She waved her gloved hand above the bag. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
“His treatment was much more than firm, Mother. It was cruel.”
“You didn’t know Benjamin in his later years. His rebellion was stirring up all the slaves. Your father had to make an example of him to stop the others from running away.”
He leaned toward her. “Perhaps it will stop others from running now, but it will also make them angry. You should be worried about what they might do.”
She glanced over at the closed door. “After last night, your father doesn’t want you to return to Harvard.”
“I suspected he might not.”
“He says you’re learning all the wrong things.”
“I’m learning to think for myself.”
Fear flashed across her face, replaced swiftly by the resolve in her gaze as she opened the carpetbag, displaying the banknotes inside. “This is enough to pay for your final semester.”
He looked down at the money. “Does he know you’re giving me this?”
She clasped it shut again. “You will leave with Eliza’s driver tomorrow before breakfast. I will explain after you’re gone.”
For a moment, he felt like Isaac, being shipped off in the carriage in the early morning hours, except he believed his mother was doing this for his well-being. And perhaps to protect him from her husband’s wrath.
“No matter what your father says, he is proud that you’re going to be a Harvard graduate.” She stepped back toward the door. “Use your education for good, Alden.”
“I will.” He stood and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
A half hour later, he watched the horses pull his family’s carriage away from the house. Then he cleared out the dresser in his room swiftly, unceremoniously dumping his possessions into his steamer trunk. The money for school went into his leather valise.
He wouldn’t wait until his family returned to celebrate the holiday with dinner and gifts. He’d leave now, and perhaps he could take Mammy with him instead of Benjamin.
While the other house slaves prepared for the festivities, Mammy sat by the kitchen hearth in the basement, staring down at a plate of grits and boiled chitterlings. He had always thought Mammy was beautiful, like the African princesses in the adventure stories she used to tell him and Benjamin, but her loss, and the years of her service to the Payne family, had pared away most of her outer beauty. She probably hadn’t lived more than thirty-five years, but she looked to be at least fifty.
He filled two cups with black coffee and handed one to her as he sat beside her on the hearth. Even though her body was frail, he knew she remained strong inside—and beautiful.
“Benjamin was a good boy,” she said, stirring the grits with her fork. “Could have gone off to the university with you.”
“Yes, he could have.”
“Made something big of himself.”
He twisted the cup in his hands. “What my father did was wrong.”
“John Payne never thinks about anyone except himself.”
A loyal son would have corrected her, might even have sent her out to the pillory for her impertinence, but unlike his father, he wanted to protect instead of harm her.
He set his cup on the wooden counter. “I want you to come north with me.”
She shook her head. “Your father won’t emancipate any of his slaves.”
“It won’t matter up in Canada.”
“Even a half-wit slave hunter would suspect something if I crossed over that Mason-Dixon Line with you. Then he’d bring me back, and Master Payne would kill me, like he did Benjamin.” She pressed her spoon into the grits and grease from the chitterlings puddled over it. “I want him to sell me, Alden. I don’t care where I go as long as I don’t have to be here.”
He threw his remaining coffee into the fire. “It’s not fair, Mammy.”
“Please call me Naomi,” she said. “It’s the name my mother gave me.”
