River Sing Me Home

Rachel, having just escaped Providence Plantation, struggles to adjust. While in the forests outside of the plantation, she wonders if she can return to her hut—“one wooden square among many” (5)—and her 40-year-old sleeping mat. Yet, as Rachel panics while imagining gun shots and phantom overseers trailing her, she wonders if the exhilaration she feels is freedom. This question lingers as she ponders the emptiness of the forest as she runs.

In a flashback, the circumstances surrounding why Rachel is running after decades of enslavement unfold. The enslaved people and enslavers alike gather outside of Providence Plantation’s great house to hear important news: The Emancipation Act of 1834 has come into effect. Crying and shouting echoes through the crowd. The enslaver, riding a horse and attempting to wrestle control of the situation, rides through the crowd of enslaved people. His horse kicks one woman in the head, killing her; however, the impact of this death does not matter since she “died free” (6).

The enslaver explains that, although the people are no longer technically enslaved, they are now his apprentices. They have to work for him for at least six more years in the sugar cane field. The narrator explains that the freedom for which the enslaved people had hoped was just another version of what they had before.

Later that night, Rachel dreams of her mother, whom she can’t remember. The dream mother calls Rachel by a different name, though Rachel understands it to be her own. She commands Rachel to run.

Now in the present, Rachel, still in the forest, continues to run. She questions her next move. Because she has no way of discerning the time because of the night’s darkness, she relies on her hearing to lead her. Rachel eventually comes to a clearing where she sees enslaved people dancing. The music of the drums and the bodies of the dancers speak to something deep within her. A woman pulls Rachel into the dance. Rachel loses herself in their private joy since the dancing is not orchestrated by white, voyeuristic enslavers. As Rachel dances, she imagines hands reaching out to the heavens through space and time, uniting everyone through the music.

However, when the dance ends, the people return to their respective plantations. Rachel returns to the question of what to do with herself now that she is a fugitive. She keeps running until she comes upon a hill that slopes down into the sea. While pondering the sea, she feels part of the world and not an instrument for white benefit. Feeling liberated, Rachel notices the roof of a hut. As she leans forward at the top of the hill, she’s grabbed from behind and her head is stuffed into a sack.

In a flashback, Rachel recalls Atlas, a man who had run away from Providence when she was a child and was caught. As punishment, Atlas’s nose was sliced off. He died shortly after from infection.

The memory of his capture and death haunts Rachel as the novel returns to the present. Rachel hears a woman’s voice beyond the sackcloth. Once the sack is removed, Rachel realizes that she was not captured by bounty hunters but by a woman called Mama B. Mama B knows that the real reason that Rachel left Providence Plantation is because she is searching for her missing children. As Rachel rests in Mama B’s hut, she recalls her lost or dead children: Micah, Mary Grace, Mercy, Samuel, Kitty, Cherry Jane, Thomas Augustus, and children who died before birth. The children who may be alive, Micah, Mary Grace, Mercy, Cherry Jane, and Thomas Augustus, haunt her.

Mama B takes Rachel outside her hut to show her around a fallen tobacco plantation. Mama B reveals that the enslaved people there were left on their own after their enslaver fled when he got into trouble. She also tells Rachel that she does not have children, so she tries to “be a mother to all” (17). Mama B’s mothering includes taking in others who do not have a home. In the main house of the plantation, Mama B introduces Rachel to the other people living on the plantation. A woman, Artemis, recognizes Rachel’s face due to meeting Mary Grace in Bridgetown years earlier. Mama B states that she can take Rachel to Bridgetown the following day. Rachel, relieved to hear that one of her children may be alive, finally rests.

Because of heavy rain the next day, the trip to Bridgetown is postponed. Rachel notices Mama B’s command of the refuge as she huddles with others from the rain. A few days later, their trip is postponed again when the young child of Artemis falls ill. Rachel joins Mama B in the forest to collect herbs to help the child. As the women hunt for healing herbs under a tree canopy, Rachel notices the way that Mama B interacts with the natural landscape. Mama B’s interaction with the plants in the forest is distinct from the cultivation-heavy interaction that Rachel had while at Providence Plantation. Mama B instructs Rachel to take bark from a tree, to which Rachel claims that she does not know how. Amused, Mama B directs Rachel. Thinking of obeah (a syncretic religious tradition that combines African, Indigenous, and European religious practices), Rachel shrugs off her worries and does as the old woman asks.

