Young Writers Society

The Distance Between Us

I couldn’t tell her. Not when she looked so small in her blue silk dress, lying across the sofa with that unassuming way of hers. She caught a cold yesterday when she spent too much time in the evening air and, though I insisted she stay in bed, my mother was one of those patriarchal Southern woman with a will of iron too strong to be stopped by a “trifling” illness.

“What is it sweetheart?” She said, fanning herself with one hand. “Go on, is it a boy? Pay no mind to him. At your age--cough--they’re all fools anyway.”

“No mother, it’s not a boy.”

“Oh pooh, I was sure I was right.”

Satisfied that it could scarcely be anything important, my mother closed her eyes and settled back against the cushions.

Now unseen by her, I grabbed at my fingers. But I couldn’t stop their shaking and I certainly couldn’t brighten their unusual paleness, though I tried to pinch a bit of colour in them. What was this feeling? This pain weighing on my stomach? I told my mother everything, it was the nature of our relationship to continually be within each other’s confidence.

But when the door opened and Abigail, greeting us with a small curtsy, began to serve breakfast (for it was only the two of us today, father had gone off to Richmond for business), I felt only relief.

My mother, meanwhile, stiffened in her presence. She despised Abigail. I admit she was a little anxious sometimes, prompting her clumsiness, but as far as house slaves went she must be top grade because father refused to sell her. The faces blurred together for me. What was the difference between one negro and the next?

I gave her a small smile, merely to avoid speaking a bit longer, and she knocked over the lemonade.

“Abigail please, if you can’t watch where you’re going I may switch you to the fields and see how you fare there.”

Mother sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose but Abigail was used to these kinds of threats, she mumbled an apology and wiped up the mess.

“Tell me what’s on your mind Victoria, your fretfulness is impossibly stressful.”

Against my better judgement, at the shocking suddenness of her question, or so it seemed to me, my jaw began to tremble. I wasn’t going to cry. Crying was for little girls and I was a thirteen year old who was considered very mature for her age.

“I can’t. I can’t tell you.”

My mother’s unfocused gaze settled on me and I felt the warmth of her brown eyes, which she’d gifted to her only daughter. Though unlike mine, hers could turn cold in a second: a talent I often envied when I wanted to tell someone just how angry I was. Under those steady eyes I lost my composure, allowing a stream of holed up tears to flow down my face. Without thought my mother dropped her hands from her chest and stretched them toward me.

“Don’t cry darlin’. I hate it when you cry. Come here and tell me what’s wrong.”

I brushed my soft brown hair from my face, to keep it from sticking, and went to her without reluctance. My dress puffed around me as I knelt, trying desperately, and uselessly, to hide my tears.

“Did Abigail ruin one of your dresses in the laundry? One of your new ones? No, it’s more serious than that.” Mother pressed my head to her chest with pitiful strength and touched both lips to my hair. “If you don’t tell me I can’t help you.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Oh, what am I? Am I not your mother, and is it not my job to love you without condition? You’ll meet no shame here my child.”

She cupped my chin with her gentle hands and forced me to look at her. But her declaration of love only deepened my shame, I thought she’d take it back in a moment.

“It’s Uncle!”

I ripped my head from her hands and dropped it into my palms.

“Has somethin’ happened to him? Why didn’t you tell me? Victoria Arabella Cardwell, why didn’t you tell me?” She pushed herself up amid a storm of hacking coughs. “Abigail, go alert one of the overseers, we have to go for help at once.”

“Mother, stop please.” I guided her back down. “Uncle is fine. I-I’m the one who has…”

“Has what darlin’?”

She stubbornly remained sitting but her eyes softened at the desperation in my voice.

I couldn’t bear to look at her but eyed the floor as I spoke, fiddling with the seam of my dress.

“I have sinned.”

She hadn’t expected this, I could tell. Those hands of hers that moved so surely were at a loss of where to settle. They chose, after a series of uncertain fluttered movements, to rest on her lap.

“I’m sure it wasn’t too bad. If you ripped one of your dresses climbing trees, or doing other sorts of unladylike things, we can mend it. I’ve just purchased some delightful new thread.”

