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about that old man. He doesn’t dare get upset with me.” The older woman paused. “Child, you’re looking troubled.”
    Emilie retrieved the miniature from her vanity and held it in her palm as she measured her words. “It has occurred to me that you may be able to tell me about my mother.”
    “Ah,” Mama Dell said. “You were always a direct child.”
    “It got me in trouble more than once.” She studied the hem of her gown, then turned the miniature around and pointed it toward Mama Dell. “Am I like her?”
    “Your mama?” An unreadable expression crossed her face. “In some ways, yes. In others, I’d say you’re more like your papa.”
    “And Isabelle?” she asked, knowing Mama Dell had raised the woman Emilie now knew as her sister. “She’s like neither. I can’t imagine how such a sweet child came from such a woman.”
    Her statement and the strength with which she said it stunned Emilie. “How so?” she dared   to ask.
    Mama Dell once again returned to the chair nearest the door. When she’d settled her skirts around her, she leveled a direct look at Emilie. “Your mama was the sweetest thing ever drew a breath. Before I took on Isabelle, I raised her until she went off to be with your daddy.”
    Since her mother was clearly from back East and Mama Dell had never left the state of Louisiana, the statement confounded logic, but Emilie let the old woman talk. There would be enough time to figure it all out later.
    “When he married Miss Elizabeth, it near broke Sylvie’s heart. I believe that’s what killed her and not birthing you.”
    Words formed and fell away, refusing to shape themselves into anything that made sense. Oblivious to Emilie’s state, Mama Dell kept talking.
    “When he scooped you up from your mama’s bed and brought you to me, I thought, Oh no, what has he done? It wasn’t until Miss Elizabeth’s time came the same day that I knew what he was thinking. Two baby girls with the same dark hair and the same daddy.” She looked away as if reliving the moment. “I looked down in that cradle, and I asked myself who but the Lord and your papa would know what he done ’cept me.”
    Emilie began to shake. A response was well beyond her ability.
    “So I thought, Well, if I help him do what he’s gone do anyway, then at least I’ve got myself a nice life ahead of me.” When she lifted her gaze to meet Emilie’s incredulous stare, tears brimmed at the corners of caramel-colored eyes. “I know I’m gonna answer to this someday when I meet my Savior, but right now I wish Isabelle was here to ask her forgiveness.”
    “You’re serious,” Emilie managed.
    “Serious?” She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
    “My father switched the babies, and you helped him. I grew up in this house believing my mother to be Elizabeth when, in fact, she was. . .”
    Emilie couldn’t say it. Couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that she had lived a life she did not, indeed, deserve.
    Her mouth opened of its own volition, then closed. Words begged to be spoken but went unsaid.
    “I am. . .” Emilie’s breath failed her.  
    “A slave just like me?” Mama Dell rose. “I’m afraid so, Miss Emilie,” she said as she slowly crossed the distance between them. “But if you know that’s your mama in the painting there, then I figure you already know that.”
    “I…” Tears swam as her shaking fingers allowed the miniature to slide away and fall to the floor. Mama Dell quickly retrieved it and set the portrait back on the vanity.
    “Hush now, girl,” Mama Dell said. “Just lets don’t talk about this no more. You've gone and got yourself worked up over things that are over and done with.”
    Though Emilie heard the words, she failed to listen. “I should have. . .that is, Isabelle was meant to. . .”  
    She gave up speaking and fell into the soft pillow of Mama Dell’s chest.  
    “There, there, baby girl,” Mama Dell whispered as she wrapped ample arms around