The Loom

by Shella Gillus

  “Thank You,” she whispered.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I ain’t talking to you.” She grinned. “You do just fine, baby, coming to see me. And I’m happy for you. Always been happy you living in the Big House. Can’t hope for much more.” The lie soured in her mouth. She always prayed more, pleaded more for her grandbaby.

  “I met somebody.” Lydia wound her tresses into a knot at the back of her neck and spun around. “Name’s John.” Her head tilted when she said it. Oh, yes, Baby Girl was sweet on him. Lou shook her head and chuckled.

  “He says I’m different. Says he don’t much care what I look like, but still, I wish my skin was like yours. I can’t help but wish I looked more like you, Grandma.”

  “Chil’, don’t ever wish for nothin’ God ain’t gave you. Only the fool wanna be what he ain’t.”

  The girl sat up on her knees. “Only fools want to be free?”

  Stop it. Just stop it.

  “Only fools want to fly away?”

  “Lydia…”

  “Grandma, I want to be free.” The pleading, the yearning in her voice. Lou couldn’t take it. Stop it.

  “I know. Listen to me, Lydia. You don’t got to fly away. Life’s gonna take you on a path all its own if you just stay put.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I mean stay put.” Lou rubbed her crooked fingers and tapped her chest. “On the inside. Stay with your heart and listen real close and let life take you where it whispers. And stop that worrying about what you look like. God made each and every one of us different. And you special. You a perfect pearl. Yes, sirree. Lou’s perfect pearl.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lydia stepped outside The Room with her latest design, a cream satin weave dress with capped sleeves draped across her arm.

  It was perfect. This one, even before it graced her body, even before it ever had a chance to woo her, reflect to her all she imagined a dress could be, this one was special. Made for her and her alone. Never had gathered cloth and stolen hours resulted in a piece just for her. She would wear it, hide it, dream about a day she could present it to the world. For John.

  In her quarters, she peeked out her bedroom door. Behind it, her fingers rested against the knob as she steadied her breathing. Holding the dress up against her, she walked to the mirror, wrapping her arm across the waist of the gown.

  Slowly, she slid out of the old into the new.

  When she pulled the cool graze of satin up over her shoulder, the door creaked open. She shrieked, stumbling over the hemline.

  “Lydia?”

  She turned to see Lizzy standing on the threshold. Her friend’s eyes widened as she glanced over the gown. When her lips parted, Lydia sought to fill them with words, anything, something to say.

  “I was just—”

  “What? You were…”

  “I was just seeing if this would be… I’m sorry. I was— I don’t know what I was thinking.” She wasn’t thinking, had forgotten to block the door with the stool.

  Lizzy walked toward her, her mouth still slightly ajar. Would she tell? Snitch to Mrs. Kelly? Dr. Kelly? Lydia’s fingers trembled. She squeezed them steady, gripped them against wet palms.

  “Lydia.”

  “I know. I know I shouldn’t have. It won’t happen again.” She was panicking. “Please don’t tell your mother or father about it, Lizzy. Please!”

  “Lydia.” Lizzy stepped closer. “Lydia.” It was all she had said in the few minutes she’d walked in. And as much as her name on her friend’s lips had comforted her in the past, it now evoked fear in the same measure, thumped terror through her heart.

  “Have you seen yourself in this?”

  Lydia stared at her.

  “Have you looked at yourself?”

  She was standing in front of the mirror.

  “No, Lydia. I mean, really looked at yourself.”

  Lizzy gently spun her around toward her reflection.

  “Look. Look at yourself.”

  Lydia looked into the mirror. This one, just as she had predicted, fit her perfectly. Unlike the yellow, it gathered under her bust and creased down the front, billowing around her like a queen upon her throne. Her heartbeat slowed. She unclasped her hands.

  “Do you see?”

  She could see Lizzy behind her, her large blue eyes blinking rapidly. “Lydia. You look like…me.”

  She glanced at her blond friend, her own dark hair twisted back in a bun under a scarf. The wide blue eyes, her green ones. Lizzy’s round face, her high cheekbones. They looked nothing alike.

  Except for one thing.

  “Take your hair down.”

  Lydia hesitated.

  “Go on. Take it down.”

  She yanked the scarf from her head and raked her braid loose with her fingers. Auburn waves tumbled over pale shoulders. Lydia swept strands of hair across her scar.

  Lizzy ran to the door and fastened it shut before dragging the stool over to the mirror. “Here. Sit,” she instructed. At Lydia’s worktable, she grabbed knitting needles and with a few quick strokes of her hand, secured her hair into a tousled chignon.

  Lydia rose to her feet at the transformation. Green eyes blinked back in amazement.

  “Do you see it?”

  She saw it.

  “Lydia.”

  She saw it. Before her very eyes, she was changed. Others had spoken of her beauty, but it was the first time she saw it, staring back at her, boldly in the arch of her brow, in the pout of her mouth, the lift of her breasts. No longer a slave. In all the times she had tried on the dresses, she had never thought to arrange her hair. Lady was always in her mind. Never had it manifested before her eyes.

