I had to transcribe what I read into notes, to remember which substance was for which symptom. And then, the next morning, I took my scrap of paper and searched for each plant in its proper place, and recorded if it lived and flourished, or if it had become overgrown or invaded the space of another.

I did not have an eye for recognizing plants on sight, and I spent many frantic minutes comparing the description of a leaf pattern or a petal to what was flowering before me. The only things I could recognize with any ease were pansies. Not very impressive, as pansies grow everywhere and are known even to fools. But when I saw a thatch of them in my mama’s lanes, they cheered me—panting yellows and purples and blues.

Pansies      are for      Obstinate Skin

In my new life of study, I thought often of Mr. Ben. He lived in the back room of Culver’s now, a place I had never seen, only heard about. Culver himself had found him so waspish that he’d offered to pay Mr. Ben’s way across the river to Manhattan.

“To Mr. Ruggles’s place in Manhattan, on Golden Hill. Ruggles and his friends would help him.” This was Lenore, gossiping with Mama in the mornings while she banked the fire and I sat, head propped in my hands, reading the materia medica.

“And Mr. Ben refused?” Mama said.

Lenore nodded. “He said he’d die if he crossed the water. He said he’ll drown. Said he’s seen it in a dream. Says the water’s full of dead niggers calling his name, and he’d rather stay here, on land.”

“His sister can’t come soon enough,” Mama said.

But she did not come for another month, perhaps two. When I went into town sometimes, to bring a note to Culver or his son, I would see Mr. Ben wandering the crossroads, turning one way or another. He always had a smile for me. Weak, but he gave it. He never called me Libertie, though. Instead, he called me Black Gal.

“Hey there, Black Gal, and good morning to you.”

“What you doing for your mama, Black Gal?”

And it was with a sense of pity, which we both could feel between us, that I would return his greeting, show him what was in my bag, raise my hand back to him.

What I wanted to say each time was, How could you do that to Mama?