Chapter Thirteen

Nothing

Beverly had always known that Miss Martha disliked him. When she moved back to Monticello her dislike seemed to harden. Her eyes glittered whenever she saw Beverly. She told Uncle John she didn’t want Beverly working in the great house. She wanted Beverly to stay in the shop.

“It’s because you look like him,” Mama said. It was a month after Miss Martha had moved back in. “She worries one of these visitors will guess the truth. She thinks her father’s reputation will be ruined.”

“He’s my father too,” Beverly said.

Mama sighed. “You can’t keep saying that,” she said. “Especially now.”

“Why especially now?” Beverly felt furious. “Are you worried about his reputation? About what strangers will think?”

“I’m worried about your reputation,” Mama said. “Your future. The last thing on this earth I want is for the world to know that you are his son. That you, Harriet, Maddy, and Eston belong to him as well as to me.”

Beverly scowled. So now Mama was ashamed? He kicked the hearth stool over.

Mama grabbed his arm. “Stop that. Listen. It’s already been in newspapers once, years ago, about me and your father, but he lived it down and it’s mostly been forgotten. Somebody decides to publish the truth about you and your siblings, and guess what? You’d be famous. Thomas Jefferson’s half-white son.” Mama’s eyes blazed. “A famous slave, Beverly. You’d never get away from it. You’d never really be free.”

“If he freed me, I’d be free,” Beverly said. “He hands me free papers, no newspaper could change it.”

“You’d be a freed former slave,” Mama said. “A black person. You’d never be able to live as a white person. Your children would grow up black, not white. They’d be in danger their whole lives. Free black people can disappear in this country. They get kidnapped, Beverly, they end up down South, enslaved, working in the cotton fields and dying in the heat. That will not happen to my children, nor my grandchildren, nor their children after that.”

Beverly waved his hands. “But I don’t want to be a white person,” he said. “I don’t like white people! Mama. You’re black. I want to be like you.”

Mama said, “You are like me. We’re both mixes, black and white. I’m not ashamed of either side, and I hope I’m raising you not to be either. But if you pass for white you’ll be safer, and if you’re known to be my son by Thomas Jefferson you will never be allowed to pass.”

Beverly said, “I don’t want to pass. I want my family.” Mama didn’t say anything. Beverly said, “It’s not just Miss Martha. He’s acting different too, now that she’s here. He used to act like he cared about me.”

Mama put her arms around him. She held him tight even when he tried to pull away. “He still cares about you. I promise. He loves you, and me, and Harriet, and Maddy, and Eston. He can’t show it, but he does.

“Listen,” she said. “People are never all good or all bad. I wish your father would find a way to be closer to you, but he won’t, especially not if things keep going the way they are now. He wants you to have a good life, and he’ll help you on your way, but he will never treat you like his son. Don’t expect it.”

She seemed to be waiting for Beverly to reply. “Yes, Mama,” he finally said.

“It really is better this way,” Mama said. “It doesn’t seem like it now, but it is.”

Beverly didn’t believe it. “At least none of those grandchildren play the violin,” he said. If Master Jefferson ever gave Mister Jeff lessons on the Italian violin, Beverly thought, he would chuck his kit violin into the river.

 

His music was the one thing Master Jefferson sometimes did notice. Beverly still took weekly lessons from Jesse Scott. As the year passed Master Jefferson dropped by Jesse’s house every month or two, always while Beverly was there. Master Jefferson always pretended to be surprised to see Beverly, but he always stayed until the lesson was done. Once he even put his hand on Beverly’s shoulder.

Meanwhile he spent hours gardening with Miss Anne. He commissioned a portrait of Mister Jeff. He taught Miss Virginia to ride. He timed the younger children every night when they ran races on the lawn. He hugged them and kissed them and carried them in his arms.

Beverly quit looking to find Master Jefferson alone. He quit expecting what he couldn’t have. He tried to quit hoping, even though that was difficult.

It wasn’t any easier for Harriet. One day she came back from the great house with an especially bitter look in her eyes. She scowled at Beverly. “At least you have that violin.”

Beverly felt a twist to his stomach. “What happened?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Harriet said. “Nothing, nothing. Same as always. There is nothing in that house for me.”