Part 40 (1/2)
”When I saw him standing out here in the darkness tonight, his face was in the shadows . . . and for one terrible, wonderful moment I thought he was Charles.” She paused, biting her lip.
”If it had been him,” Tessie asked, ”would you still marry him?”
”Yes-a thousand times, yes. But it will never happen.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. ”You told me that love only comes around once in most people's lives . . . that we don't get a second chance. Remember, Tessie?”
”Seem like a long time ago, honey. Back when you still writing all those letters to Ma.s.sa Robert at West Point.”
”Tonight, after I'd talked to Robert for a while, I really didn't want him to leave. It was so nice to have him here. So nice to have . . . a friend to talk to. I'm fond of Robert. He says our friends.h.i.+p could grow into love if I gave it a chance. Do you think he's right, Tessie? Do you think if we moved away from Richmond and started all over again someplace else that I would learn to love him someday? I know he would be good to me. . . .”
Tessie's brow furrowed with concern. ”Do you have to decide right away?”
”No. Robert said he would wait. I told him he could come back and visit me again.”
”Please, take your time, Missy. It's too soon for you to decide to stay or go. Give your heart a chance to heal.”
Caroline looked up at the stars again. They looked blurry through her tears. ”I honestly don't think it ever will heal,” she murmured.
[image]
Tessie climbed the ladder to the loft above the kitchen where she and Josiah slept. Moonlight, filtering through the leaves outside, made the room dim, but she could see her husband leaning with his back against the wall, holding their sleeping son in his arms.
”You can go on and lay him down now,” she said. ”He's asleep.”
”I know. I like holding him.”
Tessie's heart swelled with love as she looked at Josiah. She cupped his face in both her hands to kiss him and felt the hard muscles in his jaw, the stubble of beard on his cheeks. She had waited for so many years for them to be together this way, and now they finally were. But when she thought of the emptiness in Missy Caroline's heart, tears came to her eyes.
”What's wrong, Tessie?” Josiah asked. ”You thinking about Grady again?”
”No, my Grady coming home someday. I know he is.” She sat down on the floor beside Josiah, leaning against his muscled shoulder. ”I keep thinking about Missy Caroline. She always looking out for you and me, all these years . . . always fighting so we can be together. Now we are-and she lost the man she love because she helping us. That ain't right, Jo.”
”I know. But there ain't nothing we can do.”
”She talking tonight about going off with Ma.s.sa Robert. She ask me what I think. I think it's a mistake because she don't love him. But it breaks my heart to see her so lonely. Ain't no other man in Richmond gonna marry her after what she done.”
”There ain't enough men left in Richmond to marry all the girls who still alone. I watched them all die, Tessie, one right after the other.”
”When you was away at war with Ma.s.sa Charles . . . he ever talk about Missy?”
”All the time. Seem like he loved Missy more than anything else in the world.”
”Do you think he still does?”
”I don't know. I ain't seen him since the night I carried him to the hospital.”
Tessie lifted Isaac from Josiah's arms and laid him on the bed, patting his bottom for a moment until he fell back asleep. Then she took his place in Josiah's arms. ”Will you take me to see Ma.s.sa Charles tomorrow?” she asked.
”Why? What good that gonna do?”
”I don't know. I just want to talk to him, ask him if he still loves her. I got to try, Jo . . . for Missy's sake. She fought for us, now I got to try and fight for her.”
”That make you happy, Tessie?”
”Yes,” she nodded. ”Yes, it will.”
”Then I'll go,” Josiah said. ”I'll talk to him.”
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Charles stood among the ashes of his burned-out mill and swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat. All that remained of the huge brick building was a blackened sh.e.l.l. Gaping holes, like empty eye sockets, showed where the windows had once been. He kicked uselessly at the rubble beneath his feet. The loss of the flour mill had killed Charles' father. And deep in his heart, Charles wished that the skeletal walls would fall in on him, burying him among the ruins.
He had come down this morning to see if maybe the gears that turned the mill wheels were still good, to see if there was any hope of salvaging something, of rebuilding. But it took hope to rebuild, and Charles' hope had died with the Confederacy.
An enormous ceiling beam lay across the floor, blocking his path. He bent to lift the charred wood, but he still hadn't recovered the full use of his arm and shoulder. The beam wouldn't budge. He kicked at it in frustration.
”Need help with that?”
Charles whirled around. Jonathan's former slave, Josiah, stood a few feet away. Charles' first reaction was to refuse his help. He felt bitter toward the burly Negro without knowing exactly why. But Josiah was already bending to grip the beam. Charles grabbed the other end. Josiah moved it as though it weighed nothing.
”Thanks,” Charles said. There was an awkward silence. ”What are you doing down here?”
Josiah's expression stiffened. ”I'm a free man. Guess I can go wherever I want, talk to whoever I want.” Then he seemed to catch himself, and his features softened. ”It's time we had a talk about the night you was shot.”
Charles ran his hand over his face. He hated being indebted to any man-especially this one, the son of Caroline's beloved servant. He didn't want to be reminded of her. He wanted to forget.
”I'm glad you came,” he finally said. ”Listen now. I never had a chance to thank you for taking me to the hospital. I didn't remember how I got there at first. And by the time my memories of that night started to come back, you were gone.”
Charles hated remembering that day, how the Yankees had streamed over the embankment, punching a hole through the Rebel lines, moving relentlessly forward, shouting in victory. He had lain on the bottom of the filthy trench between two dead men, unable to move, feeling the warmth of his own blood pumping from his wounds and soaking his clothes, shocked that death had come for him at last. His last thoughts were of Caroline. He'd wanted to take her picture out of his pocket, look at it one last time before he died. . . .
”I don't want your thanks,” Josiah said. ”I didn't do it for your sake, or for Jonathan's.”
”May I ask why, then?”
”I did it for Missy Caroline.”
Charles' stomach clenched at her name. He bent and began picking up fallen bricks, moving them uselessly from the ruined floor and tossing them aside.
”Before we was free,” Josiah said, ”when things was against Tessie and me, Missy Caroline always make sure we can be together. When my son was born, she ask her daddy to give him to her for her slave. Then she set him free . . . she give my son his freedom.”
Charles looked up at Josiah as he suddenly realized something. ”You could have been free the day I was wounded. The Yankees were right there. You would have been free if you had just kept walking. But you carried me to the field hospital.”
”When I went to war with Ma.s.sa Jonathan, my pa made me promise I would look out for you, make sure nothing bad happens to you, because Missy can't live without you. That gal loves you. So I kept my promise.”
”I'm grateful.”