by Naomi Finley
“MAKE SURE THAT CRATE DOESN’T get sent on this shipment. It’s to be delivered to James Island the day after tomorrow.” I pointed to a crate labeled Fragile.
“Yes, ma’am.” The worker signaled another man. They moved the crate out of the way of the others being loaded into a wagon to be taken to the ship leaving the harbor today.
I wove through the workers to the door that led to the small shipping office.
“Everything under control?” Ben asked, his eyes still pinned on the records he was filling out when I entered.
“It appears to be.” I strolled over to the window overlooking the harbor.
“We’ll head for home momentarily.”
The word “home” warmed my heart. Soon I’d embrace my loved ones and slip down to the quarters to spend countless hours holding Sailor. I’d found myself thinking of him and how much he’d grown. He had to be crawling, and his empty gums might hold a pearl or two by now.
Through the crowd on the dock bridge, my gaze fell on the familiar silhouette of a man who stood a few feet away, speaking to Knox. His dark waves slipped forward, covering the sides of his face as he dropped his head and peered at the ground.
Bowden.
My heart surged at the sight of him.
Knox gripped Bowden’s shoulder with a hand, his body conveying the conviction with which he spoke. If only I could be one of the seagulls perching on the posts along the seawall, I’d tune an ear into their conversation and hear what drove the passion behind Knox’s intensity.
Bowden lifted his head, and they turned to look toward the warehouse. I leaped aside to avoid being caught spying.
Ben glanced up from his work, and he frowned at me pressed against the wall beside the window. His eyes moved to the window, and a knowing look spread across his face. “What are you waiting for? Go speak to him.”
“But…I—” I stammered.
“You must seize an opportunity when it arises. Tomorrow isn’t promised. And life holds no guarantee that you’ll get another chance.”
Taking strength from his encouragement and the support I saw on his face, I walked to the half glass-paned door. My hand hesitated on the handle. Squeezing my eyes closed, I gusted a sigh.
“It’s now or never,” Ben said.
“I’m going,” I grumbled, pulling the door open.
On the dock bridge, Knox had turned to speak to another worker while Bowden waited.
Ben’s words echoed: It’s now or never. I forced myself forward.
“You’re back,” I started.
He spun around in surprise. “W-what are you doing here?” He ducked his head, letting his wavy hair veil his face.
“I’ve been filling the months working here. But I could ask you the same.”
“I had business with Knox.” He shifted his body away from me, and his eyes flitted around for an escape.
“Don’t!” I grabbed his arm. “Please don’t run away. Not this time. I won’t allow you to.” Months of mixed emotions shook my voice.
Knox told Whitney and me that Bowden had gone to Texas for the summer months. He’d also informed us that Bowden had been in contact with an artist who was interested in purchasing his plantation. Upon hearing the news, I’d taken to my bed for days and cried enough tears to fill the harbor as Tillie had sat and stroked my hair.
“Willow…please. Don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”
“On you? Or me?”
“Both.”
“All I ask is for a few minutes of your time. Then I’ll let you be,” I said to the back of his head.
“Where?”
“In the office,” I said, turning to walk back the way I’d come.
Ben exited the office at our approach and I wondered if he’d been watching us. I gestured for Bowden to go first.
As I passed him, Ben leaned in and whispered, “Tell him what’s in your heart.” I smiled grimly, fighting down the nerves coursing through me.
Inside, I tilted my ear to the soft click of the door shutting behind me.
Bowden stood in the center of the room with his back to me. He tossed his hat on the desk before clasping his hands in front of him. My gaze roved over his broad shoulders, which usually arched back with pride but were now lowered in defeat. I wanted to go to him, lay my cheek against his back and wrap my arms around him, and tell him I understood he’d suffered and suffered greatly, but no matter the scars that’d demoralized him, I loved him.
“Why are you doing this?” His voice came out pained and forced.
“Doing what?” I circled to stand in front of him. “Not allowing you to run anymore?”
He averted his eyes, and his jaw tensed.
“You can’t keep running,” I said.
“I’m not. But I’m also not willing to be a pity case for you or anyone else in this godforsaken town.” His voice was bitter.
“You think I came to you all those times out of pity. Do you know nothing of who I am?” I retorted.
“I’m not a vain man. But the accident…you deserve a man you can stand to look at.”
“Because beauty is all I see,” I said harshly.
“No—”
“Have I not proven I care not for what one looks like, but what is in their heart? That the fight for the ones I love comes from here?” I placed a hand to my heart.
He moved away, never looking me in the face. His fingers wrung through his hair, revealing the pink raised scar that ran up his jawline, over his birthmark, and disappeared into his hairline. “We’ve discussed this until I can’t see straight. We are two different people.”
“Are we?” I turned from him and stifled a scream of frustration. Walking to the desk, I placed my palms on the top to steady myself. “Or are you too stubborn to see what stares you in the face every day you walk your grounds?”
“Not for long,” he said.
I stiffened.
“I’m selling the plantation…”
I turned and found him standing at the window, his eyes on something far off in the middle of the harbor.
