Ellen dipped a twig in a basin of water and lye and scraped it under her husband’s yellow thumbnail. It was January 1870, on the Bobcaygeon Colonization Road. She sat in the chair with the cut-out heart. William lay on the basswood table on top of their bedsheet with his chest split open, dead and delivered to her by three men from the sawmill hours ago in the cold dark. William’s body settled her as William himself hadn’t done when he was alive. She hadn’t thought of a person as alive before. Even now, she used the word to contrast what William was not. Life with William had been exciting, whether it was the fear of his leaving her the only black person up here in the settlement around Minden Village or the thrill of his eyes on her and only her. She had learned William’s hurt quickly eno
