The year is 1809, on a plantation in southern Mississippi is where the tale of Sty and Polly takes place. He's a house slave and the illegitimate child of a plantation owner. She's a field slave brought in by shackles and wishful thinking. Together...
Mary gave birth to a baby girl, and an overseer was sent out to retrieve the last enslaved girl who had given birth so she could care for the infant since Mary was too weak to do so. I overheard one of the enslaved women talking about how shameful it was that the girl's newborn would be neglected until Mary felt better.
Labor was a hard thing to get through back in these times there was no medication or other help to ease the pain.
The women who made it through childbirth were often tired after and required plenty of bed rest, yet enslaved women and girls never received such treatment.
I chopped away at the potatoes on the kitchen counter as a group of small White children pushed through the back door playing.
One fell along on the stomp while the others ran off so I went over to offer a helping hand. She glanced up at me then yanked at her dress trying to free it from the chipped hook it got stuck on. I got it loose for her and she smiled my way.
"Tanks a lot!" She said.
"What's your name, sweetheart?"
"It's Lily." She answered.
"Lily!" A voice came from the other room before I could stand one of the women who was a family friend of the Creers was over me.
"Don't touch her!" She snatched Lily up then walked out "did that mean nigger girl hurt you?"
"What did you do now!?" One of Paul's children asked as he made his way into the kitchen to help prepare them dinner.
"Nothing!" I shrugged then continued what I was doing before.
"This is the exact reason you darkies shouldn't be allowed in the house you try putting your filthy hands on everything too much!" he swore.
They were trying their hardest to get their father to agree to the rule of keeping us enslaved folks with darker skin outside of the big house.
For some reason, Paul hadn't yet agreed to this. I'd spend some evenings watching over his shoulder almost as he wrote out a letter to various individuals with concerns of his own. The reason being I was trying to send out a letter of my very own.
"I'll take care of that, Massa." I offered when he was finished with his letter and had it all ready to be mailed off.
"Are you sure?"
I nodded and vanished outside of his study with a pile of letters before slipping mine in with the others once I turned the corner and handed it off to be mailed.
For days I waited for a reply.
Mike had brought a box of clothes to our quarter.
"Pick anything you might like..." He told me.
I decided on a pink dress and beige slippers. It felt wonderful to own a pair of shoes again. No longer did I hide my hair inside of a scarf all day either.
Where Mike was getting all this special treatment from, I don't know, but whatever he got he always shared with other enslaved people.
When Sty wrote me a letter back, I went into hiding under the bed to read. He told me that he missed me. That my mother was doing well. And that his sister Lulu was expecting a child.
I instantly begin to write a response.
It took me days to process just how exciting this news was. Lulu would make the perfect mother I knew that. But I started wondering about myself too.
When was love going to fall on my doorstep?
"What's that?" Teeny pointed as I stuffed the letter away in my dress in a hurry.
"Nothing of your concern."
"You could tell me I's won't say a thing to nobody." He responded.
"It's nothing, okay?!" The thought of sharing what Sty and I were doing with anybody other than us two was not something I was ready to do even if Teeny meant well.
"Teeny!" Someone with a deep voice called as I got busy with work cleaning the windows of the big house.
That's when his brother showed up. Ben was finer than every spring flower. All the things Teeny lacked his brother had somehow gained as far as height and muscle went.
Teeny's thin arm slithered around me as if I was his most prized possession.
"Meet my girl, Polly!" He introduced.
I removed his hand from around me "I's not your girl."
Ben laughed-even his laughter was sweet, yet my mother's words were there in the back of my head.
Don't you even think about it, Polly! I imagined her scolding me on how only weak women fell in love with men who couldn't offer them anything in life.
I scrubbed at the glass window as Ben's reflection showed up right behind me.
His gray eyes met mine once I turned to face him.
"Need any help there, Polly?" He offered even kind would be an understatement to describe his actions before I could reply he took the sponge from my hold and started cleaning.
But I wasn't budging because my mother had always been right-what could someone like Ben offer a girl like me?
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