“Two American widows.”
“See? We already share a title.”
Isabelle leaned over the table, her chin on her knuckles, as Mildred ventured into the big room.
“I’m perfectly content,” she told her friend. “I do what I do because it brings me happiness. If we could just figure out the same for you, we’d be in a very fortunate place, the two of us.”
The candle’s light carried toward the big room, where Mildred stood tall beside the couch, peering down at the cluttered table before it.
“You should at least allow me to draw a proper map for you,” she said. “It would be disgraceful if your poor drawing muddled up your land. One man might believe he has one area to work, and then another the same, and God knows what could result. What a mess you might make! And your kitchen.”
She wheeled about and marched toward the kitchen.
“It’s filthy, Isabelle. I could clean this. And if your house is in order and you have a place to return to that is even remotely unsoiled…Well then I would feel better about all of this.”
“Mildred,” Isabelle said, and put a hand out toward Mildred’s seat. “You really must relax. Sit down.”
Mildred quieted and her breathing slowed—the white lace ruffling her blouse had been heaving—and took a seat.
“It’s just—I’ve just been thinking of what comes next. You continue to forge this path, while I do nothing but tarry about my home—”
“Mildred,” Isabelle said firmly. Her friend looked up from the table, the lambent flame of the candle revealing the tremble of her jaw. “I would love your help. More than anyone else’s. You would be indispensable to me. You are indispensable to me.”
To Isabelle’s surprise, the statement seemed to come as a great and necessary relief to Mildred. Immediately her friend calmed and Isabelle put a hand on her shoulder.
“Whatever I’m doing, I want you a part of it. We could start tomorrow. I’d love for you to begin that map. If you’re free, that is.”
Mildred’s composure settled further—a deep swallow, a long breath, her eyes hardening once more to their usual piercing cast.
“I believe I will have some time tomorrow,” Mildred said, with her old confidence.
Little did Isabelle know that the following day would turn into every day thereafter as well.
*
Mildred’s map carried the name of every freed person who took up residence on the Walker estate. By the cusp of winter there were seven lots divided up and, with the forest, nearly no more room left to plant. There were two women, Clarinda and Jane, who took up a small plot beside Matthew’s. They purported to be sisters yet looked wildly dissimilar. Clarinda was heavyset and boasted a voice so deep she often seemed to be on the verge of breaking into a somber hymn. Jane was lithe, half the size of Clarinda, and spoke in a tone so high that Isabelle sometimes clenched her teeth at the sound of it. They both wore the same outfit, which consisted of a white bonnet and a homespun dress patterned with petaled flowers. They were garrulous, often seeking out Isabelle to disclose knowledge of their family—cousins a few states away they had never met or known; other erstwhile slaves they now viewed as kin who had moved a county over—and Isabelle grew curious as to when they managed to get their work done, for their garden was indeed quite lively with carrots and onions that seemed on track for a spring harvest. A visit to their plot one afternoon provided no answers, as neither sister was there. Only when Isabelle was returning from George’s grave at the end of one day did she find them walking past the cabin, describing to her how they worked at a weaving mill and often weren’t able to return until dusk. Whatever they earned from their yield come harvest would supplement their earnings. Enough to launch them in search of the family they’d described to her.
There were others, like Godfrey, who hadn’t spoken to her since he’d arrived a month earlier. She’d given him a plot far east, on the outskirts of the property, and on both visits she made he did not deign to say a word. Something had happened to the man. He used little of the land, planting enough to feed himself alone. She wasn’t surprised to hear from the others that he never made an effort to converse with them either, or that he hardly left his land.
He was harassed once by a few teenage boys from town looking for trouble. He wasn’t beaten but they woke him and pushed him around, and after word got back to her and Mildred, Isabelle was surprised to find a bouquet of flowers on her porch the next week from one of the offenders. Apparently Mildred had told her sons about the incident, and they’d dealt with it their own way, tracking down the assailants and doling out punishment. Isabelle informed her they should tell the authorities next time, yet neither could quite argue with the outcome.