Three thousand dollars. A fortune. An impossible mountain of money. We were never going to see three thousand dollars in our lifetime.
“He gave me a deadline of one week,” Otis continued. “One week to get three thousand dollars. If not, he said he was going to take the land, the house, the livestock… everything.”
“You should have told me,” I hissed.
“I was going to tell you! I swear I was!” he pleaded. “But the next day—Saturday—he showed up here early in the morning. You had gone to wash clothes at the creek with the girls.”
My skin crawled. While I was scrubbing our laundry in the creek, that man had been in my house.
“He came on horseback,” Otis said. “Silas Thorne came right up to the porch.”
“He came inside?”
“He entered here,” Otis nodded, looking around the room as if he could still see the ghost of the man. “He sat in that same chair where you are sitting right now. He lit a cigar and said he had a proposal for me.”
“What proposal was that?” I demanded, though the bile was already rising in my throat.
“He said he had been a widower for three years,” Otis said, his voice dropping to a shameful murmur. “He said he was looking for a young wife… someone young he could mold, someone to keep his house and give him a legacy. And he said he had noticed Ruby.”
My stomach turned over violently. That old man had set his eyes on my daughter. He had watched her at church, at the picnics, like a wolf watching a lamb.
“And then?” I pushed, gripping the table.
“Then he made the offer. He said if I promised him Ruby’s hand when she turned fifteen, he would forget the whole debt. The three thousand dollars… everything forgiven. Wiped clean.”
“And you accepted?”
“It wasn’t like that, Hattie!” he protested weakly. “I said no! I told him she was a child, that she was my daughter!”
“But in the end, you accepted,” I shot back.
“He threatened me!” Otis cried. “He said if I didn’t accept, it wasn’t just the debt. He said he was going to do something to me… that I was going to disappear. That you and the girls were going to be left with nothing—no land, no house, no husband. So?”
“So you preferred to sign our daughter away?”
“I didn’t want to!”
“You promised her hand like she was an object!” I screamed, the sound tearing out of my throat. “Like she was a sack of grain! Like you had the right to decide her life!”
He lowered his head, defeated. “I know. I know I did wrong. That’s why I don’t sleep. That’s why every day at 2:47 AM I wake up… because it was at that time. 2:47 in the morning, the night I lost the money, was when the clock stopped for me.”
“How was it done?” I asked, my voice deadly calm now. “Tell me exactly how it was done.”
“He gave me paper and a pen,” Otis whispered. “He ordered me to write.”
He recited the words from memory, words that had clearly been burning a hole in his brain for seven months.
“I, Otis Washington, promise the hand of my daughter, Ruby Washington, in marriage to Mr. Silas Thorne when she turns fifteen years of age, on August 8, 1974.”
“And you signed?”
“I signed. And he signed as a witness. He kept the paper. He said he was going to keep it in his safe until the day came in 1974 to come fetch her.”
I stood up from the chair and started pacing the living room floor, from the hearth to the door and back again. I was trying to think through the red haze of rage.
“Ruby knows,” I said suddenly.
He looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. “How would she know? Does she know?”
“I saw it in her eyes,” I said. “She is skinny, scared, quiet. Someone told her.”
“No, I didn’t tell anyone,” he stammered. “Only me and Silas Thorne know.”
“Then he told,” I said. “Or someone who was at Big Joe’s house that night told. This is a small town, Otis. Everybody finds out everything. Someone heard, someone talked, and it got to her.”
“My God,” he wept. “My baby.”
“You are going to grab paper and pen right now,” I commanded, pointing to the shelf. “And you are going to write a statement saying you cancel that promise. You will write that it was made under threat, under duress, and that it has no validity whatsoever.”
“But he has the paper, Hattie!” Otis argued, his hands shaking. “He has my signature!”
“Doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “You are going to write right now that you cancel it. And I am going to take that to Silas Thorne, and I’m going to tell him to his face that my daughter is not payment.”
“But he won’t accept! He’s going to come here… he…”
“I don’t care what he’s going to do,” I said, leaning over him. “My daughter is not going to that old man.”
I grabbed the paper and pen from the shelf and threw them onto the table in front of him.
“Write. Now.”
He grabbed the pen with a trembling hand. The ink stained his fingers. He started to write. I dictated the words, standing over him like a general.
“I, Otis Washington, by means of this letter, cancel the promise made to Mr. Silas Thorne regarding the marriage of my daughter, Ruby Washington. Said promise was made under duress and threat and therefore has no validity. I acknowledge that I committed a grave error and that my daughter has the right to choose her own future.”
He wrote it out, the handwriting crooked and shaky, a testament to his fear. He signed his name at the end.
I grabbed the paper, blew on the ink to dry it, folded it, and shoved it deep into my pocket.
“Now you stay here,” I ordered. “You don’t leave this house. You don’t go to the fields. You don’t go anywhere. You stay here waiting for me to come back.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, looking up at me with fear.
“I’m going to settle this like it needs to be settled,” I said.
I grabbed my shawl and threw it over my shoulders. I checked my pocket to make sure the letter was there.
“Hattie, don’t go there,” he begged, standing up. “It’s dangerous.”
I turned to him at the door, my hand on the latch.
“So am I,” I said.
I opened the door and stepped out into the blinding sunlight. I started walking. Silas Thorne’s plantation was about five miles from our place—five miles of dusty, rutted dirt road.
It would take me more than two hours to walk it, but I didn’t care. I would crawl on my hands and knees if I had to.
I walked with a fury that burned brighter than the sun. About fifteen minutes down the road, I heard the sound of hooves and wheels behind me.
I turned around, shading my eyes. It was Mr. Banks in his wagon, heading into town. He pulled the mules to a stop when he saw me.
“Miss Hattie?” he called out. “Where are you going on foot in this sun? You’ll catch a heatstroke.”
“I’m going to Silas Thorne’s place,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow.
