time of year. There’s a kinda peace that just falls on everything, even up here. It’s like summer wear the world out, and by October everyone is just ready for a nap.”
“I don’t know,” Kessiah said, shaking her head. She laughed lightly and pulled the shawl tighter. “This wind coming up off the river as it does? Give me spring. Give me green fields. Give me blossoms.”
“Season of life, huh?” I said. “Naw, I prefer this season of loss, this season of dying, for I think it is the world at its most true.”
We sat there quiet for a moment. Kessiah took my hand and held it, slid over until she was close, and then kissed me on the cheek.
“How are you, Hi?” she said.
“Lotta feelings,” I said.
“Yes, indeed,” she said. “Those comings and goings, my Lord, I feel it every time I leave my Elias back at the home-place, feel my heart ripped right out of me.”
“And how bout him?”
“Elias? Well, I like to think my leaving don’t please him too much. But I do not ask. And you must remember I was always a kind of woman who would be hard to tie. Very few men could cope with this. But my Elias was different. And I think it was mostly ’cause of Harriet. We are of the same understanding, so that when Elias fell to me, my manner was not so strange to him. Might well be the whole reason he fell to me as he did. I was what he knew. I was as a woman should be.
“We do need help on the home-place, though. Lot of work. And I am not really a part of it. He keep talking about getting a girl. I tell him he can do that if he wants, but he will lose one too.”
We laughed at this for a moment, and then I said, “Maybe not, though.”
“I assure you he will,” she said. “Do not let that ‘free love’ Convention talk get to you.”
“I am not speaking of free love. I am speaking of your mother.”
Kessiah looked out to the river and said nothing.
“Ain’t right,” I said. “Ain’t right what been done here.”
“Ain’t right for no one, Hi,” Kessiah said. “You also aiming to go to war with Virginia?” she said.
“There were promises made,” I said. “Promises before Bland died.”
“Not for Thena.”
“No. Not for Thena. I don’t have it all figured. But I do believe I am owed something here. I am happy to be Underground, happy that it all happened. But I was not asked into this. I was drafted. I do not believe it too much to ask that Virginia let loose the woman who made it possible for me to survive all those years before.”
“No, it is not. And up here, with just Raymond and Otha, or even with Harriet and Maryland, it’d be done. But Virginia…they are different.”
“I know,” I said. “I have been tangling with them in some manner for almost half my life. But I am telling you, I am determined to get Thena out. I can’t tell you how. I can’t tell you when. But I will get her out.”
Kessiah sat back and looked out toward the river. A knot of sparrows then flew up from the trees. I watched as a harrier dipped and dived among them.
“Well, I can’t say I would not love to have her,” Kessiah said. “But you will forgive me if I do not get my blood up over such a thing. I said goodbye a long time ago, Hi, and it is a hard thing to say goodbye to your mother, do you know?”
“I do,” I said.
“If you find your way to her and see her back up here, well…We have a place for her. Lovely farm west of here. Lancaster-way. It is truly a sight, I will say that. And it is waiting for her.”
* * *
—
The very next morning I dressed myself in the style of tasking men I had observed up here, those who dressed well above their station—fine trousers, damask waistcoat, and a high stove-pipe hat. It was still early, just about sunrise, but when I came down, Raymond, Otha, and Kessiah were there. We sat together in pleasing conversation for a few minutes. Raymond had hired a private hack to take us all to Gray’s Ferry Station, as this entire party insisted on seeing me off. The carriage arrived presently and we boarded and prepared for the trip down Bainbridge,