Leon took his mother’s pen from her, dipped it nervously into the inkpot she had left open and scribbled his name below hers, handing the paper to Roscoe without allowing time for the ink to dry.

Roscoe looked at the paper again, and at Leon’s signature with obvious satisfaction. “Now,” he said, “my children will be free born.”

“That is so,” Deborah said, “but what about Roman?”

As soon as she had spoken, she realized that she should not have. Leon, standing, felt himself go numb with shock at her thoughtless question, even before Roscoe said, “The child named Roman may remain a slave. He was born to that state. Perhaps that is his fate.”

4

Lovey said often enough that she wanted her children to marry, and that she longed for grandchildren, but such declarations are common and in this instance were an exaggeration, if not a downright untruth. Most of the young men on the place who were Floyd’s age were married or bespoke, and most of the girls Pauline’s age were married, or hoping soon to be, or had at least an unsatisfactory love problem to brood over and complain about. Many of them regularly begged old Maggie for advice and potions.

Pauline had no intention of marrying. When she said so, people remembered Lovey when she was a girl and her similar resolution, and so gave little or no credence to the daughter’s. Pauline worked mainly in the kitchen, but her duties were what she made them. No one stood over her in any sense. She had no desire to succeed Cook when that worthy one decided to hang up her apron and go to her heavenly reward, or, losing her skill, was encouraged to sit by the stove on winter days and gabble about the grand meals she had prepared and seen eaten a decade or five ago. It was settled in Deborah’s mind that Myrtis would take over the kitchen when Cook was ready to leave it. Myrtis was already a more than competent cook of regular, plain fare, which was all that Deborah could think was required by any reasonable household.

Pauline was an inspired cook. She made occasional dishes when the mood struck her. She would take endless time and pains to get a dish just right; her instinct was sure, her taste sophisticated. Her special talent was for sweet things. No one else had her way with cakes and pies and more refined desserts. She did not, would not, bake to order and every day. Leave that to Myrtis—her apple pie or peach cobbler always seemed to consist mainly of damp dough and thin syrup, and her cakes usually featured one layer that had been burned and scraped and icing heaped on thickly to hide the inward slope of the cake’s architecture.