“Mom, I appreciate your efforts. I do. But I did get shitcanned three months ago and I am kind of back to square one careerwise. Kinda a stressful time for me. I don’t need any more stress, especially from a woman who abandoned me.”
She patted my knee. “I don’t agree. You need this. You need to talk to this woman. You are off, and I don’t see any signs of it getting better.”
“Like I just said, it’s been a hell of a year.”
“You’ve been off long before you lost your job. Since last summer.”
When I broke up with Gordon. When I realized I wasn’t destined for long-term love. I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back. “I am not off.”
She sighed. “Just read the letter. And if you won’t do it for yourself then do it for me.”
“You? Why?”
Mom pulled a picture from her pocket and handed it to me. It was taken of me when I was about three and a half. Dark curly hair framed my round face and I sported a purple backpack, hand-me-down red shorts, a Scooby-Doo T-shirt, and white sneakers.
“That was taken six months after you came to live with us. It was your first day of preschool. You were so damn proud of that backpack that you slept with it for the three nights leading up to school. Even on your first day of school, the teacher said how smart you were.”
Tears tightened my throat. The only thing I remembered about that day was a pair of toy binoculars in the classroom. I fell in love with them and wore them all day.
Mom cleared her throat. “When I turned to leave you that day, you panicked. You ran to me, grabbed my legs, and started crying.”
I didn’t remember.
“I kept promising I’d be back but you wouldn’t hear of it.”
I traced the halo of curls around the little girl’s face. That little girl smiled a lot because she needed people to like her. On some level, she understood if people liked her they’d keep her around and that she’d be safe. Somewhere along the way she grew up and stopped smiling. She turned prickly, determined to scare off those who might be worthy of love. “What did you do?”
“I sat in the hallway just outside your room. The teacher agreed to keep the door open so you could see me.”
“You sat there the whole time?”
“All three hours. And every five or ten minutes, you would get up from whatever you were doing and look out at me. I remember you wore those goofy binoculars around your neck the whole morning.”
“How many days did you have to do that?”
“Four. By the last day, you’d stopped checking.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Mom slid small fingers into her jeans pocket. “I need to know why Terry left you. I need to know why she’d just walk away. I want to find a reason to forgive her.”
Heaviness settled in my chest. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s a yes?” she persisted.
“It’s a maybe.”
As she opened her mouth to argue, Margaret appeared in the doorway. The excitement on her face mirrored the little girl’s in the pictures. “You are not going to believe what I have found.”
I was almost afraid to ask. “What?”
“Information on Susie.”
Chapter Eleven
I read the journal six times,” Margaret said. “Incredible.”
“So what happened?” I leaned back in my office chair, grateful to see Margaret. The cavalry had arrived and saved me from Mom’s questions.
“What are you two talking about?” Mom asked.
“The journal Miss Mabel gave to Daisy,” Margaret said.
Mom arched a neatly plucked brow. “Mabel gave Daisy a journal?”
I filled her in on the details, which only seemed to make her frown deepen. “Why would she do that?”
“We’ve no idea,” Margaret said.
“Mom, did Mabel ever say anything about me?”
Mom shook her head. “She showed an interest in all my girls.”
“She ever say anything about my birth mother? Did she ever mention Terry, perhaps?”
“No. Why on earth would she know anything about her?”
I rose from my office chair and worked some of the stiffness from my hips and legs. “She said the day before she died that she’d once seen me with my other mama.”
Mom peered over her glasses. “I don’t know how she could have. We ran a couple of articles in the paper looking for her and no one said a word. And I know Mabel read that paper cover to cover every day of her life. She would have said something to me.”
I searched her face looking for any sign of shift or concern that might hint to a lie. I know Mom would never lie to be cruel but she’d deceive to protect. “She never said a word?”
She peered at me, her gaze hardening with a hint of annoyance. “Honey, I would have told you about something as important as that.”
“I’ve seen you forget to tell Dad details that he was happier not knowing.”
She waved away the comment. “Your father is different. He really is happier not knowing how much I spent on a purse or a new mixer. Or if one of you girls failed a test or got a tiny ding in the fender. I know you like to know things, but Daddy is happy not knowing.”
Margaret cleared her throat. “So does anyone want to hear what I have to say?”
My gaze lingered on Mom, and hers on me, until we both reached some kind of silent accord. If Miss Mabel had known about my birth mother, then she had not shared the secret with my mother. And of course, this was all supposing that Miss Mabel wasn’t totally senile toward the end and hadn’t mistaken old articles she’d read for memories.
Shoving out a breath, I shifted my body toward Margaret. “Yes, please tell us what you have found.”
She grinned, glad to have the floor. “I’ve been doing some digging.”
“And?”
“First, let me read you the entries. It won’t take long.”
“Sure.”
