But a fierce look covered Mama’s face; her mind was made up. “With or without any of you all, our wagon headin’ to Virginia.”
Samuel shook his head. “Mama, we can’t let you go alone.”
“You jus’ told me that your pops too busy to come. Besides, he already spent plenty of time in Virginia. He know where he come from.” Mama’s eyes bore into Samuel. “You forgettin’.”
Then Mama looked at Jordan with those intense eyes. “Maybe you don’ wanna know what you come from, but not knowin’ don’ make it so. You ashamed of your past, of me and your pa.”
Mama’s words hit Jordan hard in the belly because they were true. She did her best to hide it, but she was embarrassed by her parents. They didn’t understand that the world had changed; they were stuck in backward thinking, still concerned about the rights of Negro men when that had already been earned. Jordan was going to be a part of moving the nation forward, on behalf of all women.
Mama took a deep breath and declared, “Church on Sunday. Then I gonna leave on Monday . . . alone or with company.”
“In three days!” Samuel exclaimed.
“It the right time,” Mama replied. “I feel it in my bones.”
Samuel sighed. “All right, Mama. I’ll be in that wagon too,” he acquiesced. “Pops can get the order out by himself.”
“Ain’t that nice.” Mama nodded slowly, a small victory smile on her face. She turned to Jordan, her dark eyebrows arched in expectation, clearly expecting a specific answer.
Jordan knew when she’d lost a fight with Mama. “Me too,” she submitted.
“Don’ you worry. We gonna be back in time for the first day of school!” Mama patted Jordan’s hand in reassurance.
Jordan’s heart skipped a beat; her argument was a ruse. She wasn’t going to be teaching the children of Oberlin next fall. She fingered the letter in her pocket from Lucy Stone, responding to her request to work for the American Equal Rights Association. Like her hero, Sojourner Truth, Jordan was going to be “keeping the thing going while things are stirring”—she was moving to New York City to ensure women’s suffrage wouldn’t be left behind in this changing time. She just hadn’t yet figured out when or how to break the news to her family.
Now that they were going to Virginia, she’d put off telling them. She didn’t need the weight of her mother’s disappointment added to this stressful journey.
Her family didn’t understand Jordan’s absolute fury that women’s rights were ignored. It was an utter betrayal to the cause of liberty. “Too much, too soon” was a refrain she’d heard, but she couldn’t disagree more. She was not going to stand idly by and watch the world advance only for Negro men. She was going to dedicate her life to moving the world forward for women too.
Sunday night the whole family gathered outside to eat supper in the hot evening, the air heavy with moisture. Collard greens with bacon and johnnycakes sat on Jordan’s plate. Samuel’s son, Otis, pulled himself up using his mother’s thigh. On shaky limbs he reached for Pops’s outstretched hand. Grabbing tightly with his pudgy fingers, he moved first one leg, then the other, making his way across the divide between the two adults.
Pops cheered. Otis opened his mouth wide in a huge grin, and his dark-brown eyes sparkled with pride.
“He’s walking!” Nora exclaimed.
Mama snorted. Nora looked at her, puzzled and hurt by Mama’s judgment.
“Don’t mind Mama. It’s one of her beliefs,” Jordan explained to her sister-in-law. “She says that’s shuffling, not walking.”
“Walkin’ is when you do it all on your own,” Mama said, defending her stance. “Our Otie need a little help. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. We all need a hand when we first do somethin’. It jus’ need a diff’rent name, that all.”
Mama reached her fingers toward the little boy. He grinned up at her, stretching out one brown arm while still holding on to Pops with the other.
“Come on.” Mama wiggled her fingers to coax him, a huge smile on her face. The little boy grabbed Mama’s finger with his left hand and let go with his right. His body wobbled, first too far to the left and then to the right, but he steadied himself with the support of Mama’s hand. Mama nodded encouragement at him, her eyes sparkling with love. Otis toddled across the space into his grandmother’s waiting arms. She scooped him onto her lap and gave him a series of quick kisses on each cheek. Mama rubbed her face in his fuzzy black curls until he squirmed and giggled with joy.