“No mother. It’s worse than that.” My crying spell had ended but the ache in my stomach grew heavy. “I did the bad thing. The worst thing I could do.”

She shook her head.

“There are lots of bad things and which of them is worse is merely a matter of opinion.”

“It’s the one reverend thinks is the worst. The one he warned against last Sunday, when he made all the young girls stand up and con-” My voice shook, but I would not have it. I’d admit my faults with grace, the way mother would.

“When he made all the young girls stand up and confess.”

Comprehension dawned in her eyes. Her cheeks grew pale and her lips pinched. After a moment spent staring down at me, her attention drifted away.

She motioned for Abigail to leave and in a second her faltered footsteps hurried away and the door closed almost soundlessly. Stuck in the sudden silence, my whole body burned with tension. I waited for her speak. But time ticked by, the silence growing oppressive, and her mouth stayed clamped. 

I fell to doodling designs on the rug, following the pattern of golden threads inlaid in the navy. Tic, tock, tic, tock. How many times would the clock move forward before the fluttery sickness in my stomach was put to rest? 

“I do not believe you. I don’t believe the devil has entered my home in such a manner. Speak to me Victoria , explain yourself.”

My head snapped up. No, I hadn't imagined it. Disbelief spread its simple garb of open lips and wide eyes, chin turned as if to look away from my dishonesty, across her face. 

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. Uncle-“

“Uncle what? Told you not to? You should have listened, if ya had any good sense at all.”

I shook my head and fell, because I needed the comfort, against one of the dining room chairs.

“He made me mother. He came into my room last night and into my bed…”

My voice trailed away. The rest needed no explanation but if it had, I don’t think I’d have found the right words. Last night was terribly confusing. It began and then, just as quickly, it was over.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her jaw was firm. The coldness in her eyes, that chased the love away, crawled inside and burrowed into their usual chocolate warmth.

“I’m sorry mother. Please, please, don’t be mad at me.”

“How dare you accuse your uncle? He’s a good man and a guest in our house.” Her voice rose several octaves. “ I won’t have that type of behavior here, I just won’t have it.”

I sank to my knees.

“I’m not lyin’. He made me mother. He pushed me down and grabbed ma hair. It hurt but I couldn’t cry out, his hand was on my mouth. Please, believe-“

Her firm hand cut across the air and slapped me into silence. Overcome with shock, and fighting a fresh sting of tears, I could find no use in speaking. I brushed my fingers across the place where she hit me and imagined a garish red welt forming there, stark against the pale white of my skin.

But my mother remained unrepentant. Her skin was flush with crimson flame, her eyebrows arched high on her forehead.

“Even if he had done this thing, it’s your duty to keep yourself modest and clean. If you’d been acting the way you were raised to act Victoria, there would be no way for him to lay a hand on you.”

She breathed a huff of air through her nose and flopped back against the couch.

“Forgive me mother,” I said, clasping the fingers of my hands. “I try so hard to be good. I pray and read the bible. I don’t talk to boys or listen to girls at the academy when they say things they shouldn’t.”

Through of span of several infinite seconds, our eyes locked. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“I’m far too sick for this darlin’.” She pressed a hand to her head and sighed in a dramatic show of infirmity. “I know I’ll be forgiven for not telling about what you’ve done, if only to protect you. Let’s pretend you didn’t say anythin’, alright? I’m feverish, I forget things anyway.”

There was no doubt this was the best I could hope for: calm denial of my pain. I nodded and turned around, overcome with an almost tingling numbness. A mirror, framed by embroidered red drapes, sat in the opposite wall of the dining room and my reflection in its glass was strange to me. The mark wasn’t so bad but the girl behind it looked terrified, broken even.

It’s my brand, I thought. My mark that would tell everyone what I had done. Not who had touched me, but who, according to my mother, had not.

“What shall we talk about?” She said, in an off-pitch, singsong voice. “I’m sendin’ for some new clothes in New York. What do you think I should pick, gray silk or some new feathers for my hair? My old ones have gone out of fashion.”

