“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I will protect you. I will take care of you. And I will try to be worthy of you.”
“And I will try to make the situation bearable for both of us.”
We sealed the deal with a handshake; his enormous hand enveloped mine, warm and surprisingly delicate. My father’s radical solution suddenly seemed less impossible.
But what happened next? What did I learn about Josiah in the following months? That’s when this story takes an unexpected turn.
The agreement formally came into effect on April 1, 1856.
My father held a small ceremony, not a legal wedding since slaves were not allowed to marry, and certainly not one that white society would recognize, but he gathered the servants together, without quoting any Bible verses, and announced that Josiah would take care of me from now on.
“Speak to my authority regarding Eleanor’s well-being,” my father told everyone present. “Treat her with the respect her position deserves.”
A room adjoining mine was prepared for Josiah, connected by a door but separate, to maintain an appearance of decorum. There he keeps his few personal belongings from the slave quarters: some articles of clothing, some books he had secretly accumulated, and his forge tools.
The first few weeks were awkward. Two strangers trying to destroy each other in an impossible situation. I was used to having domestic help. He was used to heavy labor. Now he was responsible for intimate tasks: helping me dress, carrying me when the wheelchair broke down, attending to needs I never imagined discussing with a man.
But Josiah handled everything with extraordinary sensitivity. When I had to get up, he asked permission first. When he helped me dress, he avoided eye contact whenever possible. When I needed help with personal matters, he preserved my dignity even in inherently indecent situations.
“I know it’s an awkward situation,” I told her one morning. “I know you didn’t choose it.”
“Neither do you.” I was reorganizing my bookshelf. I had told him I wanted it arranged alphabetically, and he had taken on the task. “But we managed.”
“Are we?”
He pointed at me; his imposing, yet somehow harmless, figure knelt beside the bookshelf. “Ellaner, I have been a slave my entire life. I have performed hard labor in sweltering heat that would kill most men. I have been punished for my mistakes, sold, and separated from my family, treated like a voiceless ox.” He gestured around the welcoming room. “To live here, to be cared for by someone who treats me like a human being, to have access to books and conversation… This is not suffering.”
“But you are still a slave.”
“Yes, but I’d rather be a slave here with you than free but alone somewhere else.” He went back to reading his books. “Is it wrong to say that?”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s sincere.”
But this is what I didn’t tell her. What I still couldn’t admit to myself. I was starting to feel something. Something impossible. Something dangerous.
By the end of April, we had established a routine. In the morning, Josiah would help me with the preparations and then take me out for breakfast. Afterward, he would return to the blacksmith shop while I took care of the household accounts. In the afternoon, he would come back and we would spend time together.
Sometimes I watched him work, fascinated by how he transformed iron into useful objects. Sometimes he read to me, and his reading improved remarkably thanks to access to my father’s library and my private lessons. In the evenings we talked about everything: his childhood on another plantation, his mother, who had been sold when he was ten, and his dreams of freedom, which seemed unattainable.
And I’m talking about my mother, who died when I was born. About the accident that left me paralyzed, about the feeling of being trapped in a body that didn’t work and in a society that didn’t want me. We were two outcasts who found solace in each other’s company.
In May, something changed. I had seen Josiah working at the forge, heating the iron until it was red-hot, then shaping it with precise movements.
“Do you think I could try it?” I asked suddenly.
He looked up in surprise. “Try what?”
