Love Finds You in New Orleans(52)

“Tom and Jacob—how is this related to their not being here today?” Lottie asked.

Sister shifted in the chair and blotted her face where the starched piece of fabric starting at her forehead edged it. “Have you heard about the Underground Railroad?”

“Underground? No. I’m certain I haven’t,” said Lottie. “Have you?” she asked Gabriel.

“I’ve heard of it, but it’s difficult to know what is rumor. And since some free people of color own slaves themselves, we are not always trusted either.”

“I know about it because I moved here from Boston five years ago,” began Sister Mary Catherine. “The Underground Railroad is made up of secret routes and safe houses that slaves can use to escape to freedom. Most people this far south haven’t heard of it, and very few slaves have even tried it. The distance to the North is so far, it makes the journey almost impossible without risk of getting captured.”

“But Jacob and Tom are doing this?” Lottie didn’t know which answer she wanted to hear.

“Jacob heard that his owner might sell Tom because he could get a good price for him at his age and build.” The Sister fingered the large wooden rosary that served as a belt around her ample waist. “After being separated from Tom’s mother and their two daughters a few years ago, he was desperate to do something to keep his son. I found out about a conductor, a person who helps them escape. He moved here years ago—”

“Sister, are you saying that this person is moving them all the way north?” Gabriel sounded shocked.

“No, no.” She wiped her eyes, stood, and said, “They’ve been planning this for weeks. He brought them to a synagogue in the city where they can hide for now. From there they can go to Mexico, or he might try to get forged freedom papers for them.”

“When will we know?” Half of Lottie danced with glee. The other half bit her nails. “Is this conductor person coming back to tell you what happened?”

Sister folded her arms so that they disappeared into the full black crêpe sleeves of her habit. “I don’t know. We may never know.”



* * * * *


Winter in New Orleans was a disagreeable child who, whenever he had one thing, wanted the other, and whose temper tantrums were marked by rivers of tears. Some days were bright and brisk, the wind like a whip that snapped flags and loose frock coats to attention. On other days the submissive sun forced the wearing of wools and muslins and velvets.

The discussion with Sister having delayed them, Lottie and Gabriel found themselves walking home on the brink of an evening plump with moisture, pushing its way through capes and skin and settling in bones. The indecisive sort of evening, when wearing a cape or not wearing one was equally uncomfortable. When it was too late for children and babies to play, and yet too early for adults contemplating an opera.

Gabriel’s feet took measured steps on the banquette, but his head was somewhere between there and Mexico. He understood Jacob’s anguish in contemplating someone he loved being wrenched away, and he could only imagine how much more wretched it was for that person to be his son. Casting a sideward glance at Lottie, he knew her mind to be as preoccupied as his. For one, she used her parasol at a time when the wind, not the already-sleeping sun, risked harm. And she made no attempt at conversation, about this afternoon or the weekend past. A weekend about which he wanted to know everything and nothing.

“It’s the not knowing what’s happened to them. That’s the most difficult part, don’t you think?”

So taken by the gray parrot in the upper window of the cottage they passed that screeched expressions in English Gabriel would be hesitant to say in any language, he barely heard Lottie’s question.

“Do you mean not knowing where they are?”

She glanced up at her parasol as if seeing it for the first time, closed it, and pretended to stab him with it. “Were you listening to me?”

“Almost.”

“If they’re safe and free, it doesn’t matter to me where they are. But we might never know the outcome and always be thinking ‘What if?’” Lottie poked the tip of her parasol against the cobblestones. “I don’t like hearing myself say this, but even when the worst happens, at least you don’t have to wonder.”

Gabriel stopped, and she followed suit. He didn’t know what Lottie’s response would be to what he was going to say. One thing he knew, though, and it had come to him this afternoon. Jacob and his son risked everything for their freedom—for their freedom to be together. Whatever the outcome, they would never regret not having tried.