I answered, with mechanical movements of my lips, as I took back my place at the table.

“I think you would look just lovely with some new feathers.”

“Perfect, it’s decided then. Oh, don’t look so glum. You know, I have some wonderful news. They’ve just ratified The Bill of Rights. Isn’t that wonderful? Your father was so excited.”

I nodded, though it had happened some months ago.

“How...wonderful.”

I wondered when Uncle Henry would wake up. I didn’t want to see him. I could envision, in my mind’s eye, the fake smile my mother would plaster across her feverish face. She’d look somewhat like a bad actress in a play, going through some crisis or another, and trying to pretend she was happy for the sake of her character. I’d look like an actress too, a background performer. Maybe she’d let me be a tree or some other thing that didn’t speak.

“If you’re not goin’ to make an effort to be cheerful Victoria, when you’re perfectly able to go about your day while I’m a temporary invalid, I’m goin’ to take a nap. I’m exhausted and my headache is getting worse.”

“Alright,” was my only reply.

I’d like a nap too, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

I sneaked a look her way while she sunk into the cushions, letting her eyelids droop shut and, as I did, my gaze passed over the doorway. My fogged up brain couldn’t register the identity of the ebony face, peering at me through a crack between the door and the jam. I blinked stupidly for a moment. Then Abigail caught my eye and backed away before I could call her in, gasping in the usual manner of a half-wit found breaking the rules.

The prospect of telling my mother on her held no enjoyment for me today. Let her know too, that my mother considered me vile enough to make up awful stories about respectable men and pass them off as truths.

Heavy footsteps thudded along the floor above us, breaking the stillness. Uncle was awake.

“I’m not hungry. I think I’ll go walking.”

A low groan was my mother’s only reply. I guess her trifling illness had gotten the better of her after all.

I hurried out the house, passed the fields where the slaves were working, and to the shaded trail circling our land.

Abigail’s child, who was busy weeding sugarcane, looked up at me as I passed. His almost white skin stood out against the dark backdrop of the slaves working next to him. He was mulatto, a mix of black and white. A disgrace to humanity, my mother said. Whatever he was, he spared no smile for me.

“Miss. Miss,” said a gentle voice and I blushed, before realizing that in looking at my father’s property I had done nothing wrong. And besides, it was Abigail who ran behind me, skirt gathered in her hands to avoid the mud.

I gave her a cold nod.

“What?”

“Ma’am, I wan’ed to say ‘m sorry. I ain’t in no habit of listenin’ on you and my mistress.”

Her expression was panic stricken, eyes wide on her expansive face. She was beautiful, for a negro. Her thick black hair was braided back, to show the tops of her slender shoulders. Lips that were full, and delicately pink, sat below prominent cheekbones. I didn’t know whether those cheekbones showed because of hunger and stress or because they were naturally shaped that way, but the effect on her appearance was that even when she was stammering an apology, or bowing her head in guilt, she always looked a little fierce. Her African blood always showed through with subtle savagery.

For the first time I wondered if that’s why my mother hated her.

“What did you hear?”

“Nothing. I ain’t heard nothin’.”

She began wringing her hands together but still that fierceness didn’t soften. It was permanently pressed there.

“Don’t lie. What did you hear?

Abigail shook her head, flinging her braid from side to side.

“Nothin’ ma’am, I promise.”

“If you heard me talking about my uncle I don’t want you to go tellin’ anybody.”

Her eyes flashed with something, something akin to the sharpness of her cheekbones, and I felt my fingers itching to pull her hair. Sometimes, when my dog gave me a nasty look and I thought he might bite me, I gave him a good kick and he backed off.

“I got nothin’ to tell. Your Uncle’s da brother of my master, ain’t nothing to tell ‘cept that.”

It was clear I had no chance of getting anything out of her, even if she had heard.

“Fine. Mother’s sick, so I’m not going to tell her I saw you. Get back to your chores, there’s no time for you to rest.”

She nodded. “Thank you ma’am. I ‘preciate it.”

