AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Quentin shook his head. “No. Martha explains she’s pregnant, and the diary ends shortly after that.”
Wes’s heart pounded. “Did she die?”
“We don’t know,” Quentin said. “It’s certainly possible. As forward-thinking as the North was back then, they weren’t so forward-thinking as to keep wonderful records regarding ex-slaves. If Martha did die—either due to pregnancy or another illness, it’s unlikely that Matthew lingered on the event for very long. He would have had five children in his house. Or four, if he sent Martha’s daughter off to live elsewhere. That isn’t recorded anywhere that we’ve discovered yet, either.”
Wes wrinkled his forehead. He couldn’t imagine this; he couldn’t fathom what would bring someone to throw a very young child out of the house. He wanted to insist that Matthew had raised Martha’s child as his own. But he also knew how naive that thought truly was. Times were far different in 1867 than in 2024. Racial tension was still high in America to this day. It was unfathomable to think back that far.
Wes cleared his throat. “Is it possible that Matthew was the father of Martha’s second baby?”
Quentin didn’t flinch. “It certainly is the most likely case.”
Wes thought that, too.
“But something like that wouldn’t have played well in the community at that time,” Quentin explained. “If they learned Martha was pregnant by Matthew, it’s possible they turned their backs on the Sheridan family.” He cleared his throat. “Is there any mention of that in family lore? A story about the Sherians needing to work their way back to good social standing on the Vineyard?”
Wes racked his mind for answers. Again, he pictured his grandmother hovering above him, combing his hair and telling him stories. None of them were applicable.
“I don’t think so,” Wes said. “I certainly don’t know any.”
Quentin placed his hands on his thighs and turned to gaze out across the water. Wes wondered if they were both thinking the same thoughts about imagining a poor ex-slave woman who’d found refuge in the Sheridan House—only for everything to go awry just a couple of years later. What had happened? Where had her child wound up? And was it possible to ever peel back the layers of history to learn the truth?
Quentin left a few minutes later. He gave Wes a firm handshake on his way out the door and said, “If you think of anything, give me a call.” He also said they had an entire team of historians up in Boston poring over the diary, looking for more clues about Martha and what might have happened to her. “We won’t leave a stone unturned,” he promised.
Wes sat on the back porch until the temperature plummeted and rain splattered across the windowpanes. Shivering, he went inside to heat more water and put on a big fuzzy sweater, a gift from Susan last Christmas. As the water kettle roared, the front door opened, and he listened as Beatrice performed all the duties after her short walk through the rain, such as removing her coat and shaking it out, coughing out the chill in her lungs, and putting her shoes by the door.
“Wes?” Beatrice called.
Wes felt achy and very old. “I’m just in here,” he said. He poured the hot water into a cup and tried to smile as Beatrice entered.
Beatrice’s face fell when she saw him. “What’s wrong?”
How could Wes fully translate the brevity of his emotions? How could he say that one woman’s diary and lost future had reminded him of his own memories that slipped through his fingers? How could he explain his fear that Matthew Sheridan hadn’t been as tremendously kind and good as someone in 2024 might have been—only because of the nature of time and public opinion?
Wes explained what he knew about the diary, about Martha, about her first baby and what they knew of her second pregnancy. He half expected Beatrice to say something like, I know it’s upsetting, Wes, but this has nothing to do with you. It all happened almost two hundred years ago!
Beatrice wrapped her arms around him and held him as he swayed. A few minutes later, they abandoned his tea on the counter and retreated to the bedroom, where they dressed in pajamas and lay in the warmth of each other’s bodies. The rain had intensified, and Wes felt cocooned. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.
But later that night, he again found himself out by the water, drenched to the bone. He’d sleepwalked to the edge of the shore as though he was hunting for something in his dreams. He put his hand over his mouth to keep himself from screaming with panic and frustration. If the new medication didn’t come through, he would have to make peace with locked doors. He wouldn’t be able to trust himself again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nobody could have anticipated the mess that came with Cynthia’s call with Baxter, the entertainment lawyer. Cynthia had called Amanda to say, “Baxter’s on the case! It should be over soon.” Amanda had floated through the rest of the afternoon like a flower petal on a breeze. As originally planned, she would return to work when Genevieve was three months old. This would be just a hiccup. A brief reminder that she couldn’t let anyone “powerful” make her afraid.
But by that evening, everything changed again. Susan appeared at the front door of Amanda and Sam’s house. Her face was the color of marshmallow. “I need to talk to you,” she said as she entered and tugged her hair into a high ponytail.
Susan sat at the kitchen table as Amanda remained standing so that she could bob around and put Genevieve back to sleep. The scene was comical with a clown and a lawyer in the kitchen.
“We have to go to court,” Susan said.
Amanda’s heart thumped. She had a hunch who was behind this, but she didn’t want to believe it.
Susan’s eyes flickered. “They’re going after the entire agency now. They could take away my license and Bruce’s.”
Amanda’s jaw dropped. “No!”
“They said something about us ‘escalating the issue and dragging their name,’” Susan said.
Amanda swallowed, remembering Cynthia’s call. “My friend tried to fix this,” she said. “She knows people who know people…”
