Mama’s blustery sigh seemed to blow the mist from before Cordelia—and into its place pounded a blinding, throbbing reality. She had no choice but to squeeze her eyes shut against it.
“Lacy, please, now is not the time for your theatrics. I realize you fancy Julius, but you are scarcely more than a child. You have plenty of time to find another beau, and plenty to choose from.”
“Then let her choose another from the masses.” Could Lacy not hear the petulance in her tone? Did she not realize it proved their mother’s point about her childishness?
“Certainly she could, but this match is far better than any other we could hope for, with our Fulton County plantations being so near each other. Her dowry, added to Julius’s lands, would make them a formidable couple. I’m afraid Julius has no need for our Savannah properties that are your dowry, Lacy.” Mama’s tone had taken on that ice that always signaled defeat to any who opposed her. “He’s already spoken with your father about courting Delia.”
“He hasn’t! I won’t believe you. He is my beau! He isn’t so shallow that he’d choose her dowry above me!”
Why was there no escape? Cordelia turned her face away, leaned into the corner, but still Mama’s skirt pressed against hers, still Lacy’s shoe found a connection with her shin. As if that small pain meant anything just now.
Lord, where is he? Where is Phin?
Mama made that low humming sound that indicated deep irritation. “Oh, Lacy, wipe that insufferable pout from your face. You are only sixteen, and you have ample time to choose another. Even if this dreadful war drags out, you will still be young at its end. Your sister, however, has only a few more years before her looks will fade. She can’t afford to waste time, and all those officers could at any moment be called to the front in Virginia with their regiments.”
“It isn’t fair.”
Unfair? Did her sister really want to open a conversation about what was fair? Cordelia pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Lacy, hush. I have no interest in Julius—and frankly, you shouldn’t either. He’s not only after our dowries, he’s an outright cad.”
Mama put a hand on her shoulder. Not so much to comfort, she suspected, as to restrain. “That is enough, Cordelia. You are overwrought. Go straight to bed when we arrive home. Rest. Perhaps spend the evening with one of your favorite books. Soon enough, things will look different.”
She kept her eyes squeezed closed, rather than indulge in the glare she had a mind to give her mother, which would only land her in trouble. But how, exactly, would things look “soon enough”? Bleaker? Or would hope resurface that Phin would yet come home? Either way, she knew well they wouldn’t look as Mama wanted them to. Never, never would Julius look like a good alternative.
She did her best to ignore the continued squabbling of Lacy and Mama for the remaining few minutes of the ride. Not until they’d rocked to a halt did she open her eyes, and she was careful to avoid everyone’s gazes as she accepted the servant’s help down and headed for the front door.
Let Mama think she was being obedient—she would head directly upstairs, shut herself into her room. Take the excuse to remain there until morning. Salina would be happy to bring her up a tray, and Fanny would no doubt load it with enough food that they could share it together, as they so rarely had the chance to do these days.
But that was where her obedience would end. She would certainly not be spending her hours trying to push Phin from her mind. No, she’d spend the time thinking about him. Praying for him.
Home welcomed her into its cool dimness, and she angled herself for the stairs as Lacy flew ahead of her on a cloud of anger. Any other day, Cordelia would have raced after her little sister and tried to soothe her. Today, though, she just couldn’t. Certainly not over the likes of Julius James. Let Lacy go, let her storm and stew for an hour or two.
Overhead, Lacy’s door slammed shut before Cordelia even reached the stairs. She must be moving slow as molasses. A brown skirt swished into her downcast gaze. She would have ignored the servant without a second thought had she not recognized the feet as being Salina’s. For her, she looked up.
And found her friend’s beautiful face marred by a frown. “Miss Delia? What’s the matter? You look . . .”
Mama stepped up behind Cordelia, a bit too close. “The Dunns just received a letter with terrible news. Their son was shot and fell overboard. Miss Delia is obviously distressed. Take her up to her room, girl, and see to her comfort.”
Cordelia’s fingers curled into her palm. Why, after all these years, did Mama still call Salina girl, as if she couldn’t remember her name?
