Read Douglass’ Women for Free Online

dreams.
    “You once tried to run.”
    “I was betrayed by a fellow slave. Locked in jail for days. I thought they’d lynch me for certain.”
    “But you lived. There’s a reason. You lived to try the journey one more time.” He didn’t speak. Kept laying likedead. “I won’t betray you. I’ll help.” Then, boldly, I added, “I’ll be waiting for you.”
    I sat back on my heels.
    I could feel him looking me over. Looking at me, counting all the things I had against me. Age. No beauty. But I had will. Some money set aside. I could help. I stared at him straight on.
    “You would do this? Help me?”
    “Yes.”
    “I never—”
    Never what? I wondered. Had a woman like me? Had someone who wanted to help him, who believed in him? Mister Bailey—Freddy—wasn’t meant for quitting. He felt like that now. But that wasn’t the best in him.
    “I’ll help you be free.” This time I knew he’d heard me clear. He drew up, looked down into my eyes, my very soul. I tried to show him all my loving. Show him he needn’t fear.
    “I will think on this.”
    Air burst out of me. This felt worse than any other pain. Worse than the time I’d fallen out the tree. Worse than burning my hand in the fire. Worse than the time my Pa laid down and didn’t get up. All those times together, still didn’t equal my hurt. I’d been fooling myself. Living dreams when the real world had other plans.
    I looked at my room. At myself. Me, on my knees, beside this man.
    I saw my room clear. Without this man in it, there wasn’t much. Even though a small space, by myself, I couldn’t fill it.
    Family. I couldn’t think of anything more worth having.
    Gently, I touched my hands to his knees. Looked up, pleading. His arms stayed fast at his sides. But he saw me. He looked hard into my eyes.
    I licked my lips, knowing this moment was important. The course of my life was being decided in this room.
    “The Africans that never made it to slavery. Them that died or were tossed overboard be at the bottom of the sea. We’ve got to live the lives they lost. Otherwise no sense for living at all.” I sighed. “No sense at all.”
    He looked bewildered, no, surprised, by what I said. For a moment, I could see him thinking if he really knew me. I think he thought he did, but my words had unsettled him. Then his eyes clouded, like somebody had dropped a veil over them and he wasn’t seeing me at all.
    “I will think on it.”

     
    I didn’t see him for months. Lena had a litter of kittens. Two, black. One, calico like her. One, almost entirely white.
    Spring turned to summer turned to fall. Maybe all that time Freddy be thinking of a way to be free without me?
    Maybe he, finally, decided he can’t be free without my help.
    All I know, one day, he knocked loud at the Baldwins’ kitchen door. His wounds had healed. He looked fine. Dressed in his best pants and tan shirt. He looked glorious, like the young man once again standing on a ship’s prow headed north.
    He stepped into my kitchen. Handed me marigolds.
    “Good evening,” he said.
    “Good evening, Freddy.”
    That night—him sitting across the table, we made plans to escape to New York.
    That night I started to breathe again. Without journeying a step, I’d found my promised land.
    I couldn’t wait to tell Mam and show Mister Bailey, my Freddy, to my family. Soon I’d be building my best home.
    After a bit we were both quiet. Freddy stirred his tea and stared at the kitchen fire. Lena settled in my lap. I stared at the only flowers a man had ever given me. When they dried, I’d scatter them to the bones.
    Bright orange petals would float, then sink into the sea.

 
    Love unlocks a woman’s heart. I always felt the truth of that. But nothing prepared me for opening like a petal for Freddy.
    After dreaming of love, after thinking my dreams would never be true, he filled me. Made me a new kind of whole. I made him whole, too. Baptized him with tears. Tears of love.