A Slave of the Shadows, page 25
My attention swung back to the river and the wharf as Father’s schooner came into view. Time seemed to drag while I waited for it to dock. Jones secured the rope to the wharf, spoke a few words to Father, and wandered off. Father ambled toward the house, his head down, absorbed in his thoughts. Glancing up, he noticed me for the first time.
“Willow.” He stopped abruptly and clasped his hands behind his back, but not before I saw the red blemishing the cuffs of his once crisp linen shirt.
My jaw set tight as I looked down at him. “How were matters at the dock, Father?” I asked, my voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Fine,” he said as he ascended the steps.
I moved to him, quivering with hostility. “Liar!” I jerked on his arms, and his hands swung forward and dangled at his sides.
“Willow? What are you talking about?” he asked, alarm in his eyes.
“The bloodbath that took place in those swamps!” I swung my hand out, pointing in the general direction of the swamp.
Father tensed and his face contorted. “You disobeyed me! I warned you to stay put. But no, you can’t leave well enough alone. You cannot…save them, Willow,” his gaze met mine.
The fight left me. Hope was lost to me. Sickened that I was the daughter of a man like him, I fixed a stony glare on him. “As you say, Father.”
He flinched. His mouth opened to speak, then closed again. His complexion paled and his face was suddenly tired and empty.
I laughed a dry, disheartened laugh. Pivoting on the tips of my toes, I strode into the house.
A WEEK LATER, MY LIFE shattered like splintering glass. I knew something was terribly wrong when Jimmy charged into the house shouting my name. Startled at the sudden interruption, I dropped the book I had been reading.
“Miss Willie, come quick!” He staggered into the sitting room. Bending at the knees, he gasped to catch his breath.
I hurried to him. “What’s wrong, Jimmy?”
“Et’s your father, Miss Willie. Dere was a horrible accident. His carriage—”
“What? Where?” My fear rose at the news.
“Jones brought him back. He’s sent for de doc.”
I caught a glimpse of Father’s bloody body as Jones and a slave carried him to his room.
“Find Mammy. And cloths and hot water—prepare for the doctor when he gets here,” I ordered over my shoulder as I hurried down the corridor to Father’s room.
Father’s voice was weak, a gurgling croak as he said, “Willow…find my daughter…”
“I’m here, Father.” I knelt beside him.
His body had been crushed beneath the carriage. As I observed his condition, I feared internal bleeding. The doc will never make it in time. I couldn’t lose him. He was all I had.
“Mammy!” I screamed. Please, someone help me. I looked at my father’s mangled body. Despite our differences, he’d always been a pillar of strength. My eyes roved the room, desperately seeking someone to help me.
“I must tell you something…” He coughed, and blood spattered from his mouth. “You…you must know the truth.” His eyes brimmed with pain…and longing.
“Try not to talk, Father,” I said softly, trailing my fingers along his face.
“No, you must know. I have always loved you. All I’ve done is to…to protect you. I did what I thought was right.” His body convulsed and a moment later, he settled. He gazed past me, focusing on something behind me. “Ben, you must tell her. We have wronged her by…keeping the truth from her.” His hand weakly waved someone forward.
A shadow fell over me and I looked up to see him. The man in the shadows.
“Father, please try to rest.” I knew rest was a lie; he was failing. Tears pricked my eyes as I lifted his hand and kissed it.
“I’m sorry…Willow.” His body stiffened with a wave of pain. “I’m sorry I didn’t share her with you. Like your mother, you are the best of them.” His grip tightened around my hand and a moan escaped him. His eyes closed, then flew open at some memory.
“Ben.” He once again summoned the man beside me with his hand. The man moved closer and bent to hear the words Father whispered. “Get them out. The warehouse…the ship leaves tomorrow.”
His words confused me. Who? Get who out?
Father’s body stiffened once more, then it relaxed as the life left his body.
