Chapter Eight
Sebastian knew something was wrong before he even opened the door. The cabin was warm, and he could smell supper, but it felt...quiet in a different way. Not like when Lula was working and simply didn’t speak.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “I’m home,” he said.
“I’m in here,” Lula answered from the stove. The cabin was small enough that she knew he could see her from the door, but it felt right to tell him. It may be the only thing that would feel right all night.
He hung up his coat and washed his hands, taking longer than necessary. It gave him a moment to think. A moment to decide if he was going to ask. By the time he turned, she had already set two bowls on the table.
“Stew again?” he asked as he sat.
“It was what we had ready to use,” she said. “I didn’t want it to spoil.”
“That makes sense.”
They sat across from each other. He took a bite. It was good. It always was. “You’ve been busy today. The cabin looks great.”
“I went into town,” she said. “Took meat to Katie. Belle told her that I get paid for the meat I take in, and I don’t have to share the profits.”
He nodded. “That’s good.”
“Yes,” Lula said quietly.
He watched her for a moment longer. She wasn’t looking at him. She was eating more slowly than usual. Careful with every bite.
He set his spoon down. “What are you not telling me?” he asked.
Her hand stopped halfway between her bowl and her mouth before she forced herself to take another bite.
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said.
He didn’t respond right away. “Yes,” he said finally. “You are.” The words weren’t sharp. Just certain.
Lula set her spoon down. “I told you about my father,” she said.
“You told me enough to answer my question,” he replied. “Not enough to tell me the truth.”
She looked up at him then. “I am telling you the truth,” she said.
“Part of it,” he said. He leaned back slightly, his gaze steady. “I told you before. I don’t care about anything that happened before this. Not truly. But I do care if you feel like you have to hide it from me.”
Lula’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table. “It would change things,” she said.
“Maybe,” he answered.
“It would,” she said more firmly.
He studied her face. “Then let it,” he said. “If it needs to.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
She looked down at her hands, fighting to find the words to explain everything. Just say it. Her throat tightened.
“It wasn’t just that my parents didn’t approve of Bill,” she said slowly.
“I gathered that much,” Sebastian replied.
She swallowed. “He worked for my family,” she said. “His parents did too. His father was the gardener. His mother was my mother’s maid.”
Sebastian didn’t interrupt. He simply waited.
Lula’s hands began to tremble, just slightly. “And that wasn’t what they cared about most,” she went on. “Not truly.”
She lifted her head and met his eyes. “He was a negro,” she said.
The words were loud in the quiet room. For a moment, Sebastian didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Lula watched him closely, her heart beating hard enough that she was sure he could hear it. This was it. This was the moment their marriage would end. And it happened just as she was developing real feelings for him.
“I see,” he said finally. His voice was calm. Too calm.
Lula’s stomach twisted. “That’s why they turned me out,” she said quickly, her words coming faster now. “That’s why no one would accept our marriage. That’s why he was killed.” Her breath caught slightly. “I couldn’t prove it, but I know that’s why.”
Sebastian’s expression shifted then—not to anger, but to something sharper.
“Your parents killed him?”
“No, not my parents. I believe it was people who disapproved of us. I wasn’t even allowed to shop in town. No one would do business with me. I had to walk miles to the next town so I could purchase what I needed.”
The room went quiet again. He looked down at the table for a moment, his jaw tightening as he thought. Then he looked back at her.
“And you think I would mind,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Lula didn’t answer right away. “You don’t know what it was like,” she said instead. “What people said. How they looked at us. How quickly everything changed. We weren’t even allowed to go to church.”
“I can imagine some of it,” he said.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t.”
Her voice was stronger now, steadier. “Everyone cared. Everyone. It didn’t matter who he was as a person. It didn’t matter that he was good, or kind, or that I loved him. That was all they saw—a dark-skinned man with a white woman.”
Sebastian held her gaze. “I’m not everyone,” he said. The words were simple.
Lula looked at him, searching his face for anything—anger, disgust, hesitation—but she didn’t find it. “What do you think?” she asked, her voice quieter now.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I didn’t know what you’d do,” she said. “And I couldn’t risk it.”
