my departure, inquiring about my health. I’d forgotten about the consumption story Mother had concocted to explain my absence, and Nina and I laughed about it all the way down Society Street.
A fierce summer rain had swept through overnight and the air was cool and fresh, flooded with the scent of tea olive. Pink bougainvillea petals floated on the rain puddles, and seeing them, having Nina beside me like this on such a glorious day, I felt I might re-find my sense of belonging.
The past ten days had passed in relative quiet. I’d spent the time trying to put the household back in order and having long talks with Nina, who asked endless questions about the North, about the Quakers, about Israel. I’d hoped to avoid all mention of him, but he slipped through the tiny fractures anyway. Handful had avoided me. Gratefully, nothing out of the ordinary had transpired in the city and reports of the slave insurrection had dwindled as folks returned to the business at hand. I’d begun to think I’d overreacted about it.
On this morning I was wearing my “abolition clothes,” as Mother insisted on calling them. As a Quaker, that was all I was permitted to wear, and heaven knows, I was nothing if not earnest. Earlier at breakfast, upon learning of my intention to attend the Quaker Meeting and take Nina with me, Mother had displayed a fit of temper so predictable we’d practically yawned through it. It was just as well she didn’t know we’d decided to walk.
Nearing the market, we began to hear the steady clomp of thunder in the distance, then shouting. As we turned the corner, two slave women broke past us, holding up their skirts and sprinting. Marching toward us were at least a hundred South Carolina militia with their sabers and pistols drawn. They were flanked by the City Guard, who carried muskets instead of their typical truncheons.
It was Market Sunday, a day when the slaves were heavily congregated on the streets. Standing frozen, Nina and I watched them flee in panic as hussars on horseback rushed at them, shouting at them to disperse.
“What’s happening?” Nina said.
I gazed at the pandemonium, oddly stunned. We’d come to a standstill before the Carolina Coffee House, and I thought at first we would duck inside, but it was locked. “We should go back,” I told her.
As we turned to leave, however, a street vendor, a slave girl no more than twelve, bolted toward us, and in her fright and panic, she stumbled, spilling her basket of vegetables across our path. Instinctively, Nina and I bent to help her retrieve the radishes and cabbages and rolling potatoes.
“Step away!” a man yelled. “You!”
Lifting my forehead, I glimpsed an officer trotting toward us on his horse. He was speaking to me and Nina. We straightened, while the girl went on crawling about in the dirt after her bruised wares.
“. . . We’re doing no harm by assisting her,” I said as he reined to a stop. His attention, though, was not on the turnip in my hand, but on my dress.
“Are you Quaker?”
He had a large, bony face with slightly bulging eyes that made him look more terrorizing perhaps than he truly was, but such logic was lost to me then. Fear and dread rushed up from my throat, and my tongue, feeble creature, lay in my mouth like a slug in its cleft.
“Did you hear me?” he said calmly. “I asked if you’re one of those religious pariahs who agitate against slavery.”
I moved my lips, yet nothing came, only this terrible, silent mouthing. Nina stepped close and interlocked her fingers in mine. I knew she wanted to speak for me, but she refrained, waiting. Closing my eyes, I heard the gulls from the harbor calling to each other. I pictured them gliding on currents of air and resting on swells of water.
“I am a Quaker,” I said, the words arriving without the jerk of hesitation that preceded most of my sentences. I heard Nina release her breath.
Sensing an altercation, two white men stopped to stare. Behind them, I saw the slave girl dashing away with her basket.
“What’s your name?” the officer asked.
“I’m Sarah Grimké. Who, sir, are you?”
He didn’t bother to answer. “You aren’t Judge Grimké’s daughter—surely.”
“He was my father, yes. He has been dead almost three years.”
“Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t live to see you like this.”
“. . . I beg your pardon? I don’t see that my beliefs are