Chapter Sixteen
Eng and Chang had little interest, they said, in leading the idle lives of country squires. There was plenty of work on the
farm and beyond to occupy them. Rising at six each morning, they began their day by clearing acres with their custom-built
axe. They felled trees using their famed double-chop method: one struck the trunk from one direction while the other hit from
the opposite side. Born of necessity, this technique proved so efficient that other farmers in the area adopted it.
The brothers excavated oaks and magnolias from the woods behind the fields, planting them along the lengthy drive and around
the house. They removed brush and stones by hand, fertilized and plowed the fields, and planted wheat, rye, and corn.
In the early afternoons, they often took the buggy into town to buy goods, visit their banker, or socialize with fellow farmers
and other friends. Late afternoons brought a more genteel pace: they followed the English ritual of formal tea drinking, using
a silver teapot and Blue Willow china cups, their glazed surfaces depicting pagodas and birds in flight. When the weather
allowed, they sat on the porch in their wood-framed settee with a rattan seat, sipping tea and eating toast and cake. Sometimes
they played their flutes, notes drifting through the warm air.
While Addie busied herself with the house—supervising laundry, ordering supplies, and adding her touches—I found solace in
the garden.
The brothers had already dug and planted the vegetable garden and a small orchard, but the yard surrounding the house was untamed, filled with wildflowers and weeds.
I decided to take on the task of transforming it.
Jasmine and roses beside the front door.
Rhododendron and more jasmine around the porch.
A flower garden in a sunny patch and an expanded herb garden near the kitchen.
At Epps, I selected a hoe, a spade, a rake, a trowel, a watering can, pruning shears, and a basket, and charged them to Eng
and Chang’s account. I studied seed catalogs and placed mail orders through the shops where they kept credit—basil seeds for
stews, rosemary for roasts, mint for tea, chamomile and lavender for their calming properties. Hardy annuals like zinnias
and marigolds. Fast-growing perennials like lilacs and roses.
Within days, the seeds arrived by post, wrapped in paper and tied with string, each packet a promise of a future filled with
vibrant blooms and fragrant herbs. I imagined poppies swaying in the breeze, bubble-like hollyhocks, tawny tiger lilies slashed
with crimson. Camellias, tea olives, and phlox.
Each morning that week, I took my sunbonnet off its peg, grabbed my working gloves, and gathered my tools. I weeded crabgrass
and pulled stubborn roots, loosened the dark, rich soil, and carefully spaced each seed. I hauled water from the well, spread
netting to protect the seeds from hungry birds, fashioned shade cloths from old fabric.
When my work was done, if the weather was fine, I walked the perimeter of the property.
Most evenings, the four of us gathered in the parlor. Eng and Chang sat in their double chair by the fire, reading or playing
chess or checkers, while Addie and I did our needlework. We talked benignly about the weather, the state of the crops, the
quality of the soil, the health of the livestock, the broken plow, the supplies needed for the household and farm.
Sometimes I surreptitiously studied Eng’s face as he read poetry or debated moving a pawn on the grid.
Occasionally his glance met mine and I saw the uncertainty I felt reflected in his eyes.
But most of the time, he remained inscrutable, his expressions opaque.
I knew he was in there, but he seemed very far away.
When the evening’s quiet routines came to an end, Addie would fold her needlework and rise with a carefully composed smile,
bidding us good night. I’d follow soon after, climbing the stairs to my bedroom and latching the door behind me. From the
next room came the muffled sounds of Addie preparing for bed—water splashing in the basin, the groan of her wardrobe door,
the faint rasp of her brush through her hair.
Sometimes I heard the soft thump of her getting into bed. Other nights, after a pause—sometimes brief, sometimes long—her
door would open again, and I’d hear the shuffle of her footsteps crossing the hall, the click of the door closing behind her.
