Columbia is the story of Theodore Lomax, a nineteen-year-old Union solider in the American Civil War, who is as committed as any to the ideal of human freedom. After being assigned to the army of William Tecumseh Sherman, shortly after the general’s infamous March to the Sea, he willingly participates in the destruction of civilian property in Columbia, South Carolina, believing his acts are justified by Southern resistance to the Northern cause of emancipation. But when the destruction escalates into violence against the civilians themselves, he becomes disillusioned, and feels compelled to strike out in opposition to his own countrymen.
The novel is told from Lomax’s point of view, but there are ten other supporting characters, each with a story of his or her own. There was a time when I thought these stories, or these “Reflections in Broken Glass,” should alternate with the chapters in Columbia, presenting a richer but perhaps more tangled tapestry of the lives that painfully converge in the novel’s climactic scenes. But Columbia is clearly a more coherent narrative without them. Still, they were valuable to me as an author, and so I’ve decided to share them here.
“Emily,” centers on the character of Emily Andrews, and describes the confusing tangle of desires, memories, and fears from which she constructs her perception of the outside world and the people in it.
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It was a nice house and a nice family that lived there. Both were large. The house had three floors and nine different rooms. The family had Mommy and Daddy, and six children. Emily, her sister, Sally, and her four brothers: Zebulon, Marcus, Frederick, and Reuben. They spent a lot of their time sitting in the small wooden chairs, or laying on the little wooden beds -- beds with fluffs of cotton tied up in little sacks for pillows and fabric swatches, hand cut and hemmed, for comforters -- or bouncing up or down the staircases that connected the three levels. They were seldom all together in one place, and when they spoke to each other, it was inevitably in groups of no more than two or three. Emily was always among them.
“Hi, Sally,” Emily said.
“Hi, Emily,” Sally replied. “How are you today?”
“Emmy’s fine,” Emily said, feeling fine.
“That’s good,” Sally said.
“Sally?” Emily said.
“Yes, Emily?”
“Where Mommy go?” Emily loved Mommy.
There was the face again. The kind, gentle, beautiful face Emily loved. Emily didn’t know who the person with the face was. Emily didn’t even know her own name was Emily or what to call any of the soft and unfamiliar objects she felt all around her. But she did know what love was, and she knew she loved that face. Peering down on her from above with its happy and sparkling eyes, Emily herself could not consciously keep the smile from coming to her own face. When she smiled, the face smiled, and when they were both smiling, Emily’s tiny and infant world was filled with joy.
“Here she is,” Sally said just as Mommy flew into the room and stood next to Sally.
“Hello, Emily,” Mommy said, her voice a falsetto version of Sally’s.
Emily laughed. Mommy didn’t really sound like that. “Mommy, Emmy wants to make cookies.” She loved cookies.
The cookies were warm, still not completely cooled from the time they had spent baking in the oven. Emily stood mesmerized in the middle of the kitchen floor, staring with abject longing at the sheet of cookies, breathing deeply the aroma-filled air.
“You stay away from dem cookies,” Bessie said. “Miss Victoria said you can’t have none until after supper, you hear? You mind your Aunt Bessie, now.”
Emily did not hear Bessie’s words, lost as she was in the hunger of desire and anticipation. She wanted the cookies, wanted all of them, wanted to gorge herself on their sweet goodness until they filled her up and she became a cookie.
“You want to make cookies?” Mommy said, her head bobbing back and forth and her sewn-in hair flapping around her face.
“Yes!” Emily said. She loved cookies, especially oatmeal cookies with raisins.
“Mom!” Frederick cried. “Emily’s eating my raisins!”
Emily chomped blissfully on a mouthful of raisins, a mixture of their skin, pulp, and her saliva running down her chin.
“Well, we’ll have to go to the kitchen for that,” Mommy said.
“Okay!” said Emily.
They were all in the dining room and had to move back to get to the kitchen. Mommy and Sally just flew around the wall but Emily was careful to go through the door that swung freely on two small hinges. Using her head to push it open, she came through and let it swing shut behind her.
“What kind of cookies do you want to make, Emily?” Mommy asked.
“Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint,” Emily said. She loved peppermint.
As soon as they entered the store, Emily’s eyes were riveted on the big glass jar of peppermint candies kept on the front counter. Every time Mommy took Emily to market, the storekeeper would give her one of the peppermint candies from that big glass jar. They were sweet like sugar and they tickled her nose and Emily would do just about anything to get one, even wear the short dresses and uncomfortable shoes she hated but which Mommy insisted she wear whenever going to market.
“And how is little Emily, today?” the storekeeper asked, looking down into Emily’s wide face but really speaking to Victoria. “Does she want a peppermint?”
Emily stretched out her arms at the sound of the word ‘peppermint’ and flexed and unflexed her fingers like tiny claws.
“Raisins and peppermint?” Mommy exclaimed. “I’m not sure we’ve ever made that kind before. Do we even have any peppermint in the house?”
“Yes!” Emily said.
“We do?” Mommy asked. “Where?”
“In the cupboard,” Emily said. Peppermint candy was yummy.
With the peppermint candy in her mouth, Emily rolled it rapturously over and under her tongue, its sugary sweetness dancing across her taste buds and making her heart beat faster. She loved the thick, syrupy texture her salvia took on while sucking on a peppermint candy, and she noisily moved the liquid around in her mouth, relishing the feel and the taste of it all.
“Okay,” Mommy said. “Let’s take a look.”
Mommy moved next to the cupboard that stood over the little wooden prep table and it opened to reveal a stack of thin metal discs that were to be used as silver plates in the dining room.
“Hmmm,” Mommy said, peering into the cupboard. “Looks like we have everything we need to make cookies -- sugar, butter, eggs, oatmeal, and raisins -- but no peppermint. Sally, will you run down to market and get some peppermint for Emily’s cookies?”
“Yes, Miss Victoria,” Sally said, and then flew out of the kitchen.
“Emily,” Mommy said. “Will you help me get the other things down from the cupboard?”
“Okay, Mommy,” Emily said, moving next to Mommy and watching as three of the flat metal discs came down to rest on the prep table.
“Should we start mixing the batter?” Mommy asked.
“No!” Emily said. “Wait for Sally and the peppermints!” Some would go in the batter, but Emily would eat some of the peppermints when Sally got back.
“Oh, Emily,” Mommy said. “We can add the peppermints to the prepared batter when Sally gets back. They’ll mix right in. Okay?”
“Okay,” Emily said. It was okay. She would still eat some when Sally got back.
Suddenly Daddy flew into the room. “Did I hear someone was making cookies in here?” he asked, his voice unnaturally low and deep and also sounding a lot like Sally’s.
“Yes, Daddy!” Emily said happily. She loved Daddy.
“Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy,” Zebulon said as he bounced his baby daughter on his knee. “Look, Victoria. She’s riding a horse.”
Emily stared up into Daddy’s face, so different from Mommy’s with its big nose and big ears and bushy white whiskers, but still she loved it, loved it more than she would ever be able to say.
“Yes,” Victoria said warily. “Be careful with her, Zeb.”
“Oh, she’s perfectly safe. Aren’t you, little girl,” Zebulon said, leaning forward to brush his whiskers against Emily’s nose. “Aren’t you?”
Emily laughed, a joyful and innocent thing she could no more control than understand. But it made her happy. It made her so happy.
“Mommy and Emmy are making cookies,” Emily said proudly.
“What kind of cookies are you making?” Daddy asked.
“Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint,” Emily said, imagining how they would taste and feeling her heartbeat quicken in her desire for them.
“Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint!” Daddy repeated, the stiff felt of his jacket projecting out awkwardly from his body. “That sounds delicious. May I have some?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Emily said. “Emmy’s helping Mommy mix the batter but we have to wait until Sister gets back from market with the peppermints before we bake them.” Some would go into the batter, she remembered, but others she would eat.
“Emily,” Daddy said slowly, “what did you say? We have to wait until who gets back from market?”
“Sister,” Emily said easily, envisioning Sally’s brown face in her uncluttered mind as she spoke the word. “Sister’s bringing back peppermints for the batter but Emmy will eat some, too.”
“Sister?” Daddy said. “Don’t you mean Sally?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Sister Sally. Sally is bringing Emmy the peppermints.” Emily loved Sally.
“Dollies!” Emily practically screamed as she jumped up and down in place. “Sally and Emmy play dollies!”
“Go on,” Victoria said with a sigh. “Go on and play with her. But only until three o’clock. You need to start making supper then.”
“Yes, Miss Victoria.”
Emily took Sally by the hand and began pulling her upstairs towards her room. Emily loved to play dollies, and no one else in the house would do it with her. Not Mommy, not Daddy, not any of her brothers. But Sally would. Emily loved Sally. Sally was her sister.
“Emily, dear,” Daddy said, his voice a little less low and sounding even more like Sally’s. “Sally is not really your sister. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sally is Emmy’s sister,” Emily said, remembering what it was like before Sally had come to live with them and how happy she had been when Sally arrived.
