Harriet Tubman: A Private Life

1912, Auburn, New York

The stove gives out heat unevenly and the room swims a little before it steadies. Some mornings I have to touch the edge of the table to be sure the line of it stays where it ought. That troubles the women around me more than it troubles me, though they try not to show it. They bring broth, fold blankets, ask whether I am tired, and mean, underneath it, whether my mind is with me long enough to keep going. I know why they ask. Names go missing now. Places blur until something small sets them right again: the smell of wood smoke, the scrape of a chair, the feel of old paper under the fingers. People have spent years asking me to tell it neat. They want bravery without fear, deliverance without the bargains, saints\u2019 work with no mud on it. I will not leave them that ease. If this mind closes before I have put down what the work demanded, they will sing over it and call the singing truth.