Margaret gave me a recap of some of the events in the young girl’s life but the entry that stuck with me the most I read for myself:
I saw Emma today at the bakery. She spoke to Seymour, who manages the shop. I overheard her say that her brothers were sold yesterday at Bruin’s to a man who owns a plantation in South Carolina. Their mama wept, for she knew she’d likely never see her children again. Emma whispered about taking the railroad, moonless nights, and secrets. It’s the talk of runaways.
When the two saw me, neither was pleased. Emma has always been a nervous woman but today her hands trembled as she held her breadbasket close to her chest. Mr. Seymour looked at me with anger, though that is nothing new. He hates my green eyes and calls me high yellow each time we meet. I don’t know what I’ve done but I fear I’ll never see his good side. But today with Emma present, he guards his tongue and smiles too sweetly as if he fears I’ve heard something that could get him whipped. He quickly fills my order for my mistress and asks me how the new baby fares. We all hope and pray this one survives, I say.
Now as I sit in the attic, it is late and my bones ache from running up and down the stairs and fetching for the mistress and the new baby. Mistress frets over the child and forever worries if the room is too cold or too hot. Mama is not yet home from the bakery. Her hours are long and she looks wearier each day. It is dangerous to say, let alone write, but I cannot contain my thoughts any longer. Like Emma, I dream of us running away from this place to a home in the country where the sun shines and there ain’t no master or mistress so ready with the switch or threats of the auction block.
To think of freedom, much less talk about it, is to invite the whip. But the thoughts of freedom rattle so loudly in my head, they are all but begging to be released. I have ruthlessly denied them but can do so no longer.
I dream of freedom. Of slipping unnoticed into
a crowd and becoming faceless and invisible. I dream of reading in the park, savoring the words without fear of reproach. I dream of making my own money. Buying fancy silks. I dream of living my life freely and without the fear of the whip or being sent away from my mother.
“Wow,” I said.
“I know,” Margaret said. “Powerful stuff.”
“Did you ever figure out who owned Susie?”
“I did.” She pulled out a notebook and flipped through pages filled with notes. “Susie mentions him only once but she and her mother were owned by Dr. Rupert Randolph. He was a local physician who practiced up until his death. He died in 1852 at the age of forty-three. Susie would have been about twelve.”
“So what happened to Susie after he died?” Mom said.
“I went to the courthouse to dig through the old wills.”
“Wills?” Mom said. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because the writer of this journal was a slave. That means in 1852 she would have been considered property, so if she wasn’t sold she might have been listed in the will of her owner.”
“That would be Dr. Randolph?” I said.
“Exactly. So I went and found the wills of 1852 and sifted through them. And let me tell you, there were more than a few documents to read through. Anyway, I found a will for Dr. Rupert Randolph of Alexandria. He died October 15, 1852.”
“How did he die?” I asked.
“I don’t know. That will require more digging into the newspapers, which is next on my list. For now I can only tell you what he left behind went to his son.”
“Susie mentioned the child in her diary.”
“Yes. The baby. The doctor left the entire estate to the baby. Trustee for the child was Mrs. Elisabeth Randolph.” She flipped. “Here’s Susie’s entry about the kid.”
The baby has lived longer than any of his brothers or sisters and hope is starting to creep into the house. I still fear that the angels will sweep in and take him Home with them.
“I guess the angels did not take the baby,” I said.
“No.”
“Well, that’s a good thing that he lived,” Mom said. “How long did the boy live?”
Margaret held up a finger. “I’m getting to that.”
“The doctor left nothing to his wife?” I said.
“That wasn’t uncommon. It would have been his way of ensuring that all his assets went to his child and not to some unnamed man his wife may have married down the road. Husbands still controlled a wife’s property in the 1850s.”
“So what’s the boy’s story?” I said.
“I’ve yet to track down how long he lived or what happened to him. It can take so much time to find all the pieces. What I can tell you is that among Dr. Randolph’s assets were two slaves: one named Hennie, age thirty-one, and one named Susie, aged twelve.”
Dr. Randolph might have been the product of his time but I did not like him. He’d bedded a slave, married another woman, and then left his ex-lover and child to his son. “Susie mentioned her green eyes. She was called high yellow, a term used to denigrate biracial children.”
“So what happened to Susie?” I said. “I mean after she was passed to the son, her half-brother.”
“I don’t know yet. But you are gonna love this.”
I leaned forward. “All ears.”
Margaret flipped through more notebook pages. “The will stipulated that Hennie could not be sold for a period of three years because she was leased under contract to work for . . . drumroll, please . . . a one Shaun McCrae, the new owner of the Alexandria Bakery, which he renamed the McCrae Bakery. Which became the Union Street Bakery after the Civil War.”
“No shit,” I said. “Hennie worked here at our bakery?”
Margaret’s face brightened. “Well not here, here. Remember, the original bakery was on the wharf by the water and it burned in 1885. McCrae and his wife Sally moved the bakery here in ’86.”
“And Great-great-grandfather leased Hennie.”
“Yes. My guess is that she made the tea biscuits for the ladies in town. If she simply baked the common man’s hardtack or was in charge of something menial, McCrae would not have had such a specific agreement.”
