You were born, she ran away, and then he hunted her down and dragged her back and he ordered Manso to take his chisel to her teeth. But he cut off his own nose to spite his face, as they say. She didn’t hold the same appeal after that. Oh, but he was fond of her. He made her those promises, after all, about you.

I learned the hard way that this is a place where a man keeps his concubines and his bastards in plain sight. The very woman who’d spit in your porridge in the morning could be fornicating with your husband that night.

How it destroys all of us.

I am tired. I will finish this. Where was I?

Your mother.

In the Bible, Laban gave to his daughter Rachel his handmaid Bilhah, to be her handmaid. And Rachel’s sons were the sons of Bilhah, her handmaid.

We were Rachel and Bilhah, she and I.

My husband no doubt believed that in the next life she and I will still be out on that porch, surrounded by dying English roses, me with the tea, her with the fan.

I think he is wrong.

Mrs A. Langton

My stomach clenches. I’m back in the dining room, telling Langton about the orangeade, telling myself I was only speaking the truth, forgetting how many sides the truth has. I can’t see how terrible it will be, because all I’m thinking about is me. Fear makes my mouth dry as salt. I’d seen it, of course, during the years that followed, who she was to me; there was, after all, only one woman it could have been. All those times I’d asked her, perhaps I was just waiting for her to tell me. She hated me sometimes. But I believe there was love, too.

So many things to tell her. How guilt has run through me, all this time, keeping time with my blood. How, even now, to think of it, to write of it, makes both leap in my chest. How sorry I am.

A child’s understanding is dark. Sometimes light is blinding. I shake the letter out on my lap and read it again. And then I’m on the porch. I watch Miss-bella’s slow hands reaching for the glass. Phibbah behind her with the fan. The orangeade. That’s how they managed it. Not poison, those herbs in Miss-bella’s glass, but her daily dose. Make sure she stayed barren. But in Jamaica there were two truths. One, all bush medicine is obeah if they say it is. And two, white women never take the blame.

Chapter Fifty-One

Light skims the bars. I feel the mattress shift. Madame sits next to me. She has her little black book, her quill. She’s making her notes. Any minute, she’ll take off her boots and pull me into her lap, and kiss me, and I will never want to open my eyes and let her go. Nothing between us but a tendon of breath and this fresh morning, rinsing everything with light. I’ve even managed a little sleep. Then I huddle my knees in, to watch her walking away, lavender silk brushing her ankles. She looks over her shoulder, tears in her eyes, shining like ice. What can I say to make her stay?