“Father!” My scream filled the room. My heart pounded in my head, blocking out the sounds around me. “No, please no…” I buried my face in Father’s bloodstained chest. “I’m sorry, Father. I’m sorry for being a disappointment. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be. I love you…” Sobs carried me away.
“Dere, dere, Miss Willie.” Jimmy placed an ever-constant hand on my back.
“What shall I ever do?” My words were muffled against Father’s chest. “I can’t do this alone.”
“Miss Willie, you ain’t alone,” Jimmy said in a soothing voice.
I was inconsolable. I gave way to my grief. Jimmy led me from the room as the doctor arrived.
In the passageway, I paused when Mammy spoke. “I’m sorry, chile, for your loss. Masa, he was de bes’ masa, and we ’member him so.”
“Thank you, Mammy,” I murmured.
I SCARCELY RECALLED THE DAY of Father’s funeral. It was a grand event, attended by many who came to pay their respects. As Father’s friends and colleagues offered their condolences, I sat behind my black veil with my hands folded in my lap, nodding respectfully, a stiff smile painted on my face. I was grateful for the privacy the veil provided. Whitney stood tentatively by my side.
Sam Bennick, my father’s lawyer and a close friend, approached me. I’d met him on several occasions when he came by to pay my father a visit. “Sorry for your loss. Your father was very dear to me.” His light blue eyes reflected genuine sorrow.
“Thank you.”
“I want you to know you aren’t alone, and my office is always open.”
“I appreciate that, Sam.” He bounced lightly on his toes as he removed his timepiece from his front pocket. Glancing at me, he said, “Next week, we should get together at my office to go over your Father’s will.”
“Yes, that is fine,” I said, knowing even in my grief that life would go on.
With Father gone, my responsibilities were greater. The plantation was a huge responsibility on its own, without adding on Father’s businesses. How I was going to manage, I wasn’t sure. Running a plantation with labor provided by slaves—something I didn’t believe in—was a battle in itself. I loved Livingston and the slaves on it were like my family, but how could I in good conscience turn a profit on the backs of slaves?
“He left you this.” Sam handed me a small box tied with twine.
“Umm…thank you,” I said as I accepted the box he placed in my black-gloved hands.
“I bid you good day,” he said. Tipping the brim of his top hat, he left.
Later that evening I sat in the garden, gazing down at the box that lay unopened on my lap. I ran my fingers over it, fearful of what mystery the box would reveal.
Mammy appeared carrying a tray with the tea I’d requested. She placed it on the garden table and glanced at me. Her face radiated love and concern for me.
“Thank you, Mammy.”
“Yes, Missus.”
I looked sharply at her, taken aback by the formal address. “Mammy, I may now be the mistress of Livingston and you can address me as missus in formal situations, but please don’t leave me. Please, do not let that change us.” I was suddenly afraid. “No matter what becomes of Livingston, you are still my Mammy and my friend.”
Mammy smiled fondly. “Yes, chile,” she said, and a smile pinched the corners of my mouth.
Alone in the garden again, I untied the box and withdrew a thin, leather-bound book along with an envelope labeled with My Willow in Father’s handwriting.
Turning the envelope over, I broke the seal and gingerly removed the paper within. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply to calm the nerves that churned my stomach. Unfolding the paper, I read:
My dearest Willow,
If you are reading this letter, then my time in this life is over. I wish I’d learned to show you my love sooner. I regret every day that I couldn’t. My pride has ruled much of my life and yours, making my decisions and my behaviors in raising you my biggest mistakes.
I’ve left you your mother’s journal. In it may you find some answers to the questions you seek. Questions I was too weak a man to give to you. After losing her, I lived with the fear of losing you and in that fear, I guarded my heart and pushed you away for what I now realize were many wasted years. Don’t let my mistakes hold you back. Know that you were loved by me.
