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“Thank you for helping me with this.”
“You’re welcome. How many students do you have?”
“Fifteen. We only meet Mondays and Thursdays because those were the days most could find the time to attend. Tuesdays and Wednesdays I teach children at the convent.”
“You enjoy teaching?”
“I do.” That she couldn’t now left her sad and she sighed.
He must have heard her because he looked over and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Things aren’t going the way I’d envisioned. Cole will be returning to America soon and my stay here will end. I don’t feel as if I’ve accomplished much.”
“Can some of your students read that couldn’t before?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve accomplished a great deal. Being able to read will change their lives for the better.”
His words soothed her unhappiness. “That’s kind of you to say. Thank you.”
“It’s the truth,cheri. If you’ve only taught one person to read, that’s one more able to pass the skill along to their children and others. In your small way you’re lifting their future.”
She appreciated that balm as well.
“When you leave New Orleans, will you and Cole go back to New York?”
“More than likely.” And she would resume her job at her grandmother’s dress shop, while searching for a place to teach.
“Is New York a good place to live?”
“If you have money, but where we are is cramped and crowded. The streets are fouled by sewage and refuse. The city fathers have been trying to clean up the area, but it’s been slow going.”
“New Orleans was that way, too, until General Butler arrived with the Union troops and cleared out all the offal that made the streets so putrid. It was probably the only thing the people on the losing side of the war didn’t hate him for.”
She’d read about the general in the New York papers and the infamous chamber pots sold in New Orleans that sported paintings of his face at the bottom of the bowl. “Has your family always lived here?”
“My great-grandparents came to New Orleans after their island home off the coast of Cuba was destroyed by a hurricane.”
“Were they free?”
“He was. She was a slave. He stole her from her mistress during a sea voyage.”
Val stared.
He glanced over and chuckled at the look on her face. “He was a privateer.”
“The fancy word for pirate.”
“Yes.”
“And they had a love match?”
“Yes. She had two children enslaved in Charleston, and after Dominic stole them away, they moved to the island.”
“That’s quite a tale.”
“All true. They loved each other fiercely.”
