JUNE 1859
She didn’t know how long she’d been strung up, the rope hoisted tight over the beam hook until her toes barely brushed the ground. The muscles in her arms were screaming with the pain, and her wrists burned as if they were dipped in lye where the rope bit into her skin. She moaned. She had vowed she wouldn’t cry out or beg for mercy, but that was at the beginning. Now she would have blubbered and wept without control even to the woman she hated with a bitterness that paradoxically kept her alive. Her father had always said, “My daughter’s a good hater. Don’t seem that way, she’s so sweet and buttery to strangers, but I know her. She takes after me, she don’t ever forgive when she thinks there’s a wrong.” Her mother, ever the soother, had protested, but Lena had experienced an odd sort of pride. To hate made her strong, made her not give in, made her endure the cruelty that was more and more frequently visited upon her now that Mrs. Dickie was so ill and not at home any more.
The row this time had been because Caddie’s tartan gown wasn’t ready for her to wear to church. The night had been too wet for any washing to dry properly, and there was nothing Lena could do about it.
“You’re a lazy slut. I don’t know why I keep you. You are one ugly nigger.” This was accompanied by hard slaps to the head. It was only because Leigh had come into the room at that moment that Caddie had stopped, but he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, protect her completely. All three of them knew the never-acknowledged cause of his wife’s jealousy. Just before they left for church, Caddie had ordered Sam, their lone field hand, to string Lena up to teach her a lesson and to think about what a wicked, sly girl she was. She may or may not have her whipped when she returned.
The door to the shed opened, but she couldn’t see who came in and her body tensed with fear.
“It’s me. I’ve brought you some milk.”
“Fidelia, bless you, bless you.”
“First off, I’m gonna get you on this stool.”
The girl caught hold of Lena’s legs and heaved her up, holding her with one arm while she thrust a milking stool underneath her feet. Some of the weight was taken off Lena’s arms and she cried out with the relief of it.
Fidelia dipped a ladle into her pail of milk and lifted it to Lena’s lips. She drank thirstily.
“More?”
“No, I’m afraid I’ll be sick.”
“D’you want me cut you down?”
“You’ll get into worse trouble.”
“I don’t care. T’aint right what she’s doing to you.”
Lena was weeping now, she couldn’t help it. “My arms are in agony, Fiddie. I think I’d prefer a whipping to this.”
“Tell you what, I’m gonna climb on the stool and you can sit on my shoulders. That’ll take you up higher even.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m far too heavy.”
“No you ain’t. ’Sides I worked in the fields since I was seven, before Mrs. Dickie bought me. I’m strong as a mule.”
“Fiddie…”
“We can do it for bits at a time till they come back. You’ll see.”
Fidelia suited her action to the words and was able to stand on the stool, crouch down, and get her shoulders under Lena’s legs. With much initial wobbling, she straightened up, and Lena was lifted almost as high as the rafter so that she could bend her arms. Lena breathed her thanks, trying hard not to cry out with the sweetness of the relief.
“You know my father used to lift me on his shoulders when I was a child. I thought I was queen of the world then, up so high, I could touch the tree branches and pick off some of the best of the apples.”
Fidelia grunted. “I don’t have a rememory of my pappy. Nor my mammy, if you was to ask. There’s always been just me.”
“But now you have me. That’s better, isn’t it, Fiddie?”
“’Course it is. Like it’s better to have roast chicken off the spit than acorn soup. Like it’s better to have fresh blackberries off the bush than dried raisins with weevils in them. Like it’s better to have –”
Lena managed to dredge up a chuckle. “Don’t go on, please.”
They stayed silently in that strange position, the young, skinny girl holding the bigger, heavier one on her shoulders, her hands around Lena’s legs.
“I heard Missus Caddie say that Missus Dickie won’t be coming home no more. She’s got the white sickness and she ain’t never gonna get better.”
“I know.”
“Does that mean we’ll belong to Mr. Leigh and Missus Caddie?”
Lena whispered, “God help us, Fiddie, but it will mean that.”
“You know I can’t now. But you should. Fiddie, you should get out of here as fast and as far as you can.”
Fidelia eased her burden as best she could. “I ain’t going nowhere without you. You know that.”
Leigh Dickie and his wife didn’t return from church for another hour and a half. The two in the barn heard them coming and Fidelia had to get Lena off her aching shoulders. Then, after waiting as long as she dared, she removed the stool and Lena was once again hanging by her wrists. She felt the child in her belly shift in protest.