Mama B, pleased with Rachel’s reaction to stripping bark from the tree, tells Rachel of “the connection between all things” (24); she says that realizing this connection leads to healing. After foraging, the women leave the forest with a sack full of healing medicines to help the child.

In the main house, Rachel recognizes the deathly sickness in the child because his sweat reminds her of Samuel and Kitty, children whom she has lost forever. Mama B prepares medicine and speaks in a language that Rachel does not understand. Recognizing her own pain in Artemis and the child, Rachel fights her grief to help.

The child lives. In living, the child gives Rachel hope. Mama B and Rachel leave for Bridgetown. Although Rachel is afraid that she might be recognized as a fugitive from Providence Plantation, she finds comfort in Mama B’s protective stride.

Mama B and Rachel rest from walking at the outskirts of another plantation. While they are eating their rations, a man approaches them from the field. Rachel grows fearful until the man speaks to Mama B. The man and Mama B embrace. Rachel learns that the man is Mama B’s brother, Tamerlane. The two catch up, revealing how they found one another after years of separation. Finding hope in Mama B and Tamerlane’s story, Rachel sees hope in her goal of finding Mary Grace.

Rachel and Mama B make it to Bridgetown. Rachel reflects on the power of the plantation over land, particularly in the ways that white men use land to reflect their power. She understands Bridgetown to be “the real monument to the white man” (35). Enclosed and heavily populated, Rachel feels watched wherever she goes. Mama B tells Rachel that she talked to Artemis, and because of the way Artemis described Mary Grace, Mama B assumes that Mary Grace works in a house somewhere in Bridgetown. Mama B takes Rachel to see Hope, a sex worker and fugitive from slavery whom Mama B helped years earlier. Rachel and Mama B stay in Hope’s room at Hope’s request.

Mama B shows Rachel around Bridgetown. She teaches her how to navigate the town. Together, they search Bridgetown, eventually splitting up to cover more ground.

While at Hope’s residence, Rachel recovers from her unsuccessful search. She studies Hope’s features, seeing a resemblance between Hope and her daughter, Cherry Jane. She reflects on Mama B’s description of Hope as a lost soul versus the Hope that she has come to know. Hope states that she admires Rachel for searching for Mary Grace. While studying Hope, Rachel looks at her reflection in Hope’s mirror.

Over the course of the following days, Rachel searches for Mary Grace and learns the layout of Bridgetown. During one of her days of wandering, she recognizes one of her enslaver’s overseers. She knows that the man is looking for her, so she hides in an alleyway. She meets someone begging and she asks him if he has seen a red-haired man pass by. He helps Rachel by giving her a blanket to cover herself. Thankful, Rachel flees for safety.

On a rainy day, Rachel enters a clothing shop. The shop is owned by Joseph Armstrong, a freeman, and his wife, Elvira. Elvira asks Rachel how she can assist her. While Rachel is attempting to hide her status as a fugitive, Mary Grace enters the shop. Overcome with emotion, Rachel and Mary Grace embrace.

Rachel explains to the Armstrongs who she is. Joseph calls Mary Grace by the name of “Eliza,” which unnerves Rachel. Rachel corrects him and emphasizes Mary Grace’s name. Rachel agrees to work for the Armstrongs in order to be close to Mary Grace. Wanting to thank Mama B and Hope for everything that they have done for her so far, she returns to Hope’s room and shares the news. The following day, Mama B leaves. Before she leaves, however, she tells Rachel about her gift of seeing what people want the most in life. As Rachel watches Mama B leave, she remembers what Mama B says about the connection between all things. Inspired by Mama B’s strength and wisdom, Rachel walks Bridgetown without the blanket to cover her head.

Over time, Rachel learns more about her employers, including the fact that Joseph was born free and Elvira was not. Rachel struggles to adapt to sewing. During these times in Elvira’s sewing room, Elvira tells Rachel more about herself in snippets. As a “mixed-race” woman, Elvira was the daughter of an enslaved woman and her enslaver’s youngest son. Her mother was born in Africa, which caused her enslavers to treat her horribly. However, her mother was a strong woman whom other enslaved people respected. Because of her foreignness, many enslaved people on the plantation thought that Elvira’s mother was a queen stolen from her homeland in Africa.

