by Lynn Austin
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
“To Massa Fuller’s house.”
Anna froze, clutching little George to her chest.
“It’s okay,” Grady said gently. “There ain’t nobody there but Minnie and Jim. Missy Claire ain’t coming back here as long as the Yankees are in town.”
Anna knew that she had no other choice. The baby needed diapers and blankets and things, and she had escaped with nothing but the clothes on her back. She had already torn up her apron and petticoat to swaddle him on the ship. Maybe it would feel like home to be living in their room above the stable again, with the sweet smell of hay and horses. But when they reached the town house, Grady led her toward the back door, not the stable. She halted again.
“Why are we going in there?”
Grady’s arm tightened around her shoulder. “Because that’s where you and our son are going to live.” He knocked on the door, and when no one answered, he opened it himself and led her inside. He shrugged off his knapsack and propped his rifle beside it near the door.
There were plenty of signs that the house was occupied—the curtains were open, Minnie’s shawl lay draped over a chair, the aroma of bacon filled the air—but at the moment, no one was home. It was strangely quiet. Anna felt as though, any moment now, Missy Claire would yell at her to come upstairs, or would emerge from one of the rooms barking orders.
“I don’t think I can stay here,” she said.
“Anna, listen—”
“No, Missy Claire is everywhere, Grady. Everything reminds me of her.”
“But you don’t have to be afraid of her no more. You ain’t her slave. You’re free.”
“I know. I ain’t scared of her,” Anna said, struggling to put her feelings into words. “I’m scared of the way I feel about her. I hate her, Grady. When she said she would sell our son or throw him into the river, I wanted to kill her. And now that I’m here in her house, all those feelings are coming back again.”
Grady closed his eyes. “I know. It ain’t easy changing the way you feel. But Delia used to say that hating people was like drinking poison and expecting them to die.” He smiled faintly and said, “Come upstairs with me.” He rested his hand on her back and gently urged her forward, moving up the steps and into one of the guest bedrooms. He gestured to the four-poster bed. “I slept here after escaping last fall,” he said. “Did you ever sleep in a bed like this? It’s as soft as a cloud, Anna, not all scratchy like cornshucks. Which bed do you want our boy to be sleeping in? Go look at our room above the stable, then tell me if you think he deserves that one—or this one.”
“This one,” she said fiercely. “He’s every bit as good as Missy Claire’s son.”
“I know. And you’re just as good as Missy Claire—better, in fact.” He stroked his fingers down her cheek. “You would never be throwing her baby into the river. You deserve to sleep here, too.” He gestured to the bed and said, “Lay him down on there for a while. Your arms must be tired of holding him.” She hesitated, afraid to relive the terrible experience of losing him, of having her arms emptied.
“It’s okay,” Grady said. “I promise you that nobody will ever be taking him away from you again. Trust me.” Anna did trust him. He had returned for her and their son. He had brought them here to safety. She bent and laid the baby on the bed. He squirmed for a moment, then fell asleep again.
“He’s a fine-looking boy,” Grady said hoarsely. “What’s his name?”
“I’m calling him George.”
“No!” Grady shouted so loudly that the baby startled awake. But Anna moved to soothe her husband first, resting her hands on his chest. She could feel his heart pounding against his ribs.
“Grady, what’s wrong?”
“Why did you name him that?”
“I-it was my daddy’s name. What’s wrong? Please tell me … what’s wrong?”
She watched as he struggled for control. “George Fletcher was my first massa’s name—my father’s name.”
“Oh, Grady … I can change it—”
“No,” he said, exhaling. “No. I don’t want you to do that. Your daddy died trying to help you escape. He was a good man who loved you. You’re the baby’s mama, and you should name him whatever you want.”
Anna wrapped her arms around Grady’s waist and rested her head against his chest. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
All the tension had gone out of him, and she knew that he meant what he said. He seemed so different to her. Broken, somehow—as if the anger and resentment he’d stored up over the years had shattered into dust. Even his hands seemed gentler as he caressed her back.
