I laughed, but Maeve sobered. “That was part of my ending, too, you know. He was in it,” she said sadly, nuzzling her touch-starved cheek lightly against my shoulder. “But maybe he’ll be the… the epilogue,” she finished, proud to have come up with the right word.
I just stared up at the entire sky as if I could take it in all at once. “He will be.”
For Maeve, this was true. Siblings would always be siblings. They were for life.
But a love formed in secrecy, in darkness, amid torture and pain, held no such promises.
And maybe that was why it felt so much like fate to find—upon my arrival in Boston—Rebekah, who understood that more than anyone.
Before entering Café Jennet to meet my old friend, I stopped and stared for a minute at the stylized galloping horse over the door, two boxes for its head and body, four crooked lines for legs, and another line for the tail.
Freedom was what it symbolized. Rebekah told me that immediately, turning a tiny espresso cup around in her manicured hand. At first, I was stunned by her black blazer and business-school-confidential auburn hair, styled straight and held back with a pearl clip. Not in and of itself, but just because in this coffee shop, with its jumble of avant-garde art, anarchist newspapers, and fliers for offbeat music shows stuck haphazardly to corkboards, it was an anomaly. There had to be an explanation. I was right, and upon my arrival, Rebekah launched right into it—with no prompting, no hugs, and to my shock, no demands for an apology.
“Everyone always wondered why my parents didn’t just wash their hands of me and sell me into slavery,” Rebekah said.“The truth is, they threatened to. The only reason they didn’t is because they found this boarding school on the Maine coast designed for ‘cases’ like mine. Rich girls who got in trouble with slave boys, basically, which explains why it felt more like prison. Some of them told me they had even been pregnant, and well, there sure weren’t any babies around.”
“This was all legal?”
Rebekah shrugged contemptuously.
“How?”
“They had our parents’ permission. And our parents were rich.”
I didn’t ask more. There was no need.
“Two years in that place and girls like me were declared ‘reformed.’ I got the college to accept me, though I had to fill out the dreaded ‘please explain’ section on the application. But I still had my parents to worry about. The only way I could get them to pay for my degree was by convincing them that I’d repented of my slatternly ways, declare that slavery is an effective, valuable, and necessary institution and that I would never again look at a slave boy as anything other than a particularly attractive and sturdy piece of furniture.”
“But—” I leaned forward.
“It was all lies, of course. In reality, between classes, I hang out here with Basia and Laken, working behind the scenes with the Freedom Alliance and plotting to overthrow the government.”
I practically spat up my hazelnut latte all over the table.
“Relax, I’m kidding,” said Rebekah. “Sort of.” For the first time, her old smile crinkled the corners of her eyes in a wistfully familiar way, the kind that reminded me how, as children, we used to explore the wash near the country club, searching for jackrabbits and lost balls while pretending, just for theafternoon, to outrun our privilege and become plucky orphans of the storm.
Rebekah was the same person she had been then, really. It was just that now she’d been through hell and had her social consciousness completely and utterly transformed.
So relatable.
“But your parents must suspect?—”
“Nothing. They suspect nothing, and I plan to keep it that way. My family name and Mom’s connections at the business school make it easy to keep it on the down-low. Hell, I’ve even converted some of the people I’ve met over there. Solicited some donations.” She put down her coffee and turned to me. “How are you financing your education, by the way?”
I told her.
“Seriously? And you have no extra money other than the scholarship? Where are you even living?”
My response made Rebekah’s expression take on the consistency of sour soy milk. “All right, you’re coming with me,” she said, throwing on an elegant light fall coat and herding me toward the nearest subway stop. “I have a spare room. My parents pay for the apartment, so I don’t need the rent money, but I’d like the company. It’s just that the company needs to be someone who won’t report me for sedition. I have a good feeling about you. I suppose you’re looking for a job, too?”
I nodded pathetically, the unexpected kindness making my eyes well up already.
“I think I might have something for you. How are you at espresso?”
I nodded again quickly, hoping there would be absolutely no follow-up questions. “Why are you helping me, even after… everything?” I asked softly as I tried to follow Rebekah through the gate, fumbling inelegantly with my fare card. “I didn’t even get a chance to apologize for being a spineless, complacent wimpback then. Or tell you what I—” I swallowed. I knew I’d have to share my story, too, even though I wished I had Maeve’s gift for weaving narratives so it wouldn’t feel like extracting two rows of teeth with no anesthetic.
“You don’t have to,” Rebekah said, turning back and expertly swiping me through the turnstile with an extra card from her wallet.
“Huh? So then you know what happened?—”