Bessie held Emily back as best she could, fearful the child would run out into the street and get trampled by the team pulling up. When the buckboard finally came to a halt Bessie released her and Emily went charging down into the dust kicked up by the animals’ feet.
“Sister!” she cried, when she spied Sally sitting by herself in the back of the wagon. “Sister! Sister!” she wailed while attempting to climb up into the buckboard to smother Sally with hugs and kisses, but was prevented in the throes of her excitement by her own inability to direct her limbs appropriately.
“Sally and Emmy play dollies,” Emily said. None of her brothers had ever done that.
“Emily,” Daddy said patiently, his voice still too high to really be his. “Sally is not your sister. She’s a slave. Do you know what a slave is?”
What was Daddy saying? Sally was not her sister? Was he teasing her the way her brothers often did?
“Hey, Emily,” Marcus said. “Where’s your sister? Where’s Sally?”
“In the kitchen,” Emily said, kicking her heels absently against the legs of her chair while the other boys began to snicker around the table.
“That’s right,” Marcus said. “She’s in the kitchen. Your sister Sally is in the kitchen making me my lunch. Ain’t it great having a sister like Sally?”
Emily nodded. It certainly was great having a sister like Sally. Emily loved Sally.
“You know,” Marcus said. “I think after lunch I’m going to have Emily’s sister Sally wash my socks. They ain’t been washed in about a month and they could sure use it. What do you think, Emily? Do you think I could get your sister Sally to wash my socks?”
Her other brothers were laughing and this made Emily smile. She rarely knew what they were laughing about but the sound of their mirth made her happy all the same. She looked up at Marcus, sensing he had asked her something but too distracted by their laughter to remember what it was.
“And while she’s at it,” Marcus said, “maybe she can wash some of that black stuff off her skin. I’ve never seen a member of this family so black before. She’s even blacker than my dirty socks.”
“Sally and Emmy play dollies,” Emily said again, confident in that fact but suddenly uncertain about everything else.
“Well, that doesn’t make her your sister,” Daddy said, his voice creeping back down to the lower register Emily was used to. “She’s not my child the way you and the boys are. She’s a slave. I brought her in from the plantation to help out Bessie. Do you remember Bessie?”
Bessie, Emily thought. The name was familiar to her but she had difficulty remembering.
You mind your Aunt Bessie, now.
“You remember Bessie,” Daddy told her. “She used to help you pull carrots from the garden and peel them with that old wood-handled knife.”
“Bessie!” Emily said happily, remembering the way the carrots tasted coming straight out of the ground. Emily loved fresh carrots.
“No, no. Away from you. Like this, child.”
Bessie took the knife out of Emily’s hands and scraped it down the length of the carrot. The knife was old and the blade was dull, and rather than peel the carrot it just kind of scored it, sending up a moist orange spray of carrot dew and wiping away most of the dirt.
“Emmy do!” Emily cried, jumping up and down and reaching out for the knife. “Emmy do!”
“Okay, okay,” Bessie said. “But like I showed you, now.”
“Emmy remembers Bessie,” Emily said.
“Well, Bessie was a slave,” Daddy said, “and so is Sally. I brought them both here to help out around the house. They didn’t have a choice. They’re my slaves. They have to do what I tell them. Do you understand?”
Emily wrinkled her brow unconsciously, the way she always did when she tried to force a square concept into the round holes in her brain. At the very edges of her vision, the dark and shadowy mist that sometimes enveloped her began to swirl, drifting down into her field of vision in smoky tendrils that frightened her for their opacity and her inability to control them.
And the voices, Emily. Don’t forget about the voices. The voices always come with the black mist and that’s what scares you the most.
Emily still wasn’t sure what made Sally different. After all, Emily always did what Daddy told her to. Did that make Emily his slave, too?
“Sally is Emmy’s sister,” Emily said stridently. “Sally and Emmy play dollies.”
“Yes,” Daddy said kindly. “You play dollies with Sally and Sally likes to play dollies with you, but that doesn’t make her your sister. Look, I’ll prove it to you. Who’s older, Sally or Emily?”
“Sally!” Emily sang out, the swirling shadows beginning to retreat as easily and as inexplicably as they had begun to invade. That one was easy. Sally had taught her that. Sally was fifteen and Emily was thirteen. Sally had taught her how to count her numbers and Emily could count all the way up to twenty if she had to.
“That’s right,” Daddy said. “Sally is two years older than you. She was two years older than you last year and she’ll be two years older than you next year. She’ll always be two years older than you because she was born two years before you were. Do you understand that?”
Emily’s brow began to wrinkle again and the blackened vapors began to recover from the temporary losses they had sustained.
Sally was fifteen and Emily was thirteen. She could count up to twenty if she had to.
“Well, don’t worry about that,” Daddy said. “You agree Sally is older than you, right?”
“Yes,” Emily said with none of her former certainty. “Sally is fifteen and Emmy is thirteen.”
“Right,” Daddy said, “and if Sally was your sister, since she is older than you, she would have been with us before we came to this house. Like your brothers. They’re all older than you, too. Can you remember a time when your brothers were not part of this family?”
It seemed like a lot of information for Emily to deal with. Thinking so hard like this sometimes made the shadows on the edge of her consciousness churn faster and force their way more boldly into her field of vision. They frightened her, these black and unfathomable shadows, descending down over her eyes and blocking out all that stood between her and the world outside her.
And the voices. Don’t forget about the voices.
“Think about it, Emily,” Daddy said. “Can you remember a time when your brothers were not part of the family?”
“No,” Emily said unsteadily, trying to keep the inky blackness at bay. Zebulon, Marcus, Frederick, and Reuben. She tried to focus on them. They were her big brothers and she loved them all. They sometimes teased her but they had always been there.
“Hey, Emily. Where’s your sister? Where’s Sally?”
“And what about Sally?” Daddy said. “She’s older than you, too. Just like your brothers. But I bet you can remember a time when Sally wasn’t with the family. Can’t you?”
Why was Daddy saying all these confusing things? Didn’t he know the more he said them the deeper the blackness over her vision became? Swirling and churning now around a small center circle of light that was the outside world. Sometimes the blackness blotted out that light altogether and Emily found herself lost in the midnight darkness of her own beleaguered mind. That’s when the voices would come and that’s what frightened her most of all, although she could not articulate it and did not even realize it consciously. Her most primal fear was getting lost in her own reptilian brain and never being able to find her way out.
She didn’t want to talk about this. She wanted to make cookies. Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint.
“Emily,” Daddy said, jumping forward to stand right in front of her. “Look at me. Can you remember a time when Sally was not part of the family?”
Shapes in the blackness now, black shapes with black outlines, rolling and surging like animals in a cage, struggling to close down Emily’s perception of the world around her.
“No,” Emily said fearfully.
“No?” Daddy said. “Oh, come on, now. You must. We were only here a few days before I brought Sally in from the plantation. What about where we lived before coming here? Do you remember that?”
“No,” Emily said again, as before, more to the hoary and frightening shapes passing before her eyes than to Daddy.
“You don’t remember where you lived before coming here?” Daddy said, his voice suddenly losing all of its feigned bass quality and sounding exactly like Sally’s. “You have to remember that. It was out west, wasn’t it? What did Miss Victoria say? Missouri?”
“Cookies,” Emily said softly as the black shapes before her began to sprout strange and distorted human faces, eyes empty and void in the blackness that surrounded them and mouths twisted open as if in shrieks of agony. “Emmy bake cookies.”
“Just a minute,” Sally said, putting the dolls down and grasping Emily’s arm. “Was it Missouri or wasn’t it? You must remember something about it.”
“Cookies!” Emily suddenly screamed, as if the word was a talisman against the supernatural forces that plagued her. If she screamed loud enough, she might be able to drown out the voices. She couldn’t help but see the faces, but their voices -- maybe she could drown out their voices. Unaware of her own actions she shook the doll clamped in her thick little fingers until it bounced against the walls of the doll house. “Emmy bake cookies!”
“Okay, okay,” Sally said. “Calm down.”
The blackened faces filled Emily’s world now, advancing and retreating in dizzying patterns of repetition and completely blocking out any view of the world around her.
“Cookies!” Emily wailed again, desperate to stay where she was, desperate not to be dragged down into the place where the faces tormented her. Her words began to slur as her tongue stumbled over them in her mouth. “Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint!”
Sally quickly scooped up the Mommy doll again and stood her upright in the small kitchen. “Emily!” she said for her, shouting above Emily’s temper in the light falsetto voice she adopted for Victoria. “Emily! It’s time to make the cookies, honey! It’s time to make the cookies!”
Some of the faces seemed to melt back into the surrounding darkness, little pinpricks of light from the outside world shining through where the worst of them had been.
“Emmy bake cookies, Mommy,” Emily said, her voice still agitated but more in hope than in despair.