“Where did Missus Fuller keep her clothes?” he asked suddenly. “You could use a new dress.”
Anna leaned back to look up at him, to see if he was joking. His face was serious. It was hard enough to imagine living in Missy’s house. But wearing her clothes? “It ain’t right to be taking her things and—”
“Anna. How much has she been paying you for all the work you done all these years? Don’t you think she’s owing you at least one dress?” He bent and kissed her before she could reply, and the love she felt from him, for him, brought tears of joy to her eyes. “Listen,” he said as he pulled away again, “it ain’t enough to be a free woman. You got to start thinking like one, too. I don’t want you teaching our—teaching George—to think like a slave. Free people get paid for the work they’re doing. And free people are sleeping in houses, not stables.”
Anna looked down at her son, asleep like a tiny prince on one of Missy Claire’s softest feather beds. A fierce protectiveness rose up inside her. “I’ll do it, Grady,” she said. “I’ll start thinking like a free woman from now on, I promise—for George’s sake.”
She slept in Grady’s arms that night, in the big four-poster bed, with their son clutched tightly to her side.
* * *
Grady’s two-day leave ended much too soon. He wished he had more time to help Anna get settled and to teach her all the things she needed to know, like how to shop for food and things. He had given her all of the money he’d saved from his army pay, and he’d promised Minnie and Jim that he’d keep on paying every month, if they would take care of Anna for him.
It had been hard saying good-bye to Anna. But he’d decided to leave a little early, giving himself time to walk to the Pinckney Street mansion near the Green that had been converted into a Union hospital. He needed to see Joseph before returning to camp.
“I’m looking for my friend, Private Joseph Whitney,” he told the hospital clerk. “He’s in my regiment—Colonel Higginson’s regiment—the First South Carolina Volunteers. He was wounded two days ago on the John Adams.”
The clerk looked away for a moment, and there was something in his expression that made Grady feel queasy. The man sorted through his papers as if searching for Joe’s records, but Grady had the sick, certain feeling that the clerk already knew the answer. His heart thudded painfully as he waited.
“I’m sorry, son,” the clerk finally said. “Private Whitney is dead.”
“No,” Grady breathed. “Are you sure?” The clerk simply nodded.
Grady wrestled with his grief on the long, hot walk back to camp, wondering how he could ever face their empty tent. And even though he knew that Joe was gone, even though several of his fellow soldiers met him along the row of tents to talk about Joe and to share his grief, Grady still expected to find his lanky friend sitting outside their tent reading his Bible or to hear his familiar voice saying, “Bless the Lord, Grady!”
They buried Private Joseph Whitney in the soldier’s cemetery beneath a grove of huge oak trees above the river. Silvery moss drooped from the tree branches like tears. Captain Metcalf had postponed the funeral until Grady returned from his leave so that he could be part of the military escort. Grady and two other soldiers fired the rifle volley over Joseph’s grave.
Joe had been so well loved and respected that nearly every
man in the regiment attended his funeral. His simple coffin, draped with the United States flag, looked much too small to contain him. The other men sang hymns as the coffin was lowered into the grave, but Grady’s throat was so tight with grief that he could scarcely breathe, much less sing. He didn’t hear much of the chaplain’s eulogy, only his final words, so hauntingly like Joe’s: “His body is in this grave. But we know that our friend Joe is home now, with his Lord.”
Grief hung heavily over the entire camp that night. The crickets and cicadas sounded deafening without the laughter and goodnatured banter that usually enlivened the summer evenings. “Ain’t nobody to preach to us no more,” Grady heard one man sigh.
An aching restlessness filled Grady’s heart. He longed to do something for Joseph, but he didn’t know what. Joe’s friend Willie sat beside his tent with his fiddle in his hand, but he seemed too distraught to play it. Grady walked slowly over to him.
