The flask paid for Ma’s and Da’s funeral and three tickets to America, but, when I took it, I wasn’t thinking of what it could buy. I took it because Lord Edwards had wronged us, and he owed us more than I could ever steal.

“I can’t let you keep the bellows,” I tell Annie. “I need them for my work.” But I take from my pocket a leather pouch where I keep the strip of cloth ripped from Sarah’s dress the day we met. I take out the cloth and lay the empty pouch on Annie’s bed atop the mattress stuffed with her stolen treasures. It’s old and worn, but that’s not the point. It’s a thing to be owned. And it’s hers, free and clear.

July 1849

Chapter 44

Sarah

Night after night, I stay up in the coach house loft. Everybody knows about me and Henry. Not at the Big House, but everybody else. Bessie don’t like it, though she’s less ugly about it now, but Maple’d spit at me as soon as look at me, and Red’s been acting like I’m something from the bottom of his shoe.

But Henry and me, we just look over all that.

Laying side by side, I feel Henry’s want and his patience. Truth be told, I feel my want too. It’s only fear that stops me, and the memory of Master Mulch. When I reach for him one night, he doesn’t trust that I mean it until I show him that I do. I won’t let what happened in that stall keep me trapped more than I already am.

He’s careful and sweet, like I knew he’d be, and he caresses the memory of that day right out of my skin, till when I think of the weight of a man pressed on me, or a man’s hands running up my thighs, or a man’s hot breath on my neck, I think of Henry and I go soft with wanting.

The sun scorches hotter day by day in a humid heat that’s sticky and heavy. I try not to notice about how the weeks are slipping by.

When we wake, Henry’s got his arms all wrapped up around me, and I got mine all wrapped up around him. When he opens his eyes to me looking at him, he breaks into a grin. I can’t help smiling back.

“I dreamt about you,” he tells me.

I scooch closer till our noses are almost touching. “What’d you dream?”

“That you were next to me when I woke up.”

I shake my head. “That ain’t no dream. I’m right here.”

“Yes, it was,” he says. “It just came true.”

I know how I feel about him now, but it’s better not to talk about it, because one day he’s going to have to move on. And I’m going to have to stay. And that’s going to be that.

I hear someone at the well pump and know I got to pry myself out of his arms and get to work. He reaches out and grabs me back.