I sat by Josephy’s bed.
He was pained. The yellow fever hit him hard. They called it that here, but I knew this was bulam, black vomit and all.
“Mama.” He coughed. “You need to go. Can’t get you sick.”
“Nonsense, boy.” I mopped his brow, trying to keep his spirits up. His poor lungs kept working hard, too hard.
Like the Fédons, Josephy never asked of an enslaved man anything he would not do himself. They were workers to him. He treated them like humans, and he could not avoid the diseases that befell them too. Many were gathered outside this big house he’d built at Kensington Plantation.
His eyes had changed from beautiful and dark, to bluish brown to red and then full yellow.
Now, they remained closed.
“Josephy, no. You need to get up. We need to talk about the fields.”
“Mama, Charlotte can do it. She’s a good one. Eliza’s husband too. Robertson was mighty helpful last year for harvest. Don’t fret, Mama.”
My eyes leaked badly. I didn’t know how to make it stop. Charlotte thought she might be with child. I’d sent her home to protect her. I’d lived a good life. If I went now, they just needed to lay me out with my best hat.
At sixty, I wasn’t ready to go.
At twenty-six, neither was my son.
“The doctor’s outside. I could get him.”
“No, Ma.”
“What about something to drink?”
He nodded.
I held a glass to his lips. He took one swallow, then pushed the glass away.
My shaking fingers barely set it on the nightstand.
“Mama, I see Papa’s boat coming for me.”
“No. No. Don’t take him, Thomas. Don’t.”
“You gave me the best father, you know. You chose right for me.”
Did he know?
Josephy was a brilliant young man, a prince among them. “The doctor said something about the bad air. I’ll open a window.”
He held my hand. “Just sit with me.”
“Kensington needs you. You love this place.”
His eyes opened, just slits. “I did it, Ma. My dream. I did. This house . . . All the fields. Papa, see. Even Aunt Kitty sees—” He fell back.
“Josephy. Josephy!!!”
The door opened. The doctor I hired from town ran in and waved under my son’s nose. Then he put his ear to Josephy’s chest. “He’s gone, Mrs. Thomas.”
“No. He’s just asleep. He’s going to wake up and get out of this bed. He’s just asleep. Asleep like Thomas, Edward, like Edward.”
“Mrs. Thomas.”
I fell on Josephy, wrinkling his nightshirt, trying to feel a rhythm, any rhythm.
I heard nothing, not even a short small breath.
“Mrs. Thomas, we have to deal with his body. He’s still contagious. You need to get out. You can’t get sick too.”
“Come on, Dolly. The doctor said to leave. You have to listen to someone sometimes.”
“Cells?”
I turned my wet face to him.
He was in all black except his cravat.
“You dressed for the grave, Cells?”
“Charlotte sent for me, Dolly. Is Joseph Thomas Jr. gone?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “Take her out of here, Mr. Cells.”
Cells’s arms grabbed my shoulders. He made me stand and walk out of the house and onto the porch.
With his arms about me, he called to Smithy, my cooper. “Mr. Thomas has died. We must mourn him. Tell everyone.”
Smithy took off his hat and covered his jacket over his chest. “Sorry, Mrs. Thomas. I just started savin’. Massa wanted to see me free.”
“You keep at things. You will be.” My voice was mostly gone. I leaned against the post supporting the deep porch.
“I’m taking you home.” Cells tugged me to his carriage. “We are going to drive real slow.”
“Cells.”
“And you’re not going to be Mrs. Dorothy Kirwan Thomas. You’re Dolly, the girl who could be weak to her old friend, Coseveldt.”
“I don’t know who she is anymore. Maybe she’s asleep, too.”
“She’s there beneath all the heavy armor. She’s there, and I believe in her.”
He held me tight. I breathed him, citrus and rum, but someone needed to do the breathing and the thinking. “He was such a good boy.”
“All your sons are good men, Dolly. You raised them to be fine men, regardless of their fathers.”
I buried myself in Cells. The well, the bottomless well in my chest, broke like a flood, all my tears cut ghauts and ruts into my soul. What was the use of building a legacy if the ones who deserved the fruit never lived long enough for the harvest?