I tell her I am, but I don’t mention the other things I got him wrapped in, and she don’t see them under the covers, so we leave it at that.

I spend the night in his room again, like I been doing for the past two weeks, and in the morning the fever breaks, but I don’t let up. I keep him wrapped with cedar and yam mash on his chest and cold water on his calves.

When I duck into the kitchen house to cook up some more yams, Maple’s in there. I hoped to miss her, coming in before she needs to start cooking. She’s sitting down at the work table doing nothing at all.

Straight away, she’s angry I caught her being idle. “What you think you’re doing in here?”

I set my yams to boil. “Just something for Master Thomas to get his breathing straight.”

“You got this whole place smelling wild.”

“That’s just cedar,” I tell her. “It helps him.”

She watches what I do, and when I take it off the heat she sucks her teeth at me. “The doctor’s looking after that boy. He don’t need none of your potions.”

I scoop out the yams and mash them with the cedar.

“Guess you got to find something to do with yourself now that your blacksmith’s had his turn and moved on.”

I don’t look at her. Don’t even act like I heard. I scoop the mash on to fresh homespun.

“They out there saying, ‘Poor Sarah, poor Sarah.’ Well, I say it serves you right. You should have known better than to be taking up with a white man.”

“He’ll be back,” I say, too mad to pretend I don’t hear.

She comes over and stands by me, crowding me. “You the worst kind of fool there is and that’s the dumb kind. Everyone can see he done left you, but you. He ain’t even thinking about coming back.”

“You’re wrong,” I say, but that wobble in my voice tells her I’m scared. It’s been two weeks. “He wants to be with me.”

Maple sucks her teeth and shakes her head. “He said that? Well, he done been with you now. He had his good time and he’s gone.”

“You don’t know him. You don’t know anything.”

“I know plenty. I know my granny momma had to take it when her master let his friends borrow her at night. And my momma couldn’t say nothing when her master came for her over and over and over. I know about white men pulling me behind bushes and taking what they want. Even my little girl knows how it be.” She points her finger right up in my face. “And now, here you go, laying down with whoever comes smiling at you.”

“That ain’t how it is with Henry and me.”

“You and him makes all them times like it wasn’t nothing. Like what they done weren’t wrong, and it’s us got the problem for not liking it like you do. You wanting to be with him is telling every white man he should just keep on.”