Twelve rejections, each more cruel than the last. She can’t even get married. My children need a mother who can run after them. What good is it if she can’t have children? This last rumor, completely unfounded, spread like wildfire in Virginia. A doctor made assumptions about my fertility without even examining me.
Suddenly, I was no longer just a disabled person. I was defective in every way that mattered to America in 1856. At the time, William Foster, fat, drunk, and fifty years old, rejected me, despite my father’s offer to give him a third of our estate’s annual income. I knew the truth. I was going to die alone. But my father had other plans. Plans so radical, so shocking, so utterly unconventional that when he told me about them, I was certain I had misunderstood. « I entrust you to… »
« Josiah, » he said. « The blacksmith. He will be your husband. » I stared at my father, Colonel Richard Whitmore, lord of 5,000 acres and 200 slaves, convinced I had lost my mind. « Josiah, » I whispered. « Father, Josiah is a slave. » « Yes, I know perfectly well what I’m doing. »
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