by Mysti Parker
“That it is.” Rubbing the tense muscles in her neck, Portia dared to broach another subject that weighed on her heavily. “May I ask you something?”
“You may.”
“My husband, Jake…” She swallowed past the sudden dryness in her throat. “…you know which side he fought for, and—”
“I know what you’re askin’,” she said, holding her palm out to stop the conversation. “I understand you never owned slaves?”
“That’s right.”
“Had you the means, would you have?”
Heat filled Portia’s cheeks. She fidgeted with the corner of a letter to Ellen she had begun writing that morning. She knew then that the only way to gain Bessie’s trust, if she ever could, was to offer complete honesty.
Portia finally answered, her voice timid and shaky, “Jake always believed that men should work for their keep. But if we had been wealthy enough… I don’t know. Maybe we would have.”
Bessie walked to the bookcase and, finger on her chin, scanned some of the books. She chose one and brought it to where Portia sat, placing it in front of her.
Portia read the title on the cover. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.” Unsure what else to say, she raised her eyes to Bessie and waited.
The older woman tapped the book with one long, brown finger. “We got this book when Beau was a young man, not much older than Jonny. We read it together, and though Isaac and me was never slaves, Beau finally understood what others had to endure. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and I’ve felt it, too.” She pointed to the jagged scar that crossed over her right eye. “I want you to read this, so you’ll understand.”
“I will.” Rubbing her fingers along the frayed edges of the cover, Portia swallowed hard and forced herself to speak. “I’d very much like to be friends, if you could find it in your heart to accept me.”
“It’s your heart what matters, and I ain’t too sure about it yet. Time will tell. Now, come eat lunch. We got plenty of work to do this evenin’.”
~~~~
When she went to the dining room, only Jonathan sat there, munching hard boiled eggs, salt pork, and collard greens. Bessie had already prepared her a plate at her newly claimed spot at the table, so she sat down across from him.
He glanced up at her then kept eating. Bessie emerged from the kitchen, and Portia asked, “Would you like Jonathan and me to take some lunch to the men?”
“They’d appreciate that, I’m sure.”
“All right.”
She ate everything on her plate, though greens were admittedly not her favorite thing. When she finished, she took her plate along with Jonathan’s to the kitchen. He looked up at her while he packed a basket with food. She could sense excitement from his hasty movements and bright eyes. The boy must have longed to be with his father so much that even the prospect of taking him lunch brought him joy.
“How about we take the long way around so you can show me more of the grounds?” she asked.
He answered with his usual shrug.
With the basket all packed, she slipped the handle over her arm and followed Jonathan out the back door. They crossed the backyard and walked along a path of round stepping stones to a small herb garden. An ornate wrought iron fence surrounded it. Though many of the plants were just barely turning green with new growth, she imagined all the dishes she would concoct with mint, tarragon, and thyme. Her own garden back home had once brought such joy when she tended it.
Jonathan paused along the path and pointed at the garden. “My mama planted those herbs. She liked the lavender best because it smelled good.”
Trying not to show too much enthusiasm over his voluntary statement, Portia simply nodded and spoke in a neutral tone. “It’s a very relaxing scent. I used to add it to our pillows when we stuffed them with fresh feathers in the spring.”
“Mama did that, too.”
He leapt from one stepping stone to another through the middle of the herb garden and turned left beside the vegetable garden. Portia breathed in the damp, slightly decayed scent of freshly worked soil. She felt like leaping for joy from hearing the sound of her student’s voice but decided the best course of action was to act as though he’d never been mute.
Passing around the side of the house, she spied a root cellar.
“What’s this?” she called to Jonathan, who had scampered past it. She hoped his talkative streak hadn’t already passed.
He doubled back and smiled. “It’s a root cellar. Wanna see?”
“I would love to.”
The smell of musty earth, potatoes, and old wood wafted out when he opened the door. She lingered on the bare dirt a few feet behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he gestured to her to come closer.
Portia ducked to stand beside him on the other side of the short doorway. There were barrels of salt pork, jars of dried fruits, smoked meats wrapped in gauze, turnips, and a few chairs. The cellar was far from full, but it held enough to get them through the spring.
“I used to play hide and seek with Mama and Pa,” he said while he smiled into the dark interior. “I’d hide in here. They’d look all over the place, hollering for me while I peeked through the cracks in the door. I was too little to know it then, but I think they were just pretending they couldn’t find me.”
“I bet you’re right,” she said. “I used to love hide and seek, too. Maybe we can play sometime.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“But don’t think I’ll pretend I don’t know where you are, now that I know your tricks.”
He flashed another smile, followed by a quick laugh, before he skipped on ahead. They continued beyond the cellar where a wagon path lined with tall cedars ran past the garden out to a field and a small house. She could make out the shape of a man and mule plowing in the distance, Isaac perhaps, and figured he and Bessie lived in that little house.
All around her, it seemed the land was waking up from a bad dream — stretching, yawning, and trying to shake itself into normality. And if normal meant that she and Jonathan and Bessie could be friends, all the better.
