make a sound.
The dream long gone by then.
I awoke that morning after Clara’s funeral with no dankness.
No shame.
No bereavement.
No fear.
It was as if a lightness had entered me. Clara gave it so freely.
No pretention. Simply elegant love. And now she had left it with me.
A great gift that we could not share together. Yet, she always held her preciousness and no one took it from her. In many ways, her gift was what had healed me.
I always had that Condit strength to soldier through, but somehow then, peering over Clara’s quiet face, saying a last goodbye, memory and lost purpose weakening every limb, I knew then that I wanted it more than anything.
Keep that spigot flowing.
June 15, 1879
When Grandpa Syl crossed the great river, it had been viewed as a natural boundary between civilization and barbarism.
Yet, I was never quite certain which side had been which.
It provided an auspicious border that allowed for a crossing over of sorts, a departing of the old for the new. From danger to safety.
From bondage to free will.
How can you not help a woman alone with her baby when snow is as thick as an ice block?
Emma had asked me this in desperation one day when I was about twelve and I, of course, had no idea of what or to whom she was speaking. At first, I thought she had somehow emerged from her usual torpid manner.
But then I saw her vacant look and I may as well have been the moon, because it was not me she was addressing. Usually, I knew better than to engage one of these encounters.
It was so not always so helpful to play out these scripts with Emma. It had begun when I was about eight, so now I was an old hand at drawing forth the scenes from her mind. Even then, I knew it was not right to do this, but it brought me an understanding of my mother that I could not otherwise find. Perhaps I was wrong to do so, but I still see no harm in it even now.
A baby as black as coal and her mother, a smooth fine Lagomarcino’s chocolate, Emma had said.
I stopped here. Silent. Waiting for what she would say next.
This was likely dangerous territory now, but I had never been more curious about what she was seeing in her mind’s eye, so I could not help myself from this one.
Take them to the cave, she ordered me.
Cave? I asked slowly, delicately.
The cave under Mrs. Trombley’s porch.
Hurry. Now!
Next door? I did not ask this aloud.
They will come for her tonight, Emma said in a careful hushed way to the wall by the clapboard. Drive them up to Low Moor, cross to Fulton, maybe Chicago, maybe the north country. To Canada.
Save that baby!
She screamed at me as if I were actually holding one.
Now I was scared. I had gone too far this time.
I had read about Mr. Scott. I knew all about what had happened to the Friends who had been caught in Salem and Keosauqua.
And, even then, I knew well why Mr. Lincoln had been shot before I was born. Why, I could even recite the Gettysburg Address by rote.
Emancipation Proclamation.
Yet, here was Emma, an iron-heart, trying to save a runaway woman and her child years before she could not even save her own.
Freedom.
She muttered this one word as if it were the answer to what ailed her. More like a pleading than a declaration.
Then, as abruptly, Emma returned to the stove to finish the cocoa frosting for my parents’ anniversary cake. Forty-four years now since they had crossed and came together in this place to bear and lose their own children.
She never spoke of this again.
September 22, 1895
The day the package arrived addressed to T he Family of Laura Treat, Davenport, Iowa, Emma could not remember my name.
As she sat at the bay window that Harry had replaced last summer on the river side of the sitting room, she repeated again and again the names of her eight daughters as if reciting the books of the Old Testament in church school. Each time, pausing between Hattie Jessie and Anna Viola, but never my name aloud, the child that came
The dream long gone by then.
I awoke that morning after Clara’s funeral with no dankness.
No shame.
No bereavement.
No fear.
It was as if a lightness had entered me. Clara gave it so freely.
No pretention. Simply elegant love. And now she had left it with me.
A great gift that we could not share together. Yet, she always held her preciousness and no one took it from her. In many ways, her gift was what had healed me.
I always had that Condit strength to soldier through, but somehow then, peering over Clara’s quiet face, saying a last goodbye, memory and lost purpose weakening every limb, I knew then that I wanted it more than anything.
Keep that spigot flowing.
June 15, 1879
When Grandpa Syl crossed the great river, it had been viewed as a natural boundary between civilization and barbarism.
Yet, I was never quite certain which side had been which.
It provided an auspicious border that allowed for a crossing over of sorts, a departing of the old for the new. From danger to safety.
From bondage to free will.
How can you not help a woman alone with her baby when snow is as thick as an ice block?
Emma had asked me this in desperation one day when I was about twelve and I, of course, had no idea of what or to whom she was speaking. At first, I thought she had somehow emerged from her usual torpid manner.
But then I saw her vacant look and I may as well have been the moon, because it was not me she was addressing. Usually, I knew better than to engage one of these encounters.
It was so not always so helpful to play out these scripts with Emma. It had begun when I was about eight, so now I was an old hand at drawing forth the scenes from her mind. Even then, I knew it was not right to do this, but it brought me an understanding of my mother that I could not otherwise find. Perhaps I was wrong to do so, but I still see no harm in it even now.
A baby as black as coal and her mother, a smooth fine Lagomarcino’s chocolate, Emma had said.
I stopped here. Silent. Waiting for what she would say next.
This was likely dangerous territory now, but I had never been more curious about what she was seeing in her mind’s eye, so I could not help myself from this one.
Take them to the cave, she ordered me.
Cave? I asked slowly, delicately.
The cave under Mrs. Trombley’s porch.
Hurry. Now!
Next door? I did not ask this aloud.
They will come for her tonight, Emma said in a careful hushed way to the wall by the clapboard. Drive them up to Low Moor, cross to Fulton, maybe Chicago, maybe the north country. To Canada.
Save that baby!
She screamed at me as if I were actually holding one.
Now I was scared. I had gone too far this time.
I had read about Mr. Scott. I knew all about what had happened to the Friends who had been caught in Salem and Keosauqua.
And, even then, I knew well why Mr. Lincoln had been shot before I was born. Why, I could even recite the Gettysburg Address by rote.
Emancipation Proclamation.
Yet, here was Emma, an iron-heart, trying to save a runaway woman and her child years before she could not even save her own.
Freedom.
She muttered this one word as if it were the answer to what ailed her. More like a pleading than a declaration.
Then, as abruptly, Emma returned to the stove to finish the cocoa frosting for my parents’ anniversary cake. Forty-four years now since they had crossed and came together in this place to bear and lose their own children.
She never spoke of this again.
September 22, 1895
The day the package arrived addressed to T he Family of Laura Treat, Davenport, Iowa, Emma could not remember my name.
As she sat at the bay window that Harry had replaced last summer on the river side of the sitting room, she repeated again and again the names of her eight daughters as if reciting the books of the Old Testament in church school. Each time, pausing between Hattie Jessie and Anna Viola, but never my name aloud, the child that came
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