Yellow Crocus: A Novel

by Laila Ibrahim

  “You keep this safe till I come back. This came from my momma who got it from her momma, all the way back. I gonna keep one. You always gonna be connected through these shells, not jus’ to me, but to all the women folk that came before us. We are strong women, Mattie. You one of us, so you strong too.”

  Mattie nodded silently, her throat too full to let words pass.

  They joined the other families outside waiting to be torn apart. Mattie wrapped her arms around her mother and clung tight.

  Naomi cupped Mattie’s small chin and stared intensely into her eyes. Fiercely she whispered, “Momma loves you. Momma always gonna love you. You carry me in your heart for always. I gonna be back next Big Times.” Then she broke away from Mattie’s embrace and climbed into the wagon.

  Flanked by Poppy and Rebecca, Mattie had watched her mother grow smaller and smaller as she was driven away. In her mind, Mattie shouted, “Mama, don’ leave me. Take me with you.” To the world she stood sturdy and calm like a thick tree trunk planted firmly in the ground.

  That was the last time Mattie saw her mother. She might have protested more if she had known that her mother would not be returning for the Big Times. Soon after she departed Fair Oaks Naomi died of an infection and was returned to the earth without ceremony. When word of her death came three months after she took her last breath, her family erected a plain wooden cross in her honor in the negro cemetery on Fair Oaks. Her empty tomb sat amidst Mattie’s great-great-grandparents, great-grandmother, grandmother, grandfather, and father overlooking the James River.

  Sitting under the shade of the willow tree, unconsciously stroking Lisbeth’s hair, Mattie made a promise to herself and her son. If the overseer ever went to sell either of them, she was taking Samuel and running.

  That evening, when the Wainwright family was gathered in the drawing room, Lisbeth had a string of questions for her mother. “What was your mother like?” the little girl wondered.

  “What a question, Elizabeth,” Mother replied, surprised at her daughter’s inquiry.

  “What did she look like?”

  “Actually, you favor her. Your eyes are very similar to hers. Though I hardly remember my mother.”

  “Why?”

  “I was quite young when she died, perhaps eight or nine. I hardly remember her at all.”

  The five-year-old’s curiosity was undaunted. “What was her favorite song?”

  “Goodness. I have no idea.”

  “Did she sing to you?” Lisbeth asked.

  “No.”

  “Did she have a favorite flower?”

  “Favorite flower? No, I cannot say that she did. Or if she did, I did not know about it.”

  “What was her favorite color?”

  A small smile passed over Mother’s face. “Blue. Deep blue. She favored that because she thought it brought out her eyes.”

  Satisfied with that one nugget of information, Lisbeth’s mind flitted to a new topic. “Mother, can Samuel come in? Mattie would be happier if Samuel was here. I shall share her with him.”

  Mother laughed. “You are a sweet one, Elizabeth. It is very kind that you care about Mattie. She is very fortunate to be with you. I can assure you, though, that it is best for Samuel to stay in the Quarters and best for Mattie to stay here caring for you.”

  “But—” Lisbeth started to interrupt.

  Mother went on without pause, “Samuel would not be at all comfortable in the house. There is nothing for him to do here. They can visit with one another every week, which is more frequent than most workers can visit with their families.”

  Lisbeth knew there was no point in talking about it further. Although Lisbeth did not understand her mother’s reasoning, it was settled. Mattie would stay with her. Samuel would stay outside. That was for the best for everyone.

  Chapter 8

  SPRING 1843

  Lisbeth was surprised when Mattie relented to her cajoling. Lisbeth had been confined to her bed for several days with a head cold. So she was left behind when the Wainwrights left for church after Mother declared her unfit to sit for hours in a cold, damp building. Lisbeth asked to venture out to the Quarters with Mattie as soon as her family’s carriage pulled away. Lisbeth didn’t want to be left with Emily. And it had been such a long time since she visited the Quarters. Lisbeth’s pleading eventually worked and Mattie finally agreed.

