The Rebel Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

painting. The next day Simon would have a crew of men hammering and sawing at the cornices and soffits where rot had invaded, and putting up fresh paint—real paint, not whitewash. I don’t think Eli knew I observed these things, but I did. And Mama could not stop carrying on about it. She was shocked to find a gang of Negro men working in her garden or clambering up ladders and peeping through the windows as if she hadn’t lived surrounded by them before the war.
    The house gleamed, was maintained like a monument—a memorial. As if it were Pa’s mausoleum and Mama the last vestal. Or maybe I was the vestal, tending the flame from afar. It was a temple to the past, but without a soul. It was not apparent to a passerby or even to Mama, who lived in the midst of it, scolding her maids about the dusty stairs or how they didn’t put enough blue in the wash. But I could feel it with a sadness I carried in my bones like some crippling disease. I honored the house as my obligation, as I honored my mother on the day of her burial. There was no one else to observe the proper rites. It was my duty.
    Emma helped me dress the morning of Mama’s funeral, and she said that she had had her differences with Mama. Unusual of her to speak so frankly. I barely responded. She knew Mama longer than I did. She grew up with Mama. Would she have spoken like that if she were still a slave? Mama was a strong-willed person. Someone who emphatically knew right from wrong. The mildest scullery maid had her differences with Mama. I did, too, I guess. But her absence left something missing from me. I kept thinking, Who will I read to now? Mama used to sit with me in the evenings, and I would read aloud whatever novels I had while she did her handwork. But now I will read alone, I thought. In fact, I’ve stopped reading altogether. What a silly question for me to think, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Three
     
    HENRY CLIMBS ON HIS narrow bed beside me. His solitary games always stop when I appear. He wraps his arms around me and lays his head on my lap. His hair is like corn silks under my fingers. I am petting him. My pet. He breathes out of his nose in short, discontented bursts. He is confused by all this commotion.
    The ring of the bell is faint through the open nursery windows. Little John is making his progress through the neighborhood. Soon they will all know Eli is dead. They will see Little John and know he is from my house. The whole town must already know Eli has been ill.
    John is a good playmate for Henry. They are so close in age. John was born just six months after Henry and is already the bigger boy. In that way, Rachel has been a help in the house. There are so few boys in the neighborhood for Henry to play with, not for any lack of children. John is a good companion. Rachel brings him with her and Big John when they come in the morning. Just as easy for her or Emma to watch two boys as one. And it eases Henry’s loneliness. What must be his loneliness. He is such a quiet child, as content to play alone as he is to play with others. He lives so deep inside himself that he observes more than he partakes. But there is a keenness of mind there. He will grow up to be smart as a whip. He may favor Eli Branson on the outside, but inside he is a Sedlaw. I know it as surely as I know my own name.
    “It’s too much for you to understand, I know,” I whisper. Maybe for myself. “But why don’t we go on a trip? Wouldn’t you like to go on a trip for a while? Would you like that?”
    He rubs his head against me, shy of answering. He is thinking.
    “We’ll get to ride on the railroad. And on steamboats on a river. We’ll go see mountains and the ocean, too. Wouldn’t you like to see the ocean?”
    Henry nods and says, “Mmm.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye but looks away as soon as I catch him with my glance.
    I brush his hair with my fingers. “It’s going to be fine, Henry. Don’t worry. We’re all going