“Risk what?”
“This.” She gestured between them. “This life. You. I care for you, Sebastian. I couldn’t bear the thought of you turning me out.”
Sebastian let out a slow breath. “You should have trusted me,” he said.
“I didn’t know if I could.”
He nodded once. “That’s fair,” he said, though his tone had cooled slightly.
Lula felt it. The shift. It was small, but there. “I wasn’t trying to deceive you,” she said.
“You were hiding something important,” he replied. “That’s not the same thing, but it’s close enough.”
She flinched. “I told you when we met that my past was my own.”
“And I said the same,” he answered. “But we’re not strangers anymore.” They looked at each other across the table, the stew growing cold. “You should have told me,” he said again, more quietly this time.
“I’m telling you now.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “You are.”
They were silent for a bit, and after a moment, Sebastian picked up his spoon again.
“Your stew is going to go cold,” he said.
Lula blinked at that. “It already has,” she said.
He almost smiled. “Then we’ll eat it anyway.”
She nodded. She knew everything wasn’t fixed, but she still felt better. She was glad she’d finally told him everything. And he hadn’t asked her to leave. Yet.
*****
The next morning, Lula woke before fully opening her eyes to the unfamiliar sensation of peace. For an instant, she could not think why her body felt so strangely unburdened, why the air in the cabin seemed thinner and easier to breathe.
She lay still for a moment. Beside her, Sebastian was already awake, though he had not moved away.
He was lying on his back with one arm crooked beneath his head, looking toward the ceiling in the thoughtful way he had when he was not yet ready to speak.
When he turned at the slight rustle of the blankets and saw her watching him, his expression changed from pensive to caring all at once.
“Good morning,” he said, and there was nothing strained in the words. There was something easier in it now, as though the wall that had stood between them for so long had fallen in the night.
“Good morning,” Lula answered, but the words came out softly, cautiously, because however much relief she felt, some part of her still could not quite believe the night before had ended as it had.
She pushed herself up on one elbow, searching his face.
“Sebastian...” She stopped, not knowing how to ask the question without sounding foolish, and yet needing the answer.
“Are things truly all right between us?”
He turned fully toward her then and reached for her hand beneath the blankets, drawing it into both of his with such unhurried certainty that her eyes stung at once.
“Lula, listen to me,” he said. “I am not going to send you away. Not today, not next week, not because of anything you told me last night, and not because your mother thinks she can call you back as if you belong to her. You’re my wife.
I will not cast you off for having suffered, and I will not punish you for loving a good man before you ever knew me. ”
Lula closed her eyes for a moment, relieved.
“I know it’s shameful,” she whispered, “but I thought once you understood it all, once you knew the reason my parents hated Bill and why the town did too, that you might look at me as they did and decide you could not endure the sight of me in your home.”
“Then you were wrong,” he said. He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “This is your home as much as mine. No one is putting you out of it. And if anyone has a right to anger, it is me at the people who taught you to expect abandonment from every direction.”
She smiled at him through tears she did not bother to hide, and when Sebastian smiled back, the whole little room seemed changed by it.
They rose together a few minutes later, not in haste, but with the easy quiet of two people who no longer needed to measure every word before speaking. Lula fed the stove and set water to heat while Sebastian pulled on his boots and shrugged into his work shirt.
When she reached automatically for the oats, Sebastian leaned one shoulder against the table and said, with the ghost of a smile, “Do not forget the cinnamon on my account. I would hate to think yesterday’s sadness scared it off forever.”
Lula laughed and reached for the tin. “Perhaps I should apologize to the oatmeal for what I did to it.”
“The oatmeal forgave you,” he said gravely. “I was less certain about the missing brown sugar.”
She set the bowls on the table, and they sat together, holding hands as he blessed their meal. At last, when their bowls were nearly empty, Sebastian said, “I have been thinking about your mother.”
Lula’s hand stilled on her bowl, but she did not feel the same panic she would have had the day before. “Must we begin with her so early in the morning?” she asked, trying to joke about the situation.