Libertie Kaitlyn Greenidge (ebook reader browser txt) 📖

ears, of the mechanics of a stomach and a lung. It was as if she had become scared that all bodies would sink, as Ben’s had, and that my voice, naming the parts of anatomy, singing of bile and blood, could somehow keep them on the surface. While I recited, her brow creased and worried, and she would mouth the words as I said them. When I was able to finish a list without error, she breathed so heavily it was as if she’d just run a race.

Mama and I were still haunted by Daisy and Ben, so when the war began, it was easy to ignore it, at first. And we did not know how long it would last, or who, exactly, was our enemy, when it started.

Some men in our town talked about joining right away, about convincing the white people to let us fight, convincing the white people that we were worthy enough to die. Or that’s how Mama talked about it when no one else could hear, when it was just me and Lenore listening. “They think that will fix it,” she said. “That white people will finally respect us when we’re dead.” And then she sighed and shot a glance to Lenore, who rolled her eyes and sighed, too.

I think, those first few months of war, I learned a whole new language from just their sighs.

But then it was at our door. That spring, two years into the war, some of the men had left us to join the armies fighting two states over, maybe marching near.

The other ones, they came to us in July, by rowboat, deep in the dark. They found Mama’s by midnight.

It was a family who came first. A mother and father, the mother’s dress torn, her children balling the cloth of her skirts in their fists. They would not let go for anything—that’s what I remember most—their tiny fists tight on muddied homespun, the mother holding the top of her dress to her chest, to keep herself decent. The father had a hat clamped to his head, the brim sticky with blood from his own brow. He wouldn’t take it off while his children were in the room. Mama had to wait while the mother distracted them.

When Mama took off the hat, the father closed his eyes. He did not cry out, because he did not want to scare his children. Then he said, “They’ve gone crazy. The whites in Manhattan have gone crazy. They took Gold Street and Pearl Street, and then they made it all the way to Forty-Second. They’re burning our churches. They are shouting that they won’t fight for niggers, not ever. They surrounded our orphanage, so we were told.

“We were hiding in the house, till we heard that. That’s when we picked up the babies and ran. One of ’em threw a bottle at my head, but we kept running.

“The white men were looking for anyone colored they could find. The white women were reaching out, trying to catch any colored child who ran by. When they caught one, they’d dash ’em against the stones in the street and cheer.

“On our way to the dock, we saw three men hanging from lampposts. The whites were hoisting up a fourth when we reached the wharf.

“We paid all we have in the world to an oysterman for his boat to take us across. We knew not to stay downtown, because there were too many whites there, and we were not sure who was friendly and who would attack. We slept under some pilings, or tried to, and when night fell, we walked to you. We knew it would be safe. Mr. Culver told us to come to you for our wounds. Said this one too deep for him.”

Mama only nodded. She had learned, since Ben Daisy, you let them talk. She called me over after the man’s head was bandaged.

“With luck, there should be more coming,” Mama said. I looked at the man, blood drying on his closed eyelids. So this is luck, I thought. Mama said, “We have to be ready.”

She told me to run to the houses of as many women as I could think of. To find as many of them as I could. I did. I ran down our dirt road and to the main drag, past the church. To Miss Annie, the schoolteacher, and to the choir director and her sister, Miss Nora and Miss Greene, and to Reverend Harland’s daughter, Miss Dinah, to the women who lived on the other side of the churchyard, and even to Miss Hannah. To her door I ran, and said, “Come with me, sister, if you can.”

I brought them all to the crossroads, where Mama and Lenore were waiting with the cart. Mama had her doctor’s bag, and Lenore had lined the cart bed with blankets. Together, we made the long trip to the waterfront. Mama had Miss Hannah sit with her on the driver’s bench. I walked steadily beside them, and I saw Mama, every so often, lean over and whisper in Miss Hannah’s ear that it would be all right. We all knew Miss Hannah hadn’t been downtown since Ben was lost, but she was determined now. Miss Hannah gripped Mama’s arm, and Mama said, “There will be so many of them. You’ll only have their want to think about.” Mama had Miss Hannah hold a blanket over her other arm, to keep her hands from shaking.

But when we got to the waterfront, the whole stretch was empty. There were no boats. “Where are they all?” Miss Dinah said, and only the waves slapping the bottom of the wharf answered her. By then, it was just after dawn. The water before us was first a long line of silver and then a sudden wall of cloud and fog. The smoke from all the fires the whites had set was rolling over to us, across that wide expanse of river, and it mixed