he’ll let her ’lone. Tonight, anyway.”
“I think he will. Hell, I think he’ll be gentle and patient with her now that he’s got her.”
“Huh!” A sound of disgust. “What’ll you do now?”
“Me? Try to keep the girl clean and comfortable until she gets well.” “I don’t mean that.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?” “She’ll be in. You’ll be out.”
I stared at her, tried to see her expression. I couldn’t, but I decided she was serious. “It’s not like that, Sarah. She’s the only one he seems to want. And me, I’m content with my husband.”
There was a long silence. “Your husband … was that Mister Kevin?” “Yes.”
“Nigel said you and him was married. I didn’t believe it.” “We kept quiet about it because it’s not legal here.”
“Legal!” Another sound of disgust. “I guess what Marse Rufe done to that girl is legal.”
I shrugged.
“Your husband … he’d get in trouble every now and then ’cause he couldn’t tell the difference ’tween black and white. Guess now I know why.”
I grinned. “I’m not why. He was like that when I married him—or I wouldn’t have married him. Rufus just sent him a letter telling him to come back and get me.”
She hesitated. “You sure Marse Rufe sent it?” “He said he did.”
“Ask Nigel.” She lowered her voice. “Sometimes Marse Rufe says
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what will make you feel good—not what’s true.” “But … he’d have no reason to lie about it.” “Didn’t say he was lyin.’ Just said ask Nigel.” “All right.”
She was silent for a moment, then, “You think he’ll come back for you, Dana, your … husband?”
“I know he will.” He would. Surely he would. “He ever beat you?”
“No! Of course not!”
“My man used to. He’d tell me I was the only one he cared about. Then, next thing I knew, he’d say I was looking at some other man, and he’d go to hittin’.”
“Carrie’s father?”
“No … my oldest boy’s father. Miss Hannah, her father. He always said he’d free me in his will, but he didn’t. It was just another lie.” She stood up, joints creaking. “Got to get some rest.” She started away. “Don’t you forget now, Dana. Ask Nigel.”
“Yes.”
9
I asked Nigel the next day, but he didn’t know. Rufus had sent him on an errand. When Nigel saw Rufus again, it was at the jail where Rufus had just bought Alice.
“She was standing up then,” he said remembering. “I don’t know how. When Marse Rufe was ready to go, he took her by the arm, and she fell over and everybody around laughed. He had paid way too much for her and anybody could see she was more dead than alive. Folks figured he didn’t have much sense.”
“Nigel, do you know how long it would take a letter to reach Boston?” I asked.
He looked up from the silver he was polishing. “How would I know that?” He began rubbing again. “Like to find out though—follow it and see.” He spoke very softly.
He said things like that now and then when Weylin gave him a hard
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time, or when the overseer, Edwards, tried to order him around. This time, I thought it was Edwards. The man had stomped out of the cook- house as I was going in. He would have knocked me down if I hadn’t jumped out of his way. Nigel was a house servant and Edwards wasn’t supposed to bother him, but he did.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Old bastard swears he’ll have me out in the field. Says I think too much of myself.”
I thought of Luke and shuddered. “Maybe you’d better take off some time soon.”
“Carrie.” “Yes.”
“Tried to run once. Followed the Star. If not for Marse Rufe, I would have been sold South when they caught me.” He shook his head. “I’d probably be dead by now.”
I went away from him not wanting to hear any more about running away—and being caught. It was pouring rain outside, but before I reached the house I saw that the hands were still in the fields, still hoe- ing corn.
I found Rufus in the library going over some papers with his father. I
swept the hall until his father left the room. Then I went in to see Rufus.
Before I could open my mouth, he said, “Have you been up to check on Alice?”
“I’ll go in a moment. Rufe, how long does it take for a letter to go from here to Boston?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Someday, you’re going to call me Rufe down here and Daddy is going to be standing right behind you.”
I looked back in sudden apprehension and Rufus laughed. “Not today,”
he said. “But someday, if you don’t remember.” “Hell,” I muttered. “How long?”
He laughed again. “I don’t know, Dana. A few days, a week, two weeks, three …” He shrugged.
“His letters were dated,” I said. “Can you remember when you received the one from Boston?”
He thought about it, finally shook his head. “No, Dana, I just didn’t pay any attention. You better go look in on Alice.”
I went, annoyed, but silent. I thought he could have given me a decent estimate if he had wanted to. But it didn’t really matter. Kevin would
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receive the letter and he could come to get me. I couldn’t really doubt that Rufus had sent it. He didn’t want to lose my good will anymore than I wanted to lose his. And this was such a small thing.
Alice became a part of my work—an important part. Rufus had Nigel and a young field hand move another bed into Rufus’s room—a small low bed that could be pushed under Rufus’s bed. We had to move Alice from Rufus’s bed for his comfort as well as hers, because for a while, Alice was a very young child again, incontinent, barely aware of us unless we hurt her or fed her. And she did have to be fed—spoonful by spoonful.
Weylin came in to look at her once, while I was feeding her.
“Damn!” he said to Rufus. “Kindest thing you could do for her would be to shoot her.”
I think the look Rufus gave him scared him a little. He went away without saying anything else.
I changed Alice’s bandages, always checking for signs of infection, always hoping not to find any. I wondered what the incubation period was for tetanus or—or for rabies. Then I tried to make myself stop won- dering. The girl’s body seemed to be healing slowly, but cleanly. I felt superstitious about even thinking about diseases that would surely kill her. Besides, I had enough real worries just keeping her clean and help- ing her grow up all over again. She called me Mama for a while.
“Mama, it hurts.”
She knew Rufus, though. Mister Rufus. Her friend. He said she crawled into his bed at night.
In one way, that was all right. She was using the pot again. But in another …
“Don’t look at me like that,” said Rufus when he told me. “I wouldn’t bother her. It would be like hurting a baby.”
Later it would be like hurting a woman. I suspected that wouldn’t bother him at all.
As Alice progressed, she became a little more reserved with him. He was still her friend, but she slept in her trundle bed all night. And I ceased to be “Mama.”
One morning when I brought her breakfast, she looked at me and said, “Who are you?”
“I’m Dana,” I said. “Remember?” I always answered her questions. “No.”
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“How do you feel?”
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“Kind of stiff and sore.” She put a hand down to her thigh where a dog had literally torn away a mouthful. “My leg hurts.”
I looked at the wound. She would have a big ugly scar there for the rest of her life, but the wound still seemed to be healing all right—no unusual darkening or swelling. It was as though she had just noticed this specific pain in the same way she had just noticed me.
“Where is this?” she asked.
The way she was just really noticing a lot of things. “This is the
Weylin house,” I said. “Mister Rufus’s room.”
“Oh.” She seemed to relax,
