Freeman, page 47
“If I…” A pause, a cough. “If I don’t make it, I want you to stay with Prudence and Ginny in Boston. At least until you get your bearings, decide what you want to do.”
“Sam, shush. There is no reason to talk like that. You will be fine.”
He shook his head. “It is important to me,” he said. “I need to know that you are going to be all right. Please do this for me. Promise me.”
His eyes held hers. She blinked away tears. “Very well, Sam,” she said. “I promise.”
“Good,” he said. “That takes a weight off my mind.”
“Are you thirsty, Sam? I could get you something.”
His hand waved weakly. “No,” he said, “I’m fine. Just want to talk. Haven’t had much chance…just…talk.” She could hear him breathing. “So,” he said, “have you given any thought…what name you’re going to use…now?”
It took her only a second. “Tilda,” she said. A pause. “Freeman. Tilda Freeman.”
Sam smiled. He felt a fullness. It was all gone then, all far away from him, all regret, doubt, blood, sweat, fear. Those were earthbound things and he was sailing far above them all.
“Thank you, Sam”—the tears in her voice slurred her words—“for not giving up on me. For not giving up on us.”
He closed his eyes. His thoughts were cottony. From somewhere far below him, he could hear the sound of a steamboat making its way up the Mississippi, paddlewheels churning the water, engines banging, plates clinking as stewards prepared for the evening meal, a man complaining in angry Spanish. All of it so far away.
Sam opened his eyes. His vision was filled with her. “Do not cry,” he said.
She took his hand. “‘Love is long suffering,’” she said. “Do you remember when I read that to you for the first time? Love is long suffering. And you sure proved it, didn’t you? You sure did.”
“Love never fails,” he added, and his own voice was ragged and breathy in his ears.
“Love never fails,” she agreed. A sad smile tugged at her lips. “And I love you, Sam.”
It made him smile. He closed his eyes, and this time, did not open them again.
His final thought was of her.
THE END
Acknowledgments
Another writer—I believe, but cannot swear, it was Stephen King—once said that as a novelist, one researches only to enable one to lie more effectively, i.e., to create a believable fictional world in which readers will be emotionally invested. This is particularly true of historical fiction, where you undertake not simply to create another world, but to recreate another time, a task that rests on nailing down answers to a hundred insanely arcane and specific questions.
To wit: What color and character is the soil in northeast Mississippi? How long did it take to repair a chimney in the mid-nineteenth century? Was the phrase “turn in” (as in going to sleep for the night) in use in 1865?
To whatever degree I have been not able to lie effectively on the preceding pages, I take all the blame. To whatever degree my lies do work, I must share credit with a number of individuals and institutions without whom this book would not be.
I am indebted to the staff of the Library of Congress, particularly those in the periodicals room and the map room. In the former, I spent hours reading old newspapers, trying to capture the feeling of the day the Civil War ended. In the latter, I spent hours devising feasible routes for my characters to reach their destinies.
Phil Lapsansky of the Philadelphia Free Library generously unearthed for me images of how Sam’s workplace would have appeared in 1865. Kelly Rodgers, program director of Maryland Therapeutic Riding Institute in Crownsville, Maryland, invited me up there to show me how a disabled rider might handle a horse. Steve Depew and Tom Head of the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service helped me understand growing seasons and the nature of the soil in northern Mississippi. Historians Kathleen Thompson and Craig Pfannkuche gave me great assistance in understanding the appearance and mores of Chicago in the mid-nineteenth century. William C. Davis, author of Portraits of the Riverboats, greatly aided me in my attempt to recreate the ambiance of a steamboat trip down the Mississippi.
I should say here that Leon F. Litwack’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the aftermath of slavery, Been in the Storm So Long, was a key inspiration for this novel when I first read it many years ago. A number of the incidents in my novel—including the mother searching for her lost infant daughter—are fictionalized versions of real episodes written about by Litwack and other historians of the period.
I am also indebted to my agent, Janell Walden Agyeman of Marie Brown and Associates, for her never-flagging patience, faith and persistence, to my assistant, Judi Smith, for always sweating the small stuff, and to my editor, Doug Seibold of Agate Bolden, for understanding—and occasionally reminding me—that good enough is never good enough.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention my wife of more than 30 years, Marilyn, and our family, for their understanding, support and bottomless love.
For all those things, I gratefully thank all those people. For everything else, I gratefully thank God.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leonard Pitts, Jr. was born and raised in Southern California and now lives in suburban Washington, DC, with his wife and children. He won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for his syndicated column, which appears in more than 200 newspapers, and has won numerous other journalism awards. He is the author of several books, including the novel Before I Forget (Agate Bolden, 2009).
Leonard Pitts, Freeman
