her conscience. I hadn’t taken her warning seriously enough: As long as the two of you are under the same roof, there is little hope for Angelina. . . . It hadn’t been Nina whom Mother meant to remove. It had been I.
“You leave in three days,” she said.
Handful
Mauma pretended a limp, and I got the real one. I used her old wood cane, but it came up to my chest—more like a crutch than a cane.
One day when the rain poured and Goodis couldn’t work the garden, he said to me, “Gimme that cane.”
“What for?”
“Just give it here,” he said, so I did.
The rest of the day, he sat in the stable and whittled. When he came back, he had the cane clasped behind his back. He said, “I sure hope you like rabbits.”
Not only had the man trimmed off the bottom end to make it the right size, he’d carved the handle into a rabbit head. It had a round, speckled nose, big eyes, and two long ears going straight back. He’d even notched the wood to look like fur.
I said, “I like rabbits now.”
That was one of the kindliest things ever done for me. One time I asked him how he got his name, and he said his mauma gave it to him when he was ten cause he was the goodest one of her children.
I could travel with the cane like nobody’s business. Cindie saw me coming to the kitchen house for supper that night and said I was springing cross the yard like a rabbit. I had to laugh at that.
The day after Cindie praised me, they took her off somewhere and we never saw her again. Aunt-Sister said her mind had worn out, that missus had sent her off with Thomas to their plantation, where she’d live out her days. Thomas, he was the one taking care of the plantation now, and sure enough, he came back with a new maid for missus named Minta.
God help the girl.
Cindie getting sent off like that put a scare in all of us. I went back to my sewing duties faster than you could say the word rabbit. I showed missus how I could go up the stairs. I climbed sure and steady, and when I got to the top, she said, “Well done, Hetty. I’m sure you know how much it grieved me to send you to the Work House.”
I nodded to let her know what a heavy burden this must’ve been for her.
Then she said, “Sadly, these things become necessary at times, and you do seem to have profited. As for your foot . . . well, I regret the accident, but look at you. You’re getting about fine.”
“Yessum.” I gave her a curtsy from the top step, thinking what Mr. Vesey said one time at church: I have one mind for the master to see. I have another mind for what I know is me.
I heard a tap-tap on my door one afternoon late, and Sarah stood there with her freckle face white as an eggshell. I’d been working on master Grimké’s pants—missus had sent a slew of them down, said they were hanging off him too big. When Sarah came in, I was hobbling round the cutting table, spreading out a pair of britches to see what I could do. I set the shears down.
“. . . I only want to say . . . Well, I have to go away . . . Up north. I . . . I don’t know when I’ll be able to return.”
She was talking with the pauses back in her voice, telling me about the doctor in Philadelphia, her having to nurse her daddy, being parted from Nina, all the miseries of packing that waited for her. I listened and thought to myself, White folks think you care about everything in the world that happens to them, every time they stub their toe.
“That’s a millstone for you,” I told her, “I’m sorry,” and the minute it left my mouth, I knew it was coming from the true mind that was me, not the mind for the master to see. I was sorry for her. Sarah had jimmied herself into my heart, but at the same time, I hated the eggshell color of her face, the helpless way she looked at me all the time. She was kind to me and she was part of everything that stole my life.
“. . . You take care of