“Yes, I know,” Mommy said soothingly. “Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint. I think I see Sally coming back from market with the peppermint candies.”
“Sally?” Emily cried, now with an excitement that seemed to banish the blackness which had so nearly consumed her and firmly bringing back the light of reality. “Sally bringing the peppermints?” Emily loved peppermint.
Sugary-sweetness, rolling over her tongue and slipping down her throat.
“Here I am,” Sally said, bounding back into the kitchen as Daddy, unnoticed, was dragged off over the edge and out of sight. “I’m just back from market and I brought the peppermints.”
“Emmy wants some!” Emily cried. “Emmy wants some peppermints!”
The rush of sugar coursing through her veins, the powerful, almost medicinal tickle it brought to her nose, the raw and insistent satisfaction of taste and sensation.
“Oh, Emily,” Mommy said, jumping forward and stooping down as she spoke. “The peppermints are for the cookies.”
“Emmy wants some!” Emily cried again, a touch of the former desperation creeping back into her voice. “Emmy wants some peppermints!”
“Oh, Emily,” Mommy said again. “I don’t know. If there’s one thing I don’t like it’s cookies with raisins and peppermints without enough peppermints. Sally,” she said, spinning to face the little slave girl, “how many peppermint candies did you bring? Is there enough for the cookies and for Emily to have some?”
“I think so, Miss Victoria,” Sally said with something close to mock servility in her voice. “I knew how much Emily liked them so I brought enough for the cookies and enough for you both to have some.”
“Hooray!” Emily cried. Emily loved Sally.
Sally was her sister.
“And here they are,” Sally said, moving forward and bumping into the kitchen prep table as if she had placed something on it.
It was almost as if Emily could see the shiny little red and white candies go spreading across the table. “Can Emmy have some, Mommy? Mommy, please, please, please, can Emmy have some?” They had just recently taught Emily the magic word and she remembered to use it now, remembered to use it whenever there was something she wanted that she needed permission before taking.
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Emmy wants some raisins. Emmy wants some raisins, Mommy!”
“I hear you,” Victoria said, “but you can’t have any because you didn’t say the magic word. Young ladies always use the magic word when they ask for something.”
“Please, Mommy? Please, please, please?
“No,” Victoria said. “It’s too late now. You should have said ‘please’ to begin with.”
“Please, please, please, Mommy?”
“Forget it, Emily. Frederick’s going to eat all the raisins because he asked nicely and you didn’t.”
“Of course you can, honey,” Mommy said. “Help yourself, Emily.”
Emily tipped forward and slapped her face against the hard surface of the prep table, forgetting about her hands and arms in her desire for the peppermint candies. She made some slurping sounds and then stood upright again.
She rolled the peppermint candy around in her mouth, running her thick, wet tongue across its sweet surface and sucking on it as if the syrupy-sweet saliva that resulted spurted out from the candy itself.
“Mmmm,” Emily moaned satisfyingly. “Emmy likes peppermints.”
Mommy suddenly tipped forward, too, slapping her face against the table as Emily had done and sliding it back and forth over the rough wooden surface. The slurping sounds she made were unlike any Victoria had ever made in her life.
“I like peppermint candy, too, Emily,” Mommy said, standing back upright and smacking her lips as if she was really sucking on a mouthful. “I think I like it better than anything in the whole wide world.”
“Sally, too!” Emily cried. “Sally gets some, too!” As one of her favorite people, Emily wanted Sally to share in their joy.
Sally was her sister.
“What?” Mommy said. “What did you say, honey?”
“Sally gets some peppermints, too!”
Mommy stopped smacking her lips. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, honey. Sally doesn’t get any.”
“Sally gets some!” Emily cried in horror, sensing without understanding some great injustice at work. A streak of color shot across her vision, but this time instead of black, it was of the deepest red.
“No,” Mommy said severely, “I’m afraid not. Sally is a slave and slaves don’t get any candy. Not ever.”
There was that word again. That word that made her mad because she could not understand what it meant. Another streak of red. Unlike the blackness that seemed to swirl in from the edge of her vision when she was afraid, these flashes of crimson seemed to shoot out from random points.
“No!” Emily demanded. “Sally not slave. Sally sister. Sally gets peppermints!”
“Miss Victoria?” Sally said, turning towards Mommy. “May I have a peppermint candy, please?”
“No,” Mommy said immediately, almost as if she had known what Sally was going to ask. “No, you cannot. I’m the master and you’re the slave. That means you have to do what I say, and that means no peppermint candy for you.”
“But why?” Sally asked. “What harm would it do?”
“It’s not a matter of harm, Sally,” Mommy said, again starting on the very end of Sally’s words, as if knowing what the slave girl was going to say. “It’s about knowing your place. Now, don’t test me, Sally. We’ve had this talk before. I’ll not have a slave in my house eating peppermint candy with my daughter.”
Emily did her best to keep up with this conversation but it quickly proved too much for her. As her frustration grew so did her anger and the streaks of dark, blood red that splashed in front of her eyes and began to obscure her vision.
“Mommy!” she cried, knowing what she wanted but not able to express it.
“You see how you treat slaves, Emily?” Mommy said. “Much different than daughters or sisters. You’ve got to keep crushing them down or they’ll try to rise up, especially the ones you take off the plantation and move to the city. You’ve got to keep them in their place. Do you know what that means, keeping a slave in her place?”
Emily could not offer a response to Mommy’s question, her mind seeming to freeze up as she struggled to contain the fire beginning to burn within.
“That means lots of things,” Mommy said, undaunted. “Like being able to fetch peppermint candies but not eating any. Like being able to mend stockings but not wearing any. Like being able to read letters but not writing any. It’s great having a slave like Sally around. We can make her do just about anything we want, and we never have to ask her how she feels about anything. If you ask me, I’m not sure slaves can even feel anything in the first place.”
The redness was thick now, running down in front of Emily’s eyes like syrupy rain on a windowpane. “Mommy,” Emily said, pressing her hands against her forehead, pushing back against the pressure. “Stop, Mommy.”
“Come on, honey,” Mommy said, her voice dripping with sweetness and honey. “It’s fun. I’ll show you. Let’s make Sally do something she doesn’t want to do. You want cookies, right? Let’s make her bake the cookies and then not let her eat any.”
“No!” Emily cried, the tears beginning to flow, the redness thick as molasses and blotting out the world around her. “Sally gets some. Sally gets some, too!” She was angry. Emily knew what angry was. Mommy had taught her about angry and had told her that it was naughty to be angry, but frequently Emily found she could not help herself.
“Are you angry, Emily?” Victoria asked her coolly. “I’ve told you how naughty it is for young ladies to get angry, haven’t I?”
Hearing Victoria’s words but not able to contain herself, Emily lashed out and hit the little girl with the colorful toy. Emily had been playing with it. Why did she have to share it with anyone else?
“Emily!” Victoria cried, shocked her daughter would engage in such behavior. “You are not to hit other children. Do you hear me? That is very naughty. Naughty, naughty, naughty!”
And now it was Mommy herself making her angry. Mommy, who Emily loved above all others. Mommy, who Emily had once been a part of, remembering and longing for that connection ever since it had been lost in a way her simple mind could never fully understand or articulate. Mommy was now making her angry, Mommy with this talk about Sally not getting any cookies.
“No!” Emily screamed, balling her chubby hands into fists and shutting her eyes tightly against the crimson flow. “Sally eat cookies! Mommy and Emmy and Sally all eat cookies together!”
“I don’t think so,” Mommy said, her tone the one she always used when there would be no discussion on a matter. “Sally is my slave, Emily, and yours, too. It’s just fine to have our slave make the cookies, but there is no way I’ll sit by and let her eat cookies with us. Next thing you know I’ll be warming up some milk for her and tucking her in at night. I do those things for you, Emily, because you are my daughter, my own flesh and blood, and I love you more than life itself. Sally is just a slave, dear. Just a slave who should never forget her place in this household.”
Emily began to pout. It was the only thing she could do when Mommy talked to her like that. She dimly remembered a time when she would have hit when she was angry. But Mommy had taught her it was naughty to hit, that it was naughty to be angry. She still hit when she was angry, she mostly could not help herself, but even so the thought of hitting Mommy was troublesome to her. She could not help getting angry at Mommy, but there was some instinctual impression deep within her abnormal brain that kept her from hitting Mommy. So instead of hitting she would pout and sometimes she would cry and, surprisingly, between the two of them, they would usually allow her to get her way. As inwardly-focused as Emily was, she was still perceptive enough to know there was something about her pouting and more especially about her crying -- and screaming, screaming was always the next step after crying -- that unnerved Mommy, that made Mommy scramble to find something to make her stop. But there were times when neither pouting nor crying nor even screaming would work, when Mommy seemed unconcerned and even a little disdainful of Emily’s tantrums, and nothing Emily could do would work to bend Mommy to her childish will. At these times, Emily’s natural reaction was to be scared, because it was less like Mommy was being a little more firm with her and more like Mommy wasn’t Mommy at all.
