Page 37 of It Happened in the Highlands
They reached the log that traversed the brook and Cuffe ran across before quickly coming back to hold Jo’s hand as she crossed.
As they started along the path again, Wynne tried to keep his son talking. “Maybe you should add the stories your Nanny told you to this collection. Or perhaps you could make a separate book.”
Jo’s nod told him he’d made a good suggestion, so he was surprised when his son’s eyes grew sad.
“I didn’t hear them enough to keep them in my memory,” he said in a low voice before turning to Jo. “You were able to listen to Ohenewaa for years and years.”
“No, I wasn’t, though I wish I could have. We lost Ohenewaa when my sister Phoebe—the one who set the tales down on paper—was younger than you are now.”
“How did she remember them?”
“She put down what she could and embellished them as she wrote. The ones you read are retellings of retellings.”
“So they’re not exactly as you heard them?”
Jo shook her head. “No, but we were all so relieved that she did it, because now a woman we loved will stay in our minds and hearts forever. And the next generation of Pennington children will know her too.”
Cuffe seemed satisfied with the answer, but he said nothing of Wynne’s suggestion about writing down Nanny’s stories.
They walked in silence for a while until the stone walls of Knockburn Hall came into sight. As they were passing the orchard, Cuffe spoke up.
“How did you lose her?”
Jo glanced over the lad’s head at Wynne before she answered. “Ohenewaa died of old age.”
“In Scotland?”
She nodded. “Yes, she’s buried in a cemetery at our home in the Borders.”
Cuffe stopped, facing her. “Why? Didn’t she want to go back to her own home?”
When Jo hesitated, Wynne knew she was beset with her memories of the old woman. He’d heard so many stories of her. In every way that mattered, Ohenewaa had been a member of the Pennington family.
“She chose the place she wished to call home,” Jo said finally. “Ohenewaa was a free woman since before I was born. She came from western Africa originally, suffered the brutality of slavers in the West Indies, and came to live with us when she was free. She could have gone anywhere she wished, and she guarded that freedom fiercely. But she chose to remain with us. It was her choice to live the rest of her life where my mother and her children were, to be part of our lives. We loved her and she loved us.”
Cuffe shrugged and drew a pattern in the grass with his stick before meeting Jo’s gaze again.
“But what about her other family, the people she left behind in Africa or in the islands? Don’t you think they missed her? Didn’t they need her too?”
The ten-year-old didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and strode away from them.
Wynne saw the concern in Jo’s face as Cuffe trudged toward the massive building.
“He is still struggling,” he whispered, touching her hand.
“I know.” She smiled sadly and linked her arm with his. “But he has a point. My brothers and sisters and I, my parents, my grandmother before she died—everyone who knew Ohenewaa—felt so fortunate to have her in our lives, but we were only thinking of ourselves.”
There was nothing Wynne could say to console Jo. He had no answers, no wisdom to share. He felt the same helplessness that he had been experiencing for months in the face of his son’s unhappiness and anger. There were no other choices for Cuffe but the life he was offering him. Jamaica was not a safe place for him. But to say the words or to argue them wasn’t enough.
The walls of the house glistened in the morning sun. It occurred to Wynne that he could have moved here with Cuffe before now. He could have had windows installed and purchased the furniture, and that would have been enough. But he’d held off, making excuses, telling himself he was waiting for the addition to be completed. All lies. They weren’t living here because neither of them was ready. How could he move his son from the Abbey—as flawed as the living arrangements were—to a shell of a house that had no heart?
As he considered this, he saw his son walk directly to the door, push it open, and disappear inside.
At one time his life was all about keeping those he loved under control, protected, safe. It had driven his decisions about life with Jo. About who would raise his son. But what did that get him? He felt no fuller than the empty house looming ahead.
While they were climbing the last short rise to the door, Cuffe reappeared. Without giving them so much as a glance, he walked around the side of the house to where an overgrown greensward dropped away to a pond. There, he plunked himself down, hugged his knees to his chest, and looked across the water into the murky depths of the Highland forest.
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