“Yes?” Jason hoped his face wasn’t red and splotchy.
The door opened, and Demetri stood primly in the entryway. “I was wondering if you’d like me to serve your lunch in here or if you’d prefer to take it in the dining room, sir.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I used to see you sneak in here as a child. When you weren’t in your room, I figured this was where you’d be, sir.” It was easy to forget how long Demetri had been a part of his life. For the longest time, Jason had admired his father’s slave. Demetri had always talked to Jason as if he were a grown-up, which, to a child, was the utmost compliment. Jason shook his head when he thought how different his life would have been if his father had given him Demetri as Jason had asked. Denying him was the nicest thing his father had ever done for him. Not only would Jason not have Kale in his life, but he would have been fundamentally different. Kale was more than a companion and lover; he had touched Jason’s soul and irrevocably altered it.
“Sir?”
Jason wanted to know where his father was having lunch, but it didn’t seem appropriate to ask. He hadn’t even realized he was hungry and could have spent the rest of the day wrapped in the memory of his mother. However, it probably wasn’t healthy. He didn’t want Kale coming back to find him in a state that would prompt concern. “I’ll eat in the dining room. I’ll be along in a moment. Thank you.”
Demetri nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Jason reached for the drawer and stopped himself, curling his hand into a fist. Better to wait for when he had the time to read his mother’s words. A wave of dizziness overcame him as he stood. The crying and lack of food left him lightheaded. With any luck, Kale would return soon, and Jason could avoid toppling into another emotional abyss.
Chapter Ten
If Jason were with him, he would be holding Kale’s hand. Jason wouldn’t let him stew or doubt or be haunted by thoughts of every possible scenario. But Jason wasn’t with Kale, and it had been Kale’s choice, so he needed to live with it. The least he could do was try to rein in his thoughts the way Jason would want him to. There was no point wondering what was going to happen when a little patience would answer the question for him.
Once he got to the other side of the county, it had been more difficult to find Monroe’s farm than Kale had anticipated. Why he’d thought he’d be able to find it was a mystery. He’d been born on the farm and had only left a handful of times. When he’d left for the final time, it had been too traumatic for him to remember anything other than the feeling that his chest had been hollowed out with a wooden spoon. It had taken all of his energy not to lose his mind on the ride from Monroe’s. He certainly hadn’t been enjoying the scenery.
Peeking over the trees in the distance was some manmade object. It looked like rusty pipes jutting into the air. Kale squinted and leaned forward. As he crested a hill, he got a better view and whistled. That damn old water tower was still standing. He was about to enter Cedar City, the closest town to Monroe’s farm. When the town had erected the water tower, there had been a big to-do about it. To celebrate, someone had gotten it into his head to decorate it with a wrought iron statue of a cedar tree standing proudly on top of the tank. The result was a tangle of metal protruding into the air like an iron weed that could be seen for kilometers. All the slaves at Monroe’s had made fun of it. Kale wasn’t as lost as he’d thought.
Fifteen minutes later, he turned onto the road leading to Monroe’s house. Only a few more minutes. The car flew over a large rock, and Kale glanced at the speedometer. It was nearly topped out at seventy kilometers an hour. Jason would kill him if he got in an accident. With some effort, he lightened his foot on the gas pedal. The car slowed and then sped as he worked to keep his weight off the gas. It felt as if his foot was a stone his leg had to lift off the pedal. Kale’s fingers tapped the steering wheel, and he adjusted his weight, not able to settle in one spot.
On the left, a break in the trees revealed a driveway. Kale guessed it was the one. Nerves tightened in his stomach. The imminent reunion with his family was only part of the cause. Being in Arine was stressful in itself, and the sooner he got his family, the sooner he could leave. There was a nagging fear in his gut that he would be caught and dragged to the auction block in chains. It was completely absurd. But if something did happen, Jason wasn’t even there to help. Kale could disappear and Jason would never know. Kale took a deep breath, squashing his fear as his chest constricted, attempting to push it down far enough to not bother him.