“Come on,” Mommy said suddenly. “You want cookies, don’t you? Let’s have Sally make us some cookies. Sally,” she said, turning to the slave girl whose face and hands had been carefully darkened by some of Daddy’s shoe polish, “make me and my daughter some cookies.”
“Yes, Miss Victoria.”
“Well, hurry up,” Mommy said, immediately on the end of Sally’s utterance, not giving her time to think, much less move. “What are you waiting for, slave? Get moving! Make us some damn cookies!”
“Yes, Miss Victoria,” Sally said, scrambling forward as she spoke and hopping up and down in front of the prep table.
Emily’s ears heard Mommy’s use of the naughty word, and at some level her mind must have perceived it, for she knew it was unreal and out of place. The Mommy who was cowed by her crying, Emily had never heard that Mommy use such a word before. But this one, this one who lived in this small house, the one that at times didn’t really seem much like the other Mommy, this Mommy spoke that way from time to time and it always made Emily feel dizzy. But she was getting lost in the thick red soup now becoming her world and was losing touch with the sights and sounds that surrounded her. Some level of perception was still there, and if this time was like any of the others, she would never lose touch entirely, but it was quickly becoming as if she was somewhere else. Now there seemed to be other people and other voices swirling around in the red protoplasm, people and voices from the past.
“Go on, Emily,” Marcus said, “Say it. Say it.”
Emily looked at the four of them, wanting to be like them, wanted to be them, and not knowing how.
“Yeah, Emily,” Frederick said. “Go on. It’s okay.”
Emily looked at Frederick. His small dark eyes focused on her in a way that made her uncomfortable. She shifted her gaze to Reuben, knowing what they wanted her to do was wrong -- was naughty -- but wanting so much to please them. Reuben did not speak, did not assail her as the others were, but his soft blue eyes were so alive and engaging she would have done anything he asked. Lord, how she loved him. How she loved them all.
“Go on, Emily. Say it.”
It was Zebulon’s voice, its deep and authoritative tone so much like Daddy’s. That plus Reuben’s encouraging expression was all she needed to forget her resistance completely.
“Shithead,” Emily said.
And then they laughed, a great boisterous shriek of laughter that made Emily tremble. They knew she was going to say it, knew she did not have the ability to resist them when they ganged up on her, and still they laughed, laughed as if in shock and disbelief, and the sound of their laughter filled Emily’s heart with tremendous joy.
“No, slave!” Mommy said. “You’re doing it wrong. You’re putting in too much sugar and you didn’t beat the eggs properly. If these cookies turn out bad, so help me, I’m going to send you back to the plantation and have you whipped!”
“Yes, Miss Victoria.”
Again, it seemed as if it was only Emily’s ears that heard Mommy’s words, but they must have been reaching her mind through the redness and the other voices it contained, for she knew she had never heard Mommy talk to Sally this way before, and more than make her dizzy it began to frighten her. The naughty word was one thing, but these words were different. They weren’t naughty, not in the way Emily had been taught to understand that term, but they were wrong. They had power, these words, power to make Emily afraid for reasons she could not understand. As Emily’s fear grew, dark, black clouds of smoke seemed to swirl into the red filling her vision.
“Are you eating one of those peppermint candies?” Mommy roared at Sally. “You are, aren’t you? When I wasn’t looking and you were pouring them into the bowl -- you slipped one into your mouth, didn’t you?”
“No, Miss Victoria,” Sally murmured, pushing her tongue into her cheek to sound as if she had something in her mouth.
“No?!” Mommy yelled. “Then what do you have in your mouth? Rocks?”
Emily didn’t like it when Mommy yelled. It didn’t matter who she was yelling at, Emily didn’t like it. Emily didn’t like any loud noises. Shouting, slamming doors, thunder -- especially thunder -- they all made her feel sick and afraid inside, as if the whole world was coming down around her.
The thunder pealed again and this time it seemed to shake the roof on the house like the lid on a boiling teapot. They were all gone -- Mommy, Daddy, Zebulon, Marcus, and Frederick -- in her fright Emily didn’t remember where any of them had gone, but they were all gone. It was just Reuben, Sally, and her, alone in the house, in the middle of the worst thunderstorm she could ever imagine.
The light flashed again, preternatural and evil, the kind of light that didn’t belong in the daytime, much less the middle of the night, shooting in through her window and touching every corner of her room. And right on its heels, before her room’s image could fade from her retinas, Emily heard the thunder crash again, this time right on top of their house, as if the Almighty Himself was punching holes in their roof.
“Mommy!” Emily cried, knowing somewhere in the smooth contours of her brain Mommy was not home, that Mommy could not hear her, but needing to cry out her name all the same.
“No, Miss Victoria.”
“Spit it out, Sally,” Mommy said sternly, one of her moveable arms coming up to place one of her permanently cupped hands in the general vicinity of Sally’s mouth. “Spit it out right now.”
The door opened and Reuben came rushing into the room, his nightshirt drooping down from his shoulders and his bare feet padding across the floor. He sat down on the edge of Emily’s bed and let the girl wilt into his arms and press her tear-stained face against his sleeve.
“Mommy!” Emily cried again. “Emmy wants Mommy!”
“Shhh,” Reuben said soothingly as he rocked his sister and another crash of thunder rattled the windows in their panes. “Shhh, it’s all right, it’s all right.”
“No!” Emily cried, muffling her voice in the folds of Reuben’s nightshirt and screaming all the harder for it. “Mommy! Where Mommy go? Where Mommy go?”
“Shhh,” Reuben continued patiently, knowing instinctively the futility of trying to answer her questions directly. “Shhh, I’m here, Emily. Reuben’s here.”
Sally made a spitting noise.
“What is this?!” Mommy thundered, her cupped hand coming up and her torso twisting side to side so that her hand bounced repeatedly off Sally’s blackened face. “What is this, you lousy, ungrateful, good-for-nothing?! What the hell is this?!”
The black smoke of Emily’s fear had by now nearly matched the red syrup of her anger, and the two colors swirled before her eyes in a dark and stomach-churning mess, like blood and feces mixed together in a rotating drum.
“Mommy!” the memory Emily continued to wail as if covered in that slop, covered like the faces and forms she still saw swimming before her. She did not know who they were, but at the same time, Emily knew all there was to know about them. She clutched tightly to Reuben’s arms but needed so much more. “Mommy!”
“Is she all right?” Sally asked, her small and dark form appearing in the doorway behind Reuben.
Emily burst into raw and incoherent cries, looking desperately for Mommy in her mind’s eye and even having trouble finding her there. Reuben held her all the more tightly, cradling her hot and feverish head as best he could in his arms and rocking her softly back and forth.
“Shhh,” he said softly, almost uselessly against the strength of her cries. “Shhh, it’s alright. Everything is alright.”
“What the hell is this?” Mommy yelled again.
“It’s a peppermint candy,” Sally said reluctantly.
Sally stepped cautiously into the room, uncertain if she had the liberty to do so when Victoria was not at home. Far beneath her terror, Emily could feel Sally’s caution, could feel the tremors that pulsated in the slave girl’s breast. Sally took one step in and stopped. When no one appeared to stop her she took another, and then several more until she stood beside Reuben’s and Emily’s half-reclined figures on the bed.
Lightning filled the room with its eerie flash and in the temporary glow Sally saw Reuben looking up at her, his eyes icy blue and full of compassion.
The thunder came again, elevating the pitch of Emily’s cries, but softer this time and just a fraction later after the lightning than the time before. Reuben and Sally both knew the worst of the storm was over, and that the thunder would soon fade away into low and primordial rumbles, leaving behind a full and soaking rain for the rest of the night. And their knowing gave Emily some small measure of peace.
“Shhh,” Reuben continued, his soft and feeble tones seeming to affect Emily ever so slightly, bringing her cries back down from their intense height. “Shhh, Emily. I’m here, Emily. I’m here.”
Mommy twisted violently to the side and caught Sally under the chin with the meat of her forearm. Sally tumbled backwards and fell to the floor beside the wooden box hand-painted to look like a row of cabinets.
“You’re bad!” Mommy shouted at her, her whole form lurching forward with every accented syllable. “You black devil, you’re bad, bad, bad!”
“Is she all right?” Sally asked bravely, feeling brave for having just come up here from her room off the kitchen and braver still for having come to stand where she stood.
“She’s scared,” Reuben said softly between his placating tones. “It’s the thunder. She’ll be better after it passes on.”
“I heard her screaming,” Sally said, not knowing what to say but needing to say something to stave off the long and uncomfortable silence that would otherwise exist between her and Reuben. “All the way down in my room and in spite of the thunder. I heard her screaming, and I thought I’d better come up to see if I could help.”
Emily continued to whimper as Reuben smiled at Sally. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, almost as if he wasn’t talking to a slave. “That was very kind of you.”