Despite being annoyed with her mother, Jordan smiled at the scene. She sure loves that boy. Her stomach sank with the sudden realization that she had only a few more days with this little one. Moving to New York meant she was going to miss most of his growing up. The summer in Virginia was cutting short the time she’d thought she would have with him.
Jordan reached out a hand and said, “Come to Auntie Jordan,” in the singsongy voice reserved for babies. Otie smiled at her from Mama’s arms. He scooched himself to the ground and crawled to his aunt. Jordan lifted him onto her lap and gave him a squeeze, kissing his warm temple. She took in his smell, her heart tender, savoring this moment with her nephew.
Mama turned her attention to her children. “You gonna laugh at me, but I got to prepare you for our journey.”
“Mama, Jordan and I arranged the food and the route. Pastor Duhart gave me a list of congregations we can turn to if we need anything. You can just relax in the wagon,” Samuel told her. “Mr. Brown says the roads are so good now that it may only take two weeks to get to Fair Oaks.” Samuel sounded confident, but Jordan knew he was anxious about returning to the South, the place he’d escaped as a boy and fought in as a man. He didn’t share the details about either difficult experience, but Jordan suspected he harbored pain about both.
“I ain’t gonna relax until we all back in Ohio,” Mama said.
“Then why are we going on this fool’s errand?” Jordan questioned gently, hoping she could say something to change Mama’s mind. She looked at Samuel; perhaps he would join her protest.
“I gonna die much easier knowin’ I tried. I gotta know I tried,” Mama said, her voice tightening up. “When we get there, you gonna understand. We got everythin’, and they got nothin’. It ain’t right.”
Pops interjected, heat in his voice. “Listen to your mama. She knows what she talkin’ about. Even though the paper says it’s fine there right now, you got to be careful.”
Jordan nodded passively. Pops hadn’t accepted that the world had changed either.
“Nowhere like Oberlin. Nowhere. Not even other parts of Ohio,” Mama lectured. “You do like I do. If I step out of the way for a White person, you do the same. If I say, ‘Yes, suh, no, suh; yes, ma’am, no, ma’am,’ you do the same. Don’ look a White person in the eye, and never touch ’em, unless they go to touch you firs’.”
Samuel looked at Jordan, exchanging a private eye roll. Jordan thought they were being subtle, but she was wrong.
Pops sat up straight and glared at them both. His whole body moved as he shouted, “Yo’ mama tryin’ to save yo’ life! No White person in Virginia respect you. Yo’ clothes, the way yo’ talks, that yo’ come from Ohio. All that just gonna make ’em hate you more. No education from Oberlin College gonna save you from that hatred.”
Jordan’s pulse sped up at the intensity of her father’s outburst. She hadn’t meant to hurt him or show disrespect.
“Sorry, Pops,” she muttered.
“Yes, sir,” Samuel said.
Nora grabbed Samuel’s arm, her brown eyes wide with fear. “You be careful!” she begged him. “Get there. Get them. And come home. No heroics. No fighting for justice.”
Samuel agreed. “I promise. We’ll keep our heads down.”
Pops sat back with a sigh and nodded. The energy visibly left his body now that they were taking his fears seriously.
“Pastor Duhart gave me something special for our journey,” Mama said, excited.
She pulled a small velvet pouch f
rom her bodice. Placing it on her palm, she carefully opened it to show them a handful of perfectly round tiny yellow balls.
“Seeds?” Jordan nearly snorted, but she worked to keep her voice even and respectful.
Pops paraphrased from the Bible. “If you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can move mountains.”
“Come close. Hold out yo’ hands,” Mama told them. The family formed a small circle, with Pops holding Otis. Each put out a hand, the little boy mimicking the others though he didn’t know what they were doing. Mama carefully placed a small pile of the little orbs into each palm. “We all gonna have some of these to remind us to keep the faith, and maybe spread some around too. We each get to be like the Sower.”
