I catch Mrs. Williams crying from time to time and I want to cry along with her, but I don’t do it in front of her. I don’t feel I have the right. I leave her alone. I just try to make her life easier by helping all I can around the house.

Meanwhile, I am getting more and more frightened of having this baby. The bigger I get, the less I can imagine being able to push it out of me. Aunt Jewel reminds me that women tinier than me have been giving birth for all time, but that doesn’t help. I keep thinking of the white woman she knows who had the stillborn babies. I’ve told Aunt Jewel to let that woman know she can have my baby once it comes, but she still refuses to talk to her and her husband. She still thinks I will warm to this child once it’s born. Even if I did, what would I do with it? Where would I go? One thing I know for certain: I will have to leave soon after I have the baby. I can’t ask the Williams family to live this way, in fear and danger, any longer.

Monday, December 16, 1940

This will be the last time I write in my journal. I’m waiting for Mr. Williams to fix a tire on his truck and then he’ll drive me to the bus station in Elizabeth City. I don’t dare take the journal with me. If I’m caught, the journal would lead the police right back to the Williams family and I fear every one of them would be arrested for “harboring a fugitive.” I don’t know what’s going to happen to me but, no matter what, I’ll protect Jesse’s family till the day I die.

The baby was born last week. Aunt Jewel delivered him in her own bed, not wanting Nellie to be frightened by my screams of pain. I’m afraid my screams of pain probably carried through the house, out to the barn, and all the way into town! Aunt Jewel said it was actually an easy birth. I guess she should know, but it’s not something I ever hope to repeat. Not under these circumstances anyway.

The baby had red hair.