“It’s coming, it’s coming,” Reenie told Sweet who was too weak to push any longer.

A head full of black curly hair. It entered Lizzie’s mind for only a moment that the doctor might soon understand the true “nature” of his patient, but she forgot all about it as she marveled at the instrument he was using to pull the baby out. She had never seen anything like it. He wasn’t as ignorant as he looked after all. She couldn’t wait to go back to the plantation and tell. He stretched Sweet with one hand while he tugged with his clamp with the other.

“Lay across her belly,” he instructed Reenie. Reenie bore down on Sweet’s belly and pushed while the doctor pulled and Lizzie stood by ready to swaddle the baby.

And now I got a question for you,” Glory said.

Before she asked, Lizzie knew that Glory’s question would mirror her own. It was a question many people thought about-slaves who watched as they went around in their better, but not quite good clothes and softer, but not quite soft feet, northern whites as they sat at the dining table and chose decorum over curiosity, wives who pretended to be asleep when their husband rose from their beds or never came to bed at all.

Did they love them? She couldn’t speak for the others. She could only speak for herself. And she could say, without reservation, that she did. During his last days, she knew she would care for him. And upon his death, she knew she would grieve like a widow although she could make no such claims.

Glory listened to this and something rose between the women. Lizzie couldn’t tell if it was mistrust or understanding, a rift or a tenderness. All she knew was something grew between the two women sitting at the oak table, sipping on empty cups, ignoring the fly buzzing around them. It grew between them like a tree trunk planted firmly in their wake. It mounted into a quiet that Lizzie would often think about when she remembered Glory years later.

Then he walked in.

Sweet gave birth to a dead thing. Dead in that it did not cry, did not move except to wave its nubbed hands and feet as if still scrambling in the womb. Reenie smacked it good and hard and it showed life by jerking in recoil. A day later it would be dead in the earthly sense. But for now, the doctor pronounced it healthy despite its hands and turned Sweet over to make her expel the afterbirth while Lizzie cleaned it off and tried to suck out whatever might be blocking its windpipe with her mouth.

The baby was a girl, her tiny body wrinkled with newborn worry.

The doctor did not wait for them to finish swaddling the baby. He left his bill on the table and told the women to bid the manager hello.

Lizzie believed there were only three ways to act when in the company of strange white men:

Don’t look them in the eye. In fact, pretend they’re not there. Walk a wide circle around them unless your master tells you otherwise.

Don’t look them in the eye, but wait on them without being asked. Get their water before they even know they’re thirsty.

Don’t look them in the eye, but answer. And if your eyes should meet theirs, give them a stern look that lets them know you are not available for their whims.

When Glory’s husband walked into his house, Lizzie went through the three choices in her mind. She couldn’t choose number two as his wife was right there. So it was either number one or three. She considered the choices before her and chose the first one. As soon as he entered, she sprang up from the table as if she had been caught looking through his personal things. But she had already caught a glimpse of him. He was older than Glory.

“Relax, Lizzie. We’ve had your kind in our house before,” Glory said.

Lizzie stuck to her choice and retreated to stand next to the wall behind her. Roosters cackled outside of the open window. She was aware that Glory’s man was home earlier than sunset, and she tried to guess why he might have returned. He placed his hat on the table.

“Glory, I hope you didn’t bring one of them girls home from Tawawa.”

“No, sir. She came here on her own.”

Lizzie could feel him studying her.

“Well, what does she want? Don’t go making me lose my work. That’s good money we make from Dr. Silsbee.”

“Nobody saw her.”

He addressed Lizzie directly. “Anybody see you walk out here?”

Since Lizzie had chosen rule number one, she didn’t answer. She would only answer if Glory encouraged it.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked. “Is she dumb?”

“Naw, she’s not dumb. You’re scaring her is all.”

“Get her out of here, Glory. We don’t need any trouble.”

He stooped and dragged a box from under the table.

“And you call yourself a Quaker,” Glory said quietly.

He hoisted the box up and tucked it beneath his arm before tossing his hat back onto his head and leaving out again without another word. Lizzie watched him from the corner of her eye.

“You better get going,” Glory said in a flat tone that was neither rude nor friendly.

The swath of familiarity they had cut minutes earlier dissolved. Lizzie retied her scarf and hurried through the still-open door.

Morning sunlight peeked into the cottage. The spirited whistles of sparrows did not move the melancholy resting on the women’s faces. Sweet’s too-quiet baby suckled at her breast. The mother rested peacefully. Mawu washed the birthing cloths with a steady brushing sound against the washboard in the yard behind the cottage. Sweet’s man believed that dirty birthing linens were diseased, and he had instructed them to wash and hang the linens as soon as the child was born.

Lizzie found solace working with the women to clean the cottage and prepare it for the return of Sweet’s master. She wanted the time she was spending with them to last for just a little while longer. Despite the doctor’s intrusion, Sweet’s labor had been women’s time. And cleaning, yet another form of labor, was also women’s time.

But she knew that this time would end and the others would remember her betrayal. Lizzie was of two minds. She wished she had not told. But if she hadn’t, Mawu might be dead. If she had run and been caught, there was no doubt in Lizzie’s mind that her friend wouldn’t have allowed herself to be taken alive. And what if the others had followed? Drayle had done the right thing. So had she. She wished they could understand why.

For now, she just kept in step with the chorus of chores.

The next morning, while Sweet was still asleep and her master had not yet returned to the cottage as he waited for the “air to clear,” the women discovered the baby dead in her arms. They wrapped it in layers of cloth and took it to Philip who summoned the other men to help him prepare a small grave. Then they returned to Sweet’s doorstep and lingered outside as they searched for the plainest words of compassion. The sound of her voice from inside broke their trance and quickened them into action.

“The baby? Where my baby? Where my girl?”

Reenie, in her usual manner, delivered the news. “Her Father took her.”

“Her father?” Sweet’s voice was hopeful, but in less time than it took to blink twice she understood, knew in her heart that Reenie meant Father and not father. And her face did not crack. She lay back, silent, as if all the wailing of childbirth had sucked her clean of any more sounds. And the trio of women who had known their own share of this kind of grief left her there, not coldly or callously, but with the understanding that she needed to be alone. Later, they would return to clean and dress her labor wound. But for now, they filed out, heads up, eyes as dry as they could muster.

Lizzie returned to her cottage to find Drayle just rousing from his sleep. He took the news quietly and asked if she wanted to kneel in prayer and she said yes. She whispered a fierce prayer, a tangled mess of biblical verses and cries of “have mercy, have mercy.”