  Lisbeth was excited as they walked down the dirt path to the shanties. Mattie prepared Lisbeth for the visit by reminding her who lived in the Quarters. “We gonna see Samuel, of course, and Poppy. We also gonna visit with Rebecca and all of her family: Lawrence, Sarah, Henry, and Frank. You remember Sarah, she a bit older than you.”

  Lisbeth did not need the reminder. She knew these people well from watching them each day out of her window. However, when they arrived at the Quarters she was suddenly uncertain and nervous. Watching this place was familiar. Being here felt strange.

  Lisbeth hid her eyes in the folds of Mattie’s long skirt as they approached Poppy and Samuel’s cabin. Murmurs from the people gathered on the benches outside floated over to them. Mattie smiled when she made out the sound of her son’s voice. He broke out into a wide grin as soon as he saw Mattie come round the corner from behind the cabin.

  “You lost both your top teeth!” Mattie exclaimed and cupped his chin in her hand to took a close look at Samuel’s gap-toothed smile. “You throw ’em on the roof and make a wish?”

  “Uh huh. And it come true. Look!”

  Mattie followed the trail of Samuel’s pointing finger to see her man smiling over at her.

  “Emmanuel!” cried Mattie as they rushed to embrace, with Lisbeth trailing close behind her. “What you doin’ here? It ain’t your visiting time till next week.”

  “They needed some horses brung over so I told ’em I take ’em.”

  “It so good to see you,” Mattie beamed up at her husband.

  They held one another close, taking in the other’s warmth and smell. A wave of comfort ran down Mattie’s spine as her husband held her. She was home in his arms. As Mattie stepped back from Emmanuel’s embrace she stumbled over Lisbeth clutching to her skirts.

  “For goodness sakes,” cried Mattie. “Lisbeth! Come out here and say hello. You ’member Samuel and Rebecca and Poppy and Sarah and everyone else. This here my husband Emmanuel. You seen him out the window. But you ain’t never seen him in person.”

  Lisbeth stared at the man before her. She was so surprised to meet Emmanuel in person that she was at a loss for words.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Emmanuel teased.

  “No, it is right here,” Lisbeth responded, and without thinking, she stuck it out. The instant her tongue poked out of her mouth, she realized her mistake. Horrified, her eyes popped open wide as her hand rushed to cover her mouth. Everyone else laughed.

  Gathered on the benches attached to the outside of the cabin with Lisbeth and Samuel pressed close on either side of her, Mattie reported to her son, “Four, five, two, seven, nine, two, and eight.”

  “No, Mattie, it was six on Friday,” Lisbeth inserted.

  “She right!” exclaimed Samuel. He turned sharply and scowled at Lisbeth with hard, narrowed eyes. “You watchin’ through the window too? With my momma?”

  “Yes. We both count the number of fingers you put up each morning. You cannot see me standing there as well?”

  “No,” Samuel muttered.

  “They can’ see in, Lisbeth,” Mattie explained.

  Lisbeth turned around to look at her window to see the truth of it for herself. The glass reflected the sunlight.

  Samuel glared at Lisbeth, then at his mother and back at the white girl. He jumped off the bench and ran away.

  Mattie flew after him. Left at the bench, Lisbeth watched Mattie cajole Samuel. She kissed the top of his head, tickled him under the arms, and hugged him from behind. Samuel ran from Mattie; Mattie chased after him. He allowed himself to be caught then squirmed away from his mother’s attention.r />
  Lisbeth had grown up on Sunday evening stories of Samuel and Emmanuel and everyone else. She had watched their comings and goings out the window twice a day since she was a baby. First thing in the morning and just before supper she stood beside Mattie to count Samuel’s fingers and check on his world. She knew these people. But today, Lisbeth saw something else. Seeing Mattie here with them, she understood that this was Mattie’s family. Mattie belonged here; this was Mattie’s home. A pit opened in Lisbeth’s stomach. Suddenly she did not want to be here anymore. She longed to be an observer of this place, looking down upon it from her room with Mattie by her side.

  Sarah, Rebecca’s long-limbed daughter, bounded up to Lisbeth on the bench. “Miss Lisbeth, Auntie Mattie says to teach you somethin’.”

