When Sarah walks in the house, I shift the position of my forge so I can have a clear sight to the fields and the paddock hill that Mulch would come over if he came this way. It’s only morning, but the humidity mixed with the heat has already got me perspiring. I take out a kerchief and wipe the beads of sweat from my top lip and from my neck.

Around about midday I see him. Mulch. Atop the Quarter Horse he rides through the cotton fields, headed over the paddock hill toward the house. I douse the iron I’m working on in a bucket of water, bank my fire, and hurry over to the house, slipping in through the carry-through and up the cellar stairs. I hear Sarah above me, so I climb the main staircase with an ear out for Mulch. I have the clear sense of being where I shouldn’t. Each squeak of the steps is like an accusation of trespassing, but I walk on. I pass a large bedroom that I guess is where Mister and Missus Johnson sleep, but then I come to another one just as big, with dark wood instead of yellow and blue flowers, and I realize they sleep alone.

In the dark-wood bedroom, with her back to me, Sarah sweeps the floor. She hears the thud of my step over the scratch and swish of her sweeping and spins around, clutching the broom.

Her features soften when she sees it’s me. “What you doing here?”

I don’t want her to feel like I’m crowding her, or following her. And I don’t want her worrying about Mulch before she has to, so I say, “I thought I’d check the fireplace grates.” I glance at the grates I made three weeks ago that sit unused, waiting for the summer to pass and the cold weather to come.

“Master won’t like to find you up here.”

We both look out of the window. Instead of the Johnsons coming home, we see Mulch turn his horse down the drive, riding away from the plantation toward the road. The look she gives me tells me she knows why I’ve come rushing up here. And the look I give her back says I’m not letting him near her ever again.

She takes a step toward me and I clasp my hands behind my back to keep from touching her, waiting for her to come to me the way I would with a spooked horse. She takes another step. When she’s close, I lean in, slowly, laying my forehead against hers. We stay there, breathing in each other’s air. It’s just our foreheads touching, but as she eases toward me I can sense the jitters in her calm. I clutch my hands tighter to keep from folding her into my arms. I want so badly to comfort her, but I know I need to wait for her to want me to.

“Humph,” we hear from the doorway.