Cora’s stew sure smelled good, and Walker’s stomach rumbled its agreement as he put Elsie in her favorite spot, atop the table. She kicked her legs and giggled—a sound he wished he could bottle and pull out whenever he needed a smile throughout the day.
He could go ahead and serve them, he knew, but he would rather give Cora a few minutes to join them. He had some time to spare before he had to start his afternoon chores. He picked up the only book Elsie ever showed any interest in, the nonsense verse with illustrations. He held it where she could see it, and she clapped her agreement and reached for him.
Smiling, Walker scooped her up again and settled in his chair by the stove with her on his lap. He opened the book to a random page. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…”
He finished reading it, though Elsie made no shift when he stopped. Her finger was tracing the drawing of the man-egg, touching his boots, his hands, the ink bricks. What did she wonder?
For the millionth time since they realized their angel couldn’t hear them, he wished for some way to know. They had their method of communicating, to be sure. And at two, she was still so young that even if she could hear and talk, they would probably scarcely understand her. But what about the future?
The door opened, and Cora came in with the wind. Her rosebud mouth smiled. “You could have started.”
“This was better.”
Her smile stayed put until she unfastened the cast-off cloak Marietta had given her last year. But when she reached to hang it up, she winced and put a hand to her back.
Walker stood, Elsie and all, and moved to her. “That pain again?”
She rubbed at it and nodded. “I reckon I oughta be used to it by now, but—”
“Go lie down for a minute and stretch it out.” He handed the reaching tot to her mama and put a hand on Cora’s rounded abdomen. His babe within kicked. Smiling, he leaned down to greet his wife properly.
She kissed him back, but her look afterward was rebuking. “You know I don’t have time to rest, Walk.”
“Yetta won’t care if you’re ten minutes late sweeping the hall.” Only when her gaze went hard and cold did he realize his slip. Usually he called her Miss Mari like the rest of the servants, but sometimes he just forgot. She had been Yetta all his life until he came here.
A reminder Cora never much appreciated. “Yetta ain’t the one I worry ’bout.”
He said nothing. He just leaned against the solid table while she, with Elsie on her hip, pulled out three bowls and spoons. The way he saw it, old Mrs. Hughes oughtn’t to evoke much fear. The house was Marietta’s, even if the servants still belonged to the older woman.
But then, Tandy and Norris, Norris’s uncle Pat, Jess, and her late husband had come with her from Louisiana. Cora had been born here to Jess, a slave too. And so Elsie was, legally, because her mama was. No matter that Walker was free.
No matter that the South’s slaves were free. The Emancipation Proclamation hadn’t covered them here in Maryland, hadn’t freed them. Far as he could tell, the politicians hadn’t wanted to shake things up with the border states. If Maryland seceded, Washington would be completely surrounded by the Confederacy. The politicians had tried to strike a balance.
And in doing so, had left his wife’s family in chains.
Elsie tugged on a tight spiral of Cora’s hair. Cora chuckled as she pulled the lid off the stew pot, sending aromatic steam wafting upward.
“Cora.” He kept his gaze on their little one, watching her eyes and wondering. Just wondering. “Have you thought more about it? Teaching her signs?”
She sighed and put the girl upon the table so she could reach for the bowls. “What good would it do, Walker?”
“What good? We could talk to her. Know what she’s thinking. She could talk to us and know what we’re thinking.”
“We do well enough with our own gestures. And it ain’t like no one else will be able to talk to her, even if we teach her these signs.”
“Sure they will, some of them. I asked Mr. Lane about it. He said there’s a school in Connecticut—”
“You wanna send her away?” Cora spun around, nearly sloshing the bowl of stew she held. “Send away our baby? As if they’d even let a slave girl in?”
“No, that’s not…I don’t want to send her anywhere.” He pulled out his chair and sat, sucking in a deep breath. “I just meant to tell you that they have developed a universal system of signs there. They call it American Sign Language. They’re trying to get all the deaf folks in the country to use it so they can all talk to each other. It’s pretty close, I understand, to what Mr. Lane learned from his mother. They’ve got a book. We could get it, learn it. Teach it to her.”
“A book.” Her tone said it all.
Walker sighed. “With drawings, I bet, of the motions.”
She slid his bowl onto the table and urged Elsie into her chair. “A book.”
He picked up his spoon. “We could do it.”
“Walker.” With a shake of her head, she turned back to the pot and ladled up a small portion. “Blow on this for her.”