Sweet Home was tiny compared to the places she had been. Mr. Garner, Mrs. Garner, herself,Halle, and four boys, over half named Paul, made up the entire population. Mrs. Garner hummedwhen she worked; Mr. Garner acted like the world was a toy he was supposed to have fun with. Neither wanted her in the field — Mr. Garner's boys, including Halle, did all of that — which wasa blessing since she could not have managed it anyway. What she did was stand beside thehumming Lillian Garner while the two of them cooked, preserved, washed, ironed, made candles,clothes, soap and cider;fed chickens, pigs, dogs and geese; milked cows, churned butter, renderedfat, laid fires. . . . Nothing to it. And nobody knocked her down.
Her hip hurt every single day — but she never spoke of it. Only Halle, who had watched hermovements closely for the last four years, knew that to get in and out of bed she had to lift herthigh with both hands, which was why he spoke to Mr. Garner about buying her out of there so shecould sit down for a change. Sweet boy. The one person who did something hard for her: gave herhis work, his life and now his children, whose voices she could just make out as she stood in thegarden wondering what was the dark and coming thing behind the scent of disapproval. SweetHome was a marked improvement. No question. And no matter, for the sadness was at her center,the desolated center where the self that was no self made its home. Sad as it was that she did notknow where her children were buried or what they looked like if alive, fact was she knew moreabout them than she knew about herself, having never had the map to discover what she was like.
Could she sing? (Was it nice to hear when she did?) Was she pretty? Was she a good friend? Couldshe have been a loving mother? A faithful wife? Have I got a sister and does she favor me? If mymother knew me would she like me?
In Lillian Garner's house, exempted from the field work that broke her hip and the exhaustion thatdrugged her mind; in Lillian Garner's house where nobody knocked her down (or up), she listenedto the whitewoman humming at her work; watched her face light up when Mr. Garner came in andthought, It's better here, but I'm not. The Garners, it seemed to her, ran a special kind of slavery,treating them like paid labor, listening to what they said, teaching what they wanted known. Andhe didn't stud his boys. Never brought them to her cabin with directions to "lay down with her,"like they did in Carolina, or rented their sex out on other farms. It surprised and pleased her, butworried her too. Would he pick women for them or what did he think was going to happen whenthose boys ran smack into their nature? Some danger he was courting and he surely knew it. Infact, his order for them not to leave Sweet Home,except in his company, was not so much becauseof the law, but the danger of men-bred slaves on the loose.