Sally Hemings by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Author:Barbara Chase-Riboud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2009-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

We stood there on the mountain, silently savoring our last month of solitude before the August company arrived and Martha and Maria came home. The deep clay gave gently underfoot, tender and softened by the constant spring rain. It would be a wet summer, with twice as many wet days as in other years. A burst of fragrance, from a flowering bush, enveloped us with its sweetness.

My lover came around and stood near me.

“Sally,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders, “however far you can see, it is all Monticello. I solemnly promise you there will never be a white mistress here.”

I pressed myself into the broad chest behind me. My master might own Monticello and my mother might run it, but Monticello was mine. There had been only one white mistress of Monticello, the first Martha, and she was buried at the foot of the mountain under a pale white stone etched in Latin.

There will never be a white mistress here.

The echo of his voice followed me through the gardens, along Mulberry Row, into the workshops of my brothers. I kept hearing that magic promise over and over in my mind through the noise of construction.

There would be no white mistress at Monticello. He had promised.

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