Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
ZINNIE
Heartbreak went with me while searching for lodging for our tribe of thirteen.
Assembling ourselves into smaller groups might have made for easier outcomes but leaving that cell and walking into newfound liberty we needed each other’s comfort.
And stability. I may have needed them more than they needed me with Buck’s love missing.
His absence left a distorted hole in my soul.
I felt I was sinking. Yet, dry-eyed with a straightened spine, I pressed past ache to ensure our family became more than vagabonds in a land of liberty.
San Bernardino with its memories of bondage and my absent husband wasn’t for me.
I chose to remain in Los Angeles where we found freedom.
It was a pueblo, an arid yet fertile plain, a valley shadowed by mountains and cradled by the ocean.
Rolling hills, orchards, and farmland. People like the vaqueros who spoke another language.
But hearing it referred to as the city of angels buoyed my belief in celestial beings, keeping me close to where Lovie lived in an angelic realm, present but unseen.
Our new life didn’t feel real even after receiving our freedom certificates with odd squiggles and slants none of us could read.
Illiteracy didn’t keep me from holding it, endlessly staring at it as my head swam with joy knowing every squiggle and line meant I was free.
And that I was responsible for myself, my children.
“We need jobs and somewhere to live. We can’t stay here forever.
” We’d huddled in a barn belonging to a friend of the Allens that first week of freedom.
In winter weather. There were no Negro hotels or boardinghouses in the area.
Even if there had been any, it might not have been feasible when our funds had to be rightly managed.
Ella, Alretha, and I divided that sixty-dollar bribe that became a court fine three ways.
That added to what Coraline secreted from my wages cleaning the doctor’s office aided our new beginning.
It was more money than I’d ever had and was safely sewn in my skirt hem.
It had to provide shelter, food, and clothing for myself and my brood of children for God knew how long.
I needed to find ways to stretch it. Perhaps increase it. The matter left me anxious.
I lay in the barn most nights wrestling anxiety or praying for Buck, missing his touch, and wrestling horrible dreams of faceless men snatching my children away for my dereliction of duty.
Wanting assurance that wouldn’t happen, I called on Mama Ruth and Lovie one particularly cold evening when sleep eluded me.
Guide and help me please.
A gust of wind on the tail end of my plea told my heart they heard and were willing. Accepting their reassurance, I left the warmth of the hay to quietly cross the floor to check on Alretha and her newborn.
The new mother slept the sleep of the exhausted. Nettie, nestled against her, whimpered and squirmed. Gently I scooped her into my arms and walked the floor, whispering stories of her mother’s bravery. How she’d fled slavery. How she’d refused to die when recaptured and brutalized beyond belief.
“All that stubborn inability to give up is right here, little bit.” I touched her heart, blessed her forehead like Miss Tandy had my Hattie.
“You got your mama. Aunt Ella. Me. A tribe of siblings. You can’t help but make it farther than any of us women ever did.
You’re the daughter of the butterfly queen, and you gonna be somebody.
” I returned her to Alretha’s side, sound asleep, before finding rest myself.
I rose early the next morning while the others slept and left the barn trusting holy guidance and determined what I’d told Nettie would never be a lie.
Cold wind accompanied me as I went in search of work in a free but strange place.
I knew no one. No one knew me. I had neither connections nor community.
Resisting a sudden sense of loneliness and desperation, I made my way down unfamiliar roads until I saw a Colored woman pulling a small cart with clean laundry.
She directed me to the business section.
“Look for a shop with a pocket watch painted on the window. They needed help last week.”
I thanked her and followed her instructions, hoping I was presentable.
I’d selected the best of the three dresses allotted to us annually, knowing I did my best to keep them neat and clean.
Still, cleanliness proved insufficient as the shop owner turned me away with a scowl on his loose-jowled face.
That was about your skin, Zinnie. Not your overworn dress.
California being a free state didn’t make it free of hateful behaviors.
That reality didn’t keep me from visiting business after business until my feet throbbed in my beloved brogans.
I dreamt of one day burning every remnant of the Tollivers and slavery.
