right, Sarah. We will let it be what it is.”

17 July 1819

Dear Nina,

We are settled at Fish Tavern. Mother would call the place shabby, but it was once elegant and it has character. The rooms are nearly filled with boarders, but I’ve met only two. They are elderly widowed sisters from New York, who come to prayer meetings each evening in the dining room. I like the younger one quite a lot.

Father commands all of my attention. We came for the sea air, but he hasn’t ventured from his room. I open the window, but the squawking gulls annoy him, and he orders the window closed by noon. I’m quite devious—I leave it open a crack and tell him it’s shut. It’s all the more reason I must go to the dining room and pray with the sisters.

At fifteen, you are old enough that I may speak sister to sister. Father’s pain grows worse. He sleeps long, fitful hours from the laudanum, and when I insist he take some exercise around the room, he leans heavily against me. I must feed him most of his meals. Still, Nina, I know there’s hope! If faith moves mountains, God will rally Father soon. Each day, I sit by his bed and pray and read the Bible aloud for hours at a time. Don’t be angry at me for my piety. I am Presbyterian after all. As you know, we’re fond of our gall and wormwood.