One afternoon in the middle of the following week, as late afternoon sun slanted through the parlor window, Addie and I settled
in with our needlework. Across from us, Eng and Chang rustled their newspapers. I reached for my embroidery hoop, stretched
a piece of linen over the frame, and smoothed it taut before clamping it in place. After threading the needle, I tied a knot
at the end and ran a finger over the pencil marks I’d sketched earlier—two women on either side of a well. Their postures
were tentative, not yet defined. One leaned forward, the other held back. The palette I had in mind was muted, earthy browns
and grays.
“A biblical scene?” Addie glanced over from her own needlework, a wreath of violets, the lavender petals stitched in tiny
loops.
“Leah and Rachel at the well.” I smoothed the cloth, tracing the outline with my finger. The well was just a low stone circle,
rough and uneven, rising from the earth.
Chang looked up from his paper. “Ah. Where Jacob fell in love with Rachel. Leah wasn’t at the well, though, was she?”
Addie smiled. “Creative liberties.”
I began to outline Leah’s figure, my needle moving steadily through the cloth. I wasn’t sure why I’d chosen this story, only
that focusing on it felt like pressing on a bruise. There was a dull comfort in the ache, a perverse pleasure in probing something
so tender. With each pull of the thread, as Leah’s plain dress took shape beneath my fingers, I felt as if I were stitching
something into place. As if, by pinning the story down, I might be able to let it go.
A few days later, on a dreary morning when fat drops of rain pelted the windowpanes, I ran my finger along the spines of the
books in the parlor and pulled out the red volume Eng had recommended. Frankenstein. Settling by the hearth, made cozier by the gloom outside, I opened it to the first line:
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such
evil forebodings.
Throughout the morning, into the long, wet afternoon, and again after supper, I followed the story of an ambitious scientist
consumed with the idea of creating life, stitching together a creature from human body parts. The creature, thrust into the
world, longs for sympathy but finds only cruelty. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? . . . If I cannot inspire love, I will cause
fear.
I glanced across the room, where Eng and Chang sat in the glow of an oil lamp, playing All Fours.
Eng laid a card face up and waited while Chang considered his next move.
I thought of the stories they’d told Addie and me—the scorn they’d endured, the ridicule, the constant effort to prove their humanity.
A lifetime of callous questions and tactless asides, of being misjudged and belittled.
They learned to police themselves—their clothes, their gestures, even the tone of their voices.
They made themselves small, unthreatening, every interaction a careful compromise.
Did they ever feel rage the likes of which we would not believe? Did they wonder, as Frankenstein’s creature had, whether
the world would ever allow them peace?
I had been so consumed with my own discomfort, my own suffocating doubts, that I hadn’t stopped to consider how this strange
life might feel to Eng. Bound to the body of another, his needs and desires distorted into spectacle by the accident of his
form. Each morning, he had to wrest himself back into the consciousness of his predicament, confronting it anew.
All he wanted was to live a normal life. To be seen as fully human. And here I was, denying him that.
In the parlor one evening, Eng held up a slim book. Alexander Pope. “My favorite poet,” he said. “And my favorite poem of
his, ‘An Essay on Man.’ ” He read aloud:
The proper study of mankind is man. . . .
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err . . .
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Addie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “ ‘The proper study of mankind is man’—what does that mean?”
Eng lowered the book. “It means we spend too much time worrying about God and heaven when we should be looking at ourselves.”
“And you agree with that?”
“Yes.” Setting the book on the table, he said, “We think we are clever, yet we make such foolish mistakes. We want to control
everything around us. Our pride makes us weak. We think we know more than we do, but we’re always getting things wrong.”
“That’s a rather pessimistic view, isn’t it?” she asked.
Eng shrugged. “Not pessimistic. Honest. Pope doesn’t shy away from the contradictions of human nature. He sees the world as
it is, not as we wish it to be.”
“Well, it sounds awfully bleak to me.”
But Eng’s unsentimental view intrigued me. I could see how Pope’s words gave him a lens through which to make sense of his
singular life. The poem was clear-eyed and unsparing, free of false hope or easy answers. It resonated with his beliefs about
human nature: That we are complex and contradictory, admirable and ridiculous. That while we might imagine ourselves powerful,
we are deeply vulnerable to each other and to chance.
“I’d like to read that poem,” I said.