  “Oh, that is all right,” Lisbeth stammered, blinking away tears. “Thank you, though.”

  “She says I got to!”

  Mattie yelled across the way, “Learn somethin’ new, Lisbeth—Sarah gonna teach you.”

  “All right,” Lisbeth acquiesced, though she was uncertain.

  “It go like this—put your hand up, fingers open by your shoulders, like this.”

  Lisbeth followed Sarah’s directions and mirrored the posture of the girl across from her. Sarah pounded out a rhythm in a complicated pattern alternately clapping her hands together and slapping them against her own knees or Lisbeth’s hands.

  Sarah chanted while her hands flew,

  Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer,

  Rise, Sally rise, wipe your weeping eyes,

  Put your hands on your hips and let your back bone slip

  Shake it to the east, shake it to the west,

  Shake it to the one that you love the best.”

  “You are so fast!” Lisbeth exclaimed when Sarah finished.

  “Everyone always sayin’ how fast I go,” Sarah boasted. “I the fastest tobacco picker for my age.”

  “I could never clap like that.”

  “’Course you can! I show you slow now.”

  Sarah’s callused palms clapped against Lisbeth’s smooth skin. Over and over Sarah moved her hands slowly, chanting out the song until Lisbeth sang along. After a while Lisbeth dared to move her hands along with the rhyme, often making mistakes. The girls burst out laughing whenever Lisbeth missed a step and clapped up into Sarah’s face instead of her own knees or hands.

  “You gettin’ it,” Sarah encouraged.

  “Not as good as you.”

  “Just practice, you gonna get better.”

  “I have no one to practice with.”

  “Auntie Mattie real good at this one. Practice with her.”

  Lisbeth jerked her head in Mattie’s direction. “Mattie knows this game?” Lisbeth’s eyebrows furrowed as she stared at her nurse.

  “Oh, yeah. Auntie Mattie know lots of hand clapping games. She taught me some good ones.”

  Lisbeth studied her nurse playing with Samuel and Emmanuel in the distance. There was so much about Mattie that she had not seen before. Mattie’s head was thrown back, her mouth open wide in hard laughter as her son and husband ganged up to tickle her. Lisbeth felt her understanding of the world come apart and slowly reform. A sickening realization dawned: Mattie loved her life here, away from Lisbeth.

  Sarah studied Lisbeth studying Mattie. Waiting patiently, Sarah stood in front of Lisbeth ready to resume the game whenever the young mistress of the plantation wished.

  The Ford family, the oldest white family in the valley, was in attendance for supper. Though they were not prosperous by Tidewater standards, as founders of the valley they enjoyed high social status. The six members of the family—mother, father, three boys, and a girl—shared similar looks: pale skin with ruddy cheeks, soft blue eyes, and sandy blonde hair. The sons, ages ten, eight, and seven, were a blur of motion. Mary, the youngest at six, was a calm contrast to her brothers.

  Lisbeth kept glancing across the table to watch her friend seated next to Jack. Adorned in a stiff pink dress with white lace at the collar, Mary quietly ate her food, hardly looking up from her plate. Lisbeth found no entertainment in her. Situated between the two “Berts,” Albert and Robert, Lisbeth played tap the table. Having made her own water dance, she tried out her skills on her neighbors’ glasses. She stretched out her right foot ever so slowly and gently touched the table, making a slight shiver in Albert’s water. He did not notice her sly movements. Switching to her left foot, she needed to be more cautious. Robert would tattle simply to make the dinner more interesting. Carefully she raised her left knee at an angle and raised her leg until her toes were nearly at the table when Robert accidentally struck her leg hard with his knee, causing Lisbeth to smash against the table. Robert’s water glass, along with Jack’s, fell over. Instantly water rushed off of the table all over Grandmother Wainwright who screeched loudly, drawing all the attention from the people seated at the table.

  Grandmother Wainwright leapt up, fury written all over her face. Lisbeth braced herself for a scolding, but Grandmother did not look at her. Instead she towered over Jack with a large spoon gripped tight in her hand. He cowered from her.

