signed my name than Mother whisked me to the front door where Snow waited with the carriage, Mary already inside. Typically, Mary and I met the carriage out back, while Snow tarried, making us late.
“Why has he come to collect us at the front?” I asked, to which Mother replied I should be more like my sister and not ask tedious questions.
Snow turned and looked at me, and a kind of foreboding leaked from him.
The whole day seemed strung upon a thin, vibrating wire. When I met with Thomas that afternoon on the piazza for my studies—my real studies—my unease had reached a peak.
Twice weekly, we delved into Father’s books, into points of law, Latin, the history of the European world, and recently, the works of Voltaire. Thomas insisted I was too young for Voltaire. “He’s over your head!” He was, but naturally I’d flung myself into the Sea of Voltaire anyway and emerged with nothing more than several aphorisms. “Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.” Such a notion made it virtually impossible to enjoy life! And this, “If God did not exist, man would have to invent him.” I didn’t know whether Reverend Hall had invented his God or I’d invented mine, but such ideas tantalized and disturbed me.
I lived for these sessions with Thomas, but seated on the joggling board that day with the Latin primer on my lap, I couldn’t concentrate. The day was full of torpid warmth, of the smell of crabs being trolled from the ginger waters of the Ashley River.
“Go on. Proceed,” said Thomas, leaning over to tap the book with his finger. “Water, master, son—nominative case, singular and plural.”
“. . . . . . Aqua, aquae . . . Dominus, domini . . . Filius, filii. . . . . . Oh, Thomas, something is wrong!” I was thinking of Hetty’s absence, Mother’s behavior, Snow’s glumness. I’d sensed a moroseness in all of them—Aunt-Sister, Phoebe, Tomfry, Binah. Thomas must’ve felt it, too.
“Sarah, you always know my mind,” he said. “I thought I’d concealed it, I should’ve known.”
“. . . What is it?”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
He’d misread my intent, but I didn’t say so—this was as riveting a secret as he’d ever revealed to me.
“. . . Not a lawyer?”
“I’ve never wanted to be a lawyer. It goes against my nature.” He gave me a tired smile. “You should be the lawyer. Father said you would be the greatest in South Carolina, do you remember?”
I remembered the way one remembers the sun, the moon, and the stars hanging in the sky. The world seemed to rush toward me, sheened and beautiful. I looked at Thomas and felt confirmed in my destiny. I had an ally. A true, unbending ally.
Running his hands through the waves of his hair, torrential like Father’s, Thomas began to pace the length of the piazza. “I want to be a minister,” he said. “I’m less than a year from following John to Yale, and I’m treated as if I can’t think for myself. Father believes I don’t know my own mind, but I do know.”
“He won’t allow you to study theology?”
“I begged for his blessing last evening and he refused. I said, ‘Don’t you care that it’s God’s own call I wish to answer?’ And do you know what he said to that? ‘Until God informs me of this call, you will study the law.’”
Thomas plopped into a chair, and I went and knelt before him, pressing my cheek against the back of his hand. His knuckles were prickly with heat bumps and hair. I said, “If I could, I would do anything to help you.”
As the sun lowered over the back lot, Hetty was still nowhere to be seen. Unable to contain my fears any longer, I planted myself outside the window of the kitchen house, where the female slaves always congregated after the last meal of the day.
The kitchen house was their sanctum. Here, they told stories and gossiped and carried on their secret life. At times, they would break into song, their tunes sailing across the yard and slipping into the house. My favorite was a chant that grew rowdier as it went:
Bread done broken.
Let my Jesus go.
Feet be tired.
Let my Jesus go.
Back be aching.
Let my Jesus go.
Teeth done fell out.
Let my Jesus go.
Rump be dragging.
Let my Jesus go.
Their laughter would ring out abruptly, a sound Mother welcomed. “Our slaves are happy,” she would boast. It never occurred to