Was he angry with me, with Beverly, or himself? Papa had always been possessive; he’d never forgiven Sally’s brothers for insisting upon the formality of their freedom, when he’d allowed them to live as free men in practice. Did he resent Beverly for insisting upon the same?
But when Papa turned his head to hide a sudden welling of tears, I realized it wasn’t resentment of Beverly’s freedom that upset him. It was love. Beverly shared his looks, his temperament, his taste in music, and his interest in science. Beverly was a young man who was always aware—much as I was—that our father had penned the lines that began: All men are created equal.
My father would’ve been a monster not to feel a prick of pride that his son wanted liberty. But the price of that liberty was steep. “Papa, Beverly can live as a freed black man here in Virginia, with your reputation in tatters, or he can forge a new identity as a white man anywhere else. It seems to me that you ought to ask Beverly his preference. It’s his future, after all.”
That had seemingly not occurred to Papa, so I left him pondering, congratulating myself that I’d handled the situation with as much grace as might be expected of me and done right by Beverly besides.
So it was with alarm that I awakened the next morning to find Sally Hemings inside my bedroom, her back stiff against the door, her hands behind her on the handle, as if to steel her nerve, and her eyes filled with fury.
“Mistress Randolph,” she said, instead of Miss Patsy, as was her habit since our childhood. “I realize the sight of me offends you, but I beg you not to take it out on my son.”
I rose from my bed, bewildered. “Whatever can you mean?”
Sally met my gaze levelly, but her lower lip was atremble. “I loved your sister. I loved Miss Polly all her life, and she loved me, too, but I could never win your affection.” I started to tell her that she did have my affection, but she ran over my words. “That’s why I’ve always kept out of your way and made myself of use to you so that someday you might feel some small bit of love for me—”
“I do feel it,” I protested. “Of course I do.”
“Then why are you trying to take my son from me?” Her anguished question echoed through the room, and I was speechless in its aftermath. She pointed with an accusing finger. “I know it was you. Your father wouldn’t speak to anyone else about such a thing. And whatever you said to him—”
“I advised him to ask Beverly what he wanted!” I cried, in defense of myself.
But this appeased her not a bit.
“Beverly? My son is too young to know what he wants.”
Older than you were when you had to decide, I thought. “He’s a grown man, Sally.”
She shook her head, nostrils flaring. “He thinks he knows what’s out there for him in the world. Thinks he can leave this mountain behind without regret and make his own way. But it’s a decision he can’t take back. I want him free—but I’m not ready to let him go.”
How could I blame her? Especially after so nearly losing my own son? But from the edge of my bed I said what I believed to be true. “Wouldn’t it be kinder to let him go, Sally? His Negro blood . . . it’s only one-eighth. He’s legally white. If Papa petitions to keep Beverly here in Virginia, everyone will know your boy as a former slave. He’ll live with the taint and the shame of it all his life. But if Beverly leaves . . . he can pass, Sally. Beverly can marry into white society. Isn’t that the best future you can give him?”
She blanched, wiping tears with the backs of her hands. “That’s what you’d want, if he was your son?”
I thought hard about her question. I’d been afraid for my son when he marched off to war. Terrified when they brought him back to me in a wagon, bloodied and maimed. Each time, the thought of parting with him forever nearly unraveled me.
But if I had to give my son up to save him, I would. I was sure Sally would, too. I’d always known her to be a protective mother. And it’d taken the courage of a mother lioness to confront me this way. “Yes, I would, Sally. God as my witness.”
And this time, it was no lie.
She narrowed her eyes, hugging herself, bronze arms against a bright white apron. “What happens when your father dies and his estate passes into the hands of a man who hunts Beverly down as a runaway slave?”
Though I couldn’t bear to think of my father’s death, his health and vigor wasn’t what it once was. When we lost him, his estate would pass to my husband and my sons. “I’ll never let anyone hunt down Beverly. I vow, I’ll never let that happen.”
When she was sixteen, she’d relied upon my father’s promise. Staked her whole life upon it. I couldn’t say she’d been wrong to, but she was less trusting now.
And my vow mustn’t have persuaded her, because she kept Beverly at Monticello and sent him back to work as a slave in the carpentry shop.