The Body Was There

Photo by Patty O'Hearn Kickham

Six months later she was pregnant. The curves of her hips opened up; her breasts grew heavy. The blue cotton dress, the dye fading into something lighter and unhappy, whispered the secrets of her changing body to those who made it their business to know what was happening with the women on Bilkens Farm.

Patty was one of those women. She'd been born on Bilkens Farm sometime during the 1820s, when Bilkens's father still ran the plantation. Her weathered face showed the signs of years of rice work, and her hands were nearly permanently callused and chafed. She kept a watch on all the young girls, particularly those who were married off on Marriage Day. During the day, as she directed the cutting of the rice stalks into large piles waiting to be stripped of their grains, she studied all the women slaves that came into her view. Young girl. Teenaged girl. Woman. After a woman's gray hair grew in and the lines in her face settled deep into her face, Patty knew she could stop watching them. But until that point, Patty diligently monitored the women's midsections for any signs of growth, their swollen feet. She even sniffed around the fields and the cabins at night for the acidic smell of bile held in the heated South Carolina air. For Patty, her mission, her main job on Bilkens Farm, was to catch every single pregnancy. She hadn't missed one yet.

Tenah was easy to spot. She worked at the rice fields with Patty and an old woman named Mitilde, who didn't need monitoring. Mitilde was the elder of the plantation, the one the rest of the slaves listened to first, forging a respect Bilkens himself didn't have with the rest of the people. She was trusted by the Bilkens family. And it was Mitilde whom Patty went to first when she saw that Tenah wasn't as stick thin as she had been. When Tenah's body formed more of a shape. When Tenah looked less like the teenaged girl waiting for her name to be called during Marriage Day and more like a woman. It could be just her filling out, Mitilde had said. But Patty was never wrong. Mitilde nodded and went to the women in the kitchen and asked them to brew the tea. She handed them a Carolina jessamine already in full bloom, its petals opened out, the tips slightly downward. The kitchen women didn't need an explanation. They brewed the pale brown tea, poured it into a gray porcelain coffee mug with a chip on the top rim, and handed the drink to Mitilde, who gave it to Patty. Who stood outside Tenah and Grafton's cabin just before dawn, the heat of the mug warming her hands in the cool of predawn. Patty looked over her shoulder every so often, making sure one of the overseers or Bilkens himself hadn't found her standing outside the cabins and not getting herself ready for the day of work. She watched the sun as it slowly inched up over the horizon. Her right foot tapped against the splitting wood step. She knew she would be expected to be at her position by the time the sun offered sufficient light in the sky. She didn't want to have to hustle to get there.

The door to the cabin squeaked open, and Tenah stood in the doorway. She was wearing her blue dress that was starting to fade more into the idea of blue. She took a step back inside when she saw Patty standing just beyond the stairs, looking up toward the sun. She didn't like Patty all that much. She was nosy, impatient, and bossy, and Tenah didn't understand why she was in charge of the rice stalks, work that needed time management. There were already Bilkens and the overseers and even Mitilde. She would never share it, but in Tenah's opinion, there didn...