River

Abraham

When she opens her eyes, finally, after the whole day of sitting by her side, I am worried that she will be angry with me still. I have had the entire day for remorse, but she hasn’t.

Gregor told me I should try to make peace with her. I didn’t understand what he meant at first, but I realize it now. I will have to say goodbye to her. She has been hiding it from me, from us all, but it is plain to see now. There isn’t much time left.

And I spent the little time we had in anger, in obsession, in folly.

While I sit by her side, holding her cold hand and listening to her shallow breathing, my mind strangely clearer than it has been in a long time, I begin replaying everything. Not from today. From our past, from our beginning. I remember her joy at Margaret, our firstborn. And at each of our others. I remember her cool head and her firm hand managing our lives. I remember the times I disappointed her, and angered her, and loved her. I feel somehow cleansed, refreshed, brought back to a place where I feel only the love that we shared once, long ago.

She looks at me, but not with anger. It is only sadness in her eyes. “Abraham,” she whispers, her voice nothing but a thread of wind. I lean closer, but she doesn’t say anything further. I think she is waiting for me.

I look into her eyes, as she gazes back at me. I see the Marguerite I know and love in there, shadowed. I lean closer, and murmur, “Marguerite, can you forgive me?” I don’t bother specifying for what. There is so much. It would take too long.

She nods, feebly, and whispers, “Yes, I do. But even more, I love you.”

Tears come to my eyes. I leave my chair and drop to my knees beside her bed, and lay my head upon her thin shoulder. I begin to weep, shattered by her gifts of forgiveness and love. I feel her hand, with almost no strength at all, caressing my hair with a feather-light touch.

Samuel Duncan

It is already dark when I arrive at Ellis Cliffs, but a slave is waiting to take the horse and carriage away to the stables, and Thomas is standing on the porch, softly lit by lanterns hanging from the eaves. He looks more sober than I have ever seen him.

“Tell me, quickly,” I ask him.

He knows exactly what I mean. “Mrs. Ellis was unconscious for most of the day, but she roused just a little, and her maid and daughter were able to get her to take a little bit of broth. She is asleep again. As far as I can tell she is gravely ill. She had fallen but it doesn’t seem like she injured herself. Mr. Ellis seems to have troubles of his own, but he has been staying with her throughout the day.”

We are walking into the house as he briefs me. I pause for a moment. “Did you see everything happen?”

I look at him and shake my head. “It was over by the time I could get here. Did Gregor tell you…?”

“He told me enough. It seems that the main problem right now is Mrs. Ellis. What are the troubles Mr. Ellis has?”

“You mean other than apparently going crazy and trying to whip a slave to death?” I shrug. He goes on. “He got punched in the jaw, it seems.”

“Really? Who would do that?”

“Gregor. Who else?”

Moses

As usual, when I leave the boarding house I go past Nadine’s home, so we can walk to work together. I see her husband Ken just leaving as well, to go to his job at one of the shops in town. We nod cordially to each other.

When we arrive, just as the sun is starting to climb in the sky, we see that Gregor is waiting for us in front of the house. This is quite unusual, and even stranger is the fact that he has some kind of wound healing along the side of his face. I know he did not have that two days ago. I have never seen him look so grim, not even when he warned me to be on the lookout for unsavory characters lurking about.

“I have to explain what is happening before you go inside,” he starts. Nadine and I glance at each other, then back to him. “We have two houseguests within. They will be staying with us for a few days. It is not the married couple you saw yesterday. It is her maid, along with the maid’s baby.” His jaw clenches for a moment before he continues. “When I arrived at Ellis Cliffs yesterday to fetch Margaret’s belongings, her maid was being unjustly whipped. I had to intervene to stop it, or she might have been killed. She will be resting here to recover, before I take her on to Homochitto.”

Nadine seems as shocked as I am, but I think for a different reason. I think she sympathizes with the maid, and is probably already thinking of things that she might be able to do to help. She is a mother through and through, her own large brood of children already grown and moved off to pursue lives of their own. She will cherish the opportunity to take care of this maid as well.

I am shocked because I never thought a white man would care so much about a slave that he would stop a whipping in progress. And apparently put himself at risk to do so, judging by what I realize now must be a lash mark on his face. Gregor might be the strangest man I have ever met, but this only lines up with everything I know about him. He has utter disregard for what society believes, in favor of what he personally feels is right. It makes me admire him even more.

