Because I Must

They came for her in the night, as they had done for the others who had gone before her. All heard her screams; none went to her rescue.

None dared.

In the morning, her chair at the table sat vacant, accusatory in its emptiness. By tacit, unspoken agreement, we averted our eyes as we ate our breakfast and went about our chores. To the casual onlooker, nothing had changed. But to the knowing eye, everything had. Mine was a knowing eye.

I held aside the curtain and watched as the others bent their backs to their tasks out in the courtyard: fetching, carrying, cleaning, scrubbing, cooking, mending...all the things we were supposed to do. All we were permitted to do. Murmurs of conversation floated to me through the summer air as everyone strived for normalcy. To pretend that it didn't matter. That Emma hadn't mattered.

But she had.

She had mattered to me, and she had mattered to the others. Those who had slipped away from their daily lives for stolen moments with her. Those who would now look to another to carry on her work. My hand tightened on the curtain as my stomach clenched and my heart skipped one beat, then another. Courage wavered in the face of fear. I struggled to calm my thoughts. To breathe.

A knock sounded at the door behind me, and I released the curtain, turning as a young girl entered with a basket. Shyly, she dropped a curtsy, her free hand smoothing her skirt.

"I've brought eggs, miss," she said.

I inclined my head toward the table. As she scurried to place the basket beside a bowl of apples, a sunbeam slanted into the room, lighting her hair. I shut and bolted the door against it, and then leaned my forehead against the cool, unyielding wood. Closing my eyes, I slipped a hand into my apron pocket and touched the cloth-wrapped bundle there, one of several I had retrieved from beneath a floorboard behind Emma's stove. I'd gone there in the dark, after her screams had ended and silence had again descended over the compound. For you, I whispered to her in my heart.

I withdrew the bundle from my pocket and turned to the girl. "Anna, right?" I asked, and her head bobbed affirmation. I unwrapped the package and set the book carefully, tenderly, on the table before her. "We only have a few minutes before you're missed," I said. "Let's begin."

Anna sat and, with utmost reverence, opened the book. I turned back to the window as, haltingly, she began to read, "Four score and seven years ago..."

I stared out into the courtyard, letting the soft words and memories wash over me. "Why?" I heard myself ask Emma. "Why do you do this?"

"Because I can," she replied. "Because someone must."

I hadn't understood at the time.

"...that all men are created equal," Anna's gentle voice read behind me.

I understood now.