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“By all means,” he replied.
With as much calm as I could muster, I walked to the door, certain of only one thing. I had to find Jeyne and leave Bellevue that night.
As I hurried through the kitchen on my way to the slave quarters, I saw Fanny, one of Jeyne’s friends. She was by the large brick fireplace, bending over a bake kettle. Her face and eyes looked haggard, as if she had been through some type of war.
“Fanny, what’s wrong?” I paused to ask.
She looked away. “I cain’t find words right now, Massa Thomas.”
“Try.”
“Oh, Lord…I don’t want to be the one to tell you dis.”
Something in her voice filled me with terror. “Fanny, if this is about Jeyne, youhaveto tell me.”
She struggled to get the words out. “Keegan...Keegan took her.”
My heart immediately sank. “What are you talking about?”
“Early dis morning,” she said. “He took Jeyne. Sho’ did. Snatched her right from under Lizzie before we even had a chance to wake up good.”
I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”
“Yessuh, he did.”
“Where?”
“To N’awlins, we guessin’.”
I stared at her in disbelief. Pain gripped my chest as I fought to keep my legs steady. Fanny fell in my arms and began to sob.
“Oh, Massa Thomas, what we gon’ do now?” she gasped. “What we gon’ do? First Willie and now Jeyne.”
It took everything I had to breathe. This couldn’t be happening. The room was closing in on me.
“They shoulda took Miss Lizzie, too,” Fanny said. “She passed out the minute it happen. Miss Mary tried to calm her but it didn’t do no good. She sick with grief.”
Now I understood why my mother had been so upset. She had already known about these turn of events but couldn’t bring herself to tell me. I double backed to my father’s study, determined to find out the truth. If my father had indeed sold her, then he had done more than destroyed her life, he had destroyed mine. I was not prepared to accept this. I couldn’t. Jeyne was my life.
Chapter Twenty
My father was sitting nonchalantly at his desk when I stormed in. He was going about his business as if it was just another day which angered me even more. “Where’s Jeyne?” I said in a voice I scarcely recognized.
“So, you’ve heard,” he said without looking up.
“Is it true?”
“I had no choice,” he told me with an impassive expression. “Her presence was causing problems.”
“For whom? She’s been here forever.”
“You’re my son,” he said, his chiseled face becoming even more rigid. “Myonlyson. I wasn’t going to let you ruin your life over some nigra.”
“What?”
“Whatever you think she might be, she’s still a slave who—”
“So, you sold her, breaking everyone’s heart in the process?”