Now the red was gone and nothing but the black remained, a deep and opaque blackness, not like a void falling open but more like a hard obelisk pressing against her. The fear and the anger together had been too much for Emily to handle, forcing her back into the place she felt safest, but now it was just the fear, and she began to swim back towards the present. She didn’t like being afraid, but Emily knew how to deal with it. Emily had been afraid before.
“Cookies!” Emily cried, tears beginning to drip down her broad face. “Emmy wants cookies!”
Mommy turned to face Emily and spoke in a soothing and sugar-coated tone of voice. “I know you want cookies, honey. Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint. Mommy wants some, too. But now we can’t have any because I caught our uppity house slave stealing a peppermint candy. I’m going to have to send her out to get whipped, so there won’t be anyone here to make the cookies. I don’t know how to make cookies, do you?”
The soft sounds of Mommy’s falsetto voice had its usual and immediate calming effect on Emily’s nerves.
Emily pushed her face as hard as she could into the fabric of Victoria’s blouse. She still whimpered, but now her cries had stopped, as they always did when the large and wonderful woman with the beautiful face picked her up and held her close to her life-giving body like this.
“There, there,” Victoria said warmly, with real affection, “it’s all right now. Mommy’s here, little Emily. Mommy’s here.”
“Emily,” Mommy said sharply. “Can you hear me? I asked if you know how to make cookies.”
Emily had heard her, and now she saw Mommy again, the black hardness falling back and beginning to dissolve into misty gray vapor. “No,” Emily said, her eyes still full of tears but none of them brimming over.
“No,” Mommy said. “I didn’t think you did. Neither do I. I don’t know how to do anything around this house. I can’t make cookies and I can’t sweep the floors. I can’t make the beds and I can’t polish the silver. Sally does all that and before her Bessie did. That’s what house slaves are for.”
“House slave?” Emily said, her thick tongue having trouble pronouncing the words.
“Yes, house slave,” Mommy said somewhat matter-of-factly. “Sally is our house slave. You know what a house slave is, don’t you?”
Emily was silent for a few moments as she honestly tried to make sense out of what Mommy was saying. She wanted to understand, wanted to so badly, and sometimes thought she could if she just tried hard enough. Tried hard enough, that is, and was able to keep the blackness from drifting back into her brain.
“A house slave is a slave you bring in from the plantation and teach how to do household chores instead of picking cotton,” Mommy said. “The way you might take an old mule out of the fields and bring him to the city to teach him how to pull an ice cream wagon instead of a plow. Funny thing about that mule, though. He may get to wear a funny hat and children may laugh with joy when they see him, but he’s pretty much still that same old mule pulling that same old plow. A house slave is a lot like that. They can sleep in the house, and learn to read and write, and sometimes even eat a Christmas dinner with the family, but they’ll never really be one of us. No matter what they do, a house slave is still pretty much pulling that same old plow.”
Mommy’s words only confused Emily. Cookies? Didn’t Emily want cookies? And wasn’t somebody going to make them for her? Sally? Where did Sally go?
“Mommy,” Emily said. “Where Sally go?”
“Never mind,” Mommy said. “Did you hear what I just said about house slaves?”
“Mommy, where Sally go?”
“Emily,” Mommy said, charging forward to stand directly before her. “Sally’s our house slave. Do you understand? She’s not your sister, she’s our house slave, and a house slave is worse than nothing.”
“Mommy, where Sally go?” Emily said with a taste of desperation creeping into her voice. Before she had wanted Sally because Sally was going to make the cookies, but now she just wanted Sally.
Mommy seemed to sigh and then fell over.
“Here I am, Emily,” Sally said, rising up from the other side of the prep table.
“Hi, Sally!” Emily said happily. “Can we make some cookies?”
“No,” Sally said sedately. “I don’t feel like making cookies. Okay?”
“Okay!” Emily said cheerfully. It was okay. Anything Sally wanted or didn’t want to do was okay. Emily loved Sally.
“Let’s go out to the front parlor,” Sally said. “See what’s going on out there.”
“Okay!” Emily said, turning to begin her move through the dining room and out to the front parlor. She loved moving through the house. Going through doors, bouncing up stairs; she was endlessly fascinated with the way she could move from place to place in the house. It was so much like a real house. So much like her own house in every way.
Emily frowned. “No, Mommy,” she said, holding the gift doll back up for her. “Emmy wants a Sally doll.”
“A what?” Victoria said, looking at her husband for some kind of confirmation. “What did she say?”
“A Sally doll, Mommy,” Emily said. “A Sally doll.”
“What on earth is a Sally doll?” Victoria asked, unable to make a connection with any she had seen in the store.
“A Sally doll, dear,” Zebulon said, his tone of voice indicating how obvious the truth was. “She has a doll for every member of the family. Now she wants a doll for Sally.”
“A doll for Sally!” Victoria said. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”
“Seems reasonable to me, Victoria,” Zebulon said calmly. “She’s already got a Mommy doll, a Daddy doll, an Emily doll, and dolls she pretends are her brothers. Now she wants a Sally doll.”
Victoria looked down at her daughter’s face.
“Please, Mommy,” Emily said. “Please, please, please.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Victoria said. “Well, what’s wrong with this one? Why can’t this one be Sally?”
“No, Mommy,” Emily said. “That not Sally. Sally’s face dark.”
“Sally’s face dark?” Victoria replied, not sure she had heard her correctly. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“She’s black,” Zebulon said, his tone again showing how obvious he thought this all was. “Sally’s black, Victoria. That doll is white.”
Emily nodded. “Sally’s face dark,” she said gravely.
Victoria looked helplessly around the room. “They don’t make any black dolls, Zeb.”
“Well, here,” Zebulon said. “Give me that one. Maybe I can find something to darken her up a bit.”
When they got to the front parlor they found Reuben sitting there, his legs straight out and parallel with the floor.
“Hi, Emily,” Reuben said, his voice a softer version of Daddy’s. He leapt up and straightened himself out so Emily had no doubt he was speaking.
Hi, Reuben!” Emily said happily. She loved Reuben.
“Shhh,” Sally heard Reuben say again, her love for her brother bringing her back to the scene she had just re-lived without realizing it. The redness and blackness were both gone, but deep within her mind the voices were still there. “It’s all right, Emily. It’s all right now.” The thunder came, but it seemed far away and Reuben’s soft voice seemed to conquer it in a way it hadn’t before.
Sally sat down on the end of the bed. It was just about the bravest thing she had ever done, but she had started feeling awkward standing silently over the two of them in the darkened room, and it seemed to be a night for brave action. As her slight weight settled into the mattress, she drew the stares of both Emily and Reuben, their eyes strangely luminescent in the dark.
“Thunder is loud,” Emily whispered to her as a form of greeting. “Loud and scary.”
Sally nodded. “It sure is, Emily.”
“But it’s going away now,” Emily said, clutching her brother a little more tightly. “Reuben came and made the thunder go away.”
Sally saw Reuben smile at that but the young man didn’t say anything.
She loved all her brothers but she perhaps loved Reuben best of all.
“Hi, Sally,” Reuben said with enthusiasm.
“Hello, Mister Reuben,” Sally said.
Emily laughed. Sally was always calling people that. Mister Reuben and Miss Victoria. It seemed funny to her, but Mommy had tried to teach her not to laugh at it.
“Emily!” Victoria scolded. “You are not to say that, do you hear me? You are never to say that.”
“Why not, Mommy?” Emily asked. “Sally says it.”
“Sally is a slave and is supposed to say it,” Victoria said. “You are a young lady and young ladies do not speak that way. Do you understand?”
“Mommy, Emmy wants to talk like Sally.”
“Absolutely not!” Victoria suddenly raged at her. “I will not have any child of mine speaking like a house slave. You will never say that word again. Do you understand me, young lady?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Mister Reuben?” Reuben said. “Sally, I’ve told you not to call me that. I’m not your master.”
Emily laughed again. The name was even funnier coming out of Reuben’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Sally said. “What should I call you?”
“How about Reuben?” Reuben said, this dialog sounding strangely familiar to Emily, especially in the way they spoke immediately on the end of the other, as if their lines were from a well-rehearsed play. “That’s my name, you know.”
“I know,” Sally said. “It just seems wrong.”
“It’s not wrong, Sally,” Reuben said. “What could be wrong with it? My name is Reuben and your name is Sally. Why can’t we call each other that?”
“I don’t know,” Sally said. “It just seems wrong. Miss Victoria wouldn’t like it.”
“Well, my mother isn’t here,” Reuben said. “She’s not here and she won’t be for as long as we want. So how about here, here and nowhere else, I’ll call you Sally and you’ll call me Reuben?”
Sally seemed to think about it for a moment or two. Emily couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Sally was Sally and Reuben was Reuben. She called them both by those names. Why should the rules for Sally be any different?
“Sally, too!” Emily cried. “Sally come, too!”
