The Write Place

Read Chapter 13 Here
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“That damned rat,” Rodney said, his face deeply red with anger.  Rodney paced back and forth under the tree, its fruit hanging over their heads.  Sarah was sitting on the bench.  Tears drying on her face.  Both wore their old work clothes, worn from returning to a world they had sought to leave behind.

“Rodney, anger doesn’t change what happened.  Sit down,” Sarah said, her voice heavy with concern, her face wet from crying.  “Someone might hear.  We need to keep it down.  We need to stay calm.”

“Calm as we can anyway, right?” asked Rodney.  Rodney stopped his pacing.  Sarah had raised her arms bidding her husband to come.  Rodney looked at his wife with her tear-soaked face.  He breathed deeply, taking her hands as he sat down next to her on the bench.

“How calm can I be, knowing what happened?” Rodney asked.  Though his wife was with him, he spoke to nobody in particular.  “They didn’t just catch you,” Rodney’s face began producing tears of his own.  He tried to hold them back without total success.

“I’ve survived whippings before.  If you hadn’t been there it would’ve been worse.  If they’d have known about us it would have been for both of us,” Sarah concluded.  Sarah held his hands in her soft grip as she weakly tried to reassure her husband, and herself. “We lived, God ain’t left us alone, he hasn’t abandoned us,” she finished with an exhausted voice.

“No, no he has not,” Rodney replied and looked up to where the stars would be on this cloudy night. “Seeing you not just be treated like an inferior person but an inferior creature. . .  Like an animal.  My wife,” he said, not able to hold the anger in his voice or to hold back the tears from his eyes any longer.  Sarah wrapped her arms around him, sobbing quietly herself.  Rodney looked at his wife and seeing her need put his own tears away.  He held her as she buried her head in his chest.

“We can only be so strong Sarah,” Rodney told his wife.  They cried for a long time, wetting each other’s hair with their sorrow.  After a long interlude Rodney spoke.  Hesitant, but attempting to calm her, and himself.  “This isn’t forever.  So I tell myself.  Things can get better.  They haven’t figured us out.  I can’t believe you done told a lie for me. . . when they found you in the bushes.  I stood up for you.  I’d have fought for you but what good would it have done.  What could I do?”  Rodney’s shoulder’s sunk in despaired resignation.  Both knew the answer. 

“Nothin, we both know it.  That’s why there’s this war too,” Sarah said.

“The war’s on now, over this damned silly “peculiar” institution.  The country’s dividing itself.  “But,” he said, lifting her chin with his hand. “Do we run, do we run now? Maybe even tonight?  They’re watching us. I’m sure of it. Who knows what they’ll do if we don’t,” he said simply stating a fact both knew.

They were lost in the moment, so much they didn’t hear the sound of a horse behind them.  It got closer, then slowed as a single figure stepped off the horse to walk over to them.  Holding each other with the world muted around them, the hand that fell upon their shoulders was startling for them both.  Looking up, they saw the kindly old face of pastor Jonathan, his eyes welling up with tears.  

“You don’t have to worry about running tonight, or ever if you wish,” said Jonathan. “I visited the plantation today and bought you myself.  You’ll be safe here.”  They cried as he comforted them into the night under the fruiting tree.  The sunrise lit their faces as they remained together, hoping, praying for a day that would bear good fruit and tears of joy.