But this preacher know what he’s talking about. He got papers he can read and men with him to testify to the same. So finally, the go meeting has come. It’s at noon. Everybody’s gon’ announce their intentions — where they gon’ go and what they gon’ do. We leaving, too.
“Come on now, Josey, put your birthday clothes on,” Charles say, pulling his suspenders over his button-down shirt.
“Yes, Daddy,” Josey say but keeps sitting at the table like she’s done since the end of breakfast, stone-faced and staring straight ahead. She ain’t touched her food. Ain’t brought her hands up from under the table to take even a crumb to her lips. Sweat is beading on both sides of her forehead like it’s hot. I go near her and listen to her breathe in pants. It ain’t her vapors.
“I cain’t believe it’s official,” Charles say, chuckling. “Four months we been free. I guess it’s true what they say: the journey to freedom starts when you first believe it.”
Josey’s breathing quickens. A grunt. Another.
“April’s good as any day to start,” he say, chuckling. “But not good as God, though. He good, ain’t He?”
Charles got one foot halfway in his sock, hopping away from the wall, and almost falls over laughing. . at hisself, and this good news. The first time he heard the rumor of the president’s order from Jacob and Jacob Jr. was when he got home at dusk on the day after the meeting, after what happened to Josey, those months ago. And that day, he had nobody to share his joy with ’cause Josey was already in bed when Charles came in shouting about it.
Josey didn’t move from her mat. She didn’t want her daddy to see her, didn’t want him to know her shame, didn’t want to explain to him what George did. So she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. Rolled over when Charles came through her curtain. She moved just enough for him to see she was alive. So when he whispered that he was home and asked if she heard the good news, she didn’t answer. Didn’t say much the next day, either, or the next. “You all right? You sick?” Charles asked her. A week later he decided that not everybody take good news the same way cause that conclusion was easier than the other. And when he noticed her strange bruises, her eye, and her limp when she walked, he decided that maybe she’d hit her head. “Clumsy,” she said before he could ask her about ’em.
What she shoulda said was, “Look, Daddy! Look what George did to me. Look what he done did.” But she didn’t.
She cared more about Charles than she did herself. Didn’t want his anger to get Charles hurt or worse. You cain’t be black and angry and not be punished for it. But I’m gon’ find a way to tell him. He’d want to know. Or, better, I’d want him to know. Ain’t fair that I’m the only one that got to go through this. He can do something. It ain’t fair that he can choose not to see and make excuses for what he do see, and ask other people who don’t know nothin.
“Woman problems,” Sister Lestine told him. That was why Josey hadn’t woke ’til noon three days in a row and was sleep again by sunset. Charles had gone to Sister Lestine when he first started worrying about Josey’s silences. He stood behind Sister Lestine’s house — the only woman on the row he trusted — wringing his hat, hiding, didn’t want to give the other ladies reason to gossip if they caught him talking private to her. And when she came in from the field, he scared her when he grabbed her and pulled her behind the building. Said he was worried about Josey and she had to help.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Sister Lestine told him. And nothing Josey would likely want to share with him. But if Josey wanted to come by, she’d show her how to care for herself. Charles was too embarrassed to talk to Josey about it. Asked Sister Lestine to do it on his behalf. But when she offered advice, Josey told her she didn’t need help. She wanted to keep to herself.
See, Josey’s sacrifice of quiet was for Charles at first. But she needed to tell him what happened.
Needed to tell somebody.
She needed to tell Charles so he could kill George. And needed to make sure Charles didn’t get caught.
Charles could make a pretty metal flask for George and lace that gift with poison. Make the dying slow. A sickness. No. Make it look like an accident so there ain’t no chance George would heal or that the poison wasn’t enough. But I don’t really want Charles to do it anyway.
I’m the one.
The night after it happened, I went searching for George. I don’t know what I was planning to do but I was gon’ make it matter. When I got to Annie’s house, Slavedriver Nelson was already there. Annie was talking with him in her front room, told him from now on, he needed to come see her about collecting his weekly wage. . ’til George got back. She told him that George “left for Virginia to join the fight in Fredericksburg,” and she didn’t expect him back soon.
I got time to plan better now.
“He’s a young man,” Nelson told Annie. “Not like me. He’s fortunate to serve his country.”
“Indeed, he is,” Annie said.
“Still surprises me, though, that George would go so soon,” Nelson said. “I thought it mighta been cause of what he done.”
“What he did?” Annie said.
“Well I–I. . I didn’t see nothing, ma’am. Heard the two of you arguing and yelling last night, thas all. Heard you asking George about the scratches on his arms and neck. Heard you say, ‘What you do?’ More like, ‘What did you do!’ and, ‘Who’d you do it to?’ So I figured he left ’cause of something he done to a woman. But I see now that he left for something different entirely. A brave man, he is. If there’s anything I can do in his absence, let me know. You always been so good to me and my family.”
“The business in my house is none of yours,” Annie said.
He grinned. “Like I said, you’ve always been good to me and my family. And now that times are getting harder with the war and all, maybe I could forget what I heard.” His crooked smile rose.
Annie said, “You right about times being harder. War will be right here on this porch soon. It’ll be a time for all of us to fight for what we believe, and age won’t be a reason not to. Don’t you agree?”
By the next day, Nelson was fired.
CHARLES PICKS UP his shoes and the sock he couldn’t get on and brings ’em over to the table and sits across from Josey. He sets his shoes on the floor and raises a foot on top of the stool to put his other sock on. “I been waiting a long time for this day,” Charles say. “Cain’t hardly believe it. When I was yer age, this was a fool’s dream. How many of us you think gon’ be out there packed and ready to go? I bet you Miss Laura be first. She want to make up everybody else’s mind about where to go. She need to keep to her own business, that’s what. I reckon it’s gon’ be everybody from here to Montgomery.” He slides his feet into his shoes. “And Jacob Jr. said some niggas who got free early been breaking into other slaves’ quarters, stealing. Can you believe that? Who got less than us? You bet’ believe that if they come ’round here, I’ll cut ’em. So be careful. Especially when you out there alone. And only pack what you need. We’ll get food as we go. And. .”
JOSEY’S ARMS FIDGET under the table like she’s opening a wrapped candy there. Charles say, “Come on now, Josey. Get up. Get ready.”
She keeps sitting and her arms keep flinching under the table. I follow the line of her arm down and under the table to her lap. Her midnight blue dress is stained darker in the middle near the place where one hand is resting. In the other hand she holds a sharp rock. Its edge is red. Blood slides down her bluish ring finger, gathering at the tip, quivering. It drips.