While waiting to work on it, he placed it on the anvil and then handed me a lighter hammer. It was perfect. “Don’t worry about the force. Just feel the metal move.” I struck. The hammer hit the iron with a soft thud. It barely left a mark. “Again. Give it your all.” I struck harder with the mallet. “It has to make contact.”
The iron bent slightly. Good. Again. I hammered relentlessly. My arms burned. My shoulders ached. Sweat streamed down my face. But I was doing physical work, shaping metal with my own hands. When the iron had cooled, Josiah lifted the slightly warped piece. His first project. It’s not much, but you did it. He set the iron down. You’re stronger than you think. You’ve always been strong. You just needed the right activity.
From that day on, I spent hours at the forge. Josiah taught me the basics: how to heat the metal, how to hammer it, how to shape it. I didn’t have the strength for heavy work, but I could make small objects: hooks, simple tools, decorative pieces. For the first time in fourteen years, since my accident, I felt physically capable. My legs no longer worked, but my arms and hands did. And at the forge, that was enough for me. But something else was happening too. Something I couldn’t control. June brought another revelation.
We were at the library one evening. Josiah was reading Keats aloud. His reading had improved so much that he could tackle complex texts. His voice was perfect for poetry: deep, resonant, giving weight to each line. “A beautiful thing is an eternal joy,” he read. “Its beauty increases. It will never completely disappear.” “Do you believe that?” I asked. “That beauty is permanent.” “I believe that beauty in memory is permanent.”
The thing itself may disappear, but the memory of its beauty remains. What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? He was silent for a moment. And then you, yesterday at the forge, covered in soot, sweating, laughing as you hammered that nail. It was magnificent. My heart raced. Josiah, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. No. I moved my wheelchair closer to him. Say that again. You were magnificent. You are magnificent. You have always been magnificent, Elellanar.
The wheelchair doesn’t change anything. Neither do the paralyzed legs. You are intelligent, kind, courageous, and, yes, incredibly beautiful. Your voice has become powerful. The twelve men who rejected you were blind. They saw a wheelchair and looked away. They didn’t see you. They didn’t see you. The most beautiful person I have ever met.
The words tumbled out before I could stop them. I think I’m falling in love with you. The silence that followed was deafening. Dangerous words. Impossible words. A white woman and a Black man enslaved in Virginia, 1856. Society couldn’t tolerate what I was feeling. “Elaner,” he said cautiously. “You can’t. We can’t. If someone knew, what would they do? We already live together. My father already gave me to you.”
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