I reach into my pocket and pull out the bracelet I made for her. It’s a copy of the connected half circles she wears as a wooden necklace. Instead of wood, this one is iron. I hold it out to her in my palm and wait for her to take it. Instead, she looks up at me with a question in her eyes.

“I made this for you,” I say.

She touches her wooden necklace. “Isaac made this for me. The broken loops is supposed to be broken chains for freedom.”

“I saw it as being linked together,” I say. “That’s what I had in mind when I made this for you.”

She takes the bracelet and slips it on her wrist. It fits her exactly. She runs her fingers over the metal, tracing the interlacing loops. “Thank you,” she says.

“If I’d known about the chains,” I say, and she looks up at me. I don’t know how to put to words what I’m trying to say. “I’m done making chains,” I tell her.

She takes my hand and squeezes it.

“I want you to stay with me,” I say. I feel her still in the quiet way she has of considering things.

“I don’t know if I should.”

“Sarah,” I say, “this isn’t wrong.”

She doesn’t move, so I lean in close and lay my forehead against hers. “Don’t listen to what anyone else says. They’ve nothing to do with us.”

She takes hold of the front of my shirt and balls it in her hands, like she’s considering to push me away or pull me close.

“How much longer you gonna stay?” she asks.

I slip my hands over her fists. “As long as I can.”

She nods, her forehead rubbing against mine.

“I know I can’t give you near what you deserve,” I tell her, “and if this thing with me is costing you too much, I’ll understand. But I want to be with you, Sarah, for as many days and nights as I can get.” Everything in me wants to hold her tight, but I let her go and step back. I reach out my hand to her.

Her fingers trace over the bracelet and grasp her wrist. I can only imagine what Maple and Bessie have been saying to her about being with me these last two nights. Or what Mister Johnson would say if he saw us. What I know for sure is that I need her to come with me.

“Please,” I say. “Stay.”

She takes my hand and follows me in, and I vow, then and there, that I won’t ever let her go.

Chapter 42

Maple

Sarah’s trouble with the overseer, and whatever’s going on with that blacksmith, keeps me thinking on Rose, even when I try to put her out of my mind. And that leads me to thinking on Momma in the fields, and Freddy marching to Mississippi in chains. I’m mad at Freddy for running from Rose when he couldn’t help her, ’cause she still needs him. And my heart breaks for Momma, who never talked about her times with Master Jeremiah, but I know she must have had her days of choking on the bed. I hope she’s learned to pick fast enough to keep the whip off her back. At the Keeler place they whip you to make your hands dance. Whip you if you come up short. Whip you to see if you can pick more the next day. Whip you if you can’t.