Free Benjamin Franklin's Bastard by Sally Cabot

“My remarkable wife.”

10
Philadelphia, 1731
    HE APPEARED AT EADES Alley so late that all but Anne and Mary were asleep. The girls were trying to catch up on William’s dirty clouts, and the kitchen smelled of scalded urine and wet cloth drying. At the knock the girls looked at each other in some alarm, but Mary was first to drop her clouts and go to the door to call through the crack, “Who is it?”
    “Mr. Franklin.”
    Mary rounded her eyes at Anne and lifted the latch; Franklin stepped into the tiny kitchen and stood silent, stared blankly at Mary until she turned and continued up the stairs. He came up to Anne without greeting and held out a folded paper.
    “Go to this address. ’Tis an upholstery shop. Ask for this man. He’s got work and a room for you. Do well and you can make something of it.”
    Anne wiped her hands on her apron and took the paper: SOLOMON GRISSOM, UPHOLSTERER. FRONT STREET.
    “He’s expecting you.”
    Anne lifted her head. “And William?”
    Franklin took in a breath that visibly expanded, then deflated, his chest. “I’ll be taking William.”
    Anne backed away from Franklin, crimping the paper in her hand, shaking her head.
    “Anne. See sense. Think what I might give him. Proper food and clothes, a good house, a decent education, a father’s guidance and affection.”
    “And what of a mother’s affection?”
    “He’ll have a mother’s affection. I’ve discussed this with my wife and she’s eager to take him. ’Tis best for him. Surely you see that.” As if to make his point he looked around the kitchen, at the first batch of clouts hanging on a string before the fire to dry, at the next batch looped sloppily over the side of the washtub and dripping on the floor, at the sparsely filled cupboard, at the chair with the broken rungs, and, last, at the pulled stockings and split shoes on Anne’s feet. “ ’Tis best for you,” he said softly.
    Anne went to the tub and gathered up the dripping cloth, tipping it back into the dirty water. She took off her apron and wiped up the spilled water with it. She went to the fire and jabbed at the expiring coals till they sparked, then began ripping the dried clouts off the line.
    Franklin came up behind her and took her laundry from her. “I should like to see the boy.”
    How cold a thing panic was! How hot. Anne backed away from the fire, away from Franklin, away from the stairs where William lay, as if she were a hen drawing the fox away from her nest of eggs. But of course Franklin wouldn’t snatch the child and walk out the door. But of course he could. A child was the property of the father just as the wife was the property of the husband; in the end, if Franklin chose to claim his child and give it his name, there was little Anne could do to prevent it. She looked hard at Franklin’s face, trying to find the hidden cruelty that must have lurked in it all this time, but saw only pain—hers—reflected. He understood what he asked, then. Or he understood the half of it. He could understand nothing of what it meant in the light of the sentence the doctor had pronounced on her: She’ll not have another. But Anne had always been glad of that, of being able to make an extra coin here and there without fear of forcing another child into the world of Eades Alley.
    Eades Alley. It was as if Anne’s own thoughts were making Franklin’s case for him. But hadn’t that been Anne’s case too? Wasn’t she now being offered all she’d dreamed of for William? What kind of fool could refuse that? Anne. Anne could refuse it. She would make no argument, for she had none; she would simply walk away from the man, go to her son, open up her clam’s heart, and suck William safe inside it.
    Anne went to the stairs and started up them.
    “Annie.”
    She stopped.
    “I know well enough how bright you are. I know you’ll think over what’s best for him and for you. I’ll come back Friday next.”
    He left.
     
    ANNE FOUND WILLIAM AS