All my love,
Charles Hendricks
Struggling with the many emotions my father’s words conjured, I folded the letter, then pressed it to my lips and kissed it. I missed him. Why did it take his passing for me to see how much? We had been each other’s stumbling block in the relationship we had formed. Father, with his stubbornness and fears. But was he that much different than me?
On his deathbed and in his letter, he declared his fears and love. Maybe I would eventually find the healing in these words. Why had he spent so many years keeping me at arm’s length? Why had he set out such restrictions on our relationship and why had his expectations always seemed unattainable? Would I find the answers in the pages of my mother’s journal? Time could wait no longer. I must have the answers I sought.
Opening to the first page, I read the words so elegantly written:
My Precious Willow,
It was written to me. My heart leaped in my chest. It was dated a year after I was born.
As I scanned the pages of my mother’s journal, I developed a new understanding of my father. I understood why he had kept this book from me. My mother’s secrets, my father’s shame, filled the pages. I found no resolution in the words filling the pages of her journal. The information this book held changed my past and my future.
I REMOVED THE VEIL AND pins from my hair, allowing my hair to fall down my back. Running my trembling fingers over my aching scalp, I gently shook my mane. Seated behind the desk in my father’s study, I waited in anticipation for the return of Jimmy. I’d sent him to find the man that lived in the shadows. The man Father called Ben. The man who’d been the love of my mother’s life, and my protector. My father.
Through the window, I saw him walking toward the house. He was tall like Father, I realized. Minutes later he entered the study and removed his hat to reveal a full head of blond hair. Where my father’s hair had been thinning, his remained intact. His eyes were dark and burned with a yearning too long restrained. But I also saw in him a humbleness, a tenderness, as he gazed at me.
“Hello, Willow,” he said. Though his mannerisms were gentle and kind, his tone was steady and confident.
“Hello…Ben?”
“That’s right.”
“You will have to bear with me as I am…well, I’m…” I lowered my eyes and cleared my throat before lifting my gaze once more to him. “This is all new to me, as you are aware. I have come to see we were both slaves to the shadows.” I motioned him toward a chair in front of me. He obliged.
“Please, I refuse to waste another day in the dark. I can’t go on like this. Please, tell me: who am I?”
He let out a long sigh before he began to speak. “Charles and my parents were family friends of your mother, Olivia’s, parents. As children, we played together. I loved her for as far back as I remember and it was only later that I found out how deeply Charles also loved her. But she loved me.
“Your grandmother passed away when your mother was in her teens, so when your grandfather’s health began to decline, he thought the right thing to do was to arrange a marriage for Olivia. She was the apple of your grandfather’s eye, one may say. But when seeking a husband for her, he didn’t give in to ‘her girly woes,’ as he said. Charles and I were longtime family friends of his family and became the front-runners. Charles had become a fine businessman and I was a student still in med school. Your grandfather decided Charles was the better option to give your mother the quality of life she was used to, and he was smart enough business-wise to keep Livingston profitable.
“Olivia was furious at her lack of control in the matter. I remember the day like yesterday. As Charles and I sat on that very porch out there eagerly awaiting your grandfather’s decision, Olivia flew out the front door in a temper at your grandfather for even suggesting an arranged marriage. Like the day Charles approached you with a similar proposition.” His laugh was carefree and unstrained.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the desk. Reading my urgency, he continued. “That evening your grandfather suffered a heart attack. Your mother blamed herself for it. Not wanting to cause your grandfather undue stress, she agreed to marry Charles. A few weeks after the wedding your grandfather suffered another heart attack, and that one took his life.”
“Trapping her in a loveless marriage to Father?” Understanding filled me with compassion for my parents.
“Charles treasured your mother, but soon after the wedding, we found out she was pregnant with you. Olivia refused to keep the fact that I was the father a secret. We told Charles together. He didn’t take it too well, as you can imagine.” Ben lowered his eyes. “He was outraged. Your mother and I had shamed him. But being a man of honor and because he truly loved Olivia, Charles decided to keep Olivia’s shame a secret. The neighbors and townsfolk already frowned upon her for her outspoken views. It was agreed I would finish school in Virginia, and Charles and Olivia would raise you together without my involvement.
