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trespassing in my barn’ in his
strange sounding voice. I knows for sure then he be no Southerner.
I’s try to answer but my mouth was gone dry so no words was coming
out. I says my prayers then because I’s thinking this be the end
for sure. Then he does a strange thing, your papa, he calls out to
his men and tells them to go fetch your mama. She’s coming then to
take a look. She says I be fevered and orders them men to get me
into the bunkhouse.
    “ That’s when I sees the house for
the first time. My eyes was bleary like, but it be nothing like
them houses in the south. All that stone and no lounging porticos.
I sees them flower gardens in amongst the lawn with them tables and
chairs sitting outside under leafy trees. This be the North, I says
to myself, and I’s giving thanks to the Lord for delivering me
here.
    “ Theyse put me in a bed. I never be
sleeping in no bed before.” Rengen paused, a smile spreading across
his big face. “It be so soft and smells so good that I’s sleeping
on and off for several days and when I’s waking up for good, there
be your mama’s beautiful face, all sympathetic-like. And Miss
Eileen, she be rubbing some kind of salve on my feet, complaining
to your Mama that these be the worst pair of famine feet she’s ever
seeing. I’s not understanding what she’s meaning, but it don’t
matter no-how. She be rubbing something on my feet that makes them
feel mighty good.
    “ I’s needing to go because I’s not
trusting no white folk, and I’s wanting to meet up with other
coloreds heading further north. But your Mama, she stops me, says I
be too sick and has to get better before I goes anywhere. Her words
wasn’t harsh like them other white folk and I be listening ‘cause
she’s talking all kind-like.”
    “ Mother and Father knew what it was
like to be victims,” I broke in. “The Crown stole their family home
in Ireland. Then the Confederates and the war robbed from them,
too.”
    “ We’re all victims of something,”
Dan interrupted.
    “ Give me a beautiful woman and I’ll
gladly be her victim,” Mark jested.
    “ Like Trista Joyce,” Dan
teased.
    “ She’ll do all right,” Mark
said.
    “ Better not let Sarah hear you talk
that way,” Dan warned.
    Mark stood up and put his hat over his heart.
“No woman will ever make me stray from my sweet Sarah’s side,” he
recited. Turning to me, he continued, “What about you, Wiz? Do you
find Trista Joyce as tempting as those fancy women in
Baltimore?”
    Scrambling to my feet, I jerked his hat away
and slapped him with it. I was still seething over his interference
in Mother’s room. His offer to take her to her Godforsaken island
had only made matters worse. He could afford to be generous. Mother
would never allow him to leave Stonebridge for so long. Couldn’t he
see she was better off here in the care of competent doctors,
instead of fueling her notion to undertake a dangerous journey that
would surely kill her?
    He grabbed for his hat. I pushed him, and he
pushed me back.
    “ Why in hell did you offer to take
Mother to Ireland?” I snapped.
    “ Any fool can see she’s determined
to go back there,” Mark shot back. “You’re not willing to leave
your fine life in Baltimore. Somebody has to take her.”
    “ I was trying to change her mind.
If you’d kept your mouth shut, it might’ve worked.”
    “ No, it wouldn’t. If you were here,
you’d know that. You don't care what’s happening to her. You never
bother to come home anymore.”
    “ That has nothing to do with what’s
best for Mother.”
    “ Yes, it does. You can’t just waltz
in here after not showing your face for two years and think you
know what’s going on. Get it through your thick skull, she’s dying.
Does that even mean anything to you?” He turned his back to me.
“Sorry, I forgot, whoring and money are all you care
about.”
    He started to walk away. I grabbed his
shoulder and brought him round to face me. “I care about