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with a
candle in hand and down the hall to Mammy’s room. It was only doors
down from mine, across from Hattie’s room, where she stayed only
when she was ill.
    I stopped outside her door and pressed my ear
up against it. Soft sobs filtered through and went straight to my
heart. Hattie was right. Mammy was crying - crying with so much woe
that it seemed as if someone had actually died.
    I eased the unlocked door open and stepped
in. The fire in the hearth cast a warm glow over Mammy, who was
curled up on the bed, her back facing the door. She seemed
completely unaware that I was standing in the room.
    The room had taken me by surprise, for it was
sparse, with most of the furniture missing. All that remained was
the bed with a nightstand beside it. The armoire, dresser, mirror,
and few paintings that had hung on the walls were all gone.
    Looking around the room, I was puzzled. I
walked over to Mammy and boldly asked her what was happening.
“Where are all your things, Mammy?”
    She was startled to see me and abruptly sat
up, wiping her tear-soaked face with the apron of her skirt. She
hadn’t even dressed for bed.
    “Child, you need to be in bed,” she
sniffled.
    “I came to see you; I miss you so,” I said,
after placing the candle on the windowsill and climbing up on the
bed. “Where are all your things?”
    Mammy studied my face for a moment. She
reached out and stroked my cheek.
    “I’m moving into the cabins.”
    “Why would you do such a thing? This is your
room, and we have so many of them!” I cried in confusion. “And if
you are all the way out in the cabins, then who will care for me
and Hattie?”
    “Hattie is coming with me,” she added
forlornly.
    Mammy instantly hushed and crooned to me,
fighting back her own tears. “You will be just fine, Miss Amelia. I
still be here, just not in the big house with you as much. Your
daddy is bringing a governess all the way from England to care for
you. This is gonna be her room.”
    “Why would Daddy do such a thing?”
    “He got his reasons, child.” She lifted my
chin and made me look straight up into the dark, sad pools in her
cried-out eyes. “Some things are changing, Miss Amelia, but my love
for you ain’t never gonna.”
    Mammy said things were changing. I was going
to have a governess and a new momma. But I didn’t want any of those
things. I liked things exactly as they were. If Mammy couldn’t be
my mummy, then no one should. And as soon as Daddy arrived back
from England, I was going to tell him so.
     
    I was well enough to attend church that
Sunday, along with Mammy and Hattie. Hamilton drove us by buggy, at
Mammy’s insistence.
    “Don’t want you walking out in the sun,” she
said.
    The blisters on my face popped and oozed and,
according to Dr. Anderson, would heal just fine. “You wear your
bonnet from now on, young lady,” Dr. Anderson ordered. His wide,
wrinkled finger shook in disapproval while he lectured me. The
doctor packed up his bag while explaining what could have happened
to me. “You’re lucky infection didn’t set in.”
    Hattie gasped.
    “You are a beautiful girl, Amelia. Don’t do
anything to change that. Stay out of the sun,” he said with a kind
smile.
    I was grateful for the overcast day that
looked as if it was going to rain at any moment. No sun to put my
healing face in any danger, I thought to myself.
    The buggy stopped before the church, and most
of the congregation entering through the narrow double doors
stopped to look at us.
    John Mason was there with his parents, as
were most of the children from school. Though we were in church,
they didn’t refrain from smirking and snickering at me. As if they
didn’t put me through enough humiliation at school, now they found
more cause to laugh. I was a sight to gasp and point at, and all I
wanted to do was hide my face.
    “Come now,” she said firmly and marched us in
behind the steady flow of people.
    Hamilton stayed with the horse and buggy,
along with