The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen Read Free Book Online

baritone could not bear the emotions loosed by Miss Bet. The strain of uncertainty hung in every note, sounding a choir of sentiment all its own.
    As soon as we in the house said our farewells to the Van Lews and retreated back to the dining room, Zinnie nodded at Mama. “The girls can clear and wash, you go on with Lewis now.” Mama murmured her thanks, and as quickly as we could bundle up against the cold, Papa shepherded us out of the mansion.
    Snow was falling, but I was too distracted to care for the wet, white flakes whirling around me. We set off in silence, me in the middle gripping tight to my parents’ hands. I wasn’t sure what it meant to be caught between them, now that I might really be free.
    When we reached the end of the Van Lews’ lot, Papa let out a long, low whistle. “Sure are some memorable dinner parties them white folks of yours put on, Minerva.”
    His teasing stopped Mama in her tracks. “What are we gonna do, Lewis? What are we gonna do?”
    It scared me to see Mama so uncertain. Papa scooped me up, shifting the weight of my body onto his left arm, holding me in a way I thought I’d long outgrown. Then he wrapped his right hand around Mama’s waist and gathered us against each other, forming our family into a tight little circle at the edge of the street. “We gonna be thankful our daughter will grow up free. We gonna figure out a way to be together. And some of us gonna have to admit all your talk about Jesus has a plan for this child may not be so crazy after all.”
    We stood there a long, long while. I felt the snow collecting on us, as it did on the trees and the buildings and the big yards of Church Hill. I wanted to stop time, to make Mama’s and my one year of allowed freedom in Virginia last forever. Finally, Papa kissed Mama and then me, set me back on the ground, and began to hum “We Will March through the Valley.” He remained between us, taking our hands as we started walking again. I felt not quite so scared and confused as before, but not like I really believed everything was going to be all right either.
    I spent a good part of Christmas week pretending I’d dozed off early in the evening or hadn’t yet awoken in the morning, or feigning absorption with some solitary game, all the while listening close to every word my parents said to each other.
    “And if we go North, where we gonna go?” Mama wondered that very first night.
    “You got people in New York.”
    “You my people now. Nobody in New York even recognize me, my mother dead and my sisters and brother scattered who knows where. They take the Van Lew name when they freed? Or our daddy’s? Maybe my sisters married, or they and my brother made up their own names when their freedom time came.”
    “You ain’t gonna find them if you don’t try. Maybe Miss Bet help, least write her father’s family and see what they know.”
    “I don’t expect a family knows much that gives out other people’s children as going-away presents.” That was how Mama had come to Richmond, gifted to her owner’s younger son when he moved South. But she was more than just angry at the memory of losing her family—she was frightened of going through that loss all over again with Papa. “No, Lewis. No New York for us without you.”
    “You heard Miss Bet,” Papa said. “Mahon won’t sell. What you want me to do, if I can’t go legal?” We’d heard plenty of stories about bounty hunters finding runaways, especially since the new law said there was no safe harbor even up North. “I ain’t gonna be tracked like no animal, tore away from my wife and child. Maybe made to watch while some slave-catcher hauls you into court, claiming you is runaways, too. And after that, slavery ain’t come-and-go-as-you-please Richmond. Mahon’ll sell a captured runaway to the Deep South, same as any slaveholder.”
    I didn’t know whether to be grateful or hateful to Miss Bet, for vexing Mama and Papa, and even me, so. From where I lay