Whitman,Aboard at a Ship’s Helm
“Tell me about your family, Journey,” Isadora said.
Seated across from her at the galley table, he looked up from mending a shirt. The soft blue fabric lay draped over his bony knees, and a faraway expression clouded his gaze.
She didn’t have long to wonder where he had been in his daydream. He said, “I haven’t seen my Delilah or my babies in four years.”
Isadora felt each quiet, simple word like a velvet-gloved blow. She’d always known that slavery was an inhuman, unjust institution, but her conviction sprang from reading pamphlets and essays penned by educated men and women.
By contrast, Journey’s presence, his dignity, his quiet despair, illustrated the point with brutal clarity.
“Does it disturb you to talk about them?” she asked.
“Not any more than not talking about them.” He stabbed his needle into the seam of the shirt, a sturdy broadcloth garment commonly worn by all the crewmen.
Almost all, she reflected, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. Now that they had entered southern climes, she hadn’t suffered from the grippe in days. Yet her corset chafed more than ever. The soft broadcloth would feel wonderful.
Knowing her mother would call for smelling salts at the very thought of her daughter lowering her standards of dress, Isadora had removed one layer of petticoats. She felt wicked doing so, but much more comfortable. Each day, her attitude relaxed a little more. Her confidence grew a little stronger. It was a wonder, after so many years of trying to press herself into society’s mold, to suddenly suspect that the problem was with the mold, not with her.
Now, seventy-three miles north of the equator and a little east of St. Paul’s Rocks, she made up her mind to shed another layer or two.
“Then tell me about your family, do,” she urged Journey, feeling petty for dwelling on her own discomfort.
He went back to sewing, and his expression relaxed into the dreaminess she’d glimpsed earlier. “Delilah and me, we met at Sunday meeting. She was a sassy thing, always two steps from trouble. But nobody minded, ’cause she sang like a lark in church and had the face of an angel.”
He smiled, and Isadora wondered what it would be like to have a man smile that way at the thought of her. When he pictured Delilah as an angel, did he mean it literally, with a halo and wings, or was it the love in his heart that gilded her with a special aura?
She savored the fanciful thought. How singular it was to be a shipmate, she thought suddenly. How easy it was to get involved in their concerns. She found life under sail so absorbing that she ceased thinking about Chad Easterbrook for days on end. She’d added almost nothing to the letter she’d been composing to him, which she intended to send the next time they hailed a ship. Her reports to Abel were perfunctory. Aside from personally attacking her at every turn, Ryan’s behavior had been disgustingly exemplary.
“So you met in church,” she prompted Journey, eager for the rest of his story.
His polished, narrow face softened with memory. “Mr. Jared—that was Ryan’s father—always wanted me to marry up with a girl from Albion, but after I met Dee, I wouldn’t hear of it, even though I could only see her on Sundays—on account of her living at another place.”
Isadora understood what he wouldn’t say. Intermarriage among the slaves of the same plantation insured that a new generation of laborers would come along. The very idea was so outrageous that she could hardly comprehend it.
“So you were permitted to marry,” she ventured.
One corner of Journey’s mouth lifted. “Ma’am, one of these days you should ask Ryan how we were ‘permitted’ to marry.”
She didn’t ask Ryan anything these days. They were both being stubborn about staying out of each other’s way. She was determined that he would be first to breach the silence.
“We married up when I was sixteen. Dee was fifteen, near as we can tell.” He sewed swiftly, the needle stabbing into the fabric and emerging with a deft rhythm.
He spoke so casually that Isadora took a moment to realize that slaves weren’t told their birthdays. Of course, she thought. A birthday would humanize a slave, and the system depended on keeping them on the level of chattel or livestock.
“Then the girls came along—first Ruthie and then Celeste. Ruthie, she’s the prettiest baby in the whole wide world, and no mistake. Celeste, too, I reckon,” he hastened to add. “But I ain’t never seen Celeste. Ain’t never seen my baby girl.”
He pulled his large hand from beneath the fabric. A dark pearl of blood glistened on the tip of his finger. He put it briefly in his mouth, then removed it to say, “Excuse me, miss. Best go clean this up before I ruin the shirt.”
Ain’t never seen my baby girl.
His words haunted the galley like mournful ghosts. After he stepped outside, Isadora walked over to the table and picked up his work. The seam was perfect, with stitches so fine she could barely see them. She ran her hand over the fabric, and somehow she knew that Dee—a woman she didn’t know and would never meet—would give her very soul to mend this shirt.
When the Silver Swan lay-to a few miles north of the line, a full-moon calm settled over the bark. Yet the seas were rough with Atlantic combers that had been gathering muscle for thousands of miles, all the way from the coast of Africa. Lily and Fayette, who had enjoyed a few days of comfort, descended again in seasick misery to their cabin.
Isadora, Ryan observed from his splay-legged stance at the helm, seemed to be getting on better than ever. She spent a lot of time on deck or in the galley or chart room, absorbing knowledge and sailor lore like a sea sponge. She moved less awkwardly around the decks, having learned to steady herself with one hand on the rail or rigging.
She haunted him, appearing out of nowhere and pretending he wasn’t there. As they approached the equator, Ryan stood at the helm once again. He saw her making her way aft, clearly unaware of his proximity.
She paused to stoop down and scoop up the cat, draping it over one arm and stroking its fur. The new assurance in her movements and posture made a dramatic difference in the way she appeared. Her clothes were not so fussy and fine as those she’d worn in the Beacon Hill drawing room of her parents. Her short hair spilled untidily around her neck and shoulders.
Yet for all her dishevelment, she looked…different. She carried herself with a new posture and attitude. He found that he preferred a woman in tatters and bare feet who would look him square in the eye to a humble, perfectly groomed female who shrank timidly from the slightest slant of a glance.
He was annoyed at her for ignoring him, but at least he respected her.
At the moment she stood unguarded, pausing to lift her face to the summery sky filled with the lofty billows of high clouds. Lately she hadn’t bothered with bonnet or parasol and she seemed not to notice the effect the wind and sun were having. Her pale skin had taken on a honeyed hue; her hair bore streaks of gold. It was a look Ryan knew her strait-laced mother would term common.
Yet he had another word for it.
A