He continued. “But you need not worry. The buyer isn’t interested in the way things are done here. He sees the world through the beauty of colors and visions.”
“And where will you go?” Hearing the words from him solidified the end of the daydream that’d occupied my mind for months—the hope that time and a near-death experience would change him. Immense sadness settled in my chest with the realization that I’d lost him for good.
He leaned his forehead against his arm resting on the window frame over his head. “Texas.”
He was going home. Tears escaped the corners of my eyes. Our love story ended here. A tragic…pathetic disaster. He’d find a beautiful woman who’d manage his homestead and give him a family. They’d have a lifetime of happiness. The thought of him in another woman’s arms…
“Willow…”
Lost in my misery, I hadn’t heard him approach. Tender fingers lifted my chin. I gazed into his eyes, the gems that had stolen my heart all those years ago. I’d been spellbound since setting eyes on the prankster boy in his youth. For the first time in almost a year, our eyes held each other.
The accident had left a slight droop to one eye, and a few pink scars marked his chin. The most troublesome injury was the one colliding with the birthmark I’d come to treasure. It was part of him.
He caressed my bottom lip with a finger, and a grimace contorted his face. His hand dropped, and he stepped back. “I’ve ensured the buyer won’t be a threat to Livingston and the secrets you hold.”
“What do you think you know?”
“You’re involved in things that could have you jailed,” he said. “I considered turning you in to save you from yourself.”
“You wouldn’t.” I crossed my arms.
He shrugged and shook of his head. “Loving you drives a man mad.”
“Then release yourself from loving me,” I challenged. “Maybe I should consider Si
las’s offer to court me and put us both out of our misery.”
A hard glint entered his eyes. “Ben said he asked.”
I turned away. “Maybe I should reconsider. After all, he’s handsome and making his way up in the world.” Sarcasm poured from me. “We’d be happy, you know.”
“You stay away from him, you hear me?” His hand gripped my arm and spun me around. “He isn’t who he says he is.”
“Of course he isn’t.” I shook my arm free and moved from his shadow. “An idle mind has time to think and being stuck in town has given me nothing but time. The masked men have been silent, and only after his arrival did they become active again and start making their attacks. Mrs. Jenson vanishes without a goodbye.”
He picked up where my thoughts led. “Then someone messes with my wagon. I suspected Collins, and I suppose revenge could be motive enough, but why not both wagons? If Collins charged off because he was enraged by me firing him over something he believed Gray caused, why didn’t he come after us both?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.” I fiddled with the quill on the desk as I spoke the disturbing thoughts that had gnawed at me. “And as if by divine intervention, Silas is there to stop the horses and play the hero. What if Silas wanted you dead to get to me? What if he is behind the masked men? What if he did away with Mrs. Jenson…” A tremor shook me as I spoke the words that I’d mulled over in my mind since the day on the boardwalk. The day the façade I now believed Silas hid behind had faltered.
“But why? Why go to so much trouble to get your attention? Going to such drastic measures to court a woman seems desperate, when he’s got the charm and looks to sweep all you fickle women off your feet.”
I ignored his jab. “There’s one thing he doesn’t seem to have.”
“Money.”
I nodded. “He dresses and carries himself like a man of fine quality. Right down to the expensive bay he rides. He gives off the air of coming from elite society. Yet if he is financially secure, why buy a homestead? If he wants to portray himself as a gentleman of substance, you’d think he’d buy land with a grand home, not a small farm.”
“Precisely my point. It all leads to the same motive. He wants to be close to Livingston and you.”
“Sometime back I ran into him when I was coming out of the general store. I was distraught over running into Josephine and seeing her deterioration after her marriage to that man with one foot in the grave,” I said, not hiding my irritation. “When our carriage was pulling away, I glanced back at him, and the look on his face left me unsettled. It was as if he hated me.”
Bowden’s face darkened with concern. “You must be careful. Until we can figure this all out, you mustn’t go off alone.”
My hand rubbed over the nape of my neck. Fear pounded in my chest.
“Are you listening to me?” he said.
“Yes. Ben has already told me this.”
“As if that matters!” he said in exasperation. “Listening isn’t one of your admirable qualities.”
“You’d be pleased to know it’s something I’ve been working on.”
“Is that a fact?” The corners of his mouth quirked and I caught a glimpse of the old Bowden.
I tilted my chin up. “It is.”
He laughed and walked to the door. Pausing with his hand on the knob, he glanced back, and his expression reflected the regret spilling from my heart. “If only…I…”
“I understand,” I said. “It was never meant to be.”
He dropped his eyes and heaved a sigh. “Take care of yourself.”
I was still staring at the empty doorway when Ben darkened the threshold several minutes later.
“I know a lot of eager folks waiting on your return,” he said. “Shall we head for home?”
“As fast as we can get there.” I walked past him and pecked his cheek on the way by.
WE RETURNED HOME, AND THE final plans for Whitney’s wedding occupied our time.
On the day of the wedding, I stood back, mesmerized by the beautiful bride clad in an off-the-shoulder dove-gray dress with long, flowing sleeves that stopped at the elbow. She tipped her head to hear what her new husband was saying. Whitney laughed, and a lopsided grin spread across Knox’s face. He had a way of bringing calmness to her with his endless lines of nonsense. They had a promising future.
