He took it, blew and stirred.
Cora rubbed at the pain in her back, the same spot that always hurt her after a morning of cleaning. The one that often got so bad by night that she hobbled up the stairs to their rooms, whimpering in pain.
“I just don’t see the point. I know you wanna talk to her, but we can do that on our own, with our own ways. Don’t need no book to show us how. Not with me who can’t read and you who say yourself you don’t learn well from paper and ink. You need visuals. Ain’t that what you said?”
It was, and he did. But wasn’t it worth trying? “Mr. Lane would help.”
“Mr. Lane’s got his own life, his own family. How much time could he give us? An hour here and there? Wouldn’t do no good, honey.”
He had the Culper business too, and the weight of the fractured nation upon his shoulders. But Walker couldn’t mention that to Cora, and wouldn’t anyway, as it hardly helped his point. “He taught it to his kids. Miss Julie taught it to us. I don’t remember much, but…”
But Marietta would. She’d remember every gesture, every meaning. Every single lesson. She’d be able to glance at one of those books once, and it would be in her head forever.
Cora turned back to him slowly, obviously knowing the direction of his thoughts. She plunked her bowl onto the table and eased into her chair, eyes glinting. “Don’t even suggest it.”
“She could help.”
“I ain’t asking that woman for nothing—nothing. You understand? Maybe you could, you who don’t have to serve her each day, empty her slops, obey her every command, but I’m tellin’ you I won’t. And you better not neither.” She picked up her spoon and stabbed her stew with it.
Walker tested Elsie’s and, finding it cool enough, slid it over to her with a smile. “But if she could help Elsie—”
“It wouldn’t help. And I won’t go beggin’.”
“It wouldn’t be begging. It would be…” He let his voice fade as pain burst through her eyes again, screwed up her face, and made her back arch. Maybe he should let it drop. The last thing Cora needed was more distress. That couldn’t be good for her or the baby. “You all right, honey?”
“Mm-hmm.” She stretched, and the discomfort eased from her face. She took another bite. “I doubt she’d help anyway, even if you did ask. That woman never does nothing unless it’s for herself.”
At that, Walker grunted and chewed one of the few pieces of meat in his bowl. She hadn’t always been that way. When they were children, Marietta had been as bright and cheerful as Elsie. Always laughing and shrieking at the four boys—him and her brothers, Stephen and Hez and Isaac—when they played pranks on her.
Surely that Yetta was still inside somewhere. And maybe, if he prayed hard for her, this shake to her foundation would set her loose.
Cora rubbed her abdomen. “Did Mr. Lane say anything more about the amendment nonsense when he was here yesterday?”
“The House is still debating or whatever they do. But they’ll pass it. If it passed in the Senate, it’ll surely pass in the House. You’ll be free soon.”
She kept on rubbing and gazed at Elsie, who happily spooned up a potato chunk. “What if it ain’t soon enough? I don’t want this new baby to be born a slave, Walk.”
He didn’t either, but what could they do? “He won’t be. And even if he is, it won’t be but for a few months. They’re going to grow up in a whole new world. A world with no more slavery, where they can be anything they want.”
Hopeful idealism. He knew it even as he said it. He had been born free, after all, and that didn’t open any doors for him. There might be white men aplenty who had a moral objection to owning another man, but there were few indeed who thought blacks equal to them. The Lanes and Arnauds were the only ones he’d ever met he could say that about.
Obviously it hadn’t been true of his father, whoever he was. His mother never spoke of the attack, but he had gleaned enough over the years to know she had roused the suspicion of a runaway’s master and he’d found her one night. Punished her. Left her with a son on the way and no man to be a father.
“Maybe we should just leave. Surely with the amendment coming, they wouldn’t hunt us down if we ran.”
She had made the suggestion once before, when it was Elsie growing inside her. He reached across the table and took her hand. “We’re not running, Cora. You’re not going to be a fugitive.”
Though she turned her hand so she could squeeze his fingers, sorrow blanketed her face. “We both know that ain’t why you refuse to go.”
Little fingers landed on his other hand, and he grinned at Elsie, who was trying to reach for her mother too.