They reached the front of the house and followed the drive down the hill toward the stable. The large barn, white like the main house, must have been a grand structure at one time. Now its paint was faded and chipped, doors and shutters sagged, and the roof had sections of missing shingles. As they neared the paddock, she caught movement — a man and a horse.
Jonathan ran ahead, climbing to stand on the bottom slat of the paddock fence, arms crossed and draped over the top. Mr. Stanford held a lead rope taut in one hand and a smooth stick about four feet long in the other. He stood still in the middle of the paddock with a pretty chestnut horse on the other end of the line.
He must have been training her. Or trying to, anyway.
The horse was having none of it. She pranced and tossed her head, huffing and blowing the entire time. Occasionally, she kicked at the air behind her and reared, her hooves thudding to the ground in cloud of dust. Mr. Stanford maintained a safe distance, calmly pivoting along as if there wasn’t a rowdy horse on the end of the line. He made a sound like, “Shh,” over and over again, perhaps to calm her. Portia feared he’d take a whack at the poor animal with that stick, but he kept it pointed to the ground at his side.
Jonathan took no notice of her when she leaned on the fence just a yard away. Clearly enraptured with the training session, he watched every move his father made and how the horse responded. Mr. Stanford focused solely on the horse and paid them no mind.
As if some silent agreement had been reached, the horse stopped her antics and slowed to a trot. Mr. Stanford loosened the rope considerably and held it with a relaxed, open hand, though he didn’t let go of the lead.
“See that?” Jonathan whispered.
It startled Portia to see how he had scooted along the fence and now stood right beside her.
“What?” she whispered back.
“That’s called float
in the rope. When the horse does what you want it to, you let the rope float down like that. If it’s doing bad, you tighten the rope until it obeys again.”
“I see,” she said, amazed at such insight from this little boy.
She turned her attention back to Mr. Stanford. He led the horse around the paddock, and the filly walked right beside him like they had always been friends. When the two of them came back around from the far side of the space, Mr. Stanford stopped. The horse stopped along with him. He rubbed the thick mane, the white-striped muzzle, the flicking ears. Strangely, he made little clicking noises every time he touched a different body part on the animal.
It was amazing, this dance between horse and man. Portia suspected she’d seen a glimpse of what he must have been like before the war. Before he came back to a dead wife and a dying business. The haggard tension on his face had melted away. There was a softness to his eyes and voice that soothed and encouraged the filly. A gentleness in his hands as he helped her get accustomed to his touch. Pure peace and serenity surrounded them all, and she felt truly blessed to witness it.
Until Jonathan’s foot slipped off the fence slat; he banged his chin and let out a yelp. The spell was broken. The horse reared and whinnied. Man and hat were knocked to the ground in different directions. Mr. Stanford let go of the line, and the horse fled to the opposite end of the paddock. Pushing himself off the ground, he retrieved the wayward hat and brushed his thick, dark hair from his forehead. He slapped the dirt from his pants and strode to the fence where Portia and Jonathan stood. The boy rubbed his chin, but cowered as his father approached.
“Why aren’t you in the house, getting your lessons?” Though he directed the question at Jonathan, he glared at Portia.
“We brought you lunch,” she said. “Didn’t we, Jonathan?”
The poor boy’s eyes watered. He pressed his hand to his injured chin and looked frantically between his father and teacher. Portia gave him a nod of encouragement, hoping he would say something, whether to argue his case or to apologize. Anything.
His father’s rant continued, “You should have left the basket there in the barn. I can’t have you out here distracting me. I’m having a hard time getting this horse to calm down and trot.”
Jonathan cast a furtive glance at Portia and sprinted away toward the house.
Deep lines formed crevices on Mr. Stanford’s face. So much for peace. He waited until his son was out of earshot then impaled her with those sharp eyes.
“I’m not paying you to stand around and keep me from my work,” he snapped.
Heart speeding, fists tightening, it had come down to fight or flee. Portia knew what she ought to do, but she could feel her chin jutting toward him, begging for a challenge.
“You aren’t paying me at all, remember?”
He looked shocked for a moment before he resumed his angry-with-everything look. She became certain hers would be the briefest employment on record.
He plopped his hat back on his head. “Listen here, that horse could have kicked Jonny right in the head. It’s not safe out here, especially with a filly like that.”
Oh, how she wanted to tell him that his son was speaking again, but she had to let Jonathan do that himself. She could still fight on his behalf and try to get his father to take notice of him. “I think he knows a lot more about horses than you give him credit for. Besides, there isn’t much in the textbooks he doesn’t know already. He might benefit from spending time out here with his father, learning the family business.”
“He’s still too young.”
“Really? And how old were you when you first climbed on a horse’s back and worked alongside your father?”
He forfeited their staring contest and looked down at the ground, arms crossed. “That’s not the point. I don’t want him getting hurt.”
She suspected as much, and truth be known, she’d have probably been overprotective with Abby had she survived. Would she have listened to reason if she were in his shoes? Probably not, but it was always easier to see the truth from the outside looking in.