“No,” Victoria said, “and that’s final, young lady. Sally is going to stay right here and keep working on our Christmas dinner.”
“But, Mommy,” Emily cried. “Emmy wants Sally in church. Emmy wants Sally in church, Mommy.”
“A slave in church!” Victoria cried. “Whoever heard of such a thing? Now, come along, Emily. Your father and brothers are waiting downstairs.”
“Okay, Reuben,” Sally said.
“That’s better,” Reuben said. “See, it’s not so hard.”
“Reuben?” Emily said.
“Yes, Emily?”
“Sally is going to make cookies.” Emily loved cookies.
Warm cookies, cooling on the kitchen counter but still warm, filling the air with their maddening aroma and Emily’s addled mind with desire.
“You stay away from dem cookies. You mind your Aunt Bessie, now.”
“She is?” Reuben said. “What kind of cookies?”
“Oatmeal cookies,” Emily said. “Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint.” Emily loved peppermint.
The rush of sugar, the powerful tickle, the raw and insistent satisfaction.
“Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint?” Reuben said, his voice a sing-song parody of Emily’s intonation. “That sounds delicious. But you know what I think?”
“What?” Emily asked. Whatever it was, if Reuben thought of it, Emily was going to love it. Emily loved Reuben.
“Sally?” Emily said quietly.
Sally was close to him. Sally didn’t think she had ever been this close to Reuben before. Certainly not in the dark with Emily as their only chaperone.
“Yes, Emily?”
“Does thunder scare you?”
It was a question, like all of Emily’s questions, ultimately more about Emily than it was about her, and knowing that Sally was prepared to answer it in the typically reassuring manner they all used when telling Emily something she wanted to hear. But sitting as close as she was to Reuben, even in the darkened shadows of Emily’s bedroom, she was able to see his eyes flick towards her and sparkle with something Sally took to be interest and concern.
And then Sally did the bravest thing of all. Coming up here by herself, moving into the room, even sitting down next to him on the bed -- none of these compared in the least to what she did next. She lifted her own eyes up from the front of Reuben’s nightshirt and met his gaze with all the courage and emotion she had.
“Yes, Emily,” Sally said again, neither looking at nor really addressing the simpleminded girl in Reuben’s arms. “Yes, I am afraid of the thunder. I remember being a little girl in the slave cabins when a storm like this one came through, and crying as if I would die.”
“Didn’t you have anyone to comfort you?” Reuben asked suddenly, and to Sally’s ears his voice was more startling than any thunder.
Sally did not drop her eyes from the glow of Reuben’s white face in the darkness. Every instinct she had told her to do so immediately, but somehow Sally held out and kept her gaze leveled.
“Well, Grandma Francis was there, but she had nine or ten of us little ones to worry about.”
“Your grandmother?” Reuben asked.
Sally shook her head. “No,” she said wearily, “that’s just what we called her. Grandma Francis. I don’t know who my real grandparents are.”
“What about your parents?” Reuben asked, his voice still soft and caring.
“My mother was sold soon after I was born,” Sally said, not believing she was actually having this conversation with Reuben Andrews. “My father still works on the plantation.”
“Reuben,” Emily said, softly whining as she worked to find a comfortable position for her head on his shoulder. “Where Mommy go? Where Daddy go?”
“I think we should make cookies for Sally,” Reuben said. “What do you think of that?”
“Yes!” Emily said. Making cookies would be fun. “And Emmy gets some, too!”
“We can all have some,” Reuben said.
“Hooray!” Emily cried, laughing. She loved Reuben.
They all marched back to the kitchen, each of them pushing through the door into the dining room and then into the kitchen, just the way Emily liked.
“Well,” Reuben said. “It looks like someone has already started making cookies in here.”
“Yes,” Emily confirmed, looking around at all the flat metal disks scattered on the countertops and prep table. “Sally was making cookies.” Strange how she could remember that but not remember why Sally had stopped or why they had gone out to the front parlor.
Blackness. Blackness and redness. Like blood and feces mixed together in a rotating drum.
“Well,” Reuben said again, “Sally’s not making cookies any more. Sally, why don’t you have a seat over there in the corner while Emily and I finish making the cookies you started? Come on, Emily.”
Sally wordlessly did as requested, sitting down on one of the extra dining room chairs that had been placed in a free corner of the kitchen, while Reuben and Emily moved over to stand facing her at the prep table.
“Hmmm,” Reuben said. “It looks like all the ingredients are here, but they haven’t been mixed together. What do you think, Emily?”
Emily looked down at one of the metal disks. She loved it when Reuben asked her what she thought about something. No one else ever did that. She loved Reuben.
“You know where they are, Emily,” Reuben said.
“No, Reuben,” Emily said. “Where they go? Where Mommy? Where Daddy?”
“We’ve told you before,” Reuben said patiently. “Don’t you remember?”
Emily seemed to think about it for a few moments, her finger coming up so her knuckle could be gnawed on pensively. “Tell Emmy, Reuben. Emmy don’t remember. Where Mommy go?”
“She’s over at the O’Connor’s tonight. Missus O’Connor had her baby yesterday and they need some help.”
“Yes!” Emily said proudly. “Emmy remembers. The baby’s name is William and Mommy said Emmy could hold him when he gets bigger.”
“That’s right,” Reuben said.
“And Daddy’s there, too,” Emily said confidently. “Daddy’s helping with baby William, too.”
“No,” Reuben said calmly and without hesitation, as if he was used to correcting Emily on this point but not yet tired of it. “He’s off fighting the war.”
The war. Sally knew what the war was. First Mister Zebulon and then three of his sons, they had all gone off to fight the damn war, much the way the O’Connor men and men from a thousand other households had done. And just as they had gone, one by one they had been killed, each message from the front sent like a bullet into Miss Victoria’s heart. Sally knew that, but of course the knowledge had been kept from Emily, and without it Sally did not see how Emily could really know what the war was. It probably explained why she kept forgetting where her father was.
“The war?” Emily asked, sensing the anger and sadness the thought brought into Reuben’s and Sally’s minds, but not really understanding what it meant.
“Yes,” Reuben said. “You know. The war against the North. Papa, Zebulon, Marcus, and Frederick have all gone to fight it. You remember that.”
“Yes,” Emily said stiffly. “Emmy remembers. The war against the Norf.”
Neither Reuben nor Sally thought it necessary to correct Emily’s pronunciation. It wouldn’t do any good. The North as something different from the South was a concept beyond her understanding. The idea that several million men were now trying to kill each other over that difference was just that much farther away from her ability to grasp.
“Is there sugar?” Reuben asked her.
“Yes,” Emily said. Sugar is what made the cookies sweet. Emily loved sugar.
“Emmy pour the sugar, Bessie! Emmy pour the sugar!”
“All right,” Bessie said, “all right, child. Don’t spill it now.”
“Is there butter?”
“Yes.” Smooth and creamy and yummy.
Scooping another handful out of the churn, Emily wiped the soft, warm butter down across her face and tongue. Bessie would probably scold her when she got back, but Emily didn’t care. The butter was so creamy and delicious it was worth any scolding.
“Are there eggs?”
“Yes,” Emily said, wrinkling her nose a little. She didn’t like eggs but knew they were needed to help hold the cookies together. Bessie had taught her.
“Ooo! It’s sticky, Bessie. It’s sticky!”
“Yes, eggs are sticky. Keep it in the bowl, child. Keep it in the bowl, now.”
“Is there oatmeal?”
“Yes.” Couldn’t have oatmeal cookies without oatmeal.
“Bessie, Emmy don’t like oatmeal. Don’t like oatmeal, Bessie.”
“Well, we can’t have oatmeal cookies without oatmeal, can we?”
“Are there raisins?”
“Yes.” Plump and juicy, raisins were one of Emily’s favorite treats.
“Mom! Emily’s eating my raisins!”
“And what are those round white things?”
“Peppermints!” Emily cried. She loved peppermints.
The raw and insistent satisfaction of taste and sensation.
“Oh, yes,” Reuben said. “Peppermints. Well, it looks like we’ve put all the ingredients together. Emily, will you take this wooden spoon and mix up the batter while I get the fire started in the oven?”
“Yes!” Emily cried, happy to have the opportunity to help. Reuben always trusted her with the important tasks no one else would. She loved Reuben.
“Did Zeb go, too?” Emily asked suddenly, her face lighting up in the darkened room in one of her rare moments of insight. “The war against the Norf, Reuben? Did Zeb go, too?”
“Yes, Emily,” Reuben said, pressing her face back into his nightshirt and starting to rock her again. “Now, hush. It’s time to go back to sleep.”
“And Marcus and Fredrick,” Emily said softly, not really knowing how to whisper but lowering her voice all the same. “They went to fight the Norf. Daddy, Zeb, Marcus, and Fredrick. They all went to fight the war against the Norf.”
“Yes,” Reuben said patiently. “Yes, they’ve all gone to war. Now, sleep, Emily. The thunder has passed. It’s time for sleep.”