“I’m not doing it for you.”

I turned to hurry up the road before Uncle Henry saw me.

“And ma’am?”

I sighed and spun back around. “Yes?”

“Your uncle’s a strong man. He ain’t gonna hurt nobody, ‘m sure. If he want to though, he could push a girl down. He could push a girl down real well.”

I stiffened. I didn’t want her pity, or for her to believe me. A slave pitying a white girl, and me being the white girl no less, was like a fish pitying the one who’d caught it.

“Abigail. Get back to work.”

I started up the path, without my bidding, her son’s miserable face pushed it’s way into my mind again. There was a time once, when I saw my father stop to give him a drink of water. I was running near this exact spot, chasing butterflies, and they didn’t know I could see them. After all these years I still didn’t know why it happened. Maybe he didn’t think like mother did: that his kind were a disgrace to humanity. Maybe he secretly worried he was lonely, with nowhere to belong. There was something pleasing in the soft color of his skin.

I wondered absently which white men Abigail had seduced and why they’d want to sleep with a negro. Was it her almost savage fierceness? Before I knew it I’d halted, shocked at my own audacity, to chase the stupid, idiotic thought away. Just because I was sullied now, ruined as my mother put it, didn't mean I could think such awful things.

I didn’t have to think about him either, I didn’t have to think about him at all.

An image popped into my head, of a man’s shadowed face at my bedroom door. He’d grinned first and requested my permission to come in.

But that memory also dredged up feelings of disgust and shame so I banished it from my mind as well and thought of the lovely sunny morning.

What would I do if the priest once more asked all the young ladies to stand up and confess? I would have to lie or my mother would tell everybody I had gotten into the habit of making up stories. How ironic it seemed that the only way to be seen as truthful was to be dishonest. No, push those thoughts away. Bury those things inside.

Dew speckled the trees and the green grass was vibrant in the sun. Birds sang their morning songs in the cheerful manner they’re accustomed to, knowing nothing of sadness in July.

None of it registered with me. My walk was spent wondering what was to become of me now. How would I spend the time remaining before uncle left us?

She was hanging clothes on the line when I saw her. And as I watched, it struck me how even people like her contain secrets. I couldn’t stop myself. It was like I was possessed--because it wasn’t me, couldn’t be me, who left the soft brown path and stopped in front of the laundry line.

“ Abigail...do you, do you know any other strong men?”

Trembling as it was, there was a subtle edge to my voice. Though she didn’t admit it I could tell by the sudden weariness in her eyes: she knew what I meant.

“What are you talking ‘bout miss?”

“Don’t play innocent with me Abigail. Please, answer my question.”

But she went back to work, tugging clothes off the line with a little more force than necessary. But I watched her with equal stubbornness, shifting my weight from one foot to another as the moments stretched on. Finally, she stopped, shrugged her shoulders, and sighed. When she faced me her expression was twisted with a peculiar mix of thoughtfulness and discomfort.

“Men be real lucky. They be real lucky they so strong. But the way they use it’s going to haunt ‘em one day. Might not be on this earth miss, but they’s gonna get punished. That hope’s all us girls got. You hold on to it tight as you can.”

She looked at me, right in the eyes, and for the first time in her presence I felt my age. My insides squirmed at the feeling.

“Um, thank you.” The words were unnatural on my tongue. I’d never thanked a Negro before. 

“I’ll try that.”

She smiled.

“I best get back to work miss. It’s like you said, I’ve got no time to be standin’ round.”

She gave me a curt nod and propped the laundry basket on her hip, humming quietly as she walked away.

A few moments passed as I stared at her receding figure…

At the end of them I knew one thing. The mulatto children. The mulatto children had been fathered by strong men.

The rest of the day passed with exaggerated slowness. I ate a cold lunch and didn’t bother with any dinner. When my mom was well we would visit our neighbors or go to town. For once, I longed for the dull walls of the academy. At least I was always busy there.