  Lizzy slipped the pearl necklace from her neck and draped it across Lydia’s. Ivory against ivory. She straightened her back, her neck regal. She grazed her finger over a nose and lips as narrow as any on the side of power. Something flickered in her eyes. And then she knew; she was not like them. She was them. There was no difference. She was not a slave. She was a lady.

  The moment she thought it, that very second, her heart fluttered. Was her African ancestry nothing? Was it nothing to be disconnected from the people she loved? She thought of her father in the tobacco fields, her grandmother in the confined slave quarters. She thought of John. “It don’t much matter to me what shade a woman’s skin is.”

  Really? What if he saw her now? A sadness overtook the moment. A death of sorts.

  “Oh Lydia, you don’t look at all like a slave anymore. You’re beautiful now.”

  Was she not the same woman with the same features that she had been only moments before?

  “You look White.”

  But she was not. Not on the inside. She slipped the dress off her shoulder.

  “What’s wrong, Lydia? Don’t you like how you look?”

  “I do, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Never mind, Lizzy.”

  “No, tell me.” Lizzy plopped back on Lydia’s bed, her eyes wide with wonder. “I want to know.”

  “It’s hard to make clear.” She shook her head. “I love looking like a lady. Just not a White one.” She had come full out of the formal dress now and stood shrugging into her old clothes.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought everyone wanted to be White.”

  “Lizzy.” Such foolishness.

  “Well, I did. I’m not trying to be funny, Lydia. I just thought—”

  “You really thought we wanted to be White? We don’t want that at all. Just freedom. We want to be free.” I want to be free. “I’ve never wanted to be White.”

  It sounded ridiculous coming from her, a woman as near light as the one on the bed. Even still, it was true. “Never, Lizzy. I just want what you have. I want the same rights as you.”

  “As me?” Lizzy laughed. “I’m as much a slave as you in this house. Most women don’t have their say neither. If you’re want
ing rights, ask for those my daddy’s got. Now those are rights.”

  They both laughed. The thought had never occurred to Lydia. Dr. Kelly was the only one able to come and go as he pleased. To do whatever godforsaken thing he wanted.

  “Lydia.” Lizzy slid to the edge of the bed. “I met a man.”

  She laughed again. They were mirrors. Funny how life was.

  “You did? Tell me about him.” Lydia joined Lizzy on the bed, sitting on her legs.

  “He’s handsome. Charming. Just a perfect gentleman.”

  “And his name?”

  “Jackson.”

  Jackson and John.

  “I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go to the gathering and look what happened. I’m smitten.”

  “Smitten? Is that right?”

  “Why, I might as well be. I can’t get him off my mind.”

  “Well, when will you see him again?”

  “I’m hoping soon. He told me he’s arranging a ball at his manor next weekend. I want to go, but he lives in Manassas.”

  “Virginia?”

  “Yes.” Lizzy sighed solemnly. “Lydia, I really want to go. I need to go. I need to see him again.”

  Like she needed to see John. Lydia smiled. She followed her friend’s eyes as they moved to the rumpled dress on the floor, watched blue eyes beam.

  “Come with me.”

  “What?”

  “Come with me. To Virginia.”

  “Are you out of your mind? No.”

  “Please. Oh, please, Lydia.”

  “No! Lizzy, what are you thinking? You’re not thinking.”

  “I am. It’s perfect. It’s a perfect idea.”

  “It’s foolish and you know it.”

  “Oh, it’s perfect!” Lizzy climbed off the bed, clapped her hands, and laughed.

  “Lizzy, stop it.”

  “Can you imagine?” She leaned down and grabbed Lydia’s shoulders. “Me and you in Manassas? Two White women—”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “It’s not that far. Less than an hour away.”

  “I’m not sneaking out of the house, acting like I’m White. And cross the state line? No.”

  Lizzy pleaded.

  But before she could refuse again, Lizzy squeezed her hands. Lydia looked down at their fingers, one on top of the other.

  There was no difference.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Every day Lydia waited for Midnight.

  Every day she waited until John found reason to be near. Out, away from the manor, were havens more beautiful than anything that could be housed. John introduced her to endless shades of green on long walks and awakened in her body hungers she had never known she had. She tried to resist but love seeped in.

  She smiled at the thought of him. Teeth shone against a skin so smooth and black it looked like the velvet she used to make something rare, something beautiful.

  A fine-looking man, women whispered when they thought she wasn’t listening. When he came in from the tobacco fields, rags froze midswipe, brooms stood at attention, and even those who’d worked side-by-side with him cocked their heads at his rolled-up sleeves and the peek of muscle when his shirt lifted, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. Just doesn’t make no sense for a man to look so good, they purred. What didn’t make sense, Lydia thought, was their persistence even in her presence.

