He flat-out told me I have to get rid of it. “Aunt Jewel might could help,” he said.

I don’t think I could do that. The baby was fathered by a monster, yes, but it is half mine. And yet … I can’t possibly have a baby! Where would I go? I can’t return to Plainfield with a child. I have no one there to help me and I’d be ostracized by my neighbors and bring shame to my mother’s memory. But I can’t stay in Edenton, either. I would be more of an outcast than I already am. Jesse said people will think the baby is his, and he’s probably right. “Who else you been spendin’ every day with?” he asked me. If people believe the baby is his … I can’t bear to think about it, and I’m sure it’s on his mind. Negro men have been hung for less.

I told him I’d protect him. If anyone questions me, I’ll make up a lover. I won’t let him be hurt by what’s happened.

Jesse is with me in the warehouse only in the afternoons now, as his family needs him on the farm for planting in the mornings. He still comes nearly every day though, and I look forward to the sound of his bicycle tires on the dirt road. No one else comes to the warehouse these days, and that is fine. Karl and Pauline rarely come to Miss Myrtle’s for Sunday dinner any longer, either. The couple of times they came were nothing like our chatty festive Christmas meal. Conversation was stilted. Karl was stiff and quiet. Pauline was distant, although she does talk rather incessantly about the curtains and blankets and things she’s making for the nursery. Miss Myrtle chatters throughout the meal, seemingly ignorant of the chill in the room. I liked Pauline and I’m sad to lose her, but I have no time for her, really, now. I must finish the mural and then figure out what to do about this child I’m carrying.

Thursday, May 23, 1940