But Salina didn’t seem to note it. Eyes large and luminous, she reached for Cordelia’s hand. “Oh, Miss Delia. Now, don’t you despair none—the Lord can overcome even news such as this, sure enough. You just keep on having faith that he’ll come home to you.”
Even as Cordelia opened her mouth to thank her, even as she gratefully squeezed her friend’s warm fingers, Mama stepped forward. Quick as lightning, her hand rose. Strong as a tempest, it swung. Loud as a whip, it connected with Salina’s cheek.
“Mama!” Cordelia spun on her mother but ended up taking a step back, tugging Salina with her. Never in her life had she seen Mama’s face splotched with scarlet anger. Never before had she seen such hatred spewing from her eyes.
She didn’t even look at Cordelia, her scathing gaze focused upon Salina. “You! You are the one who has been filling her head with such nonsense! I should have known, raised as you were by that African devil and that—that witch you call your aunt. I want you out of my house this instant, away from my daughters!”
“No!” Cordelia leaped between Mama and Salina, hands out to keep her mother from coming any closer.
Even as she moved, another roar came from the right. “Emeline! Get away from her this instant!” Daddy charged into the scene, grasping Mama by the arm and pulling her a few feet away.
Cordelia’s hands dropped, heavy as they were with surprise. It wasn’t uncommon for her father to intervene with how Mama dealt with the servants, granted, but never had she seen his eyes blaze at her mother like that—and certainly not over the slaves.
And never had she seen Mama look ready to strike at him as surely as she had Salina. “I’ve been pushed far enough, Reginald! I didn’t want the girl in our house to begin with, and I certainly didn’t want her with my daughters. I won’t tolerate it anymore—she goes back to Twin Magnolias. To the fields, if I have any say in the matter.”
“Well, you do not have a say.” Daddy’s nostrils flared, his eyes shot sparks. “She’s not going anywhere.”
There had been a few times in the past when Daddy had defended Salina in Cordelia’s hearing, and she’d always assumed—stupidly, selfishly—that he did it because he knew Cordelia loved her. But just now she couldn’t be so blind. Because as she looked at Daddy in profile, and then shifted her gaze to Salina . . . as she saw the hatred, hard and undiluted, in Mama’s eyes . . . as Salina tucked her hands behind her back and Cordelia saw again those long fingers, just like her own . . .
The truth knocked the breath from her lungs. Salina wasn’t just her friend. Certainly wasn’t just her servant. She was her sister.
Mama sneered. “I would say that if she doesn’t go then I will, but you’ve already proven yourself unable to be trusted if I’m not watching you every minute.”
No. No, no, no. Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut for one blessed second. One second when she could cling to the thought that Daddy wasn’t like that, wasn’t like the other men, that it was an overseer who had fathered Salina, not him.
But there was only so much denial her mind would permit her. She opened her eyes again, looked to her friend.
Salina’s eyes—such a familiar shape, and not just because she’d been seeing them on her for so long—were wide with horror. But not with realization. No, there was no surprise in them, which meant that Salina knew well who her father was.
Of course she knew.
No doubt her murruh had told her. The secret-keeping tried to bite, but Cordelia shook that away. With the knowledge would have come the caution—that she must never breathe a word of the truth.
No, the horror in Salina’s eyes was clearly for her.
“I hope you’re pleased with yourself, Mrs. Owens.” Daddy’s voice, hard and final, rang through the entryway. He turned to Cordelia, drawing Mama’s attention to her too. She could tell by the quick breath her mother drew in that she hadn’t considered how her angry words would reveal what she’d always tried to keep her daughters from knowing.
Perhaps her father meant his gaze to hold some apology, some explanation. But all Cordelia saw in it was a man she’d never known. Never wanted to know. She edged back a step.
Something flickered in his eyes, and the muscle in his jaw ticked. He glanced at Salina. His other daughter. The one he’d never claim in public, but who he clearly must have acknowledged at least to a degree, to stand against Mama for her. “Salina, take Cordelia upstairs. She’s clearly distressed.”