The road bent to the left, and Kale’s heart dropped. Maybe he had gotten it wrong. The porch was covered in weeds and vines. The once white house was now a greenish, brownish, gray mess. One of the second story windows was broken. Kale parked the car and got out. The crunch of his shoes on gravel as he approached drew his attention to the abnormal silence. Farms bustled with noise in the daytime. A window on the side of the house revealed that there wasn’t much left inside: a few odd knickknacks, worn-down furniture, and spider webs. Buzzing drew his gaze upward to a hornet’s nest. Of all the scenarios he had played out in his mind, this hadn’t been one of them.
The house was surrounded by a barrier of trees, secluding it from the farm. Kale explored the rest of the property, looking for remnants of the childhood he had spent there. The fields were overgrown. Wheat, corn, peanuts, soybeans, had all been grown on this farm at one time or another. Now there was nothing but brush. It was hard to imagine this place had ever teemed with life. To his right were the rows of huts that had housed the slaves. It was easy to spot the one he had lived in. His mother had worked in the kitchens, so they’d had a hut on the end closest to the house.
Kale entered the building where he had been born, watching for rotted wood. The small, one-room structure was unremarkable. He didn’t know what he had expected. There was no sign that anyone had ever lived there. The rough brick of the fireplace didn’t feel familiar beneath his hand. Closing his eyes, he dredged up his memories of this room. The earliest were of his mama telling him and Thomas stories of the gods in front of the fire while his brother was still a toddler. When Thomas learned how to talk, he would ask “Ale” to tell the stories. Kale embellished the familiar tales with dramatic arm gestures and theatrical voices in an effort to win Thomas’s dimples and gurgling laugh. Their little family had been happy.
The hut had been too small for the eight people who lived there, so Kale had spent much of his time outside when he wasn’t working. The only time he had ever slept indoors was when it had been too cold. Behind the hut, he walked until he found the pond. It was small and infested with mosquitos, but it had been heaven to a young boy. It was here he had taught Thomas how to catch bullfrogs and fish.
Kale sat, not caring about the dirt on his trousers. There were more painful lessons he had passed on to his brother. This was where he had taught him that slaves were less than free, that slaves didn’t get to have fathers the way free boys did. His mama had taught him, and he had taught Thomas. It wasn’t something a person was born knowing. This was where he had learned the futility of hope.
Kale should have been put to work in the fields. He had the build for it, but his mama was adamant that he wouldn’t become a field slave. The only time he had ever spent in the fields was dragging the water bucket around. It was his mother’s doing. Andrew, the master’s valet, had taken a liking to her. Kale hadn’t understood it as a young boy, but as he got older, it wasn’t hard to figure out why he and his brother were always sent away when Andrew came by.
Anger seethed in his chest. He hated his mother for it. Not for the act, but for grooming him from birth to be sold, to be ripped away from her and everything he knew. She’d always told him to pay attention to the house slaves. He wasn’t even allowed to play with the field hands. Never mimic a free a person, she had said. That led to trouble. But she had insisted that he behave like Andrew and Garrison, the butler. Any time he slipped into lazy speech, or did something that would have
gotten him in trouble with a free person, she had cuffed him upside the head. Kale chuckled. His mother had hit him more frequently than any master had. He sobered. It was precisely because she’d cuffed him that he hadn’t felt the whip more than he had.
His dear, sweet mother wanted the best for him. She had to have known that there was no way their master would keep him. He had no need for another valet. Andrew had whispered in the master’s ear about the young slave boy who was worth more than the mending and washing Kale did. It made more financial sense for his master to sell him as a valet and buy two sorely needed labor slaves to help on such a large farm.
Kale dug his fingers into the ground, digging in the dirt to relieve his frustrations. He hated the master, Andrew, his mama, even Thomas. He hated them all. He should have stayed. He should have been allowed to see Thomas grow up, to take care of his mother as she aged. All choice had been stripped from him. It wasn’t really his mother and Thomas he hated—it was himself for leaving.
