“If I’m not going to believe it, I guess you’d better not bother telling me,”
Olivia said, in no mood for gossip.
“Well, you sure do want me to tell you – it was your friend what you’ve been
so worried about. Mr. Mourning Free.”
“Mourning? Mourning’s here? Are you sure it was him?”
“I wouldn’t be telling you so if I warn’t. I tried to catch him up and have a word, but he was on horseback. Not that broken-down old nag he used to have.
Pretty gray mare with speckles of white.”
When Jettie first said his name Olivia had frozen, broom midair, as shocked
as if a rock had thudded into her chest. Then she felt paralyzed by a muddle of
feelings: surprise, relief, joy, curiosity. But the emotion that seemed to be winning out was one she had not at all anticipated: fear. Fear strong enough to
make her feel sick. All this time she’d thought she’d give anything for the chance to talk to Mourning. But now … what would she say? He would glance
at her swollen belly and assume it was his and what would she say? I think it is?
Think. She’d have to tell him who else it might belong to. Say the words, relive the story they told.
It hadn’t been hard to tell Jettie. It had poured out, on its own. And now she’d
written it in her journal. But she couldn’t bear to say it again. Nor could she bear
to burn that picture into Mourning’s mind – her tied to that bed, legs forced wide apart. She began to feel shaky, stunned to realize how much easier it would be to
simply rejoice in knowing he was alive. And never see him again.
She also feared seeing that old distrust on his face, him again asking her to swear she’d never claim he’d forced it on her.
And then there was Jettie. The minute she saw Olivia and Mourning together,
Jettie would know. Olivia didn’t doubt that. She had no idea how Jettie felt about
coloreds, but imagined her doughy face forged into a slab of iron. Nigger-loving
slut. Get out of my house. It was a face that inhabited Olivia’s nightmares of what might happen if she gave birth to a black baby.
Olivia pulled out a chair and sat.
“Well, don’t you look like you seen a ghost,” Jettie said. “What’s the matter? I
thought you’d be thrilled half to pieces.”
“I am. I just got a little out of breath pushing that broom is all. Of course, I’m
glad to know he’s all right. Really glad. I wish I could ask you to go get him, bring him back here, find out where he’s been, but . . .” Olivia looked down at
her belly. “He doesn’t know anything about what happened.”
“No, course he don’t. But if you want I could go search him out, without
letting on about you being here. I could pretend I’m just being friendly-like, asking where he’s been.”
“If you think there’s any chance of Mourning Free telling some nosy white
lady what he had for breakfast, you don’t know him very well. He’s as stubborn
and keep-to-himself as they come.”
“Well, I got to get back to the shop. You give a good think on whether you want me to go looking for him.”
The next day Jettie went shopping at Killion’s General and asked some
people there if they’d seen Mourning. She came back and reported to Olivia.
“When I seen him he must’ve already been on his way out of town. Seems the
only reason he come here was to get some kind of paper from Mr. Carmichael.”
“His Free Man of Color paper,” Olivia said.
“Yes, that’s right. That’s what they called it. Mr. Carmichael offered him to stay the night in his office like he used to, but Mourning said he had to be riding