In Whitney’s twenty-one years she’d met challenges with as much grace as possible for a woman like her. I admired her strength and perseverance. Now she’d finally have the life she deserved. Oh, how I’d miss her. But marrying Knox was her chance at happiness. Besides—I smiled to myself—with the location of her home, she was barely a quarter-hour’s trot away.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Julia tilted her head toward me as she loaded her plate with barbecued meat, red beans and rice, and sweet cornbread. Mammy and the kitchen staff had prepared the dishes that often filled our tables, from recipes passed down generation after generation that wove Southern and the slaves’ cuisine together.
“And happy,” I said, letting my eyes fall away from the couple. “I’m glad you could come.”
“Jeffery wasn’t keen on the idea of the journey, with our soon-to-be arrival.” She rubbed her belly affectionately. Her expanding middle was hidden beneath the layers of her gown.
“I’m afraid I’ve become the spinster of us all,” I said with a laugh, then took a sip of my currant wine.
“Don’t fret; you’ll be married before Lucille. That I can promise you.”
“Whatever happened to her insisting she’d marry Mr. Anderson?”
“Josephine says Lucille tried plenty of times to secure his hand, but her father wouldn’t give in to her pleas to propose a marriage between the two. He believes Mr. Anderson dips on the scale of the lower class. Mr. Carter would prefer a planter for her husband. After all, a homestead without slaves or cotton or rice isn’t what one would consider a profitable property,” she said as we seated ourselves on white wooden chairs in the shade of a magnolia tree. “Whitney mentioned that she and Knox won’t own slaves.” She turned admiring eyes on the couple. “I knew I liked the woman within minutes of meeting her.”
“Her heart is good. Even if she’s an unrefined gem, I owe my sanity over the past few years to her, among others. Along with…” I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “the folks in the quarters.”
She pulled back and regarded me with inquisitive eyes. “How so?”
I cupped her ear with my hand. “They are my heart.”
“No…truly? You too?”
I placed a finger to my lips and smiled.
She turned her gaze to the newlyweds, and her hand squeezed mine. “I should’ve known.”
“Why is that?”
“A woman with a heart like yours can’t abide such barbaric beliefs,” she whispered through closed lips.
“You’re too sweet.”
“I took your advice and learned to tame my emotions,” she said smugly, jutting out her chin.
“Brilliant.” I laughed.
Bowden walked by. He looked dashing in his black long-tailed coat and trousers with an ivory cravat. Offering us a half-bow, he continued on.
“That’s why!” Enlightenment shone in Julia’s light blue eyes.
“What?”
Between closed lips, she said, “You and Bowden. Your love for each other has been the envy of all the young ladies, even me at times. One thing keeps us all from witnessing the wedding of the century. Am I correct?” Her voice was somber.
“Never more right,” I said. “But that’s a chat for afternoon tea. Let’s not let Bowden’s and my shortcomings dampen the beauty of Whitney’s day. What do you say?”
As the afternoon skies darkened and the evening closed in, Ben brought around the carriage. Bowden had gone ahead with the luggage to secure the newlyweds’ passage at the train station to wherever the couple’s journey was taking them. I surmised that Whitney had some grand plan. Though not knowing picked at me, it was
improper to inquire where they’d be heading.
The couple finished their final goodbyes, then moved toward the waiting carriage to head off on their wedding journey. The guests sprinkled fistfuls of rice before them, showering them with well wishes and luck for the future. Whitney had strictly banned the throwing of shoes. She’d fought me on the wasting of rice, but I told her she owed me. If I had put up with her for this long, she was going to follow traditions and at least allow the sprinkling of rice to send her off.
She squeezed my hand on the way by. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
I smiled through my tears while my heart cried, Hurry back.
After their departure, a stream of carriages rolled down the lane as the guests started to leave.
“When do we set sail for New York?” Jack asked Aunt Em.
She walked toward the house with her arms around the twins’ shoulders. “First thing in the morning. Mr. Hendricks has asked Mr. Jones to take us to the Hendrickses’ townhouse this afternoon so we can meet the morning train.”
The sense of loss and change cloaked my shoulders and heart with a great loneliness.
Mammy stood inside the door when I walked in. She took one glance at my tear-stained face and said, “Come on, gal, let me cut a big slab of dat cake and fix you some tea. Ain’t nothin’ lak a heap of sugar to heal all de pains of de heart.”
DAYS HAD UNRAVELED INTO WEEKS since Whitney left on her wedding journey and the twins had left for New York. I missed them terribly.
One lazy Sunday afternoon, I straightened the jars of spices on the shelves in the kitchen house, lost in the misery of my loneliness.
Mammy hummed as she stood over a simmering pot of fish stew. It was a recipe her Big John had shared with her from his country in West Africa. A tender smile crossed her face, and I wondered if she was thinking about him, the one man that still held her heart after all these years. Twenty-some years from now, would I be her?
“Gal, ain’t ya got a book or somepin’ to occupy your mind?” she said over her shoulder.