  Grandmother Wainwright struck Jack once on the head with the spoon as she screamed at him, “You careless, careless boy! You are not fit to eat at the table. If you do not learn your manners you will never grow up to be a true gentleman. Now apologize to me at once.”

  Shaking all over, Jack barely squeaked out an apology to his grandmother.

  Father broke in, “Now apologize to our guests for intruding upon our fine meal too.”

  “I am sorry,” he spoke out, though his face showed anything but remorse. Staring at the table, his eyes flashed with anger and his lip curled in frustration at the injustice.

  “No need to apologize,” Mr. Ford replied. “With these three boys, we have spills ten times a week at our table. If I had a nickel for every upset glass I would be as wealthy as Cunningham.”

  “We do not put up with such behavior in this household,” declared Grandmother Wainwright. “If you will excuse me, I shall take my leave to put on a dry gown.”

  After supper, the two families gathered in the parlor. Lisbeth, finally next to Mary on one end of the couch, confessed into her friend’s ear, “I knocked the water over, not Jack. Robert struck me with his knee and then I struck the table.”

  “Poor Jack,” Mary declared. “He was punished though he did nothing.”

  “I wished to say so, but I did not want to be punished as well.”

  “The spoon must have hurt! I would have cried.”

  “Me too. But Jack does not cry when he gets struck as it only makes Grandmother Wainwright more cross and she hits him all the more. It is best simply to stay clear of her,” Lisbeth said. “Now I have something to show you. Put your hands up, like this.”

  Mary did as she was told. Lisbeth showed Mary the game Sarah had taught her that morning. She whispered the words of the chant as her hands moved in rhythm. The two friends, in their own private bubble, startled when Father broke in.

  “Whatever are you doing?” he inquired.

  Lisbeth replied quietly, “I am only teaching Mary a game that Sarah taught me today.”

  “Who is Sarah?”

  “Mattie’s niece. She calls Mattie ‘Auntie.’ It sounds strange, ‘Auntie Mattie’.”

  Father looked at Mother. “Do you think it wise to let her play in the Quarters?”

  “I used to play with the pickaninnies as a child. It did me no harm. In fact, I believe it is good for her to be exposed to them. She needs to understand their ways.”

  Mr. Ford spoke up. “I absolutely agree. Our children must be familiarized with them in order to be successful masters and mistresses.”

  Lisbeth watched Father’s face, waiting for his approval. When it came, as a nod, she turned back to her friend.

  Lying in bed, Lisbeth thought about the day while Mattie sat nearby humming a tune. The girl’s voice broke into the calm night. “Mattie, when
I lose a tooth, can I throw it on the roof and make a wish?’

  “Don’ see why not.”

  “You think Samuel and Poppy will let me use their roof? Mine is too high to reach.”

  “I can ask ’em. I ’magine they gonna say yes.”

  “Do you think the wish will come true if it is not on my own house?” wondered Lisbeth.

  “I don’ suppose I know all about wishes, but I don’ see why not. Now you hush up and go to sleep.”

  Mattie resumed her own thoughts while Lisbeth lay quietly in bed. After some time, Mattie spoke into the silence with a false casualness. “Lisbeth, what you think about me invitin’ Samuel to be with us under the willow? Maybe you teach him a bit what you been learnin’ about books and numbers?”

  “Yes,” Lisbeth replied in a dream-coated voice, innocently agreeing to betray her parents.

  Chapter 9

  Mattie relished Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. All felt right in the world as she sat under the broad willow tree sandwiched between Lisbeth and Samuel, listening to her son and her Lisbeth go over the shapes and sounds of letters and words. The anxiety she had felt when Samuel first joined them evaporated as weeks turned into months then into more than a year without any hint of being discovered.

  Under the willow between the Quarters and the Big House proved to be a perfect place to meet. Weather permitting, Mattie and Lisbeth had been going there most afternoons since Lisbeth was a toddler, first for naps and then for studying. None of the white folks suspected that Samuel joined them under the willow two afternoons a week. The wispy green branches now hung so low that they could not be seen from the Quarters or the fields, and the dark brown trunk was so wide they were hidden from the Big House.