poetry, I'd like to introduce you to Hannah. She's my partner here in the resting room."
I smiled and stepped forward. Drucilla, who before the day was out would ask me to call her Dru, smiled back. Dru, who would become my bosom friend.
PART II
Mid-July, 1888
Issac
B Y MID- J ULY, THREE LEATHER-BOUND GUEST BOOKS HAD BEEN scrawled with the names of visitors to the resting room. Most of the women arrived on foot, others by wagon, and a few of the younger and more daring galloped up the drive on horseback. I'd seen just two of these visitors face to face. The others I'd only glimpsed in their comings and goings from behind the curtained window in my room above the stable or heard as a group mumble through the print shop walls.
Ma had visited as often as she dared, though she'd kept her visits short for fear Mr. Richards would find out that she wasn't in whatever place she'd told him she'd be. When she arrived, Ma would always say, "Let me feast my eyes on you," then walk a circle around me like she was making sure I hadn't lost any of my parts or grown any new ones. After she'd done that, she'd start in fussing about how peaked I looked. "Pale as flour paste," she'd say, shaking her head, then unload the gifts she'd smuggled out from under Mr. Richards's nose by tucking them into secret pockets she'd sewn inside her skirts. One day it'd be a half-loaf of her raisin bread, another a few strips of jerked beef. Always, just before leaving, she'd peck a kiss on my cheek like she'd done when I was little boy.
Only once had she done something different. It was as hot as a blacksmith shop in my room that day, so Ma and I whisper-talked down in the stable. We were sitting in the boat, which, according to Eliza, had been a hobby for the Judgeâa reminder of boyhood days spent sailing off Cape Cod. A boat Eliza had said was mine for the keeping if I finished her. Ma and I sat there in the near dark, side to side.
"Make believe you are on a ship, Ma, the wind strong in her sails," I said after a longer than usual quiet.
"Where might I be sailing off to?" Ma asked, her voice as lively as a girl's.
"Away from Mr. Richards," I answered.
"Please don't say things like that, Isaac. I'm his wife, and I'm beholden to him."
"You owe him nothing."
"But I do. I should have told you this before: he's the one who paid for your pa's plot in the cemetery. He's the one who paid our boarding bill at the Ackerman Hotel. There we were, without a penny to our name and about to be thrown out on the street with no place to go and no family to ask for help, when he raps on the door to our room and says right out that his wife's just died and his boys need a ma and the undertaker's told him of the fix we're in and will I marry him, all in the same breath. I wanted to slam the door in his face, but I didn't, though before I agreed to marry him I made him promise that he'd let you get your schooling."
A knot had tightened like a fist in my gut. "How much did we owe, Ma?"
"Nearly eighty dollars."
"You've paid him back a hundred times, Ma. Slaving in his kitchen, putting up with his foul mouth."
"Enough," Ma said. "Lets not spoil our time together fretting over that which cant be undone. I want to use the little time I have left to talk about a thing that can be undone. You can't go on like this, son, holed up here like a bat in a cave. It's not natural for a body to live like this, not healthy, and I'm begging you to give Mr. Richards the tools so he'll drop the charges against you and you'll be free to live your life out in the open as God intended."
"I can't do that, Ma. You know I can't."
"All I know is that your health is more important than those tools. Holding on to them isn't worth it, Isaac, and Mr. Richards will never give up looking for you, because he knows the law is on his side. The tools rightly belong to him now. When we married, everything that was mine legally became his."
I didn't answer Ma back, just asked her to wait and
I smiled and stepped forward. Drucilla, who before the day was out would ask me to call her Dru, smiled back. Dru, who would become my bosom friend.
PART II
Mid-July, 1888
Issac
B Y MID- J ULY, THREE LEATHER-BOUND GUEST BOOKS HAD BEEN scrawled with the names of visitors to the resting room. Most of the women arrived on foot, others by wagon, and a few of the younger and more daring galloped up the drive on horseback. I'd seen just two of these visitors face to face. The others I'd only glimpsed in their comings and goings from behind the curtained window in my room above the stable or heard as a group mumble through the print shop walls.
Ma had visited as often as she dared, though she'd kept her visits short for fear Mr. Richards would find out that she wasn't in whatever place she'd told him she'd be. When she arrived, Ma would always say, "Let me feast my eyes on you," then walk a circle around me like she was making sure I hadn't lost any of my parts or grown any new ones. After she'd done that, she'd start in fussing about how peaked I looked. "Pale as flour paste," she'd say, shaking her head, then unload the gifts she'd smuggled out from under Mr. Richards's nose by tucking them into secret pockets she'd sewn inside her skirts. One day it'd be a half-loaf of her raisin bread, another a few strips of jerked beef. Always, just before leaving, she'd peck a kiss on my cheek like she'd done when I was little boy.
Only once had she done something different. It was as hot as a blacksmith shop in my room that day, so Ma and I whisper-talked down in the stable. We were sitting in the boat, which, according to Eliza, had been a hobby for the Judgeâa reminder of boyhood days spent sailing off Cape Cod. A boat Eliza had said was mine for the keeping if I finished her. Ma and I sat there in the near dark, side to side.
"Make believe you are on a ship, Ma, the wind strong in her sails," I said after a longer than usual quiet.
"Where might I be sailing off to?" Ma asked, her voice as lively as a girl's.
"Away from Mr. Richards," I answered.
"Please don't say things like that, Isaac. I'm his wife, and I'm beholden to him."
"You owe him nothing."
"But I do. I should have told you this before: he's the one who paid for your pa's plot in the cemetery. He's the one who paid our boarding bill at the Ackerman Hotel. There we were, without a penny to our name and about to be thrown out on the street with no place to go and no family to ask for help, when he raps on the door to our room and says right out that his wife's just died and his boys need a ma and the undertaker's told him of the fix we're in and will I marry him, all in the same breath. I wanted to slam the door in his face, but I didn't, though before I agreed to marry him I made him promise that he'd let you get your schooling."
A knot had tightened like a fist in my gut. "How much did we owe, Ma?"
"Nearly eighty dollars."
"You've paid him back a hundred times, Ma. Slaving in his kitchen, putting up with his foul mouth."
"Enough," Ma said. "Lets not spoil our time together fretting over that which cant be undone. I want to use the little time I have left to talk about a thing that can be undone. You can't go on like this, son, holed up here like a bat in a cave. It's not natural for a body to live like this, not healthy, and I'm begging you to give Mr. Richards the tools so he'll drop the charges against you and you'll be free to live your life out in the open as God intended."
"I can't do that, Ma. You know I can't."
"All I know is that your health is more important than those tools. Holding on to them isn't worth it, Isaac, and Mr. Richards will never give up looking for you, because he knows the law is on his side. The tools rightly belong to him now. When we married, everything that was mine legally became his."
I didn't answer Ma back, just asked her to wait and
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