Lincoln’s private opinion is that Brown, while right in his beliefs, was wrong in his actions.

—

Lincoln’s private opinion is that Brown was insane and those slaves who did not come to his side when called were not.

xvi

The following winter is severe. Snow drifts against the front door during the night and Sleeper has to push with his shoulder to crack the seal of ice in the morning. One morning he can’t do it, and has to leave through the kitchen, where the stove has already warmed things up. Rosalie, going out for groceries, takes a bad fall and is helped home by two men, each so drunk at ten in the morning as to make it unclear who is holding up whom. Rosalie mentions several times the fact that, in Baltimore, the grocery was right next door—it was a matter of a minute to fetch the eggs and bread no matter what the weather. If this is intended to irritate Asia, it works. They have servants to go for the groceries. There was no need for Rosalie to leave the house.

Asia hasn’t been outside for weeks. The air is an arctic blast in the lungs. The ground is too icy—if she fell she would never get up again. She would lie there like a turtle on its shell. And yet, inside the house, she sweats at night, the baby burning in her belly. She takes off her clothes and stands before the bedroom mirror. She can make out the shape of a foot, kicking out against her stretched skin. A dark line extends up from her navel. Shiny streaks of skin fan over her hips. Her nausea has never completely gone away and the only thing she can eat with any pleasure is flavored ice.

The Philadelphia house is larger than the one on Exeter Street, but it’s also older and darker. Sleeper has promised Asia a better house after the baby comes, something out in the country where a child can run. In the meantime, Asia spends much of her time in the only room downstairs that gets full sunlight in the morning. She lowers herself onto the sofa. It doesn’t seem possible that her stomach could swell so much without bursting.

She’s there, with a book she isn’t reading in her hand, listening to the fire eat itself in the fireplace when, for no obvious reason, she thinks of Hattie and is overwhelmed with dread. She rises and hoists herself up the stairs to the nursery. The preparation of blankets and toys and tiny clothes is something Asia would have expected to enjoy, but she’s left it mostly to Mother. In truth, she’s hardly been in this room. She pauses in the doorway, because Rosalie is already there, sitting in the window where the light is best, doing the uninspired but necessary sewing that a great many diapers require.