A hard surface blocked the path of his finger in the ground. Kale uncovered the flat stone and threw it across the pond out of habit, watching it skip on the water. The master’s groom—Kale couldn’t remember his name—had taught him how to skip stones. Kale had loved showing Thomas the trick. There had been pride in being able to do something his brother couldn’t and then teach it to him. Thomas hadn’t been as quick to learn and had begged Kale to teach him every night, even when Kale was bone tired from working. Wide green eyes had stared up at him over a freckled nose and a bottom lip that jutted out. No matter how tired Kale was, he always mustered the energy to give Thomas whatever he wanted. He would have done anything for that kid. He still would.
Anger wasn’t going to help him. If Kale hadn’t been sold, he wouldn’t have ended up as Jason’s. The horror of returning to life before Jason had freed him was unspeakable. It had all been for the best for him, and now he needed to make it the same for his family. Where had they gone? Where had his childhood disappeared to? It hadn’t been ideal, but it was the only life he had. Kale lay down in the grass and closed his eyes, allowing himself to mourn his childhood, the childhood that had ended too soon, and the childhood that had never been.
Kale had no idea how much time passed. Eventually, he opened his eyes and stood. A part of him wanted to stay there forever, in the last place he had been with his family. That life was gone. He no longer had a place there. He never really had.
Back at the car, he was careful not to look behind him. The roar of the engine brought him back to his life, the nearly perfect life with Jason. The farther from the house he drove, the more he grounded himself in reality and left nostalgia behind. Yes, there were good memories there filled with his mother and brother, with boisterous songs and late, star-gazing nights telling tall tales. But that was also where he had received his first beating, where he had learned that he and the family he loved so much were less human than free people. That was where he had learned that, for a slave, there was no such thing as family, that a slave could be sold away from everything he knew and loved, and no one even cared. That place was where he had learned a slave shouldn’t love. They had been hard lessons to unlearn, and they had almost prevented him from allowing Jason to save him. Kale didn’t ever want to see that place again.
A growling in his stomach reminded him that it had been a while since his last meal. He would need to stop somewhere to eat. He passed a small restaurant and felt queasy. For some inexplicable reason, he felt shame. The thought of walking into a pub or restaurant and eating among men and women who had been free all their lives was unbearable. He could eat when he got back to the ranch.
Once out of the city, Kale let his foot loose and accelerated. The wind whipped through his hair. He needed to find his family, and in order to do that, he needed to get home to Jason.
Chapter Eleven
Lunch had been a good idea. Jason’s father had taken his meal elsewhere, and Jason hadn’t even had to see him. Refreshed, he headed back to his mother’s nook to read her journal. It was either that or sit at one of the front windows, worried about Kale and watching for his return. It would have been one shade under miraculous for him to be back already, so there was no reason to worry. Jason couldn’t help it, though. He hated that Kale was where Jason couldn’t protect him or at least offer support, and Kale had been deluding himself when he’d said he didn’t need it.
No matter. There was nothing he could do until Kale returned. Until then, it was best to keep busy. Jason sat at the delicate, feminine desk and withdrew the journal. The leather binding was the most masculine thing in the room. Logic dictated he start at the beginning, but he fanned the pages, looking for the place where her handwriting stopped. It was a little past the halfway mark.
The last date was two days before she’d died. Was there any hint that she knew what was coming? This was the last thing she had written. It was the closest he had been to her life since he had been shooed from her bedroom when the labor pains had grown too much. At the time, he’d had no idea he would never see his mother alive again. He had seen her at the viewing, looking asleep in her coffin, surrounded by flowers. He hadn’t understood why she didn’t get up and join the family. Moms didn’t die; it just didn’t happen. None of it had made sense. All these years later, he didn’t know if it made any more sense now than it had then. He had never even seen the baby’s body. He didn’t even remember a coffin. It was as if Baby Wadsworth had never existed. Jason had never even known the gender.