She ventured one step closer to the fence, softening her voice the way he did to calm the horse. “You can’t protect him forever, no matter how much you want to. And ignoring him is doing him more harm than good. He needs you.”
He made some sort of growling noise and started to walk away, pausing only long enough to say, “It’s your job to teach my son, not to give me advice on how to be a father. I have to get back to work. I expect you to do the same.”
Biting her tongue until it hurt, she squeezed out a submissive, “Yes, Mr. Stanford.”
“Good.”
Closing the conversation with that last word, he approached the horse and picked up the lead rope again. Defeated, if only temporarily, Portia walked back up the hill toward the house feeling slightly unsteady on her feet. Whatever had come over her, she had no idea. It had all happened so quickly. She was lucky he didn’t send her packing with the way she had just behaved. So why didn’t he? Did some part of him realize she was right?
Jonathan was already in the study when she returned to the house. She took a steadying breath and decided to continue with their botany lesson as though nothing had happened. Should he want to talk about it, she would listen, but she had to leave it up to him.
She had gathered some decent specimens early that morning before the day began, including some poison ivy, which she was careful not to touch with bare hands. Jonathan, however, now sat at his desk, holding the three-leafed section of ivy and turning it this way and that. With her handkerchief, she picked it from his grasp and placed it on the window sill so the light would provide greater detail.
“Remember this: ‘Leaflets three, let it be’,” Portia said.
“Ugh,” he grunted, looking at his hands.
She laughed. “You might get an itchy rash, but it’s only temporary. We can rub some potato paste or cold coffee on it if that happens.”
They were listing all the ways to identify poison ivy and its cousins while sketching them on paper when Jonathan asked, “Do you think Pa’s mad at me?”
“No,” she said, thankful he was verbalizing his feelings instead of finding snakes to put in her bed. “He’s just scared you might get hurt.”
He glanced at her then back down to his desk. “I was scared he’d get hurt too, when he was gone.”
“It’s normal to worry about the people we love.”
“I don’t think he loves me anymore.”
“Of course he does.”
He slumped in his seat. “He never tucks me in or takes me fishing or anything that we used to do. All he does is work.”
Images of Portia’s own father flashed through her mind — passed out, whisky bottle clutched in his hand like it was the elixir of life. She swallowed hard and gave the boy a gentle one-armed hug, hoping he wouldn’t shrink away from her touch.
“Sometimes it’s hard for people to talk about how they feel. We just have to be patient with them,” she said.
“I guess so.”
“You did very well today. I can see I’ll have to challenge you further. You’re dismissed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was out of his seat and out the door before she could say another word.
She got up from the desk and took a short rest in the padded window seat. Just down the hill, she could see Mr. Stanford and the horse trotting around him. Whether she would still have a job come tomorrow, she didn’t know. But Jonathan had finally started talking, even confiding in her, and provided Mr. Stanford let her stay, she might be able to help them connect again. A flock of geese flew overhead, ready to settle down in the warm sunshine of a Tennessee spring.
Portia watched their V formation until they flew out of her line of vision. And she realized another little miracle had occurred.
For a good part of the day, painful memories of Jake and Abby didn’t occupy her every waking hour. That’s what she had wanted, wasn’t it? Yet — and the thought ma
de her uneasy — did that mean she was forgetting them?
Chapter Nine
Every strained muscle in Beau’s body paid testament to the grueling day he had endured. Especially his right shoulder. He massaged the old wound, feeling the dips and ridges of skin and muscle fibers that had never quite knitted together properly. It hurt. Constantly. And he really didn’t want to be cleaning a stall, but he forced his body into submission. Somehow, the pain kept him grounded in reality, kept him focused on the here and now, at least during his waking hours. Sleep only served to plague him with broken images of pleading eyes, bloodied hands, and Claire lying in a coffin. He’d claw himself out of bed, covered in sweat, and could swear he smelled smoke. Working kept him sane and awake — hurting, but awake.
Hours of trial and error had finally gotten Crazy Girl to trot and stop bolting at every noise. For a few minutes at a time anyway. She was going to take some patience, just like Portia. He laughed to himself. Pa hadn’t hired him a potential wife — that much he was certain of now — he’d hired an opponent. A combative little spitfire that had no qualms about speaking her mind.
He wasn’t used to such spirit from a woman. Fillies, yes, but not women. Claire had been no push-over, but her methods were more subtle. She had been the queen of emotional bribery: teary eyes, sweet kisses, and batting eyelashes. She had never failed to melt him into submission to get what she wanted.
But Portia… he wasn’t sure about her yet, whether that spirit of hers would prove to be endearing or excruciating.
By the time he finished ruminating over it, he’d cleaned the stall and didn’t even remember most of the work. A horse whinnied outside — not one of theirs, so he stepped out of the stall to investigate — and almost collided with a horse slowing from a gallop right there in the barn. He had to grab the stall’s door facing to keep from falling.