Forgot.
My sweet sister wasn’t ever to answer. I touched her face again. The warmth hadn’t yet left her.
So many regrets raged.
If I’d found her sooner.
If I hadn’t gone to England without her.
If Gladstone had been a decent man.
Her death was his sin. He had to pay.
Quamina took Noah from me. “Hurry, Lady Gantry. Gladstones’ managers still might catch you. They know there’s a child. That’s more property. Get to the big boat and don’t turn back.”
The smugglers. They’d get us past the blockade back to Jamaica and beyond.
I put my short leather boots on Demeraran soil. If there was more time, I’d pinch some and put it in my pocket.
No coming back to this place, ever.
All my people, the ones that mattered, were all lost to me and this babe. Then I thought about all the faces who were still enslaved that I had to leave behind. I swallowed bitterness.
“Get in the boat. Enna’s waiting. She will give this little one her strength. Maybe you too. Leaving is hope.”
A young woman with a deeply tanned face sat near the boat. Her hair was wrapped in black mud cloth. It was as good as black British bombazine.
“Follow the currents. Get to the big boat.”
“We’ll stop in Jamaica. From there, it’s forty days and forty nights to Portsmouth.”
Noah started crying. I rocked him faster. He hungered but I stalled. “My sister . . .”
Quamina tugged me forward. “Go. I’ll bury Helena in the church field. Reverend Wray will understand.”
The Anglican missionary? Didn’t want to think of all these faiths in Demerara, not when mine faltered.
“Go with God,” Quamina said.
No. I went with fire in my belly and heart.
I set the crying Noah on a blanket in the boat.
Enna said something in Dutch, then made motions with her hand, pointing to the sea.
“Yes. Together.”
We pushed the boat until it floated.
Feet wetting the hems of our dresses, we climbed in, then she fed my hungry nephew.
I paddled and looked back at the purple blooms. Should’ve gotten a petal or two to press and keep forever. The bad smell had to go away eventually. Everything bad had to.
This boy would be free in Portsmouth. I wouldn’t be, not when I wanted Gladstone dead.
He killed my sister.
He needed to die.
