I kept my eyes on him as I approached. When I reached him, he held out one hand, placed it on my stomach, put the other around my waist, and let it rest at the small of my back. He rested his head on my stomach, and I felt the whisk of his eyelashes as he closed his eyes. I looked away from him, to the letter on the table. I both wanted to stand here, with his head on my stomach, with his arms holding the world, and I wanted to crouch on the floor and read every word my mother wrote me. I did not know which way to move and could not break away. So we stayed like that, for a long time, listening to the house settle around us.

Finally, he sighed. “I have missed you,” he said.

“Let us sleep,” I said.

A little past midnight, I heard his breath grow heavy and knew he was fully asleep. I pushed myself out of bed, carefully pulled the chair from his desk, and sat, naked, on the planks of wood, reading my mother’s hand.

My Dearest Libertie,

You do not write, and that may be because you are no longer on this Earth or it may be because you are still angry at me, but either way I miss you and wish to know where you are, so I write this letter to you and send it by way of your friends, the Graces, hoping that it finds you at peace, whether you are on this Earth or below it.

The house feels truly dead now. I do not like staying here most nights. Most nights, I sleep in the waiting room of the hospital.

I write to you from the dark of the waiting room. It is about ten o’clock at night. I’ve just heard the church bell ring. I was to attend a lecture tonight, but I did not feel spirited enough. Besides, the topic is one I think I already know well: “The Future of the Colored Woman.” It is an argument I am too old and tired to add anything to, I think.

The speaker is a very smart young woman, like your friends. She travels from city to city to talk to groups about the colored woman—a marvelous business, one that could not have existed even ten years ago. I told her this, and she seemed unimpressed by her own strangeness. She smiled and said, “Yes, mum.” And I suppose that counts as progress, when a girl like her does things I could not imagine and does not stop once to think of them.

I had hoped I had made you brave like that, Libertie. Perhaps there is bravery in being a wife. Certainly, there is bravery in being a mother. I think you will learn that soon enough, if my calculations are correct.