It broke over her again, that crushing wave of grief she wanted to deny. Phin, gone. And now this on top of it. Her shoulders sagged, and she spun back toward the stairs as Salina surged to her side.
“Miss Delia.” Somehow Salina’s tone was both comfort and apology, horror and encouragement.
This, at least, she could count on. Cordelia reached out and took Salina’s hand. The mirror image of her own, but for the shade of her skin.
“Cordelia!” Mama’s voice, on the other hand, held only censure. “Let go of that girl this instant. You know better than to take her hand like that.”
“I don’t much care, Mother.” Unable to turn and face her parents again, she did let go of Salina’s hand—but only so that she could weave their arms together. It wasn’t defiance, not really. It was simply latching hold of the only thing worth clinging to.
Chapter Fifteen
Salina’s hands shook as she closed Miss Delia’s door, pushing until she heard the click that didn’t mean safety. Didn’t mean anything was shut out. Didn’t mean the most horrible truths weren’t right here inside with them. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she’d pressed the wood into its frame, but that didn’t do any good either. Just meant she saw the stark realization in the memory of Miss Delia’s eyes rather than in her real ones. Though, sure enough, if she turned around she’d see it again in reality.
She wasn’t sure she was brave enough to face her sister again, now that Miss Delia knew she was her sister. And yet how could she do otherwise, when she’d be hurting so from the news about Mr. Phin?
Before she could settle that question inside, Miss Delia obliterated the need for it with a hand on her shoulder that turned her around. Somehow gentle and insistent both. Salina sucked in a breath as she spun, bracing herself for whatever might meet her gaze. Accusation, resentment, sorrow? Or, worse, “understanding.” That this was why they’d always been able to be friends—because half of Salina’s blood was Owens blood. That she was only able to read and comprehend and carry on an intelligent conversation because she was half white—a sentiment she’d heard before, and which never failed to make her temper flare. As if her murruh’s side were any less human, any less worthy, any less—
“Sal.” The second Miss Delia said her name, Salina knew all those thoughts were wrong. Other people might think that way, might even have tried to teach Miss Delia to think that way, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Didn’t. No, when Salina faced her sister, she saw what she should have expected—sorrow, but for Salina’s sake. Love. Acceptance. “I’m so sorry.”
That tugged out a frown, and Salina found her fingers tangled with Miss Delia’s, though she wasn’t sure who’d done the reaching this time. “Whatever you sorry for, Miss Delia?”
A wash of tears flooded her eyes. “For not seeing it sooner. Not realizing. For . . .” She swallowed, her larynx bobbing and her nostrils flaring in an obvious attempt to keep the tears at bay. “For how unfair it all is.”
Unfair. That little word didn’t begin to cover it. Didn’t begin to make up for all the times Salina had to bite her tongue over the years, stop herself from saying things to Miss Delia that wisdom said she shouldn’t. Because she wasn’t just her sister, just her friend. She was a mistress, destined to own slaves—to own her. Just like her own father did.
Salina bit her tongue again now, against the words she wanted to say, and focused on the sorrow in Miss Delia’s eyes. It didn’t put anything to rights. But it made a difference, the fact that her sister’s slights had never been intentional, and that she regretted the situation more now than ever. “Ain’t your doin. You been a blessing in my life.” Even as Salina spoke, her sister swayed, the trembling that must have started somewhere in her core working its way to the fingers she held. Salina hissed out a breath and shoved her own pain aside once again. “You about to fall straight over. Sit down. Tell me what happened, bout Mr. Phin.”
Miss Delia’s glassy eyes went downright flooded, and her lips took up a tremble too. “They said he was shot. Fell over—overboard.” A sob interrupted, and Miss Delia reclaimed one of her hands to press against her lips.
Salina’s heart twisted. She urged her sister toward the bed, where Miss Delia sank onto the feather-filled mattress, her gaze focused on something only she could see. Salina opened her mouth to remind her again of hope . . . which made her cheek sting with the memory of Mrs. Owens’s hand. She swallowed, gritted her teeth together, and lifted her chin. That old viper may be able to dictate what she could do in this life, but she had no power over what she thought. What she whispered to give hope to her dearest friend. “That makes sense then, don’t it? With the dream we had? But he survived it. You know he did.”
