Yellow Wife

Pheby has three children with Rubin: Hester, Isabel, and Joan. Rubin permits Pheby to read to their three daughters and have them educated, but Pheby must tutor Monroe privately. Monroe asks Pheby if he is enslaved. Pheby admits that everyone at the jail apart from Rubin is enslaved, including her.

Hester and Monroe are close, but each child is raised differently. When Monroe and Hester play a game of hide the puppet, Hester gets frustrated that she cannot find it and begins to cry. Rubin drags Monroe away and beats him. He then forces Monroe to be moved out of the house completely and tells Pheby that Monroe is no longer allowed to spend time with their daughters. Pheby visits Monroe and tells him what her mother Ruth told her: “You his slave in name only, never in your mind, boy. You are meant to see freedom. It is my solemn promise to you” (169). Pheby becomes pregnant again and gives birth to a boy.

Something is not right with Pheby’s son, who Rubin names Rubin, after himself. Pheby uses her mother’s wisdom to care for the boy, but he does not recover. The baby Rubin dies a few days after he is born. Rubin and Pheby grieve his death together.

Pheby is depressed and sick after the loss of her son: “I could feel myself dying, week by week” (177). Monroe, worried about his mother, gives her a bracelet he made from straw. Rubin gives her books as a gift. She absorbs Emma by Jane Austen and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

Rubin hires a tutor to educate the girls. Pheby tells July to stay with the girls and listen carefully but keep her face neutral, so no one suspects that she is learning. Sissy assists Pheby in the sewing room to prepare girls for auction. Pheby notices that Sissy is pregnant, and she realizes that she is too is pregnant again. Sissy gives birth to a boy with dark skin.

Pheby meets with Monroe secretly in the barn, just as she used to do with Essex. When they visit, she quizzes her son on his birthday and his knowledge of counting and reading. Monroe develops a skill with horses, like his father, and Pheby tells him that caring for horses is in his blood.

One of Rubin’s enslaved workers named Basil escapes. Pheby is surprised. Basil always seemed docile and submissive toward Rubin. The jailer takes it upon himself to find Basil, and he brutally punishes anyone he suspects of participating in his escape. Pheby gives birth to a fourth daughter, Katherine. While Pheby plays music for more of Rubin’s guests in the tavern, she learns that a young man has been “causing a ruckus” in the North; his name is Essex Henry (185). Essex was arrested and is being brought back to Virginia. Still angry at Basil’s departure, Rubin decides to have Essex sent to his jail so he can make an example of him.