The room was silent for several long moments as Reuben slowly rocked his younger sister in his arms and Sally sat counting her breaths beside him on the bed.
“What ‘bout Reuben?” Emily asked drowsily. “Is Reuben going to war, too?”
“Shhh,” Reuben said softly, his own eyes closing as he placed his chin gingerly on the top of Emily’s head. “Go to sleep now. It’s time for sleep.”
“What’s going on here?!”
It was Mommy. She had re-appeared in the kitchen while Emily’s attention was diverted in mixing the cookie dough. With Sally propped up in the corner chair, she was able to move about again and had evidently come flying in through the open side of the house. Standing on the opposite side of the prep table from Emily, she bounced angrily up and down as she repeated her question.
“What’s going on here!?”
“Emmy and Reuben making cookies, Mommy,” Emily said easily. “Oatmeal cookies with raisins and peppermint.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” Mommy said sarcastically. “My daughter making cookies while my good-for-nothing house slave sits around loafing in the corner? I thought I said I wouldn’t stand for such a thing. Didn’t I say I would not stand for it?”
Emily didn’t know how to answer Mommy’s question. She wasn’t even sure Mommy had asked her a question. Her attention was distracted by the swirls of black smoke that began to spin into her vision.
“Nobody said you had to stand for it, Mother,” Reuben said, standing up after getting the fire going in the oven. “There are some very comfortable chairs in the front parlor. If need be you can sit in one of them.”
“Reuben!” Mommy said. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that. You--”
“I’ll speak to you any way I like, Mother,” Reuben said, interrupting her. “I’m not your little boy any more. I’m a grown man with my own mind. You’ve no longer got anything to say about it.”
“We’ll see about that,” Mommy said. “Now, stop all this nonsense. If you want cookies, have Sally make them. What will the neighbors say? Two white children making cookies for a house slave?”
“Sally does enough work around here,” Reuben said. “I think she deserves a break. What do you think, Emily?”
Emily looked up at Reuben. His voice was like a beacon in the cloudy darkness. “What?” she asked.
“Sally does enough work around here,” Reuben repeated. “Don’t you think she deserves a break from time to time?”
Emily looked at Reuben with uncertainty in her eyes. If she focused on him, maybe she could keep the blackness at bay. She had been able to do that before, keep the inky darkness from overwhelming her senses by focusing single-mindedly on some positive and happy thing in her life. Like Reuben. Like Sally. Like cookies. But what did Reuben want her to say? Yes? No? The question was not clear to her. Emily would say whatever Reuben wanted if she only knew what it was. Emily loved Reuben.
Lightning flashed. Not bright and electric like before, when bolts of fire had been lancing down into the city itself, but dull and subdued, as if farther off and trapped within clouds. The thunder that followed was distant, too; a soft and grumbling rumble felt more than heard. Through it and several more repetitions, the three of them sat silently in the darkness of Emily’s upstairs bedroom. Lightning would flash, its somewhat feeble light illuminating briefly the elements of Emily’s world that surrounded them, and then the thunder would come, rolling and rumbling at the very edge of hearing until no one could be sure if it was still there or not. And through it all the three of them sat there in silence, Reuben gently rocking Emily with his nose nestled in the hair on the top of her head, Emily clutching tenderly at the folds of Reuben’s nightshirt and slowly drifting back to sleep, and Sally sitting beside them, close enough to feel the warmth coming off their bodies, but her eyes averted away and focused on the dark shapes of the people who lived in Emily’s doll house.
“Is she asleep?” Sally eventually said, her voice intentionally low but almost inaudible because of the sudden tightness in her throat.
Reuben did not stop rocking and made no attempt to peer into Emily’s face. “I think so,” he said, softly like Sally, but his voice under much greater control.
Emily was not asleep. She slumbered, suspended on the gossamer filaments of her brain’s fibrous network in a half-conscious state, but she was not asleep. She could not speak, but she could hear every word Reuben and Emily said.
In the glow from the windows Sally could see the dolls in the doll house just where she and Emily had left them earlier in the day. They were all there. One for each member of the Andrews family and one for Sally, too, laying in beds and propped up in chairs in the darkness.
“You’re going to war, aren’t you?”
Sally did not look at him, not having the courage on this her most courageous of days to ask him that question and look at him at the same time, but she felt his eyes come up from the counterpane where they had previously rested, and take in her shadowy form.
“Yes,” Reuben said plainly. “After tomorrow there won’t be much left for me here.”
Sally had known Reuben would be going off to war, had known it as soon as his brothers had started to leave one by one for the front, and still his open admission came as a shock to her. Like all the other women in Columbia, white and black, the war had come to mean one thing and one thing only -- death. If Reuben was going off to war, then Reuben was going to be killed. Perhaps in battle like one brother, perhaps of disease like another, perhaps accidentally by his own troops like the third -- but one way or another, Reuben would be killed. In these dark days of 1864, it seemed that’s what was happening to all the men who went off to war. The young ones anyway.
“You will be killed,” Sally said, her voice much like the thunder still rumbling outside. Distant, and at the very edge of hearing.
“Sally,” Reuben said insistently but not loudly. “Look at me.”
Sally did not respond to his command, momentarily distracted by her fear for Reuben’s life. The last flash of lightning had allowed her to locate the dolls Emily called Reuben and Sally in the doll house before her, and now she could discern their silhouettes in the darkness, seated together on the divan in the front parlor, a full and imaginary tea service laid out on the table before them.
“Sally,” Reuben said again. “There’s something I need to tell you. Look at me, please.”
Now Sally did so, dragging her eyes away from the tiny effigy across the room to encompass the live individual sitting solidly and uncompromisingly on the bed next to her. Even in the darkness, Sally could see the white skin of his face and exposed shoulder, practically glowing as if with an inner light.
“Come on, Emily,” Reuben said. “Sally works too much around here. She deserves a break from time to time, doesn’t she?”
Emily slowly nodded her head, focusing as best she could on Reuben but unable to completely banish the black swirling clouds from her perception. “Yes?” she said with a great deal of uncertainty, wishing she was more like Reuben so she could be as sure as he was.
“Absolutely, yes, she does,” Reuben affirmed, and Emily positively beamed with the confirmation she had said the right thing. “You see, Mother,” Reuben continued, “even Emily has the sense to see you’re overworking Sally.”
“Oh, what the hell does she know?” Mommy said. “She’s retarded. She’ll say anything you want her to.”
“Retarded! Retarded!” the voices sang. “Emily Andrews is retarded!”
“She is not!” Reuben cried, stepping in front of Emily and placing his young, boyish frame between her and the taunters. “You’re retarded!”
“Mother!” Reuben cried. “That’s a horrible thing to say about Emily. She’s your own daughter!”
“My own daughter, yes,” Mommy said, turning to face Emily. “Just as you are my own son, Reuben. But that doesn’t make it any less true, does it, Emily? Try as hard as you can, there is only so much you are going to understand about what’s going on around you. You don’t even know I’m insulting you, you poor, wretched, little girl. As long as I keep my voice pitched in this sickly-sweet way, you don’t even realize how much I hate you for being born the way you were.”
Was Mommy talking to her? Emily thought she was but was having trouble being sure. With the blackness descending on her again it was impossible to tell the difference between what was happening beyond the blackness and what was happening within it. Emily could still see Mommy, and it appeared like Mommy was looking at her, but why did she have the sense Mommy was really talking to someone else? Was Mommy in the blackness? The blackness that came and enveloped Emily’s brain in a hot and stifling cloak? Was that it? Was Mommy one of the faces she saw in the blackness that terrified her, and was she talking to someone else who lived there? To Reuben, maybe, or Sally, or someone Emily hadn’t seen before? To God? Was that it? Was Mommy talking to God?
“Sally,” Reuben said softly and looking her directly in the eyes, perhaps the only part of her form that glowed like his skin in the shadows. “There’s no easy way to tell you this so I’m just going to come right out and say it. After all you’ve done for Emily and my family I think you deserve to hear the truth.”
Reuben paused but Sally offered no kind of response. She wouldn’t have been able to voice one if she had one to offer; she was so petrified not only at the awful potential of what Reuben had to tell her but also at his direct approach. Did he know her secret? How could he? She had been so careful, hardly even confiding it to herself. It was so hopeless, so impossible, so dangerous, she had never said the words aloud and only actively thought them to herself a handful of times. How could he possibly know how she felt about him?
Reuben suddenly reached out and took Sally’s hand in his own, clasping it warmly, and despite herself Sally let an audible gasp escape her and instinctively tried to pull her hand free.
“Reuben?” Emily said drowsily, as their motion on the bed nudged her back a step closer to their world, the only one they could perceive. “Reuben, the thunder. The thunder, Reuben.”
“Shhh,” Reuben said patiently, exactly as he had before, holding firmly onto Sally with one hand while continuing to rock his sister and rub her head with the other. “It’s fading, Emily. The thunder’s fading and the storm will soon be over.”
