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This life is the most beautiful one I’ve ever known. The Sheridan children have taken Mary as one of their own. The girls dress her in their old gowns; the boys tease her and teach her games. I gather them all together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner—but mostly, they amuse themselves and watch out for each other. Mornings, I perform my chores and tidy the house, but afternoons are often for myself, for reading or writing or thinking. I’ve thought so often lately of Virgil and Jane, imagining where they ended up and what they think about the war ending. Sometimes I imagine them making a plan to come get me, but other times, I know I’m kidding myself. Sometimes I wonder if they really came, would I even want to go? I’ve grown so fond of the Vineyard Sound; of the sound of the waves; of the sparkling white beaches; of the fish that Matthew hauls in from a long day at sea for me to de-bone and fry up. We glow from eating fish and swimming in the sea. We glow from the hope that comes with the dawn after a horrible war.
October 16, 1865
I couldn’t believe it when I walked out the door this morning. A harsh wind shot out from the sea and pummeled me. I nearly turned around to run back inside. But that’s when I heard the sound of my name. A carriage grew closer. At the front of it were two colored people, a man and a woman. My heart surged. I pulled up my skirts and raced across the yard. I felt like a little girl again. By the time I reached them, my sister had leaped down and opened her arms for me. I fell into her and sobbed. She cried just as hard.
She smells different, like fine soap and lavender rather than Georgian fields and sorrow and rage. She looks beautiful and well-fed. She says my name over and over, as though she can’t get enough.
The man with her is her husband, Jefferson. She met him in Canada, and they want to stay.
She tells me that every letter she sent here must never have made it. That she wrote and wrote herself to death only to never hear from me.
“I thought you were dead,” she won’t stop saying. “But I told Jefferson we had to come here and see for ourselves. And you’re not dead! And Mary is the most gorgeous sight I’ve ever seen!”
Matthew agreed to let them stay for a few nights, which means we have a full house. I know that once night comes, I’ll have to take Jane outside and ask her what happened to Virgil. I have a feeling I won’t like the answer.
Later:
Jane and I just walked along the water beneath a pregnant orange moon. She told me the entire story of what happened after she and Virgil left me behind. It’s brief.
After Martha’s Vineyard, Jane and Virgil went north to another house outside of Boston and then another even farther north of that. That’s as far as they got. They woke up in the middle of the night to gunshots. There was an uproar upstairs. Virgil was sure they would be found out. He tried to convince Jane to pack up and come with him immediately, but Jane was too frightened. “It sounded like they had the house surrounded,” Jane told me. Jane stayed hidden in the tiny closet that served as the Underground Railroad hiding place while Virgil snuck out.
But Jane doesn’t think he made it far. There was another gunshot, followed by someone calling, “I got him! I got him!”
My heart sank as she told me this story. I remember my strong and quiet Virgil; remember that he’s the father of my Mary; remember that when we first plotted to escape, it was Virgil who pushed hardest for us to go. Without him, Jane and I wouldn’t be here on Martha’s Vineyard.
I asked Jane what happened after that. How did she go on? She got lucky, she said. She met another group on the Railroad the next night, and they adopted her. They made it all the way to Canada, where she met Jefferson and got married. They have a house of their own, apparently. They’re going to have a baby. They’re going to have a normal life.
Jane keeps apologizing for leaving me behind. For heading north without me. But I keep pointing out the sky and the house and the five children in my care. I keep telling her about Matthew’s goodness. I wouldn’t have had any of it if she and Virgil hadn’t packed up and left that night.
October 17, 1865
Jane pulled me aside this afternoon and warned me not to fall in love with Matthew. “It’s better if you call him Mr. Sheridan,” she said. “He’s your boss.” I told her that he pays me a wage and that I can take off time whenever I want. I told her that I’m not in love with him. I didn’t tell her that I don’t exactly know what “love” is anymore. That I feel damaged on the inside after losing Virgil and Wendy.
Jane told me that she heard talk about me in the village. That people speculate about my relationship with Matthew.
“Don’t forget that he’s a white man in a white man’s world,” she warned. “Neither of you can escape that. The white man’s world goes on forever, even into Canada.”
I know she’s right.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Amanda, Susan, and Bruce Holland entered the Nantucket Courthouse at eleven sharp and sat on the right-hand side of the ornate hall. The pews and the judge’s desk were made of shining mahogany. It felt slightly more like a church than a place of law and order. Furtively, she checked her phone for news about Genevieve from Sam—if her fever came back or the doctor said anything terrifying, Amanda was prepared to jump up and flee the courthouse. She was prepared to swim back to Martha’s Vineyard if she had to.
But all Sam had written was: Everything is great here! Genevieve is sleeping like a champ, and the nurses are celebrating her vital signs. Genevieve and I are pulling for you! We love you.
Amanda blinked back tears and shoved her phone into her purse. The double-wide doors behind them opened to reveal Mr. and Mrs. Arnout along with their lawyer, Mary-Beth Walker, who was widely known among the legal community to work only with clients who could pay her four times the going rate. Her face had changed remarkably over the years as her pay rate had increased, so much so that her jawline was completely restructured, and her eyebrows made her look perpetually surprised. Still, she was gorgeous—and mean. She played dirty.
Amanda had hardly slept all week. She raised her chin and told herself a story about how alert she was. About how assertive she was. She wasn’t going to take this abuse a moment longer. As though God was playing a joke on her, she immediately had to suppress a yawn.
As was customary, Mary-Beth Walker started the festivities with an opening statement. She spoke of the “gross misjustice” that had occurred due to the mishandling of Hilton Arnout’s case. She spoke of what a “sterling member of his community” Hilton had been prior to his untimely arrest. And she brought up many details about Amanda’s state of mind during the trial—namely her pregnancy—that, in her opinion, had contributed to Amanda’s “horrific representation of Hilton Arnout and, beyond that, defamation of the entire Arnout family.” According to Amanda’s mother, the Arnouts sought damages of around three million dollars—which was laughable. It was nothing to the Arnouts and everything to Amanda. She was at the beginning of her life and counted every penny.
“It is our opinion that Ms. Harris should not work again,” Mary-Beth Walker said. “Because Susan Sheridan and Bruce Holland assisted Ms. Harris in representing Hilton Arnout, it’s our opinion that the court take a look at the law office to ensure they uphold Massachusetts law. Our goal is to ensure that Amanda Harris does not work another day as a lawyer for the State of Massachusetts—and to ensure that all damages have been paid in order to protect the Arnout name.”
Amanda focused on her breath through the opening statements. Her hands were in fists. This trial was a reminder of the reason she occasionally—very occasionally—hated American law. There were so many loopholes. It was a strange game you could manipulate for your own gain.
It was Susan’s turn to give an opening statement. Amanda had watched her mother glide across the courtroom hundreds of times, delivering a narrative that suited the criminal she wanted to represent—one that demanded empathy for a system that so often wronged people of lesser incomes or addicts. But Hilton Arnout hadn’t been an addict. He’d been given every opportunity to succeed—and he’d made a mockery of everyone who’d given him a leg-up. Now he was even making a mockery of Amanda from behind bars. It was incredible what money made you capable of. It made you immortal, practically.
Amanda’s mouth tasted like cotton balls. She blinked away black spots that hovered in her vision. Susan cleared her throat and tapped the tips of her fingers together in preparation for her speech. But Amanda was suddenly struck with the realization that she didn’t want her mother to fight this battle for her. Amanda was a mother now—a powerful creature who’d already been through the trauma of childbirth and the ache of watching her baby in the emergency room. The Arnouts were nothing but gum on her shoe. They needed to be removed.