“Olivia’s love, the love of a mother, outweighed the love she had for me, and she agreed to Charles’s offer. In those years, I remained absent from your lives. Until I received Charles’s letter.” He stopped, his eyes haunted.
“Letter?”
“I received a letter demanding I come to Livingston immediately.”
“Go on.”
“Upon my return, I found your mother was not here. Charles showed me to this study, but not before I got a glimpse of you playing with Mary Grace, in the parlor. You looked up at me with those eyes; they were like a gateway to the past. You stared at me as if trying to figure out who I was. You smiled and waved before turning back to your toys, and Charles called me in here.”
“What did he want?” I leaned forward. The answer to my mother’s disappearance was within my grasp.
“He told me that…umm…he informed me of…” Even now, after all these years, Ben struggled to give me the answers Father had kept from me—to tell me the truth.
“Please, do not withhold the truth from me,” I implored him.
He was silent for a moment before he went on. “Your mother was murdered. Charles found her hanging from an oak tree a few miles from here. Hung around her neck was a sign that said ‘Nigger lover.’ With her hung the slave she’d been helping escape.”
Nothing I’d imagined about my mother’s death or disappearance could have prepared me for this. “I-I thought—” The room began to spin, and I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Willow?” Ben’s hands turned me. His face was a blur, floating farther away. “Rita!” he yelled in a panic.
“What is et, Masa Ben? Oh, lands sakes! I’ll git some water for de chile.” Mammy’s footsteps thundered rapidly away.
“I’ll be all right,” I said, resting my face in my hands. Tears had become a second language to me lately and today was no different. I cried for the mother I’d lost and for the father I never knew.
Mammy returned. “Move on outta de way, Masa Ben. Mammy take care of her chile.”
Her words touched my heart. Mammy…oh, Mammy…always faithful and devoted. I cried harder.
“Now, now, chile. Evvything gwine be all right. Mammy promises you dat.” She pressed my head to her bosom and let me cry a spell before lifting the corner of her apron and drying my tears. “Drink up, chile.” She put the glass of water to my trembling lips and I reached up and held it myself.
Draining the glass, I handed it back to her. “Thank you.”
She turned to leave, but I stopped her. “Mammy, did you know my mother was murdered?”
She froze. She sent a nervous glance to Ben, who nodded. Turning to face me, she said, “Yes, Missus. I knowed ’bout et all. Your mama was our friend. Jus’ lak you. She did what’s right by my people. She was right fine to me and my Mary Grace, from de day she and your pappy…Gawd bless dat man.” She whispered a brief prayer before she went on. “From de day she made Masa Hendricks buy us. Den on her death she freed us.” With her final words she looked me square in the eye.
She freed us. What in the world was Mammy gabbing about now? “Mammy, what nonsense are you talking about?” I returned her stare.
“Your mama give me and Mary Grace our freedom papers. Masa Hendricks, he never knowed until he go to de fancy lawyer’s place and finds out for himself. Your pappy honored your mama and signed de papers giving his approval.”
“But all this time…all these years…you have been free?” I frowned in confusion.
“Yes, Missus.”
“But you stayed. Why?”
“’Cause I can’t leave my gal behind.”
“But Mammy, she was free. You both were.”
“I knowed dat, silly gal. But I can’t leave my other gal behind. I owe your mama dat much, and by den you trusted me and loved me. I told you, I love you lak you be born of my own body.” Her smile encased my heart with the love of a mother.
YESTERDAY HAD NEARLY BEEN MORE than I could handle, with Father’s funeral and the revelations surrounding my parentage. Breakfast with Whitney and the twins proved to be a challenge, as I struggled to focus on anything other than the wealth of information I had received. Today would prove to be no different, I learned as I pushed back from the table.
