Free Come August, Come Freedom by Gigi Amateau Page A

Wilkinson about buying away Nanny.
    In his years of working and saving, Gabriel had thought only of how to get what he wanted. The money in his pocket made him feel powerful. Powerful enough to believe.
    We’ll live in the city. I’ll work with Jacob awhile, till I save my own freedom money. Then I’ll make my own shop, and Nanny can have a room for her sewing.
    But a vicious fever had torn through the city and the countryside. From Brookfield, the cruel monster had taken away Old Major and other elders from the quarter and even those littlest ones, born weak from the start. Ma and Kissey were lying out in their huts, too low to work, too ill to worry about Prosser’s man. Dog, Old Major’s friend for life, was lying out, too, by the graves. She sat atop the mound of earth covering the place where she’d watched them set Old Major in the ground. No one could get near Dog now, not even Gabriel. Her righteous, ferocious self had come around fully, back to wild.
    On Saturday, when Gabriel went up to see Mr. Prosser, Venus showed him to the counting room, not Kissey.
    When Gabriel asked about Dog, Venus just shook her head and clicked her tongue. “She went along her whole life just playactin’ nice, I guess. She figure without Old Major she got no chance. Got nothin’. Gone back to her true colors, I reckon. Snarlin’ and showin’ those nasty teeth. Hurt somebody now, for sure.”
    When Mr. Prosser closed the door, Venus took Kissey’s old place. The planter invited Gabriel to sit, but Gabriel remained standing. A fine log fire roared high in the fireplace. Mr. Prosser adjusted his chair and draped a wool throw across his shoulders.
    “What’s your business with me today, Gabriel? I haven’t much time.”
    Gabriel could see Venus waiting there on the other side of the closed door. Her dress hem did not calm him in the same way Kissey’s would have, but he smiled at her trying to do him right. Seeing her there helped him gather his nerve.
    “Sir, I’m here asking your permission to marry Colonel Wilkinson’s Nanny,” he said.
    Mr. Prosser leaned back in his chair and wrinkled his brow. Tears of sweat collected along the planter’s upper lip. The master looked ample worried, but Gabriel had ample time to wait. He let Mr. Prosser search his face. He let the master take in each scar and hoped he’d recall the story of every mark. Gabriel left his lips just apart to show the gaps in his mouth, so Prosser could see and remember.
    Gabriel rested his gaze on the mantel and on the oil painting of a young Thomas Henry standing beside a dog who was not Dog. He wondered if the portrait would hang there for years or decades or even centuries to come. He wondered if future Prossers and kin might say, “That’s little Thomas Henry Prosser; he’s the one who squandered the family fortune.”
    He pondered what surname he might choose for his own family when he and Nan were free to adorn their own mantel and their own names in any way they pleased.
    “Your presence here this morning is unsettling to me, Gabriel,” the old man said at last. “I dreamed a terrible dream last night. All morning, I’ve been given over to a great anxiety. Sit.”
    Gabriel took the wing chair facing Mr. Prosser and the doorway. He heard Venus rustling in the foyer — her way of warning him to keep still and ready.
    “I take seriously my responsibility to provide for the care and protection of all my family here at Brookfield. Have I not been generous with you ever since you can recall?” Mr. Prosser asked him. “Are you not happy, Gabriel?”
    He knew what Mr. Prosser meant by “family.” Mr. Prosser often called Gabriel’s people family, though he had never known Mr. Prosser to tie his wife or his son naked to a tree limb, then leave them lying out in winter to wait for a whipping.
    In the counting room, Gabriel’s heart and mind worked to one accord. He had come seeking Mr. Prosser’s mercy, not his wrath, so he answered, “I am