  Nearly every Sunday after suppertime, some lady, wide-eyed and nervous, would tip into the cabin he shared with Charles, Master’s driver, bearing gifts—a crisp apple dumpling, anything hot, sweet, and as oozing as her words—like she was standing on holy ground, setting eyes on Baby Jesus Himself. When John received her offering, she’d rejoice. No, don’t thank me. Thank you! I should’ve done more. But Lydia never even received so much as a glance from any of them. Because of it, as soon as the wooden door creaked shut, she was quick to ask for the treat. She devoured every one of those gifts, swallowed every morsel of those traps, until she sat full and pleased that not even a crumb had touched her love’s lips, let alone his heart.

  On the back porch of the cabin they sat in the dark of night.

  “Marry me.”

  The words warmed her heart. He wanted her. This man wanted her as his own. If only…

  “John, I can’t. You don’t even know me.”

  “I know enough.”

  “No, you don’t.” If he knew the things in her head. The wish, the dream of life in her heart. Never a dream of love.

  “All right then, Lydia. Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “What I don’t know.”

  She laughed.

  “I’m for real now. What don’t I know?”

  “I can’t tell you all that.”

  “Sure you can. Little by little. Go on. Tell me something.”

  “All right.” She wrapped her arms around her legs, laid her head against her thigh. “I love sunrises.”

  “That’s good.”

  “And the smell of cinnamon on apples.”

  “Umm. I like that too.”

  “And sunshine. I love the way it feels when I’m walking in it.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re not working in it. I guess I’d love it, too, if it wasn’t beating down on my back from the time it got up every morning.” He smiled when she giggled. “What else? What about holding hands? You like holding hands?” He laid her palm on his and grazed it with his fingertips. She shivered.

  “You cold?”

  Nowhere near.

  “What else you like?”

  “Ladybugs.”

  “Really?”

  “I know it’s silly.” She straightened her back and stretched her legs in front of her. “But when I was little it’s what I wanted to be. So I could fly away.”

  “It’s not silly. Long as you’re not trying to fly off nowhere.”

  If she could, she would. He smiled. Would she?

  “I bet you don’t know many girls who like bugs.”

  “No. No, I don’t, but I doubt it’s the bug part you like. It’s the lady. You’re a little lady yourself.”

  She stared at him. This man understood her better than she understood herself.

  “All right, Lady.” He turned her toward him and slid his thumb from her temple to her chin. “Anything you don’t like?”

  “No.” She looked up into moonlit eyes of onyx. “There’s nothing I don’t like tonight.”

  John arrived ten minutes early, watching, pacing, waiting for Lydia at the back of the Kelly manor.

  In the month since she’d showed up at the slave gathering, he had spent every Sunday evening with her. But tonight was a weeknight. They wouldn’t have much more than an hour together. Studying the night sky, he noted the whereabouts of the moon, the position of the stars, and shook out the crinkled pass from his pocket, reading it for the fourth time, like it had somehow changed since he’d last checked. He needed to do more, rise earlier, get out more crops, anything to get Dr. Kelly to give him more time with her.

  He was getting nearer, inching closer to where he was going. Soon this whole state of mind would be a thing of the past.

  John watched Lydia skip down the back steps two at a time. One minute she was far from him, the next, near and up close. He wanted her closer.

  “Lady.”

  She smiled. Beautiful. His hands wanted to reach for her, but he shoved them deep into his pockets instead. “It’s a beautiful night.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He led her through an orchard. The tang of citrus and sweet apple hung in the air, clinging to their clothes. John picked up black walnuts from the ground and tossed one to her. To his surprise, she caught it and giggled.

  “Pretty good. You’re quick.”

  She smiled.

  “I’m glad we’re able to see each other during the week. I wasn’t sure the Kellys would be all right with it. Some masters don’t allow it, you know.”

  Lydia walked with her hands clasped behind her back in s
ilence.

  “They are letting you see me tonight, right?”

  “Well…”

  “Well?” He laughed. Hadn’t expected that. “Well, it’s best you get on back inside before they discover it.”

  “They think I’m taking a walk with Cora, but it’s all right. They won’t come looking.”

  “You sure?”

  “Are you leaving if I’m not?”

  “No.”

  “Well, we’re all right then.”

  She was something. He shook his head and looked at her. Sweet but something else. That something else kept him coming.

  Tonight, she was quiet, quieter than she’d been the other times.

  They stopped under a maple tree. He sat near the base of the trunk and tugged her wrist. She followed and eased down in front of him. The ground was moist from a late shower the night before.

  “You all right, Lydia?”

  “I’m all right. Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Us.”

  “Us?” It was all he thought about lately. “Is that right?”

  “You think we’ll always be slaves?”

  “No.” No. He knew it. Answered her quickly. It was his constant prayer. “I’m hoping one day, not too long from now, we’ll see the other side.” He looked up at the starry sky. He looked at her. “No.” There was too much beauty in the world. “No, we won’t always be slaves.”

  Lydia bent her knees and laid her head against them, stretching the length of her skirt over her ankles.

  They sat in silence, the night breeze relaxing him. He pressed back until his spine rubbed against the trunk and bark crumbled onto his shoulder. He closed his eyes but just as soon felt fingers tapping his. Her widened eyes startled him.