The Blueprint

by Rae Giana Rashad

We ignored that as female descendants of slavery, our lives lay in the hands of the Order’s men—our father, the patriot who paid to hold our contract, and finally, a husband. A set of three, like the hands on a clock moving us through the cages of time.

THE PATH WE WALKED TO BECOME Black women wasn’t straight; it was a loop. Starting from nowhere, it brought you back to nowhere. A man at one end, a man at the other, humming the same song, “It’s just a body. Nothing special.” If that were true, why did they want it? Why couldn’t it belong to me?

Councilmen were the Order’s most decorated men. The talented, skilled, brilliant. Engineers, physicians, cryptographers, developers. But fundamentally, they were soldiers. Killers. Eleven gun-wielding psychopaths who signed opinion into law. In speeches and articles, the councilmen became the adoring grandpa, the gentle husband, the everyman who maintained order and kept our borders safe.

“You have to want something. Your daddy being killed is not the worst thing that can happen to a Black girl.” In her words, I found fear instead of comfort. With my daddy gone, the world had opened wide enough to swallow me. Its darkness reminded me Mama was the only person left on earth who loved me. “Then what is? Losing my mama?” She wrapped her arm around my waist and accepted my head against her shoulder. She smelled earthy, like grass and dry wind. “Never being free. Find your way. Wherever they send you, get him to write your papers. Get on a train. Nobody owns you unless you believe they do.”

I never wanted children. It was the quicksand that grabbed at us, filled our eyes with grit, and pulled us into nothing more than mama.

“Your life. My love, all that you are or will be—every cell in your body—belongs to me. Without end. Without fail.”

But things were different then. Overseers and pattyrollers eventually ran out of time, money, desire. How do you leave a man whose software runs through your body? A man with unlimited resources who never tires. You don’t.

I picked at it while I alternated between writing in my journal and searching databases on James’s computer for articles on enslaved girls on the slave ships and plantations. Zero returns. If the Order erased these stories, where in history would I exist? There were only articles about councilmen detailing their education and contributions to the Order.

“I know it’s hard.” His voice rumbled in his chest. “I’ve had my share of heartache, but I still walk through this world as a white man. I can’t pretend to know how hard it is for you.”

His apologies didn’t make me feel any better, but maybe they helped him in some way.

“Thomas Jefferson once said that slavery is a moral depravity, a hideous blot, and a threat to the United States. I agree with that, yet, here we are working through a similar system created by the Order’s Founders. The system enables DoS to contribute to the Order through work and family, but it also creates men without integrity, men who exploit the assignment system instead of using it for its intended purposes.”

Did you ever think that maybe I wouldn’t be here when you came back to Austin?” “No,” he said, looking down at me and Hera like a heap of puzzle pieces. “Where would you go, Solenne?”

“What would you do if you could prevent anyone from ever leaving you?” I thought of Daddy, Mama, Dalena, and James. The answer came easily. “I’d make sure I never lost that power.”

Why did she hate Antoni instead of everyone who stood idle while this hateful system existed?

Was the desire for freedom our crossroads? When a woman chose the path of independence, did that mean everything behind her was ugly and existed only until forgotten? No, pretending the beautiful didn’t exist was as flawed as pretending the bad didn’t. No one, nothing, was all bad or all good. Life was too complex. Had it been nothing but bad, leaving would’ve been easy. Butter wasn’t there the nights I was on my knees begging God for the strength to leave. After years, I had done it. Why couldn’t I decide what I was leaving behind?

THE COUNCILMEN SAID A NATION WAS only as strong as its hold on its women. They had to squeeze the life out of women’s liberations movements, give it no air, they said.

“The Solenne I knew said she’d find someone who loved her like her dad loved her mom. A man who’d never hurt her.” Once, I wanted Joy to unsheathe her sword and threaten the sky. I didn’t need saving anymore. I’d found my own way, my own beautiful skies. The up arrow above the elevator glowed white, and the doors reached for one another. “I did.”

“Now after you finish thinking of that pretty picture, tell me how hard he cringes when he thinks about you with a Black man. Next, tell me how many soldiers had Black women and Black children at home but marched off to fight for the Confederacy. If sex ended racism, racism wouldn’t exist. In the dark, they can forget who you are. But if a sunrise don’t do anything else, it brings the truth every day. The men tell the sun this is their world, then they close their eyes and do it all over again like their great-grandfathers.”

“I usually see it in the eyes, the ones who don’t feel the chains around their wrists. I thought I saw something else in you yesterday, but he’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he?”

He’ll be damned if you take anything away from him, even your own body.”

The craving to see the streets of Downtown Dallas faded over time into nothing. “That’s how he wanted it.” She shook her head against the pillow. “He designed it that way, so you know nothing but him. The earlier, the better. That’s how they hurt you.”

We lived in a nation of hypocrites, and I lay next to this man each night, hating and loving. I was one, too. “If they’re just words and drawings like you say, why are you hiding it from me?” “Because you take everything even though you have everything,” I said, weeping. “Nothing is ever mine.”