Sarah
As dusk hovered, I sat at the desk in my room and slit open a letter from
Nina. I’d been at Green Hill almost a year, and I’d written her every month
without fail, small dispatches about my life and inquiries about hers, but
she’d never replied to any of them, not one, and now here was an envelope
with her large calligraphy and I could only imagine the worst.
14 March 1822
Dear Sister,
I’ve been a poor correspondent and a poorer sister. I
didn’t agree with your decision to go north, and I haven’t
changed my mind about it, but I have behaved badly, and I
hope you will forgive me.
I’m at my wit’s end about our mother. She grows more
difficult and violent each day. She rants that we’ve been left
without sufficient means to live and she blames Thomas,
John, and Frederick for failing to take care of her. Needless
to say, they come infrequently, and Mary never comes, only
Eliza. Since your departure, Mother spends most of her day
shut in her room, and when she emerges, it’s only to rage
against the slaves. She swings her cane at them over the
least thing. She recently hit Aunt-Sister for nothing more
than burned loaves of bread. Last evening, she struck
Handful when she spotted her climbing over the back gate. I
should add that Handful was climbing into the work yard,
not out of it, and when Mother asked for an explanation,
Handful said she’d seen a wounded pup in the alley and
gone over the gate to help the creature. She insisted she was
returning from that momentary mission of mercy, but I don’t
think Mother believed her. I certainly didn’t. Mother broke
the skin over Handful’s brow, which I bandaged the best I
could.
I’m alarmed at Mother’s escalating temper, but I also
fear Handful is engaged in something dangerous that
involves frequent trips over the gate. I saw her slip away
from the house myself on another occasion. She refuses to
speak to me about it. I doubt I can shield her if she’s caught
again.
I feel alone and helpless here. Please come to my aid. I
beg you, come home.
Yours in need and with
sisterly love,
Nina
I laid down the letter. Pushing back the chair, I went to the dormer
window and stared at the darkening grove of cedars. A little swarm of
fireflies was rising up from it like embers. I feel alone and helpless here—
Nina’s words, but I felt them like my own.
Earlier, Catherine had sent my trunk up from the cellar, and I busied
myself now pulling belongings from the wardrobe and the desk, strewing
them across the bed and onto the braided rug—bonnets, shawls, dresses,
sleeping gowns, gloves, journals, letters, the little biography of Joan of Arc
I’d stolen from Father’s study, a single strand of pearls, ivory brushes,
bottles of French glass filled with lotions and powders, and dearest of all,
my lava box with the silver button.
“You didn’t come down for supper.” Israel stood in the doorway,
peering inside, afraid, it seemed, to cross into my small, messy sanctum.
My possessions were puny by Grimké standards, but I was nevertheless
embarrassed by the excess, and in particular by the woolen underwear I was
holding. He fixed his eyes on the open trunk, then swung his gaze to the
eaves as if the sight of my packing stung him.
“. . . I had no appetite,” I said.
He stepped, finally, into the disarray. “I came to say, I’m sorry. I
should’ve spoken in the meeting. I was wrong not to. What Catherine did
was unpardonable—I’ve told her as much. I’ll go before the elders this
week and make it clear I don’t wish you to leave.” His eyes gleamed with
what I took to be anguish.
“. . . It’s too late, Israel.”
“But it isn’t. I can make them understand—”
“No!” It came out more forcefully than I intended.
He sank onto the end of my narrow bed and plowed his hand through
his rampant black hair. It filled me with a sharp, almost exquisite pain to see
him on the bed, there among my gowns and pearls and lava box. I thought
how much I would miss him.
He stood and took my hand. “You’ll still come and teach the girls, won’t
you? A number of people have offered to board you.”
I pulled my hand away. “. . . I’m going home.”
His eyes darted again to the trunk, and I watched his shoulders curve
forward, his ribs dropping one onto the other. “Is it because of me?”
I paused, not knowing how to answer. Nina’s letter had come just when
the bottom had fallen from things, and it was true, I welcomed the excuse to
leave. Was I running away from him? “. . . No,” I told him. I was sure I
would’ve left regardless, why dissect the reason?
When I recounted the contents of the letter, he said, “It’s terrible about
your mother, but there must be other siblings who can tend to the situation.”
“. . . Nina needs me. Not someone else.”
“But it’s very sudden. You should think about it. Pray about it. God
brought you here, you can’t deny that.”
I couldn’t deny it. Something good and right had brought me north, and
even to this very place—to Green Hill and Israel and the children. The
mandate to leave Charleston was still as radiant as the day I’d first felt it,
but there was Nina’s letter lying on the desk. And then there was the other
matter, the matter of Rebecca.
“Sarah, we need you here. You’ve become indispensable to—to all of
us.”
“. . . It’s decided, Israel. I’m sorry. I’m going home to Charleston.”
He sighed. “At least tell me you’ll come back to us after things are
settled there.”
The window was sheened with the glare of the room, but I stepped close
to it and bent my head to the pane. I could see the bright helix of fireflies
still out there. “. . . I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”
