Ida

I sit at my kitchen table and watch as my mother takes off her maids uniform. She has been working for a new family lately and they keep her out late. I know it bothers her being away from us, but we all do our best to pretend her absence is practically unnoticed. She will be gone again before I wake up. She will need to be at the Smith family home before the sun to wake people up and feed them breakfast. It will not be long until I am doing the same thing. Day after day, cleaning after white people who can’t seem to stop making messes. I try and learn as much as possible now, that way when the day comes I get my own family it will not be so hard.

My father died in the war when I was little, but people say he was a kind man, full of things to say to make people laugh. My mother says thats why she married him- he could make her laugh in a way nobody ever did. So far nobody has again. Our home is covered in pictures of him, with his wide smile and happy eyes. I have his eyes, and sometimes I stare into the mirror for hours and imagine he is here, and it is his reflection I stare at instead of my own. My siblings all take after my mother, but not me. I am all my dad. And I know they are jealous.

“How was work?” I ask her, even though I know she will say the same thing she always does.

“It was work,” She answers as she opens the fridge to pick out cold food left from dinner hours before. She does not bother to warm it up. She simply picks at the pieces of cold chicken and drinks a bit of milk, her eyes staring out somewhere I cannot follow.

“Do you like them?” I try and make small talk, and she doesn’t answer at first. Instead she just chews away at her food before finally, she sighs and looks down at the table. She does this when she does not want me to see her cry. But I can hear the sniffle she produces as she tries to hide away emotions.

“No,” She says finally, “But they pay me.” She says they pay her, but truthfully the salary is so low I doubt it really counts as a salary at all. It is barely enough to keep the lights on and food in the fridge. Even that, sometimes, is impossible.

I know not to ask further questions. I wouldn’t have time anyway. Within minutes mother was up washing her dish and heading towards her room. Five minutes later I could hear the light snoring of an exhausted woman.

My room is nothing special, its floral wallpaper is wilting from the walls from the heat warping the glue underneath, and the window has a large crack across the glass. I have my bed pushed against the wall so I can see out of it. At night I look out the window and see the stars and I think about what it would be like in a different life. One where I would be an equal, and I could show off my love for Rosalie without shame.

I would dance within the stars with Rosalie, in a gown made of nebula’s. I would give her the moon as a gift, and the rings of Jupiter for jewelry. I lay in my bed and I try not to allow the tears forming behind my eyelids fall.When I fail, I weep. I weep for my mother and her weary bones, and my siblings who never got to be children. I weep for my lover and the lie she must live- and finally, I weep for myself for all the things I will have to lose to gain her completely.

When I am no longer able to cry I raise my fingers and trace constellations in the sky. Rosalie will be at a dinner now, her family beeming at her with pride. She is perfect in every way- except one. She is flawed within her secrets. Some of them I do not even think she understands.

I wake to the sound of screaming and within moments I am on my feet scanning the room. My lungs pulsate with rapid breaths and my heart hammers against my ribcage. I hear the screams once more through the window now and I cross the room quickly, ignoring the feeling of the warped boards below me. My bedroom door flies open before I reach the window and a hand pulls me back. My brother stands there, a finger to his lips and I listen when he motions for me to walk backwards into the hall. My family stands in the crammed hallway, looking towards one another as the screaming continues. My sister sinks to the floor with her ears plugged.

“It’s Mattie,” my brother whispers into my ear, careful to not let the others hear. “Her boy got dragged last night.” My skin errupts in goosebumps and I try to stifle the need to vomit.

“He’s only fourteen years old,” I whisper back and he shrugs his shoulders. My brother Carter does not cry. But when I look at him, his eyes are full of tears.

It does not take long for us to find out what has happened. Fourteen years as a colored boy did not teach him to keep his hands off the skin of a white woman and her father found them. They dragged him behind his pickup all the way from their farm to Mattie’s house. When we go over to check on her, we try and pretend we do not see the blood streaking through the road.

Mattie is a mess. The day has aged her like I have never seen happen before, and when she answers her door she practically falls into my mother’s arms. My sister Cecilia hands her a casserole my mother made in haste and whispers how sorry she is. Nobody mentions how we know he had almost no skin left when he got here. And we do not mention how the police did nothing at all to help. It was a stark reminder that here in the south, slavery had ended, but Jim Crow made sure we did not belong.

I try not to think of Rosalie, but I can’t help it. My mind wanders to her, and I wonder if it will happen to me too, if we are found out. If my mother will scream in the streets like Mattie did. It is a guilt too large for me to bear.

Love is not a sin, this much I know. But I feel like a sinner today, more than I ever have in my life. I sit across from Mattie as she dabs her swollen eyes with a tissue and I can’t help but feel guilt.

I hope Rosalie forgives me. I will not go to the hill this week.