Despite herself, Jordan was touched by the image of all the little mustard seeds in their outstretched hands. Rolling the ones in her palm around, she felt all that they contained: Pastor Duhart’s blessing and the support of their whole church, the connection they would give her to Pops, Nora, and Otis while they were gone, and her mama’s outspoken faith that they were all sowers, each in their own way doing something to make this world a bit more righteous and loving.
“Thanks, Mama.” Jordan smiled. “I’ll keep these close on our journey.” She looked around at the faces of her family. In their eyes she saw mirrored her own emotions: gratitude, fear, and hope.
Then Otis turned his hand over, scattering his seeds onto the ground and causing them all to laugh. He broke the spell of the moment. Their sacred circle broke apart, and they went on with their night, cleaning up and finalizing their packing.
Despite the sweet feeling from receiving the seeds, Jordan was annoyed. She bristled at the thought of traveling for weeks with her brother and her mother, taking their orders, and she resented that she was being forced to go on this trip at all. Jordan had no interest in acting subservient to White people when they got to Virginia, all to rescue a woman who didn’t care about escaping her situation.
Jordan loved her family, and she respected what her parents had done to give her a “better” life, but they just didn’t understand her and what she wanted. Mama didn’t hide her hopes that Jordan would soon choose among her suitors, get married, and have children—just like Samuel. But she was different from her brother. She wanted more from life than Oberlin could offer. Jordan was going to make a meaningful contribution to the world, a contribution that mattered. She was going to sow her seeds in New York.
CHAPTER 3
LISBETH
Richmond, Virginia
“Now it’s the South?” Sammy whispered the question to Lisbeth.
“Yes,” Lisbeth replied. “We are in Virginia.”
It was hard to take in that the capital of the Union and the capital of the Confederacy had been only one hundred miles apart. The sky, the plants, and the railway were identical in the North and in the South. The enormous boundary between Washington, DC, and her former home state was emotional and political, not physical.
As the train sped through the forest, Lisbeth was touched to see the landscape of her childhood. The trees, the moisture in the air, and the undulation of the horizon were so familiar. She was startled to realize that her body felt at home here.
Sadie poked Lisbeth, interrupting her thoughts, and pointed at a wet spot on the floor with a sour face. Lisbeth snorted with a smile.
“Chewing tobacco,” Lisbeth explained. “We’ll be seeing it everywhere down here.”
“Like baseball players!” Sammy said.
“It is a nasty habit, even if your heroes are enamored with it,” Lisbeth lectured.
She watched as a few men spit into the aisle, not even bothering to aim for the spittoons. The pungent smell took her right back to her childhood, when the smell of tobacco was always in the breeze.
Dread rose in Lisbeth as they traveled through the countryside. She remembered the shame and frustration that had shadowed her last visit with her family. Lisbeth had been so utterly delighted with every aspect of her baby that she’d been naïve enough to think that the blessing of a grandchild would be her ticket to forgiveness, but her parents’ disinterest in her precious son quickly dashed any hopes that the visit would be a source of happy reconciliation. The monthlong stay had been a thinly veiled display of disappointment and hostility. At every meal Jack and Mother railed against Northern interference in states’ rights and attacks on their way of life. Father was distant and preoccupied, hardly speaking anything beyond niceties.
Lisbeth had no illusions that the trauma and losses in the intervening years would have improved their attitudes.
A few hours later they were pulling into the bustling station in Richmond. The city had grown enormously since she had last been here, nearly doubling in size. Fearing she might lose her children, she held their hands tightly on the busy platform and waited for the crowd to clear. Fortunately she didn’t have to take any action, but simply accepted the offer of an eager porter, a young light-skinned Negro man, to get their baggage and find them a suitable carriage.
They followed him outside into the bright sunshine. Sammy poked her and pointed to a large white building sparkling in the sun on a nearby hill. She sucked in her breath, taken aback by the sight.
“Is that the . . . ?” Sammy asked.
Lisbeth nodded at her son and replied, “Yes, that’s the White House of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis lived and worked right there.”
“Whoa!” Sammy exclaimed.
“What?” Sadie asked.