At a young age, Elvira was given to a woman in the house because of her light skin color. The woman, Peggy, had lost a daughter whom the enslaver thought that Elvira could replace. Peggy was cold to Elvira to the extent that Old Molly Rose, another enslaved person working in the house, took charge of Elvira. Because Elvira had a knack for fine, repetitive acts, Old Molly Rose taught Elvira sewing, which was a skill needed at the house. Once the plantation’s enslaver died and one of his sons took over, Elvira and the other enslaved people were sold. In Bridgetown, Elvira met Joseph and fell in love. He purchased her freedom, and soon after, they purchased the shop.

Rachel assumes that Elvira is open with her about her past because of their similar background. The connection between the two women grows because they want to preserve their memories through each other.

In their room, Rachel tries to reconnect with Mary Grace. Because Mary Grace cannot speak, Rachel struggles to understand the woman she has become. The pain of her other stolen children resurges in Rachel. Later, Rachel sees Mary Grace staring at her in pain. Rachel accepts that she can’t know what happened to Mary Grace during the 12 years that they were apart.

While wandering Bridgetown in the hope of finding her remaining children, Rachel remembers meeting slavery survivors at the pier. She ponders the legacy of slavery and how it continues to impact people. She returns to the Armstrongs’ shop. Hope enters the shop. Joseph seems irritated by Hope but serves her nonetheless. While preparing dinner, Joseph and Rachel converse, which is unusual for the pair due to Joseph’s coldness. When they discuss Hope, Joseph warns Rachel that, although he does not judge what his customers do for a living, he does not want his home’s respectability damaged. Rachel tells him that she was a fieldhand before coming to Bridgetown; she implies that he is not better than her or Hope because he was born free.

In Elvira’s sewing room, Elvira asks Rachel about her past. Rachel tells Elvira about her children. Elvira explains that although her and Joseph tried to have children, they could not. Later that day, the red-haired man comes to the shop. Rachel and Mary Grace hide while Elvira talks to him. She tells the man, MacLean, that she does not know Rachel. Rachel trusts Elvira but is unsure about Joseph because of his expressionlessness.

At a dinner held weeks prior, Rachel served food to the Armstrongs and a light-skinned guest. The guest explained the importance of sugar in Barbados and how the enslaved people were abandoning their duties. Rachel, in the present, worries that although she and Joseph are part of the same race, he would treat her differently because she was not born free.

On a Sunday morning, Rachel returns to the pier. Joseph discloses his father’s belief that the enslaved and free people are not different. Rachel is relieved that he will not reveal her status. Joseph explains the slave registers in Barbados that record information about enslaved people. Rachel expresses relief that he is not like the guest at the dinner party weeks before.

Joseph calls Rachel into his study. Rachel notes how cluttered his office is compared to his cool and collected demeanor. Rachel surmises that the office is the place where Joseph comes alive. From Joseph, Rachel learns that Micah and Thomas Augustus were sold to a plantation in Demerara. Mercy was taken to Trinidad. Meanwhile, Cherry Jane was in Bridgetown until she disappeared from the register in 1829. Although Cherry Jane is not listed among the register’s dead, her whereabouts are unknown.

Hoping to find more information about Cherry Jane, Rachel walks to the house where she was last listed. She meets Leah, an enslaved person in the house, who refuses to help Rachel find Cherry Jane. Frightened for her daughter, Rachel returns to the pier to think. Hope joins her. As they converse, Rachel understands that she cannot stay in Bridgetown with the Armstrongs. When Rachel returns to the Armstrong’s house, Elvira knows that Rachel has made an important decision. She and Joseph fund Rachel and Mary Grace’s passage to South America.

On the ship, Rachel and Mary Grace meet Nobody, a Black ship hand. Nobody helps Rachel fight her sea sickness and tells her stories of his travels across the seas. Rachel notices how Mary Grace acts when Nobody tells his stories and finds happiness in it. Once in Georgetown, Rachel persuades Nobody to stay with her and Mary Grace.