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Then there’d be trouble.
    “We need to come to an agreement about work,” the missus finally said. “I suppose you know that you’re all free to go. We’re not allowed to own you anymore. But if you decide to continue living here and eating my food, then I expect you to work for me just like you did before the war. The same goes for all of my field hands, and you can tell them that for me.”
    “Most of them are gone already, ma’am,” Lizzie said. Miz Eugenia ignored her.
    “If you decide not to work for me, then you’ll need to move off my land. I’ll give you a week to move out—but I expect you to keep working as usual until then.”
    So much for freedom. Miz Eugenia still ruled the roost and bossed everyone around, just like always. But at least the door was open now, and they could walk on out if they wanted to.
    “Ida May, I could use your help unpacking my clothes,” Miz Eugenia continued. “Roselle, see if Josephine and Mary need your help upstairs. Cissy, you may start unpacking some of these boxes. Put the books back on the shelves in Master Philip’s study, and please be careful with the dishes and breakables. Dolly and Lizzy, I’m sure there’s plenty to do in the kitchen to get dinner on the table on time.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Lizzie went back out to the kitchen to finish scrubbing the pot. She still didn’t feel free, but thank the good Lord at least Otis was back. And if what he said was true, then nothing and nobody could ever tear them apart again.

4
    A PRIL 25, 1865
    Josephine looked out her bedroom window and wondered how long it would be until she felt safe from calamity, until she really believed that more bad things weren’t going to happen. Her family had returned home from Richmond four days ago, and she was glad to be back. But life at White Oak Plantation was still chaotic, with very little food to eat. Her stomach hadn’t felt full in a long time.
    Jo didn’t know what to do with herself all day in this strangely altered world the war had created. It was dangerous to go outside with refugees and Negroes and soldiers from both sides wandering the roads, trying to get home. She hardly dared to leave the house. But she had grown bored with reading, bored with talking to Mary—and her sister was likely bored with her. It seemed a waste of time to embroider things for her hope chest. She had no talent for drawing or watercolors, and besides, there was no money to buy more paint once she used up her colors. Jo had attempted to practice the piano, but without a teacher it was difficult to make progress. All told, there was very little to do all day except wander around the echoing house—and even that disheartened her.
    Everywhere Josephine looked she saw gaping holes. The Yankees had stolen their beautiful Turkish carpets, leaving behind ghostlyimages on the floors where the sun had faded the wood. But the biggest hole was the one left by her daddy. Jo still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that he was gone forever. Whenever she walked past his study and saw his favorite chair, it seemed wrong that he wasn’t sitting there writing in his ledger book or playing chess, filling the room with fragrant cigar smoke.
    Her brother Samuel was gone, too. He’d been a constant fixture at Daddy’s side and would have taken over the plantation one day, just as Daddy had taken Granddaddy’s place. Proud mothers used to come calling with their daughters, hoping the handsome Samuel Weatherly would show an interest in them. Where would all those girls find husbands now that Sam and so many of his friends were dead?
    Josephine kept watch from her bedroom window, hoping her brother Daniel would return home soon and get the plantation going again. Before the war, he had been away at college for so much of the school year that Jo was used to the hole he’d left behind. Still, the mothers used to come calling when Daniel was home, hoping to make a match with him, too. No one had made social