The Known World - Edward P. Jones [87]
“Some preserves on a piece of bread, then,” Caldonia said.
Loretta was standing at the bed. “Some milk?” she said.
“Plain water. Cold, plain water, Loretta. Please.”
Maude stood up. “And once she’s eaten, Loretta, help her get dressed.”
“Yessum.”
“I always dress myself, Mama.”
“You needn’t go on with the old ways, Caldonia.”
“They will do for now.”
Loretta and Maude left together. Downstairs, Loretta went to the kitchen and Maude went out onto the verandah where she knew she would find Calvin.
“I hope you haven’t been at her so early in the morning, Mama,” Calvin said. He was leaning against a post and his arms were crossed. He had brought the white man from South Carolina to his father. “With all that legacy rigmarole. She shouldn’t have to hear that so soon after burying Henry.”
“Calvin, with each day of your life, you pull me deeper into misery,” Maude said and stood at the other post. She realized after Tilmon was dead that her husband had known the South Carolina white man, the abolitionist, only because of her son. Within months of where they were that day, Maude would become terribly ill and would stay that way for years. Calvin would stay by her side, a kind of nurse to a mother who really didn’t like him anymore. “For the life of me,” the white doctor said to Calvin in the third year of his mother’s illness, “I can’t find what’s ailing her.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mama,” Calvin now said to Maude. “For all the misery.” It was getting harder and harder for him to think of a reason to remain in Virginia. He had, as he dug Henry’s grave, thought that he would speak to Caldonia about freeing her slaves but he knew now that her mind was not going that way. And, too, his mother was formidable.
Maude came to him. “It’s not your fault, Calvin. We are what God puts in us.” She touched his arm and he looked at her briefly. “I do not want you to talk to Caldonia about selling her legacy. Telling her that she can be happy somewhere over yonder without all of it.” He put a hand over hers, the one that was on his arm. “Don’t try to put your dreams in her head.”
“That was far from my mind, Mama.”
Maude went back inside, then she returned in moments. “I want you to know that I have a legacy for you, whether you want it or not.”
“I really don’t.” He waited for her to remind him that he lived in her house, which was run by slaves. Ate the food they prepared. Slept in a bed they made. Wore clothes they cleaned.
“Still. I have it, Calvin. With Caldonia on her own, I have no one but you to give it to. Everyone else is dead. I will leave it all to you. They may not allow me to take the legacy into heaven, so I will just leave it to you.” She went back into the house.
Later that morning, the slaves of the field went back to their labors. Only those under five years were exempt, cared for in Caldonia’s kitchen by seven-year-old Delores. Some weeks, Tessie, Celeste and Elias’s six-year-old, cared for the small children. Though it was Sunday, a day Henry always gave them to rest up from the other six, Moses the overseer decided on his own to put them back to work. Valtims Moffett came very early to preach to them and was surprised to see them in the field. He simply shouted out a few words to them as they labored and left without seeking payment. When Calvin—less than two hours after the slaves, including Celeste, four months pregnant, went to the fields—learned what Moses had done, he spoke with Caldonia and she said she wanted no work that day. Calvin went out and told everyone to come out of the fields and go back to their cabins. “Caldonia