Leave a comment for the author I don't remember aught of my life in Ireland, but I remember the ship that took us away from there, the salt and tar tang of it and the way the canvas of the mainsails snapped and winnowed in the sharp breezes. And I remember when we sailed into Charleston Harbor, the tall ships that rose up around us creaking and swaying with the faintest motion of the water, the ship's bells and gulls making loud noises that startled, and the gulls feasting on things floating in the water. Mostly I remember the smell of fish and of the bodies on the ship next door, for it was a slave transport and when we sailed close they were casting overboard the bodies of the dead. I can't abide slavery for that reason, and it may have been part of what drove me from my pa, for he made his fortune on the backs of those unfortunates. I sailed alongside many an African man, and they are fierce and loyal. These Africans, though, floated in the water, some mercifully face down, others with dead eyes looking up at me. A seagull swooped down and landed on one, and I turned away. My mam drew me away from the fo'c'sle of the ship, over to the boarding plank, and we waited til the ship had well docked and we removed us from there and its evil sights and smells. A coffle of slaves huddled on the pebbled docks near us, and I remember alternately staring and looking away. But there were so many more things to look at! Seagulls dove and japed at one another for a scrap or two of food, and great crates of tea and cloth being shipped in, and barrels of molasses, while tobacco with its spicy smell and bales of cotton and ricks of timber in all lengths rested on the dock to be carried off by the ships. I fell in love with the sea and ships that very moment, all the beauty and ugliness and life and heady stench of it. And then I squealed in excitement, for there on the docks was Papa! Mam gasped, though she could not wave with her shackled hands without releasing me, and that she would not do. But he waved at her, and turned back to his negotiations with the ship's quartermaster, engaging in a ferocious argument. At last, he passed a small bag of coins to the man, and after an infinitely long time, we docked. The quartermaster waved to my mother to come down right away. “Your papers has already been sold to this gentleman what wanted you.” Mama smiled -- no, she beamed. That expression is the way I shall always remember her, for her face gleamed in the setting sun, and her heart was in her eyes as she placed her hands, rubbed raw by shackles, into Papa's. He looked down into her eyes, ignoring me as I hugged his legs. "Peg, darling Peg, will you marry with me? I can't live without you, me darling." “You're certain?” He nodded. "There's none will know better, my Peg. I bought a ring special for this moment, and if it makes you feel better we'll find a churchman outside the area to marry us in the eyes of God as well as man." I watched, thumb in my mouth, as she flung herself into his arms, my beautiful mother, and Papa was laughing and holding her, or trying to, for her skirts kept slipping upward and he had to keep rearranging them. That was the day my Papa became a bigamist, for it was not til shortly after that his divorce papers were sent to the king, who promptly denied them. He hung up his law shingle the next day, and got a ton of customers the day after. * * * |
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