“It’s still scary,” Emily said, her voice trailing off as she dropped back into her trance-like state. “The thunder is still scary.”
“I know,” Reuben said reassuringly. “I know, Emily. Now hush. Shhh.”
In a moment Emily was silent again and Reuben turned his sparkling blue eyes back on Sally’s face. He still held her hand and this time Sally did not try to pull away. She gripped his hand in a way she would have never thought possible, met his eyes with a look of solemn placidity, and tried to think the most positive thoughts she could.
He’ll miss me, Emily heard distinctly, Sally’s thoughts sounding to her throbbing brain exactly as her voice did to her ears. He’ll write to me. He’ll come back to me.
“Sally,” Reuben said quietly, “tomorrow a man named Phelps is coming out to the plantation. I can’t manage it by myself so my mother has decided to sell all the slaves. Times are hard, but we think this man Phelps will give us a fair price. Whatever he offers, Mother is going to take it.”
The expression on Sally’s face did not change. She heard all of Reuben’s words but didn’t really understand them. Lost in her foolish hopes, they were not at all what she had expected to hear.
“Sally,” Reuben said, shaking her hand in an attempt to capture her attention. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes,” Sally said lightly, if not a little mechanically. “Yes, Reuben. I heard what you said.” In her distracted state of mind, Sally was unaware she had just called Reuben by his familiar first name. She had never done that before. “Miss Victoria is selling all the slaves tomorrow to a man named Phelps.”
Reuben nodded. “The plantation slaves, yes. Don’t worry. She has no plans for selling you. With me heading off to war, I very much doubt Mother could handle Emily without your help.”
Sally slowly nodded her head. They weren’t going to sell her. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might, but it seemed clear from Reuben’s response his mother had at least considered it. But she had decided against it. Good. Sally knew she would be afraid to be sold away from here.
“Sally,” Reuben said, calling her wayward thoughts back to him. “Didn’t you say your father was still working on the plantation?”
A chill ran down Sally’s spine. Her thoughts still did not have the presence to understand why, but the question frightened her. Opening her mouth but finding herself unable to speak she nodded her head.
“What’s his name?” Reuben asked.
He’s going to save him, Sally thought hurriedly to herself. Oh, thank the great God in heaven, Reuben is going to keep my father from being sold away from me!
“Augustus,” Sally said, just as quickly. “He’s the one they call Gus with the gray hair and stooped back.”
Reuben nodded his head. “I know him. He’s not among those who have already run off.”
As her mind continued to race, Sally brought her left hand over and clasped it tenderly over Reuben’s hand held in her right. If Reuben kept her father from being sold, what would happen to him? He couldn’t stay on the plantation. All the other slaves would be gone. He’ll have to come stay with them at the house. He could help do a hundred things around here. They could move Bessie’s old bed back into her room. Her father could stay with her in her very own room. In her very own room.
“Mother,” Reuben said, “stop being so cruel.”
“Cruel?” Mommy said. “You think I’m being cruel? I’m just telling it like it is. That’s something you can’t see and Emily will never understand. The way things are. This war has been coming for a long time and now that it’s finally here it’s taking away everything we thought had been permanent and untouchable. And what is it leaving behind? Look around you, Reuben. House slaves and retarded children. Once the war consumes you, that’s all that will be left. And you’re calling me cruel.”
“Just go, Mother,” Reuben said impassively. “Why don’t you just go?”
“Go?” Mommy said. “Where am I supposed to go? Where can I go?”
“I don’t know,” Reuben said. “The front parlor. Your bedroom. Anywhere but here. Emily and I are going to make some cookies for Sally because she deserves them. If you can’t abide that notion, then it’s better if you just leave.”
Emily looked distractedly at Reuben, dimly aware of his shape in the blackness but no longer sure, as she was with Mommy, whether he was within it or beyond it. But in or out, real or imagined, she did not want Mommy to go. Down deep inside she needed Mommy to be near, and probably always would. But even with that longing palpable within her, Emily knew she did not like some of the things Mommy had been saying. She hadn’t understood most of the words and none of the concepts, but her tone was somehow different. She sounded nice and sweet like Mommy always did, but there was something rough as well, something that wasn’t always there, and made her feel like Reuben in wanting Mommy to leave.
“This is my house, Reuben,” Mommy said to him. “I’ll go where I please in my house, thank you.”
“Get out, Mother,” Reuben said severely. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
“You’re not asking me now, Reuben. Who do you think you are?”
“I’m the man of this house,” Reuben said. “And as long as I’m here things are going to be run my way.”
“Man of the house!” Mommy scoffed. “You’re a child, Reuben. You’re my child, and as long as you live under this roof you will do as I say.”
Emily turned back to look at Mommy, or at least, turned back to the place where she thought Mommy had been, the blackness now completely obscuring her vision and swirling in deep, dark currents of foreboding. She did not like all this bickering. It frightened her. She just wanted to make cookies. Why couldn’t they just make cookies?
“No, Mother,” Reuben said with a grave finality that brooked no disagreement. “I am not your child anymore. As your husband and three older sons have gone off one by one to war I have grown into my own man and I’m going to see that some changes are made around here before I, too, go put my life on the line for my blinded and backward country. I may have no real power to effect any change on the front line but, by God, I do have the power to change things around here.”
“What are you saying?” Mommy asked while Emily fell deep within herself and Sally sat stiffly, almost forgotten, in the corner.
“I’m saying I want you to stop treating Sally like a slave,” Reuben said.
“What!” Mommy raged. “Sally is a slave. She’s my slave.”
“No, she’s not,” Reuben said. “Not any more. There are no slaves any more, Mother. I know you’re too steeped in your old traditions to see that, but it’s the truth. You yourself said this war is taking away everything we thought had been permanent and untouchable. Well, slavery is one of those untouchable things the war is taking away. You don’t see it yet, but I do. After I’m gone, and it’s just the three of you here, then you’ll see it. Then you’ll see just how much Sally has stopped being your slave and how much you have become hers.”
There was that word again. Slave. Drifting in from beyond her consciousness, Emily saw it sink into the syrupy blackness before her, churn, and transform itself into an image of Sally’s face, black against the blacker backdrop of midnight with eyes floating like two white rings in sackcloth soup. What did it mean? Sally wasn’t no slave. Sally was Emily’s sister.
“You’re talking crazy,” Mommy said.
“I am, am I?” Reuben said. “We’ll see. After I’m gone, I think you’re going to need Sally a lot more than Sally needs you. And you’d better stop treating her like a slave and start treating her like a member of the family. You know what’s happening out on the plantation. Are you really so stupid to think that house slaves haven’t thought about running, too? With the way our society is crumbling around us and all the skills we’ve taught them, they would have an even easier time making it to freedom than the uneducated men and women working in our cotton fields. How many have gone missing from the plantation already and how many have we found? You know the answer as well as I do. Don’t forget the road to freedom is a lot shorter than it used to be. Hell, freedom is marching this way as we speak in great columns of blue.”
“That’s it?” Mommy said sarcastically. “That’s what you want to change around here? You want me to start treating Sally like a member of our family? Like Emily’s sister?”
Sally was her sister.
“Mother,” Reuben said patiently. “Sally is a member of our family. In every way that counts, Sally is Emily’s sister, and mine, too.”
“Yes!” Emily suddenly shouted, excited to hear something come filtering through the darkness, something she could understand and agree with. “Sally is Emmy’s sister! Sally is Emmy’s sister!” Reuben saw it. Reuben understood. God, how she loved Reuben.
“I’ll talk to Phelps tomorrow,” Reuben said, looking deeply into Sally’s eyes as Emily drifted between her world and theirs beneath them. “He’s just a broker. He’s only buying our slaves so he can sell them to someone else at a profit. When he sells your father, I’ll make sure Mother gets the name of the buyer from him. If you know where your father is sent, maybe the two of you will be able to stay in touch.”
Mommy paid no attention to Emily’s outburst. “Sally,” she said severely, “is nothing but a black child I plucked off the plantation and polished up to make presentable in town society. She is not Emily’s sister and she is definitely not a member of this family. She’s our house slave. Nothing more.”
“Mommy!’ Emily cried, groping forward like a blind person, unable to see Mommy but hearing all the poison that spewed from her mouth. “Sally is Emmy’s sister! Sally and Emmy play dollies together!”
“She is not your sister!” Mommy screamed, her falsetto voice breaking open and allowing Sally’s natural tone to push its way through. “And if I hear you say it again, I’ll sell her just like I sold her father. I’ll sell her like the plantation slave she is and you’ll never see her again!”
Emily could hold it back no longer. The living and voice-laden blackness completely enveloped her, and even though she screamed loud and long enough for her mother to come rushing up from the rolltop desk in her sitting room, Emily could no more hear herself than Sally could explain to Miss Victoria what had pushed her over the edge.
+ + +
“Emily” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
Image Source
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/shermans-march
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