Wherever She Is

Wherever She Is

Miss Alida’s harp is crying. I hear it as I lay out her wedding dress: silk, misty-soft lace. As the music falls around me, in my head I’m sold away again, wrists roped, strange man leading me like a horse. My baby daughter’s hand slipping from mine.

Old pain, now; a snapped bone left to knit together however it can. If my girl’s alive, she’s grown.

Today, Miss Alida will marry the man her father chose. In the music room, sunlight turns the tall harp gold. Miss Alida sits on the stool, hands stilled in her lap.

“Miss,” I say. “Time to dress.”

She’s sixteen, still a girl. When her father bought me, she could just toddle. I bathed her, nursed her, rocked her when she cried, and felt nothing at all except the jagged edges of bone scraping inside me. She drank ache instead of love from the only mother she knew. Small wonder she grew up as quiet as snow, except when her harp sings for her.

Now she whispers, “Callie, I’m frightened.”

Her father – my master – is quick to whip. I must always be kind, but her husband’s house will have silk carpets and orange trees. (I was not allowed to wonder what kind of roof sheltered my girl, or where she lay down to rest her body.) “Frightened, miss?” I say. “Why?”

Her hand rests on the harp’s gold skin. “He won’t let me bring it with me.”

He: the man her father’s giving her to, in trade for the loan of sharp business sense and the promise of a grand legacy. Those things count for more than his flesh. I say, “The harp’s a trouble to move, miss. He doesn’t want it damaged. He’ll buy you another.”

“He says he doesn’t care for music. He doesn’t wish his wife to play.”

Her fingers tremble, a tiny shiver against the warm wood, and in that instant, my baby’s hand slips from mine again. The knit-together bone cracks inside me. Rough edges pull free of each other.

I hear myself say, “Tell him you won’t go.”

Her eyes go wide, as if the trader’s rope bit into her wrists too. “Oh, Callie. Father would…”

I know. If I had tried that, I would be dead now. For one breath, I see myself marching with her to face down these men who think they own her.

She must go to her new master and I must stay behind. All those years ago, I could not say to my girl, You keep your head up, child. You keep living.

Now I say, “You’ll find a way, miss. You’ll have your music.”

“Will I?”

Her voice is a hand reaching for mine. “Yes,” I tell her, as firmly as I can. What shouts inside me is I love you.

Miss Alida swallows. Her chin lifts, barely enough to notice. “All right.”

I love you. The same way it shouted years ago to the child I lost. In my head, my daughter’s fingers close around mine. They’re a woman’s fingers now, strong and work-worn. I love you. Know that. The words ring so clear in my own ears that for a heartbeat, I am certain that wherever she is, she can hear them.