— Delicious! Man, was I hungry!
The pink tip of the prisoner’s tongue moves along his lower lip. The guard mops up the buttery smears of her egg with a piece of toast and pops the toast into her mouth. She chews. She speaks.
— Oh, God!
She puts the plate down on the floor and picks up the paper coffee cup that has been waiting on the opposite side of her chair. She wraps the cup in both hands, warming her fingers, leans back in her chair and rests the cup on her belly. She speaks.
— That was fabulous. I was starved.
The prisoner is looking at the tray. He can see a shred of egg that she didn’t mop up. She pulled the crusts off her toast before she ate it, and they lie like a heap of tiny timbers on the tray beside the plate. The prisoner doesn’t speak; the guard does.
— Did you ever think about whose nightmare this is?
— …
— I mean, who’s dreaming this: you or me?
— I’m not dreaming anything.
— That’s what I was afraid of.
— …
— I guess what I’m really asking is, which of us is the illusion here?
— …
— Because if only one of us is real, the other one must be an illusion. That’s simple logic, right?
— What the fuck are you talking about?
— Are you deaf? Or are you just being an asshole? Jesus!
— …
— You’re my nightmare! That’s what I’m talking about!
— …
— It’s simple logic, right? I mean, if I wasn’t here with you, I could be lying on a beach somewhere. Or maybe I’d be studying impressionist painting in Paris. Or I could be a pediatrician with a tiny plastic monkey climbing up my stethoscope. You know?
— …
— But because of you, I don’t have any choice. I am morally compelled to spend my life underground and behave like a barbarian, just because you’re such an evil piece of shit. You see what I’m saying? It’s like the nightmare you created never ended, and now I’m stuck in it.
— …
— I should hate you all the more for that.
— …
— What the fuck. Today’s the day I’m supposed to make you stand on a carton of dog food and hook your dick up to a car battery. You’re going to love that.
V
~ ~ ~
Close to a year has passed. Clouds tower in the burnished sunlight of an unnaturally warm September afternoon. First deep stillness, then a wind gathers in the trees and rushes across the lawn and into the house. Doors slam. Someone inside cries out “Oh!” The treetops hiss and thrash. The clouds darken. The sound of shattering glass.
Sally Hemings, coming up from the orchard with a basket of peaches for Ursula, thinks that before going to the kitchen she should check Thomas Jefferson’s chambers to make sure none of his windows are open and that none of his precious objects have been damaged.
She is just about to enter his doorway when she hears a voice in the front hall. Unable to believe she has heard right, she takes a few steps down the hall and sees a tall, slim man in a sweat-soaked yellow riding jacket. It is Thomas Jefferson, who was not expected for another two weeks.
His back is to her, and he is talking to Monsieur Petit, whom she hasn’t seen since Paris. Jimmy and Bobby must also be home, though she can’t see them or hear their voices.
As she hesitates in the hallway, torn between the desire to flee and another desire she can’t define (she tells herself it’s to see Monsieur Petit, whom she didn’t even know was coming to this country), Thomas Jefferson turns suddenly and looks right at her. “Sally!” he exclaims. His face is radiant. His hair is windswept from the road. He looks as if he is about to laugh. Just then there is a cool rushing of air through the house, and the front door slams with a bang. “It seems we’re in for a big storm!” says Thomas Jefferson, still looking straight at Sally Hemings. And then he does laugh.
~ ~ ~
It is night, and Sally Hemings, candle in hand, is descending the narrow staircase from the second floor, where she has just put away Maria’s clothing of the day, laid out her gown, shift, stays and petticoats for the morning and bade the girl herself sweet dreams.
Her candle just barely illuminates the white balusters and a moving sphere of bare wall, so she makes her way downstairs more by memory than sight. Just as her foot touches the floor at the bottom of the stairs, the door to her left cracks and opens. Another candle hovers in the darkness, accompanied by a crimped thumb and the knuckles of a forefinger, and then she sees Thomas Jefferson’s temple, cheek and the rightmost plane of his nose. “Oh!” he exclaims under his breath, and starts to push the door closed. Then he pulls it open again.
“Sorry, Sally! I didn’t know anyone was there.”
She has stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Good night, Mr. Jefferson.”
He, too, has stopped, with one arm, shoulder and leg through the doorway. “Yes,” he says. “You, too.” And then he smiles. “Sweet dreams, Sally.”
~ ~ ~
This morning is as steamy and hot as every morning of the last week, but the air is restless, and so it feels cooler — as if something like ordinary life might be lived again.
Sally Hemings steps out of her door, barefoot, in nothing but her shift and a shawl, on her way to fetch some water from the rain barrel. Thomas Jefferson, just passing by on his favorite horse, Eagle, calls out, “Morning, Sally.” Giving her a smile and a curt wave, he continues down Mulberry Row, toward the western woods and the riding trail that winds north, then down along the Rivanna and back along the East Road.
Later that morning, Maria’s beloved Aunt Eppes and her son Jack arrive for a visit of several days. After lunch, on Thomas Jefferson’s recommendation, they, too, go for a ride, and Sally Hemings decides to make the best of her free time by taking a walk down to the lake. She has only just crossed the field and begun to descend the steep, wooded path when she hears footsteps coming up rapidly behind her.
She turns and sees Thomas Jefferson striding down the path. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright, his step loping and strong.
“Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Sally,” he says cheerfully, doffing his hat. “A beautiful day for a walk.”
“Yes,” she says, then blushes and is silent, as he falls into step beside her.
“I have spent my morning,” he says, “devising ways to keep that petty Caesar, Hamilton, from handing our government over to bankers and speculators.”
“Why would he want to do that?” she asks.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” He smiles at her as if he is about to break into laughter — but in the next instant he is scowling and his voice is loud. “That man wants Congress to serve no one but his wealthy friends! He intends to establish a national bank, and I am certain that his entire purpose is to make beggars and sycophants out of the people’s representatives. He doesn’t care a fig for democracy, and won’t be satisfied until a king has been crowned in this country!” Thomas Jefferson falls silent a moment, then shakes his head and smiles. “I’m sorry. This morning I wrote a dozen letters to President Washington warning him about Hamilton, but consigned every one of them to the fire, and now I feel as if I am on the verge of another of my periodical headaches. I was, in fact, feeling no small degree of despair on that account when I saw you walking past and then I thought, ‘That’s exactly what I should be doing!’”