Jason’s eyes focused on the page. The handwriting was familiar, the phrases, her manner, but something was missing. Jason couldn’t quite picture her, remember her voice. The familiar sting of tears threatened his eyes, and he shoved them away. There had been too much crying already. He tried to remember the day this was written. His mother described him running about, playing with a sailboat, pleading with her to come to the pond and watch him sail it. She had been too tired but had let him sail it in the bathtub while she looked on. Jason thought he remembered it but feared it could just as easily have been an invented memory.
Further on, the entry turned to her thoughts and feelings. She complained about the discomfort and fatigue of pregnancy, anxious for it to be over. There was nervous excitement over the coming birth, plans of what she would do with her new baby. He saw a fear that she seemed hesitant to explore, telling herself it was just the usual apprehension over childbirth. Then it just stopped. The next day, she would have been in labor and unable to write. The day after that, she was dead.
Jason flipped to the front of the journal. The first entry was a couple of months into her pregnancy. He wanted more. He wanted his mother before the pregnancy, wanted her mundane, everyday writings. There had to be more of these little journals somewhere. As a child, he had seen her writing in them. Jason closed the book and brushed the cover with his hand, the cool leather soft beneath his skin. It was likely that the additional journals would be somewhere in this room. There was nothing anywhere else in the house that even hinted a woman had once lived there.
Jason noticed a tall cupboard in the wall to the right of the writing desk. His heart quickened as he strode to it. When opened, it revealed knickknacks in a general storage space for items that didn’t belong anywhere else. Jason sighed. There was nowhere else in the room they could be. He had already gone through every drawer in the desk. None of them were big enough to house a lifetime of journals.
After Lena’s death, his father had shut up every reminder of her. It was one of the many things Jason hated him for. Jason had struggled to keep her alive while Robert tried to pretend she never existed. There was a chance his father had destroyed the journals. It would explain why Jason had never seen them. The only room in the house Jason didn’t enter was his father’s bedroom, and it wasn’t likely he kept them there when he had eschewed all other remnants of her life. The thought of all those pages of writing lost raised Jason’s heart rate. He stood before the window, trying to calm himself. He wa
s being ridiculous. The most likely place for the journals to be stored would be the attic. It was easier to think the worst of his father than to think of having to trudge through the crates in storage. It could take days. Jason kicked the window seat in frustration and turned to leave.
Something wasn’t right. He felt a discrepancy. The sound. When his foot hit the window seat, it didn’t sound as it should. Appraising the seat, he realized that it wasn’t built into the home; it was a separate piece of cedar furniture fitted into the bay window. He’d never really thought about it before. Sweeping the cushion to the floor, Jason saw what he was looking for: hinges. The metal squealed in protest as he lifted the lid. The smell of the cedar wafted out, and inside, in neat stacks, were dozens of little journals.
Chapter Twelve
“Jason?” Kale’s muffled voice floated to Jason from the sitting room on the other side of the sewing room door. He had been so absorbed in his task that he hadn’t even heard the car.
“I’m in here, Kale.” Jason jumped up from the floor, knocking over a stack of journals from the circle around him where he’d placed them as he removed them from the chest, trying to arrange them in chronological order.
The door swung open before Jason could reach it. He stopped short when he saw Kale was alone. If Kale had been successful, he would have his mother and brother with him. There was no way he would leave them in the care of Robert’s slaves, people he barely knew.
“What have you been doing?” Kale eyed the books strewn across the floor.
“Some reading.” Kale arched his eyebrows and gave him a dry stare. “They’re my mother’s journals. I was just organizing them.”
“Quite the system you have.”
“Let me put them away, and we’ll talk.” Kale nodded, and Jason began to stack them back in the chest, this time in the order he wanted to read them. He kept the earliest journal to take to his room.
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