Page 50 of The Heart’s Charge

Jonah forced his head around, dragging his gaze back where it belonged. “So, ah . . . where’d you get your training? To be a teacher?”

“Howard University.”

Jonah’s head swiveled sideways. He’d known she was smart, but Howard? She put his education to shame. “Impressive.”

“Thank you.” Pride rang in her voice and straightened her shoulders, but it wasn’t the kind of pride that looked down on others from a lofty perch. It was the type that remembered the arduous climb it took to reach the pinnacle and felt a sense of responsibility to help others make their own ascents.

“With your accent, I supposed you had grown up in the South somewhere.”

“I did. In Georgia.”

“Then how did you—” He cut himself off, afraid he might offend her.

She raised her brows, but her expression didn’t frost over. “I was blessed with a mother who understood the value of education. Mama might have started off an illiterate slave, but she craved knowledge like a starving man craves bread. Her good looks earned her a place serving in the house of a respected apothecary, but it was her intelligence that seized upon the opportunity to learn. When the mistress gave her a shopping list to take to market, she’d ask for items one at a time so she could learn to recognize which words matched which item. Flour. Sugar. Eggs. Carrots. Peaches. She picked apart the letters to learn their sounds, then started trying to guess items she didn’t recognize by sounding out their similar letters.”

Jonah suddenly felt guilty for complaining as a boy about being stuck in the schoolroom reading when he’d rather have been fishing or shooting targets. Hearing how Eliza’s mother had taught herself to read through painstaking determination, effort, and creativity made him realize just how precious was the gift of literacy.

“It took months, but she started recognizing simple words in newspapers and shop signs. But she hungered for more. Not just words, but the knowledge they unlocked. Knowledge that didn’t care about her age, her gender, or the color of her skin.” Passion rang in Eliza’s voice. Passion and pride in what her mother had accomplished. “She’d sneak books out of the master’s library one at a time, careful to fill the shelf space so no one would realize a volume was missing. She dared not let anyone discover her secret. Slaves who could read were considered threats to the household. Instigators of unrest.”

Jonah’s jaw tightened. He knew it was true, but hearing her admit it aloud brought a righteous anger to the surface inside him. Just one more way his people were leashed by their oppressors.

“Although she kept her growing literacy a secret,” Eliza continued, “the master noticed her intelligence and capability. He started trusting her with more and more responsibility. Even trained her to assist him in the preparation of his medicinal powders and elixirs to cut down on his workload when his wife grew ill, allowing him to spend more time nursing her at home.”

Was this master Eliza’s father? Jonah longed to hear more but didn’t want to pry. He glanced her way to show his interest, then held his tongue, letting her dictate the conversation’s direction.

“Papa used to brag that she could work a mortar and pestle with more skill than half the men in his profession.”

Papa. Something boiled inside Jonah at the sound of that name on her tongue. A name associated with the man who’d owned her mother. A name she’d spoken with a hint of affection. How could she call him Papa when he’d abused his position so thoroughly? He’d taken advantage of a woman in his household. Fathered a child on a woman not his wife.

Clenching his jaw, Jonah turned back to the road. Eliza couldn’t change who her father was. How she came to be. He should be glad that she could speak of her father with affection. Hopefully that meant he had treated her with some level of kindness. Better than a cruel man who inspired hatred.

Yet Jonah couldn’t let it go. His mother had been a slave too. A laundress. Her work would have brought her to the big house on a regular basis. What if her master had taken a liking to her and decided he wanted more than just her work? What choice would she have had? Disobedience earned the lash. Even if she’d had the courage to refuse his advances, the master could’ve taken her by force. No one would’ve stopped him from doing what he wanted to his property.

Jonah’s thoughts churned as Eliza continued narrating the story of a young woman’s love of books, science, and education. He listened with only half an ear until that name jumped out of her mouth again and grabbed him around the throat.

“After the mistress died, Papa relied on my mama more and more.”

His grip tightened reflexively on the reins. “Why do you call him that?”

Eliza’s sweetly reminiscent smile flattened into a frown of confusion. “What?”

“Your father. How can you call him . . .” His throat constricted.

“Papa?” Eliza’s eyebrows arched, silently questioning his right to make such an inquiry.

He had no right, and they both knew it. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to know the answer.

“Your mother was his property. Like a horse in his stable or a painting on his wall. No rights. No freedom. She had to hide her ability to read, for pity’s sake, as if she were a criminal. How can you condone that?”

Her eyes flashed fire. “You think I condone his owning slaves?”

Offense radiated through her with such ferocity that he worried for a moment she might jump off the moving wagon to escape him.

“I grew up in the deep South,” she said, her words sharp, angry. “I heard the tales of field hands whipped to death for even speaking about a freedom run before the war. I saw the scars, the broken spirits, the . . . lynchings.” Her voice cracked and she turned her face away for a moment. “Slavery is a vile, dehumanizing practice,” she said once she had her emotions under control. “A practice my father once participated in. That knowledge shreds my heart with shame.” She looked at him, and Jonah felt the dissonance of her position tugging on his soul, cooling his temper. “But if each man and woman were defined solely by their greatest sin, what hope would there be for any of us?”

Dousing the last flames of his indignation, Jonah considered her words. Thought of Wounded Knee. The acidic shame that ate at him whenever he recalled the horrors of that massacre. What if no one ever saw him as anything more than a soldier who’d participated in that slaughter? Equating him with those who killed women and children even though he did everything he could to preserve innocent lives?

He needed grace as much as the next man, even if the next man was a slave owner with a mixed-race daughter.