She nodded. But instead of lighting up, her eyes shut. Her head bowed. Her shoulders drooped. “If he did, then where is he, Sal?”
That she didn’t know, and she figured her sigh admitted as much. “We’ll just keep prayin. Prayin he’ll come back to you. And it’ll be like one of your stories when he does.”
Somehow, Miss Delia’s shoulders just drooped all the more. She shook her head. “I’m not so sure it’ll matter if he does. They want me to marry Julius.”
“No!” The word exploded from her lips far too forcefully, but try as she might to reel it back in with a sucked-in breath, it didn’t do any good. Miss Delia’s eyes still flew open. Still filled with a sad, dark knowing. Though she straightened, her shoulders still looked too heavy with burden.
“I don’t intend to. But . . .” Her golden brows knit together. “I don’t know who I’d dare to marry now, Salina. Who to trust. If even Daddy has done such terrible things, then . . . how can I know? How can I know who will be faithful? Who doesn’t hide such despicable sins behind a smiling face?”
Salina settled herself beside her sister and squeezed her hand. “This ain’t something you should have to worry bout.”
“It’s something we should all worry about!” She surged to her feet in a rustle of fabric, her chest heaving with another sob. Her fingers were still tangled with Salina’s, but she didn’t pull her to her feet, just turned to face her. And she looked like one of the ladies in her stories, with earnest tears streaming down her face, curls framing her cheeks, and a desperate light in her eyes. Just like one of those fictional ladies, idealistic even in the face of horror, believing she could set the world to right. Never seeing the world was too broken for that. “I can’t bring Phin back. I can’t change my parents. I can’t do much when it comes to society itself. But I cannot—I will not—let anyone treat you as our father did your mother. I swear that to you here and now, Salina. If that means never marrying, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Mrs. Owens would have called it theatrics and scolded Miss Delia for such words. But the knot in Salina’s stomach said her sister meant every word. She really was as naïve as one of her characters. She believed in this moment that she’d give up her own dreams of happiness
to protect her. Because they were sisters?
Maybe. But not exactly. More because she only just now realized how real the danger was. And she couldn’t see the reality that Salina knew too well, that intention in a moment of passion didn’t mean much of nothing in the long run. Her mama would wear her down about marrying, or the world would. “Miss Delia, don’t you go—”
“You’re my best friend, Salina.” The words she herself had thought more than once seemed to at once both fill the room and make it contract. “You’re my sister. I could never live with myself if my decisions brought you harm. So, if I cannot guarantee your safety in whatever house I marry into, then I won’t marry.”
Salina swallowed past her tight throat. “The Dunns run a good house. The menfolk—they never touch the slave women.” She’d never imagined speaking those words to Miss Delia, who ought never to have had to think about such things.
Her sister winced, sniffed, wiped at the tears with her free hand. “God willing, then, he’ll come home soon. We can . . . I’ll . . . But if he doesn’t . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut again, turned her face away, and pulled in a series of long breaths clearly meant to bring her tears under control. She managed it a minute later and turned shining eyes back on Salina. “If he doesn’t, then we have two options. Either I don’t marry, ever. Or . . .”
Salina’s stomach went heavy as a stone at that look in her sister’s eyes. “Or what, Miss Delia?” she whispered, not sure whether she craved or feared the words she could see building in those green eyes.
Miss Delia crouched down, putting her below Salina in a way her mama would have slapped them both for. She leaned close, close enough that she could whisper too. Which she did, giving life to a dream Salina had told herself never to dream. Told herself would turn into a nightmare. Told herself wouldn’t do no good.
“Or we find a way to get you to freedom.”
Phin cast only one glance up at the ship giving a half-hearted chase, then back down to the Bible in his hands, borrowed from Luther. The Yankee vessel was no great cause for alarm. It had spotted them too late and was too heavy to give proper chase to the light English-made ship designed to run the blockade.
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