Then he handed Pappy the papers and said, ‘Now get off my land, for the next time you and I meet, only one of us shall walk away.’ ”
Otha laughed at that. “But there was this girl Viola—Momma—who was tasking there too. There was two of us by then—myself and my brother Lambert. Daddy had it figured that he would get up North, get some work, and then buy us our freedom. He started out at the docks, saving for the day he could get us all out. But Momma had her own notions. She ran with me and Lambert, took the Underground as it was back then. Shocked the life out of Daddy when she showed herself down at the city docks.
“They married proper and two more was born—Raymond and Patsy. That’s Patsy’s daughter who was at the piano. Girl can sing like a bird. The old master let my daddy walk—don’t ask me why—who can figure white folks? But for my mother—a girl—to take mastery of her life, as she did, well, it was too much. Maybe it was how she did it—just up and leaving. Or maybe it was us. Momma was the goose. But we was the golden eggs.
“That man sent the hounds up to the city. They bagged me, my brother Lambert, my momma, Raymond, and Patsy—the whole family save my daddy. We was carried back. When we got there Momma made it out as though the escape was all Daddy’s idea. Told the old master she never wanted no part in running anyway. Flattered him into believing he was good white folks. And I guess the old master believed her. Maybe he needed to believe her, needed to think that he was doing some kind of good, dividing a family and holding ’em down.
“Anyway, wasn’t long after that Momma ran again. Went different this time, though. She woke me up in the dead of night. I must have been about six, Lambert about eight, but I can still see it, like it’s all right in front of me—the memory is sharp as an axe. She was at our bedside when she told us. ‘Baby, I got to go. I gotta go for Raymond and I gotta go for Patsy. They gon die down here. I am so sorry, baby, but I gotta go.’
“I know why she done it, now. I knew why she done it, even back then. But it burned in me, a low heavy hatred. Can you imagine hating your own mother, Hiram? After that, the old master sold us south—two lost boys sent down into the deep. They did it to punish my momma, to show her that whatever plans she had of coming back for me and Lambert was done. I had a whole other life down there. I met a girl—my Lydia—and we made a family. I tasked hard. I was a man well regarded in slavery, which is to say I was never regarded as a man at all.
“Lambert knew. Maybe ’cause he was older, he knew all that was taken from us. And the hate in him was so strong, it just ate him. So Lambert…Lambert died down there, far from home, far from the mother that birthed him and the father that reared him.”
And here Otha caught up. I could not see his face, but I heard the halting in his voice, and I felt a halo of agony burning all around him.
“There are so many holes in me, so many pieces cut away. All those lost years, my mother, my father, Raymond and Patsy, my wife and my kids. All my losses.
“Well, I got out. My master needed the money more than he needed to hold me, and through the kindness of others, I got out. I came up to this city searching for my family, for I was left with rumors of where we had been. And soon I heard from the coloreds that this man Raymond White was a good one to know, should you be searching for family. I sought him out.”
“Y’all recognize each other?” I asked.
“Not even a little bit. And I had no surname. He sat with me, just like we sat with Mary Bronson a few weeks back, and I gave him my whole story. Later, Raymond told me that he trembled with every detail. But you know Raymond, he is a rock. So I’m sitting there telling him all that I know. And I’m wondering how he’s