I stared at Mamaí and Frances, the backs of their capes, red and brown, flapping as they headed out of my store. They were holding hands. Tall brave Frances. Stoic Mamaí. I wish my daughter had read us better news.
My London solicitor had gotten Mr. Webster to agree to terms, but all the paperwork wasn’t done. It would be many more months before my mother’s first daughter, Ella, would be freed.
Mamaí’s stoic face looked broken, but only for a moment. She veiled her pain and went out into the street.
I hurt for Mamaí. Ella was my Catharina. One daughter sold off by my mother’s pa, the other one given away by a weak mother.
Though I had Charlotte send Cells a message for Catharina on her birthday, that didn’t make up for not knowing her. I only missed one note. The year Edward died.
Three years gone.
Catharina never knew him, her blood brother, never saw his smile or his love of checklists and making deliveries. I found every one of his lists in the desk in his room. His checkmarks were crisp.
I closed the shop door and rearranged a shelf of silverware.
Charlotte would come today. Hopefully, she’d read another tale about Catharina at a ball. I knew what a British one was like.
My daughter was safer in Cells’s world. My colored one was under attack.
The council began stealing from the free coloreds with taxes and fines and license fees. I understood better why Cells was desperate to cling to his place in society.
My eyes drifted again to Blaize Street. By now, Mamaí and Frances should only be a few blocks from home.
I’d wait for Charlotte and balance my ledger, but the sense that something was going to happen, that a jumbie was around the bend, never left.
Checking the pocket watch Thomas gave me showed another hour had passed. His gift was a subtle hint for me to mind the time and come home.
My daughter and son-in-law should be here by now, and I could see her pregnant belly. Finally, my girl would have a baby.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The beating on my door made my heart explode.
“Doll! Doll, let me in.”
“Thomas?”
My throat closed up as I ran and let him in.
He swept me up into his arms. “It’s bad, Doll.”
I felt him shaking. I shook even more.
The scent of him—cigars in his coat, ale on his lips, filled me, soaked into my skin. Part of me did not want to move. I wanted his arms, all his power.
Hadn’t been in them much. I wept at how much I’d missed him. We lived as strangers in our house.
He broke free and paced. “I’m sorry, Doll.”
“Tell me what has happened.”
Thomas took my wet leaking face into his hands. “Charlotte. Her husband and his brother have started a war.”
“A war?”
“A full rebellion, fighting is everywhere. They coordinated attacks all over Grenada. All the colored planters, all the slaves, even some of the Catholics have come together. It’s all-out war, Doll. One led by the Fédons.”
“The governor and the governing council caused this, Thomas. They’ve been hurting the coloreds and the Catholics. You can’t keep stepping on our necks. Something was bound to snap.”
He towed me back into his arms. “We need to pray the Fédons are smart enough to win.”
My Charlotte was in trouble.
Hot-blooded men had started a war that could get my daughter killed.
Fighting burned all Grenada. Gunfire raged. Even now cannons sounded close. I couldn’t sleep and paced in Edward’s room. How could I close my eyes with no word about Charlotte, her safety, and the baby?
Tarn Fédons. I hated the restrictions, the taxes, but a rebellion couldn’t be the answer.
I didn’t know what to say to the children this week. So I said nothing and loved on them more. On the sofa, with the older ones on the floor, the younger ones huddled around me and we listened to ten-year-old Frances and seven-year-old Eliza read. Five-year-old Josephy and Ann, and three-year-old Harry clapped with delight before I sent them to bed.
Mamaí and Grama Sally stayed downstairs working on a blanket together. The old woman was silent and giving me and Thomas the oddest looks, saying in Twi how did I find the one good blanca man.
He was good, but we weren’t united.
The house was quiet now. Soon the sun would rise.
Thomas came into Edward’s room holding a candle. “I heard noises.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“I thought Harry was out of bed again. He’s a roamer.”
He turned to leave, but I didn’t want to be alone. “Don’t go.”
Setting his candle on the desk, he fingered our son’s papers. “His checklists. Goodness, I miss him. He was an excellent sailor.”
Thomas’s sigh sounded tired. He folded his arms across his nightshirt, a long flowing cotton thing that went past his ankles. He could be a priest wearing a white alb, just needing the rope cincture about his waist. “If you’re not well, Doll, I could send word to Hay to come visit.”
Didn’t want no doctor. Just Thomas, for things to be right for us again.
“You’re a good man, the best pa. Frances’s voice sounds strong making out words. Thank you, Thomas, for getting her books.”
