staffs, and I felt then that winter was not just marching on Virginia, but on Elm in particular, and would not be leaving.
In the back I heard Carrie grow restless. Thena told me to pull over and we watched as Sophia took Carrie in her arms bouncing and singing through a nearby field. Thena unwrapped some salt pork and shared it with me.
Sophia came back with Carrie, still bouncing and singing:
Who’s been here since I been gone?
A pretty little girl with a blue dress on.
We drove on and Thena considered her reminiscence.
“This path right here, used to lead right up to Phinny’s place,” she said. “I had a whole passel of people here. Had a aunt who used to cook for the first Phinny himself. And in a time when y’all was but the smallest of peppers, they used to have the grandest kind of social down at the quarters here.”
“I have heard,” I said. “By my time, Phinny the Second was mostly known for being so evil. Story was he shot Pap Wallace, put him all to pieces because he would not submit to correction.”
“Who you hear that from?” Thena asked.
“My uncle Creon,” I said.
We were quiet for a while, riding along. It was late in the afternoon now, and we had one more pick-up at the Granson place before turning back to Lockless.
“That was your uncle?” Thena asked.
“Sure was,” I said.
“He used to come down to the Street, at night. Would hang near your momma’s place for whatever scraps she had. It was not his best days. I remember him well.”
“I remember him too,” I said. “But he is all I remember of those times. I can see him at the door, and everything else is fog.”
“Might be good,” Sophia said. “No notion of what’s lurking behind that fog.”
“Ain’t nothing good about it,” I said.
We stopped at the Granson place. Caroline was asleep now and Sophia wrapped her in her shawl and made a hollow for her among the washing, which was tied in bedding sheets. She reached for a bundle left on the ground to hoist onto the chaise.
“I got it,” I said.
“Let me help,” she said.
“You done helped plenty,” I said, with more heat in my words than I intended. Sophia’s eyes widened but she said nothing. She went back to the chaise and we kept loading laundry.
We got back with the sun still hanging just over the trees. She stepped down and said her goodbyes to Thena and then she turned to me. It was only now that I saw that something had gone wrong.
“So this is what it is, huh?” she said. She had Carrie wrapped on her back now, with her shawl.
“What?” I said, indignantly.
“This is who you are? This is how you come back?”
“I don’t know nothing—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me. Don’t you dare, not after you done come back. Don’t you dare. You was suppose to be better. I told you be better. I told you I wasn’t trading no white man for a colored. And now look at you, stewing over what you don’t own, over what no man should ever try to own. You was supposed to be better.”
Then she was walking down the road, her anger made manifest in how she shook as she walked away.
When we got back to the house, I unloaded the washing while Thena started on supper. Then I went to the kitchen, picked up my father’s meal, and began to walk it in to him. He wanted company for his supper. So I stood there and watched him eat as he interrogated me about the day. I fell back into myself, until my face was a servile mask. After, I walked out, down the secret staircase, to Thena’s quarters. We sat at her table and ate silently as we always did. When we were done, she looked at me and said, “You punishing that girl.”
“I—”
Thena cut me off. “You punishing her.”
I came back up and saw my father in the library, flipping through a volume. I went to the dining room and cleared his setting. Then I heated his cider and brought it to him and retreated upstairs to my room. The old toy horse I had carved for Georgie’s son was on the mantel. I picked it up and ran my fingers across it. I thought on Sophia’s words, the command to be better. I walked out of my room, down through the library, past my