“A wife truly is a helpmate and a pillar,” Reverend Harland said as Emmanuel and I knelt before him. “She is obedient to her Lord, her husband. We cannot raise up a great nation of man without a loyal and obedient wife and mother—as she stands, as she decides, so stands and decides the fate of the Negro people. The redemption and the triumph of the Negro race will come from the hearth, will come from the home, and will spread from there to the ballot box, to the pulpit, to the world. A wife holds the world in her lap and hands it to her husband.”

While he spoke, Emmanuel and I looked straight ahead. I could see, from the corner of my eye, Emmanuel bend his head at the word “lord” and not raise it again till Reverend Harland pronounced us married. Then I turned to him. He kissed my cheek, and there was a smattering of subdued applause. He helped me to my feet, and we walked down the aisle, arm in arm, the whole church watching us.

The heat did not break. We stood out in the sun while the men shook Emmanuel’s hand and the women looked from him to me and back again and then at the waist of my dress, trying to determine if it was thicker than it had been a month before, trying to find a reason we had married so hastily or even, I saw in the petty flash of a few eyes, why he had married me at all.

Our wedding night, we slept the same we had the day before—myself in my own bedroom, my husband down below. There was a moment when Lucien had leered and Madame Elizabeth had nudged Mama—“Perhaps we should leave the house to the newlyweds”—but Mama had looked so stern the joke had died, and so no one had tried to test her.

I lay as I had only a few hours ago, restless in bed, even the thinnest of sheets oppressive. Except now, there was the scratch at the door I had waited for. I opened it, and Emmanuel stood before me. In the dark of the hallway, his skin gleamed, so pale.

“We will wait,” he said. “It is enough to wait.” And then he leaned over and kissed me, this time full on the mouth. “You taste of flowers,” he said.

“Flowers taste awful, you know.”

He smiled at me, until I returned his smile, and then he left my door.

We were to leave in three days for Haiti, accommodations Emmanuel had worked so hard to secure as soon as I’d accepted him.

Vrè lanmou pa konn danje

Real love knows no danger

Because our ship was headed to Haiti, there was no embarrassment about our berth. On Haitian ships—at least this one—colored people were allowed cabins. Already, this world was better. The ship’s captain knew Emmanuel’s father, and so we had a private cabin, given over to us with much winking and nodding, so much that I could not look anyone on board in the eye.