“She’s my family.”
“Frances claimed you as her pa. Almost from the beginning.”
His gaze burned with truth, his endless love. “I never cared who their fathers are. I just loved them.”
My throat thickened, and I needed to confess. “I never told you that Edward had a sister.”
“You don’t talk about a great many things unless it’s eating you alive.”
“This is. Catharina’s her name. When I was low after birthing her, her pa convinced me he’d do a better job of raising her. He took her away to London and I haven’t seen her since.”
He crossed to me but kept his hands to his side. “Keep speaking. I’m listening.”
“I was afraid you’d do the same with Eliza or any of our children. I can’t think right, not when I’m low.” I sniffed and pushed back tears. “I never meant to say hateful things to you. It’s just . . . I’m terrified of my weaknesses being used against me.”
“Well, it doesn’t help that you’re married to a fool.”
“No, that doesn’t help. But it’s the best thing for me.”
He came the final two feet and rubbed my tired shoulder. His love came through that soft touch. It wrapped me up and added steel to my spine.
“How could the Fédons do this, Thomas? The British will kill them. Give a planter a reason to kill a colored, and they will.”
“Rumor has it the Fédons have been plotting this for years, since Rose was jailed. Dr. Hay signed her Certificate of Freedom that kept her from being sold.”
“I guess Hay is not bad.”
Thomas tugged me by the sash of my pink robe. “You should go to sleep.”
The look in his gaze didn’t say sleep. It said restless, and rabbits, and another baby by dawn. His love for me was coming back. He wasn’t guarding it. He trusted me not to be careless with it.
I wouldn’t. Not again. “We missed you for story time. It took you a long time to come home.”
“Testing routes to leave,” he said, his voice low and solid. “We need to be prepared.”
“Leave?”
He sat on the desktop. “Doll, you’ve been lucky and have made many friends in Grenada, but the government likes to target free colored women. They want to humiliate them for the wealth women like you’ve earned. They’re sending messages to men like me, too, the ones who don’t care a whit about race. They want us to know we’ve no power, either. If the Fédons don’t win, Charlotte will be killed. All our children are targets because of our connections to the leaders of the rebellion.”
There was no way to breathe after harsh words like that, but I made myself suck in air.
“They’ll kill Charlotte? She’s to have a baby. No, Thomas.”
“We need to be prepared to leave it all behind and go.”
I tugged on my lacy sleeves. They needed to be fairy wings to fly me above Mount Qua Qua and swing low to Belvedere Estates to scoop up my girl.
“Doll, our family’s not safe. And we’re not, not with Charlotte with the rebels.”
“I hate what has happened to us here. But starting over, Thomas, is frightening.”
He reached for me and pulled me near. “We can start over. You can conquer anything, Doll. Anywhere we go, you will be blessed.”
“Maybe you are a priest. My hymns are rubbing off on you.”
“Think on it. Pack something for the children if we have to escape on the Mary.”
I didn’t want to start over. I needed to wring those fool Fédons’ necks. “Rebellions come and go. I’ve lived through two or three already. Maybe the governor will wise up and pull back these restrictions for peace.”
“There’s no going back, not when both sides have guns.”
My mother talked to me about guns and numbers long ago in our hut in Montserrat. Never thought I’d fear the consequences of those with my skin having more weapons.
“Doll, the Fédons and all the freed slaves make a sizable force. They’re winning right now, but more British forces will come. You remember your friend’s ship, the Pegasus? It might return to establish order.”
It was the Andromeda, none of what the news clipping said. But that was an old fight, not what I wanted tonight. I took his hand and held it close to my chest. “I miss us.”
Thomas offered me a small smile, one that made his cheeks seem fuller, not lean from lack of sleep.
The pounding of hooves sounded below.
He moved to the window. In a blink, I was at his side hoping that soldiers weren’t at our door.
Two men on horseback, both in deep blue frock coats trimmed in white ribbon traveled up Blaize Street. The rising sun struck the gold braiding shining from their shoulders. They sped past.
“That’s Nogues and Philip,” Thomas said. “They must be coming with a message. They’re heading toward the government buildings on Simmons.”
Charles Nogues and Joachim Philip were bold men of color, known to be hotheads and combative like Julien Fédon.
“They must have a message from the rebels. I know it’s not surrender. Lord help us, Doll.”
I held on to Thomas, old soul Thomas, rock-solid Thomas.
He returned my embrace with one of his own, strong and tight. I needed him. “Family is the most important thing.”
Good. He’d understand if I had to leave us to save Charlotte.