All I say is, “Yes sir, let us know whatever we can do to help.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know yet, we all just need to be kind to her.” A little smile crosses his face, just for a moment. “And I’ll bet you will like her little girl.”

Nadine asks the practical question. “What are their names?”

“Dalila is the mother, Ayola is the baby. Come on in and meet them.”

Dalila

I feel stronger and better than I could have imagined I would. My back is still full of pain, but Rosalind checked it this morning for me and said there isn’t any bleeding any more. I think that is unusual. I have seen other whipped slaves, and it takes days to heal. I don’t understand what happened. It didn’t feel like the lashes weren’t as hard as any others I had seen.

I am still bleeding elsewhere. And in my heart. The sorrow is the worst of it.

But my happiness, my Ayola, has stayed with me as much as she can, and every time I hold her I feel a wonderful warmth, a soothing sensation, a deep healing. I don’t understand this either, but I am very grateful for it. I am glad I am healing quickly. I want to put the entire ugly episode behind me, and the sooner I am healed the sooner it can happen.

Gregor and Rosalind have tended to me with such care that it hardly feels real. They are nothing but kind to me and my daughter. They have left me to sit in the parlor, just as though I am a guest and not a slave, and although it feels awkward to me, they seem to think nothing of it.

Gregor comes back in, after having left for a few minutes, with two other people. With him are an older white woman, and a young black man. He comes to where Ayola and I are sitting. He sits next to me on the sofa, and tells me, “Dalila, this is Nadine and Moses. They are our staff. Anything you need, they will help you with.” They linger a moment, smiling at me and at Ayola, and then leave the room, presumably to attend to their duties.

I can only nod, but I don’t understand. The man, Moses, looks like a slave, but surely the white woman cannot be?

Gregor adds, apparently realizing that I am confused by the presence of his “staff” as he put it, “They are hired servants. I pay them a wage to work here in our home. They have their own homes, which they go to at night.” He pauses for a moment, then continues, “Moses is free.”

“He… he is not a slave?” All the black people I have ever seen in this land have been slaves. This seems very strange to me.

“No. He was freed as a child. He is a free man, working for wages, free to live his life as he chooses.”

It is one more piece of overwhelming information, too much for me to take in. Seeing a free black person, something I never imagined was possible in this land, threatens to make my emotions overflow. This all seems like too much, and I fear I am going to start weeping again. Ayola snuggles a little more closely against me as Gregor watches her. He looks to the side, then says, “Dalila, I think it might be best for you to get a little more rest. I can help you back up the stairs.”

“No, sir, thank you, I can manage on my own.”

He looks at my daughter, and talks to her not as an adult to a baby, but as one person to another, as he always has with her. “Ayola, will you stay with your mother?” She gravely nods at him, reaches out to touch his hand for just a second, then follows me up the stairs, using her hands to scramble along and taking one step at a time with her little toddler legs.

Moses

I don’t know what I am expecting when Gregor leads us inside to meet his guests, but I don’t think it was this. I had not anticipated the loveliness of the maid. I suppose I was only thinking of the whipping he had described, and imagined I would see a shattered person barely clinging to life.

But, no. She is sitting in the parlor, wearing a simple white dress, her baby clasped on her lap. She is even darker than me, and is lovely in a way that only midnight can be, on a quiet, moonless night, with the stars shining all around.

Her eyes meet mine for just a moment, with an expression of gentle curiosity.

It quite takes my breath away.

Nadine

She is no older than my own daughters, and her baby looks the same age as my grandson. I feel an immediate rush of tenderness. She sits quietly, possibly in shock due to not just the whipping but probably what must feel very strange to her, to be here in this house where none of the usual rules seem to apply.

I head into the kitchen, wondering if there might be something I can prepare for her to eat that would comfort her, and see Rosalind there, peering into a washing tub. We hear the sounds of feet going up the stairs. Good, I hope she will get some rest.

I move to see what Rosalind is looking at in the tub.

“It’s her dress,” she tells me, her voice a bit unsteady.

I see now what I am looking at. It is covered with blood. Well, here is something I can try to do to start helping right away. “Did you soak it overnight?” I ask her.

“Yes, and maybe it will help, but it isn’t just that. It was … torn… I think during the ….”

She meets my eyes, and we share a moment of horror. The things that people can do to other people. I will never get used to it.

“Well,” I tell her briskly, “I will see what I can do.” I’m glad to have a tangible task.