The President's Daughter Read Online Free Page B

slightly, clutching his left wrist. He reached down and picked up a wicker basket and held it out to me.
    â€œDo you want one of these Monticello pups, Harriet? Clara just gave birth to a litter. She might keep you company and remind you of home.”
    He held out the basket of squirming Dalmatian puppies as if it were a peace offering.
    â€œChoose one for I shall drown the rest. I consider all dogs the most afflicting of all the follies for which we tax ourselves.”
    He reached down into the basket and took out an adorable black-and-white bitch. Father seemed to recognize the necessity and utility of dogs, I thought, as he did of Negroes, but he still begrudged their existence.
    For my mother’s sake, I swallowed this last humiliation, matching his smile, which he never lost, and suppressing an overwhelming desire to wring the poor puppy’s neck. How, I wondered, could I love and despise my father so much at the same time?
    I looked down at the animal squirming in the huge outstretched hands. An apology for this morning? I wondered.
    â€œShe’s beautiful.”
    â€œThink of a good name for her.”
    â€œI’ll call her Independence.”
    I took Independence in my arms, clutching her to me in the same way my father clutched his wrist against his chest. I noticed that a tear had rolled down my father’s cheek. I looked away. WHITE PEOPLE! Why was he crying now? Now, when it was too late? What had he expected? That because he was the President he wouldn’t have to pay someday? I turned and heldPetit’s horrified gaze in a silent command to take me away from this place. I would not throw away the gift of freedom in exchange for any man’s promise . . . especially white men, who never kept their promises. Had Captain Hemings married my great-grandmother? Had John Wayles freed my grandmother? Had my father ever called me daughter? Was this parting gift of Independence an acknowledgment? Well, I thought, grab it and run. Freedom, that is. Leave everything you have ever loved, start your new life as an orphan: nameless, homeless, and friendless. White. White. White.
    I drew his eyes to mine.
You’re asking a lot of a daughter,
I thought.
    â€œPapa,” I whispered. “You could still change things.”
    But I kept my eyes as hard as the precious stone they resembled, my thoughts tight in my womb. I wouldn’t cry anymore. I was free. I was white; I was twenty-one. I had nothing to cry about.
    Petit and I drove down the mountain in broad daylight. Everyone knew we were leaving. My uncle Burwell drove the carriage, which headed toward Richmond. Another uncle, Fossett, was the outrider. People deserted the slave quarters and drifted toward the road that traversed all my master’s plantations to have a last look at Harriet Hemings leaving home. Inside the vehicle, I turned back to look only once, but that was enough to see that my mother had come to stand beside the tall stooped figure of Father, who had stepped through a hole in the rotting steps and fallen from the veranda to his knees. Steps my uncle Robert was supposed to have fixed months ago.

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    It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may be tried, whether Catholic, or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery.
    Thomas Jefferson
    My boot went through a rotten plank in the veranda as the lilac phaeton disappeared down the mountain. I pitched forward to my knees, falling on my bad wrist and fracturing it again. I cursed Robert for not having repaired the step as I had told him to. I cursed Sally for not having made sure her brother did it. I cursed Harriet, for without her, I, Thomas Jefferson, wouldn’t have been standing out here in the first place. I cursed all the