Free Property (Vintage Contemporaries) by Valerie Martin

his tears fast enough. The poor creature becomes uglier every day, and its hair has come in thick, curly, and red. Sarah took it up and rested it against her shoulder, patting its back absently. “What could happen to us?” I said.
    “I’m not sure whether you will be safer there or here,” he said. “That is the intolerable state we’ve come to.” He looked out at the waiting carriage. For a moment I almost pitied him. He is so bound by the lies he tells himself; he can only play at feelings he thinks he should have. He cast a furtive, wistful look over my head at Sarah, and my pity dissolved in a familiar wave of bitterness. “We must be off,” I said, signaling to the boy to come in for the trunk. Sarah went ahead, carrying the baby and the small travel case. My husband followed me. As I climbed into the carriage, he put his hand under my elbow to assist me. “Take care, Manon,” he said. I fixed my blandest smile upon my lips as I settled into the seat, arranging my skirts amid the bustle caused by the trunk being lashed into place, Rose handing up a package of biscuits and ham, the driver bounding to his bench and speaking to his horses, the creaking of leather, the crack of the whip, the jolt and groan of iron on wood as the wheels began to turn and we pulled away. I raised my hand to my husband, who stood on the step waving awkwardly. Walter burst from the bushes and ran toward him, his arms thrashing the air, his red hair like a fire burning up his head. He threw himself at his father’s legs, screaming, either from joy or pain, there was no telling, and my husband was forced to lean over the child to keep his balance.
    “Perfect,” I said to Sarah, who was watching also, squinting against the sun. “A perfect picture to remind me of the charms of home.”

    MORE CARRIAGES WERE leaving the city than going to it, though we were overtaken by two doctors on horseback. Both assured me that the danger was not so great as the populace feared. “They exaggerate everything in New Orleans,” Dr. Petrie of Donaldsonville assured me. “It’s part of the pleasure of living there.” But at dusk, when we reached town, I knew at once that it was Dr. Petrie who had exaggerated. How altered it was, how dark and shuttered the houses, how still the fetid air of the streets. There were torches lit at intervals along the way and a sulfurous smoke had spread like a dirty yellow blanket settling over the buildings. To my horror we passed a wagon laden with dead bodies. They were wrapped in linen sheets and a heavy canvas had been thrown over them, but their feet, bruised blue and swollen, stuck out at the back and sides, as if still seeking one last step upon this world. The driver, an aged, skeletal negro who did not so much as raise his eyes as we passed, could have modeled for death himself. Surely he was not much farther from the grave than his cargo. What if Mother was in that lot? I thought. I closed my eyes and made a vow that if she was not, and if she were to die, I would take her to the cemetery in my own carriage rather than see her carted off in so promiscuous a manner.
    Sarah’s baby was mewing, then, as her mother tried to comfort her, she gave over to a loud, nerve-racking wail that made me want to pitch her into the street. “Can’t you make her stop?” I said, after a few minutes of this.
    “She hungry,” Sarah said, shifting the child to her shoulder. Sarah was wide-eyed, her upper lip damp with perspiration, and she was holding herself in an unnaturally stiff position, her chin pressed in to her neck, her nostrils pinched as if she was having trouble breathing. She’s scared to death, I thought. She’ll be as much use as a cat when we get there.
    At last we turned onto Rue St. Ann and pulled up in front of Mother’s cottage. It too was shuttered; I had rarely seen it closed up so entirely. I leaped from the carriage, ran up the few steps, and yanked impatiently on the cord. I could hear the