This glimpse into these past lives stirred an excitement I’d not expected. “Hennie was a master baker.”
“Yes.”
“So did this also mean that Susie would not be sold?”
The lines in Margaret’s forehead deepened as she shook her head. “No. Even though Dr. Randolph’s kid inherited Susie, Mrs. Randolph was his guardian and as a result could sell his assets if need be. Mrs. Randolph was free to sell Susie at any time.”
Susie had been a little girl who wanted nothing more than to learn to read and write and go to a real school. “Did she sell Susie?”
“Here’s the last entry in the journal. It was hard to read because the handwriting looks shaky and rushed. It reads, ‘I am to be sold today. I love you, Mama.’”
Mom and I didn’t know what to say.
“Now, listen to this.” She pulled the tape recorder from her pocket and hit Play.
The little slave girl said that after the master’s baby was born . . .
“That’s Mabel’s voice.”
“Remember, I interviewed her?”
Mom nodded. “That’s right.”
Margaret rewound the tape and hit Play again.
She said that after the baby was born, the mistress kept the girl close and worked her from before sunrise to well after dark, washing clothes, cooking, and fetching. This went on for months and she was about near exhaustion when one day the mistress approached her at her washing cauldron. The mistress had the devil’s gleam in her eyes when she looked at her, smiled, and insisted that the girl change into a nice dress, which the mistress supplied, and to wash her face and hands. The girl sensed something was about to change and was so terrified she couldn’t enjoy the feel of the new blue cotton twill dress, the nicest she’d ever worn. The urge to pull free was strong but such a show of defiance would mean a beating.
Mistress and her slave hurried out the front door and up King Street. All the while the mistress kept a tight grip on the girl’s arm.
The girl hurried to keep pace. They arrived at the front door of an office building housed in a brick building two blocks north on Duke Street. There was no sign out front but Susie knew where they were. Instinct had her digging in heels. The mistress tightened her hold and jerked the girl forward.
Mistress pushed through the door as if she knew exactly where she was going. They moved down a center hallway to a man sitting at a desk. Mistress gave her name and the two were admitted to an office.
An older man glanced up from behind his desk. He wore round wire-rimmed spectacles on the bridge of his nose. A stretch of rawhide held back a thick crop of dark hair.
The girl knew the man. His name was Bruin and he ran the largest slave auction house in the city. She tensed at the mention of the man’s name. She’d never met him face-to-face but had heard tales. He bought and sold area slaves and transported them to the Deep South were the demand for labor was always high.
Mr. Bruin was surprised to see the mistress with the girl in November, one of his slowest months. Most slaveholders waited to sell until January 1, a day when buyers and sellers all met in the marketplace to trade human flesh.
Mr. Bruin was a clean man, with white cuffs and hands freshly washed. Word was he was also a churchgoing man who could easily quote the Good Book. When Mrs. Randolph said she wanted to sell now, Bruin rose from his desk and came around to inspect Susie. He reached for her bottom lip, pulled it down, and inspected the girl’s teeth. “There are no restrictions on her sale?”
When she said no, the trader offered two hundred dollars. But lady wasn’t pleased. “Her mother is training her in the bakery,
and she’s quite capable of doing laundry and light housework.”
“Ah, if she can learn to master baking skills then her value will increase.”
Bruin’s gaze shifted to Susie a second time, and he inspected her like a prize colt. He suggested if the lady wanted more money then she should wait until the girl looked more like a woman.
The girl did not utter a word as they walked quickly home. Her mistress seemed in unusually good spirits and waved and nodded to several other ladies.
After changing back into her work dress, the girl returned to her laundry. Since she was a small child, she’d never believed that she would ever leave this house. This was her home. Where she belonged. When the master had been alive, she’d always sensed he’d keep her close, not for her sake but for darker reasons she did not fully understand.
For the first time in her life, she wondered what her mistress would do with her now. And she understood why her mother worried so much.
Chapter Twelve
For the short time I’d worked in the bakery, I’d had no choice but to keep my head down and work. It had been all about putting out fires. But this afternoon as I sat at my desk and stared at the neat stacks of paper, I knew that I’d put out the major fires. Yes, smoke smoldered all over the desk and if I stayed away too long I’d once again have a raging inferno but for now each problem was safely satisfied.
A knock on my door had me looking up to find Rachel. She smiled. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
A week ago she’d begrudgingly made the cuts to the menu, which we’d implemented. Not only were we making a little bit more money, but also Rachel had more time to work on the popular baked goods. Life was a little less frantic at Union Street Bakery. Rachel and I hadn’t spoken much in the last week, however. We did our work but there was no chitchatting, laughs, or quips.
If she thought to punish me by excluding me, she’d hit the nail on the head. The distance between us hadn’t been easy. But if keeping clan McCrae together meant dealing with pouty hurt feelings, then so be it. Rachel would come around. Eventually. I hoped.
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