“Can I borrow that for a minute?” he asked. Willie looked surprised, but he handed the fiddle and bow to him. Grady hesitated a long moment, then put it beneath his chin, adjusting the strings, trying a few tentative notes. The feel of the smooth wood in his hands, the vibrations that shivered through him, stirred painful memories. But Grady had to play.
He closed his eyes and began with a slow, sad tune—the one that Joe had always liked, the slave trader’s song. Then, one after another, Grady played all the songs that the slaves had once sung as they’d marched to the fields—mournful, haunting tunes that sounded painfully sweet on the violin, like a child’s voice. He wasn’t aware that all of the murmuring voices had fallen silent, that everyone was listening. Nor was he aware of the tears that streamed down his face as he played.
He lost all track of time, stopping only when he ran out of songs. Then he wiped his face on his sleeve and handed back the fiddle. “Why don’t you play some more?” Willie asked, his voice hoarse.
“I-I can’t,” Grady said. But when he looked around and saw the grief on all the men’s faces, he realized what he had done. The music had stirred up a lifetime of pain and sorrowful memories, forcing them to relive it all.
“Play something happy,” Willie said with a tearful smile. “Joe wouldn’t want us to be sad.”
Grady knew that he owed the other men that much. There had been happy times, too, in the slave quarters as they had gathered with their wives and families. And there had been happy times with Joseph, sitting around the campfire every night and singing about Jesus. Grady owed it to them to bring those memories back, as well. He wasn’t being forced by Coop to play for the slaves this time. The men wanted him to play.
He lifted the fiddle to his chin and played one of the happy, faith-filled songs that Joe had sung every night. He played as many as he could remember—songs about freedom and the Promised Land and crossing to heaven’s shore. Before long, all of the men were singing and clapping and stomping their feet in rhythm. Grady heard laughter again, and he played until his own sorrow lifted and his fingertips grew too sore to play another note.
Exhausted, he gave the fiddle back to Willie and headed toward his tent for the night. Grady braced himself to endure the loneliness of his first night without Joe, without Anna. But Captain Metcalf intercepted him before he could duck inside.
“I didn’t realize you could play like that, Grady. How come we never heard you play before?”
The question made him uneasy. “I … um … I don’t own a fiddle.”
“Listen, the officers are having a get-together in Beaufort next week. Colonel Higginson promised to come, if he’s feeling better. If I find you a fiddle, will you play for us?”
Grady’s reaction was instantaneous. Anger and rage boiled up inside him until his entire body trembled with it. If he had still held the fiddle in his hands, he might have smashed it over the captain’s head. He wanted to yell at Metcalf, “I don’t play for white men!” but he stopped himself in time.
“We’ll be happy to pay you,” the captain added.
All the heat of Grady’s fury died away in a wash of shame. He had urged Anna not to hate, but he still overflowed with it himself. And as hard as Grady had tried, he hadn’t been able to get rid of it. Seeking revenge against Coop hadn’t cleared it out. Grady had been a free man for eight months, but that hadn’t changed his heart either, nor had helping to free his fellow slaves. He knew that God alone could change him—and only if Grady admitted that the hatred and bitterness were there and asked for help.
And Grady wanted to change. He didn’t want to hate someone just because he was white. Good men like Colonel Higginson and Captain Metcalf had shown him that it wasn’t the color of a man’s skin that counted, but the heart of the man beneath it.
Grady drew a deep breath and stretched out his hand to his captain. “Find me a fiddle to play, and we’ve got a deal.”
* * *
Every morning Anna awoke with the same heart-racing feelings of panic. Missy Claire was calling her! She needed to run and fetch a basin of warm water so Missy could wash. She had to empty the chamber pot and open the curtains to let in the light. Missy needed her breakfast brought to her, needed her hair fixed, her corset laces fastened, her hoops tied in place. For more than ten years Anna had jumped to obey Missy’s every command, and now those commands—and their commander—were absent from her life. She couldn’t get used to it. Daydreaming was no longer forbidden, dawdling no longer a crime. She could sit down to rest if she was tired, a luxury she had never known. She had promised Grady that she would think like a free woman, but that promise was proving much more difficult to keep than she’d imagined.