Today I wandered the house without purpose, looking outside every once in awhile to watch my uncle talk to an overseer or yell at a slave. But that particular activity was put to a stop when, after I lingered overly long, he felt my stare and turned to face me. His answering grin, curling unnaturally at the corners, was so sickening I found myself unable to move till he grew bored of me.

After that I stayed away from the windows.

The relief I felt at changing into my night clothes, able to lock my door at last, was overwhelming and heady. I felt dizzy with the comfort of the movements. 

That night darkness descended with light footed quickness, almost no time spared for twilight, and for this I was thankful. Uncle didn’t get in till late and it saved me the trouble of wishing him goodnight.

But my prayers still lasted longer than usual. I rambled on about silly things, to delay saying the word amen and abandoning the familiar safety of talking to God, pretending that nothing could hurt me so long as my lips kept moving.

And when I opened my eyes, resigned to the fact that I’d never sleep if I didn’t quit, a shadow covered my window. Thankfully there was sense in me after all, for I managed to slam a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

The shadow was warped and disfigured, with a head too large and a body too small. I was certain it couldn’t be human until I realized the cloth of my drapes, rolling in the breeze that blew through my open window, was what made it look so strange. There was little comfort in the thought, I feared it was Uncle Henry about to sneak into my bedroom.

When I waited, biting so hard into my bottom lip I was shocked it didn’t bleed, and nothing happened, I crept to my window and tugged up the corner of my curtain. A sliver of moonlight fell across my face, bathing my surroundings in a gentle glow.

My heart must have hit a wall it stopped so fast. A man, tall and slender, stood in our backyard staring right at me. I dropped the curtain and ducked against the wall. But in only seconds of steady breathing my concussed heart stole back its old familiar pace. The face I had seen outlined in moonlight, the broad forehead and sloping chin, was no stranger. It was my father, back from Richmond.

Lifting the hem of the curtain again, I watched him turn around and head down to the rows of small white shacks where the slaves slept. He must not have seen me after all but why he was going that way, I couldn’t figure. In the thirteen years I’d lived here, I’d never seen my father go to the slave houses. And certainly not at night.

Still, there he was, plodding down the steep decline with steady feet, the tails of his coat bouncing. He halted at one of the middle houses, where a lonely candle flickered in the front window, and I could just see his white hand rapping the door. It was opened, the person's face completely concealed, and after a moment he disappeared.

I would like to pretend that I spent minutes, hours even, going over possibilities in my head. I couldn’t figure it out, I would like to say. My father is saint like, he never looks at the slaves, I would like to say. But I knew. With a surety that astounded me, I knew.

I suppose I’d always known. Since I first saw Abigail tottering around with her pregnant belly and witnessed the nasty looks my mom sent her way. Even a child is not oblivious to the types of glances a man can give a woman and I’d seen the ones my father gave to Abigail. I just didn’t know what they meant at the time. Now I knew. Now I wanted to climb beneath my blankets, taking my poor mother with me, and hide there forever.

Absently, my attention still on the white house (whose candle had now been blown out) I ran a hand along my stomach. It wasn’t until I realized I was feeling for a lump that I went away from the window and lifted my nightdress. My stomach was smooth, flat. It was the stomach of a thirteen year old girl.

Filled with a new surge of determination, I headed to my wooden armoire, bare feet padding against the wooden floor, and pushed at it with both hands. I managed to move it, mustering all my strength, until it blocked the doorway. My blue walls looked cold and empty without it but I felt safer. Uncle Henry would have to wake up my mother to get past that. Somewhat satisfied with myself, I slid under my covers and dug into the warmth of my mattress.

But if I had any hope of sleeping, I was a fool. My ears wouldn’t relax. They picked up the smallest sounds and turned them into threats--because uncle was coming, I was sure of it.

I thought of Abigail, and how she must feel lighting the wick of her candle and telling her children they must not get up no matter what they heard in the night. At least I was not there. At least I was alone in my plight.

Then the door began to rattle and I forgot her. I thought only of screwing my eyes shut and scooting to the wall. He whispered to me and I ignored it. He wouldn’t give up. The dresser began to slide forward, centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch, when I finally gave way to fear and blacked out.