Hunting Midnight

“I cannot foresee what will happen. I do not know under what circumstances Midnight is being held captive. If I cannot buy him, I shall steal him. One way or another, I will see him to freedom. I cannot resume my life otherwise.”

“But you will be able to purchase him, will you not?”

“What if his master does not want to sell him?”

“Then you will offer more money. I shall give you however much it takes. I must have … I must have three or four hundred pounds that I can give you. They are all for Midnight. And if you need more, I shall sell my jewelry and everything I own to get more.”

I sat down next to her. “Mama, if I am not able to return for any reason, you must take care of the girls. I cannot go otherwise.”

“John, this is absurd.”

“Tell me that you promise to care for the girls if I do not return.”

“Very well,” she said, her voice breaking, “I swear to raise and protect them.”

I kissed her on the lips for the first time in many years. “Thank you.”

We sat in silence for a time, then I gave in to my weariness and rested my head on her lap. She stroked my hair. When I was nearly asleep, she whispered, “I shall tell you my secret, but you must never tell the girls or Fiona. You can tell no one.”

My eyes were closed. I was drifting away. “You have my word,” I whispered.

“Your father went upriver quite often, you may recall.” She rested her hand on my chest. “On one of those trips, Midnight and I … we … we — ”

“You fell in love with each other,” I said. I kept my eyes shut tight, sensing my blindness would help her reveal the truth.

“No, no. That’s not it. I was enormously fond of him — that’s true. And he was very fond of me. But we were not in love with each other — not like you mean. But not even that is the point. John, I was still hopelessly in love with your father. That had not changed. I assure you it had not. And yet, I needed to touch Midnight. I was foolish and young, and I could not bear to think I would die one day without knowing him in that way. It seemed vitally important. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes.”

“After a week, we agreed to stop what we were doing and never speak of it again. It wasn’t difficult. If anything, we became closer without our previous desires getting in the way. But James, he learned of what we had done.”

I was tempted to ask about her pregnancy, but I could not bring myself to.

“James sensed that something had been altered between the two of us — between your father and myself, I mean. I admitted that it had, though without mentioning Midnight. Then, to your father’s great surprise, I said that what had changed was that I was happier than ever to be married to him! Which was true, since lying with Midnight only proved to me how much I wanted to continue my life with your father. But he accused me of concealing a dalliance. He mentioned men from the neighborhood. Senhor Samuel the roofer — even Benjamin.

“Then I made my fatal error — I told James the truth. I assured him that it had ended and that it was unimportant in terms of our marriage. Isn’t that odd, son — that the truth undid my life? If I’d lied believably, I’d still be in Porto now and your father would still be alive. Midnight would probably be living in our home and working with Benjamin on that strange magic of theirs. But I couldn’t continue to lie to him. I adored him — as I adored you. But James was furious, and he threatened to kill me. I counted on his affection toward me to vanquish his hot sense of honor in due course. After a week or two, I believed that his higher nature had indeed won the day. By the time he went off to England with Midnight, he was still troubled but also reassured. He was kind and gentle to me and you, as you may recall.”

I remembered how I had found him weeping on his last night in Porto.

“At no time during our quarrels did he accuse Midnight of having acted improperly,” Mama added. “He held that I was responsible for what had happened — and he was probably right.”

She suddenly gasped. I sat up.

“Oh, John, what a fool I was! Now I can plainly see that he must have been planning for weeks to betray Midnight. That was what returned a measure of calm to him. It wasn’t his love for me. It was … it was — ”

She held her cheeks in her hands and closed her eyes. After she’d regained her composure, she said, “When James returned without Midnight, I blamed him, it’s true. And I saw that he still hadn’t forgiven me. I discovered that almost immediately. We were never the same — as you, of all people, know. We lived a life of recrimination. He faded away from me. And I … I was selfish, so very selfish. I withheld the love I still felt for him. I regret it more than you can ever know. And until this very evening, when you showed me those letters, I believed that all our unhappiness could justifiably be attributed to Midnight and myself. But now … now I can see that it was what your father did that took away our last chance for happiness. How unbearable his life must have been after selling Midnight into slavery! Oh, James, all the mistakes we made …”

She began to sob.

“You cannot know the guilt I’ve felt all these years,” she moaned. “Forgive me. Forgive me, John. Please … I cannot go on without your forgiveness.”

I sat up and kissed the top of her head.

“Now it’s my turn to beg,” she said. “I need to hear you say you forgive me. I need to hear those words.”

“I forgive you, Mama. And I love you. The bad times are gone now — all gone.”

“But they’re not, John. Midnight is a prisoner! And as long as he remains so, it will never be finished. Not even for your father, though he’s been nearly fifteen years in his grave.”

*

Mother’s confessions might have been expected to give me a sense of completion about the past, of finally understanding why our family had come apart. Instead, they left me feeling desperately fragile. In consequence, I insisted on spending every waking minute of the following three days with my daughters. A grave error it was; living at such close proximity, we fought over nearly everything — over their desire to take tiny sips of my beer, whether the cold rain called for a warmer bonnet …

Three days before my carriage ride to Portsmouth, this fever of anxiety broke. I had ordered the lasses to the sofa and asked if there were any questions that they needed answered about their mother before my departure. I grew furious at their reticence to speak, which I took as an affront to Francisca’s memory.

“Well, have neither of you anything to say?”

They groaned, plainly thinking me daft. Calm down, I could hear Francisca telling me. So I sat with my eyes closed. After a time they came and clung to me.

Thinking back to Graca in her mother’s arms, her skin all wrinkled, then seeing this same child in front of me … I apologized for being so difficult with them over the previous few days. I kissed them all over their faces, which made them laugh. After a happy conversation about trifles, we all felt much better and I encouraged them to go off with Aunt Fiona, chasing them giggling out of the house with my growls.

Over the next days, we had no more quarrels. Each of the kelpies came to me separately to have her hair brushed, a task their mother had always done for them.

When I begged Mama’s forgiveness for my sour mood, she said, “Don’t you think I understand that it is worry that makes you so ill-tempered? John, I shall be here for you no matter what you find in America. You and your daughters will always have a home with me in London.”

*

Before I left, Mother handed me a waistcoat of gold and black stripes that she had sewn in secret, asking me to put it on to show her the fit.

“I have sewn fifteen golden sovereigns into the lining,” she said, giving me a wink. “Just rip it open when you need them.”

I felt for them. “You are very kind, Mama, but I have enough money for my voyage.”

“Not for that, son. I told you: I am counting on you to ransom Midnight — no matter what it costs.”

*

I’m afraid I created quite a scene at the carriage taking me to Portsmouth. The possibility that this was the last time I would ever see any of my family again left me inconsolable.