Of course, caring for little George occupied a great deal of Anna’s time. He wanted to be fed every few hours and his diapers needed to be washed every day in order to keep a fresh supply. She helped Minnie with the cooking and housekeeping. But even though the remainder of Anna’s day was hers to do with as she chose, she still couldn’t shake off the guilty feeling that Missy was hovering nearby, waiting to chastise her for her laziness.
“Why don’t you get out and go for a walk?” Minnie urged her one sunny afternoon. “That little baby must be needing some fresh air.”
That was what free people did, Anna told herself. They went for walks anytime they wanted to with no one to stop them. But where would she go? She considered several possibilities as she tied the baby in his sling and put on one of Missy’s old bonnets to keep the summer sun out of her eyes. A stroll along Bay Street would be nice, but there were always a lot of soldiers there—white soldiers. And she didn’t want to go near the shopping areas without Minnie, afraid to endure all the flirtatious attention she always received. She finally decided to walk the few short blocks to the pretty white church that Missy Claire used to attend. She wanted to see if the windows were as beautiful as the church windows in Charleston had been. She would show George the magnificent colors, let him bask in the rainbow of light.
Anna left the town house through the back door, her belief that the front door was for white people still too deeply ingrained to disregard. George seemed to enjoy the rolling motion of their leisurely stroll and quickly fell asleep, cuddled close to her heart. She found the church easily, pleased that she remembered the way—and was surprised to see a flurry of activity in the peaceful little churchyard. She stood across the street, watching as Negro soldiers dressed just like Grady came and went through the open doors. She had planned to view the windows from inside if the church was open, but she quickly changed her mind when she saw how busy it was. Besides, a quick glimpse of the side of the building told her what she had come here to learn—all of the windows in this church, to Anna’s great disappointment, were made of clear glass.
Still, she was reluctant to return home. She stood watching the soldiers from the shade of an oak tree across the street, rocking from foot to foot so that George would remain asleep, and wishing that one of the soldiers would miraculously turn out to be Grady.
“Can I help you find som
eone, ma’am?” a voice beside her asked.
Anna turned, startled, and the Negro soldier tipped his hat to her. “Sorry if I frightened you. You looked as though you might need some help. Are you here to see someone at the hospital?” He didn’t talk like any slave she had ever met, and he wore a pair of wire-rim spectacles on his nose like the ones Massa Goodman wore when he read the newspaper. Anna had never seen a Negro with spectacles before. Then she noticed that his arm was in a sling.
“Is that church a hospital?” she asked. The man nodded. “I-I was just out for a little walk with my baby when I saw all the soldiers. My husband is with a colored troop.”
“Is that right?” he asked, adjusting his glasses. “Which one?”
“The First South Carolina Volunteers—here in Beaufort.”
“That’s a slave regiment, isn’t it? I’m with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts. At least I was until I crossed paths with a bullet a few weeks ago. I’m hoping the surgeon will let me rejoin my unit, now that my arm is healing. We’re stationed on Cole Island.”
“How come you’re talking like a white man?” Anna asked, surprised at her own boldness. She hoped she hadn’t offended him. His quick smile reassured her.
“Probably because I’ve lived among white men all of my life. I was born a free man in Boston, Massachusetts—to free parents. I’ve read about slavery in books, but it’s even more appalling than I’d imagined, now that I’m seeing it in person.”
Anna hugged her sleeping son and felt a little thrill of hope. George could be just like this man someday, reading books and talking so fine, and wearing white men’s spectacles. George would be raised a free man, too, with free parents.
“How’d you get hurt?” she asked the stranger.
His smile faded to deep sadness. “Our regiment led the assault on Fort Wagner a few weeks ago. Nearly half of us didn’t make it back in one piece, including our colonel, Robert Gould Shaw. He was killed.” He paused, and Anna saw him struggle with his emotions. “The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts demonstrated our race’s bravery to the entire nation—but what a terrible price to pay.”