“The war happened right here!” Sammy said, sounding excited rather than anxious about that fact. They climbed into the waiting carriage and set out to find her parents’ home.
Sadie and Sammy gawked out the window at the passing scene. Lisbeth’s dread grew as they drove west through the commercial and warehouse districts. The children pointed to the charred remains of buildings burned during the Confederate evacuation of Richmond. Much of the debris had been cleared away since April 1865, but the rebuilding was far from complete. More than one pristine Confederate flag hung in the air, the last gasps of a lost cause.
Lisbeth projected calm, but her heart pounded in her chest. She suddenly feared again she’d been naïve to bring her children on this trip. She felt too young and unprepared to shield Sadie and Sammy from the pain of the nation’s and her own history.
The business district gave way to a residential neighborhood of well-manicured, stately homes. Brick buildings, set close to one another, rose two and three stories high, very different from the prairie-style wooden farm homes in Oberlin. The carriage stopped in front of a brick house with a shiny black door.
The children ran up the walkway, but they stood back once they arrived at the door, waiting for Lisbeth to take the lead. She closed her eyes and breathed in to steady her nerves. Then she took Sadie’s hand on her left, knocked three times, and braced herself for what was to come.
“Emily?” Lisbeth exclaimed at the unexpected ghost from her past standing in the doorway. A rush of conflicting emotions flooded her already-alert nervous system; embarrassment, delight, and surprise swirled in an unusual combination. Mother had written that they had taken Emily with them when they were forced to sell Fair Oaks, but she had not mentioned her name in a number of years. Lisbeth hadn’t imagined Emily when she thought about this reunion with her family, nor the complex reaction their unusual relationship would invoke.
Emily was as beautiful as ever, still tall and lithe, though the years showed in the spread of her face. Her light-brown skin was smooth, and no gray showed in the dark hair pulled back into a neat bun.
Lisbeth was startled at the intensity of her own emotion at the sight of this person. Her initial impulse was to hug the woman who had cared for her dutifully after Mattie left, but they had never hugged before. It would seem strange to start now. Her relationship with Emily was unlike any other, and she had a hard time reconciling this part of her past with her current life.
Mother and Father had planned to give Em
ily to Lisbeth after she married Edward Cunningham. Emily would have moved to White Pines with her, and instead of being a part of her history, she would have been Lisbeth’s closest daily companion. Though the war might have ended that arrangement too.
In addition, Lisbeth harbored a suspicion that she and Emily might be related by blood, though she had never confirmed that belief, nor spoken of it. Lisbeth was mindful of the strange situation she was walking into. Emily’s wry smile showed Lisbeth she might feel the same way.
“Hello, ma’am. Welcome. It’s nice to see you again, and meet your children.”
Emily ushered them into the foyer. Lisbeth noted the shiny parquet floor and the cherrywood staircase to the right leading upstairs. To the left was a closed door, presumably to the sitting room.
“Emily, it is so very nice to see you too. You look very well.” Lisbeth smiled. “You are married? With a son?” When Emily nodded, Lisbeth said, “Congratulations. How old is he?”
“Willie turned seven last month,” Emily replied. “Close to your age, I think,” she said to Sammy.
“Emily, this is Sammy. Sammy, this is Miss Emily,” Lisbeth introduced. She started to say more, wanting to explain her relationship with Emily to her son, but found no familiar terms were adequate.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Emily,” her son said, reaching out to shake hands.
Emily looked taken aback and stared at Sammy, then glanced at Lisbeth with her brows slightly furrowed. She looked back at Sammy and slowly reached her hand out to him, a sad smile on her face. Lisbeth felt the unspoken poignancy of the moment, and she let the complex silence stand until Sadie tugged on her hand.
“And this is Sadie,” Lisbeth said. “My six-year-old.”
Coming out of her thoughts, Emily said, “Sorry, ma’am.”
“How do you do?” Sadie said cheerfully with a tiny curtsy, something she’d learned about recently and decided was the most elegant way to greet people.
Emily smiled and nodded to Sadie. She looked back up at Lisbeth. “Your family is right through here. They are expecting you.”
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