She sighed.
“I am eleven, nearly twelve in July. Let me do it, too, Mama.”
She was not looking at me anymore, but at the dusty road that Madame Elizabeth had left on and Lenore had returned to us on. “I suppose it was inevitable,” she said.
“What does ‘inevitable’ mean?”
“If you’re to join us in this work, Libertie, the first lesson is the one Lenore said. Don’t ask so many questions. Only listen and learn.”
This lesson did not appear to apply to Mr. Ben.
The whole day, all he did was question.
“What’s that you’ve got going there, Miss Doctor?”
“Lord, why does the house smell like greens gone bad?”
“Y’all don’t stop at noon to eat?”
“But I still don’t understand who pays you for all this work, because you know niggers ain’t got no money.”
Mama tried, politely, to answer his questions at first while Lenore flat-out ignored him from the start. It was not so bad in the morning, before patients, and before John Culver, the pharmacist’s son, came running for more supplies. Usually, in those hours, Mama and Lenore worked in a silent dance, the only sound being the fire crackling and the glass tops of the medicine jars shifting as they reached for this or that to make or measure.
But the silence of their work seemed to unnerve Mr. Ben, and any time the house began to quiet down, to start the rhythms of women working, he was compelled to speak and break it.
“Does every woman in New York make a biscuit as dry as this?” he said as he reached for his third one that morning.
Mama was only half listening.
“If my woman, Daisy, was still here,” Mr. Ben said, “she’d learn you. Even you, Miss Doctor. Whoever heard of a woman knowing how to make a pill but not a biscuit? It’s not natural. Daisy would learn you, though, if she was still with us. She was sweet like that. She was the type to learn you if you asked.”
Lenore looked up sharply. “Mr. Ben, you’re bothering the doctor.”
And Mr. Ben said, “She can nurse and listen at the same time, can’t she?”
A few moments’ silence. Then.
“Miss Doctor, this tea is weak,” he said.
No answer this time from Mama or Lenore, who had pointedly decided to ignore him.
“Miss Doctor,” he tried again, “why don’t you ever put on new ribbons? My Daisy always tried to make herself pretty, and she wasn’t half as rich or important as you. But she knew how to make herself look nice. If you thought of looking nice, then maybe you’d find a man to come here and live with you. You’re not too old for all that, Miss Doctor.”
At that point, Lenore moved as if she would show him the door, but Mama held up her hand to stay her. She took a deep breath, and then she turned, a tight smile on her face.
“Mr. Ben, I do believe you have not seen the rest of our town. Libertie, take Mr. Ben for a walk.”
“Mama …”
“You said you wanted to be of service in our work. Well, be of service,” Mama said.
So I took Mr. Ben’s hand in my own and led him out into the afternoon sun. When I went back for my cloak, I overheard Mama and Lenore.
“Honestly, it’s a wonder how that Daisy woman got with him in the first place,” Lenore said, and Mama laughed outright. “When will he leave?”
“His sister will be here soon.”
“It’s too much, Doctor.”
“We can bear it,” Mama said.
I took my coat and left.
We were the sole house on the way to town—Grandfather had cleared the brush himself and tried to sell the lots along it to other colored men, but most men, if they were buying, wanted to live closer to the school and the church. Because we were the only family on that road, and had the privilege of naming it after ourselves.
“Sampson Lane,” I told Mr. Ben proudly.
He nodded. He looked above us, where the tree canopy stretched, through which we could see the white sky of spring.
“It’s colder up here in New York,” he said. “I didn’t think a place could be colder than Philadelphia, but Kings County has it beat.”
I did not feel right talking badly about our town, but I also felt my cheeks stinging in the bitter air. I nodded politely, not committing to my guest’s belief but trying to be neighborly, which is what we learned in Sunday school.
Our house, and the road that led to it, were all on higher ground than the rest of our settlement, and as the path sloped down, as our feet began to angle to the earth, the ground became wetter. My boots were spotted in mud, and Mr. Ben’s began to squelch.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We will tell Mama, and she will find better shoes for you.”
“She will, will she?” he said.
“You don’t like Mama,” I said. It had not occurred to me, up until then, that anybody, anyone colored anyways, could dislike my mother. I always saw people speak to her with respect, and even the sick children, who knew to be afraid when they saw a doctor, did not have dislike in their fear, only a kind of awe. So it was a revelation to meet someone who disliked her, and it was so strange that I did not understand it as a threat.
Mr. Ben did not deny it. He only kept walking until finally he said, “You always been free?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You ain’t never been a slave? Your mama neither?”
“No,” I said.
He sighed. “They tell us over and over again what’s not possible. White folks say this ain’t possible, this place ain’t possible. But it’s real. It’s a glory, but it’s … it’s … I wish my Daisy was still here to see it with me. She told me there was places like this. She said if