Except those shoes. They were worse for wear, but an offering from my love.
I’d keep them until they fell apart and begged to be released.
Those shoes took me through that day and back to the barn that evening, shadowed by defeat. I’d been unable to find employment and feared for my family’s wellbeing.
Sell those roots and herbs.
Mama Ruth’s suggestion was invigorating.
With Ella and Alretha’s assistance, I made small medicine bundles that night by the light of the oil lamp at our disposal.
I rose early the next morning and took those cloth-wrapped bundles to the street, feeling like Peddler Pete.
But no one knew or trusted me. I returned that night having sold nothing, earning not one penny.
My desperation was high when I returned to canvassing for a job the next day.
“Good morning, sir. Do you need a cleaning lady?” Looking a white man in the eye was strangeness, but I forced myself not to look away when approaching a man unlocking an office door barely after dawn.
“I might.” He looked me over, but not unkindly. “What’s your name?”
“Zinnie… Freeman.” My new name was sweet cake and buttery cornbread, and I tasted it as often as I could.
“Are you the Zinnie who won her freedom via petition?”
Panic filled me. I felt unsafe, as if this person might be a bounty hunter capable of kidnapping me despite my freedom papers.
“I heard about your case from Judge Warrington,” he offered gently as if sensing my distress. “He and I are neighbors and friends.”
I relaxed and looked him in the eye, unaccustomed to kindness from his kind. “Yes, sir.”
“He says one of you was a midwife. Is that you or one of the others?”
I recalled the judge questioning me about services previously rendered. “I’ve delivered babies.”
“I see. Come with me.”
I followed when he opened the office door and stepped into a dark room with smells reminiscent of my root stash. He pulled back heavy-looking drapes. Daylight spilled into a space like what I’d cleaned in San Bernardino.
“I’m Dr. Guyer. Have a seat.”
I perched on the edge of the chair opposite the desk where he sat.
“Los Angeles is growing steadily as are the city’s various industries. That, and life alone, has increased a need for my services. I’m without a nurse. Are you interested in training?”
“Sir?”
“Your background speaks to your ability. I need someone who’ll learn quickly.” The work would be demanding but he would ensure I was properly trained. “The pay is two dollars and fifty cents per day. Sickness doesn’t obey a clock so the hours might be long. I trust that’s acceptable.”
Tongue-tied, I nodded.
“Excellent! We’ll start tomorrow at eight.”
I thanked him and staggered out the door drunk with amazement. I ran all the way to the barn and my family, heart pounding with gratefulness. I didn’t have to exhaust the money in my possession. I could care for myself and provide for my children. I was a freewoman.
Ella’s culinary finesse opened an opportunity in a local café.
With her earnings she was able to secure housing for herself and her boys.
Alretha and Nettie remained with me. While Ella and I worked, she singlehandedly cared for our children after Juniper and Annabelle were married within weeks of each other that February.
My girls were lovely brides who jumped the broom with their grooms, launching into love and new lives.
My heart was giddy knowing my earnings contributed to their dresses; but it was the blue brooches I pinned to their collars that left them breathless.
They adored them so that I decided it would be my tradition to gift all my girls a brooch when they married.
I bought one for each and stored them until needed. Dedicated to Buck even in his absence, I bought myself one as well. But the one I bought for Nettie I filled with her essence.
“We’re new people keeping our water sacs in fancy ways. Not in canning jars for preserves.” I cut off a piece of her sac and placed it in the brooch before kissing that baby girl asleep in Alretha’s arms, loving her like my own, excited for our all of our children’s futures.
I’d been human chattel and had survived on next to nothing. In the months after freedom, I lived so frugally, saving the bulk of my earnings, that Ella and Alretha constantly teased me.
“Zinnie’s tryna be the richest Negro in the City of Angels.”
Alretha’s bright laugh made me smile at her resilience and determination to live despite horrific experiences. “Ella, she oughta stop counting money and treat herself to something nice for a change.”
I rented a tiny, affordable house, had food on the table, and clothes on my back. I was content. “Freedom’s all the nice I need. I got plans for these savings.”