Through the Storm by Beverly Jenkins

voice stopped her. “You can still stay and have luncheon.”
    She shook her head no.
    “Then come back for dinner.”
    Sable looked up into his concerned gaze. “I’ll think about it.”
    As a slightly despondent Sable made her way back across camp, she gave the major’s invitation little more than a fleeting thought. War was on. Next year at this time he wouldn’t even remember her name.

Chapter 4
    M rs. Reese and the other laundresses greeted Sable’s return warmly. Everyone was happy to hear Patrick had been reunited with his family, and once Sable finished the story, she dove back into her share of the work.
    That evening, much to Sable’s surprise, Avery Cole showed up to pay her a visit. With him were his wife Salome and his year-old son Avery the Younger.
    Salome had tears in her eyes. “I’m so grateful to you, I can’t find the words. If you hadn’t been there to read my words to Avery…”
    She gave Sable a long hug while Avery, holding the baby, looked on approvingly. Sable had tears in her own eyes too. The woman’s sincerity touched her heart.
    Avery said, “You know, I’ve been telling folks about you writing that letter for Edward and they all want to know if you’ll do the same for them. There are a lot of people who’d write home if they had somebody to pen the letter. Do you think you could find the time?”
    Sable thought it over. “I can, but it will have to be after I’m done with my day here.”
    “I’m sure that will suit them fine.”
    “All right then. Just have them meet me here at the end of the day and I’ll do what I can.”
    Salome said, “You shouldn’t do it for free though,Sable. You will need every penny you can earn for your future.”
    Sable agreed wholeheartedly. She decided the rate would be two pennies for composing and one for reading. Both Avery and Salome thought the rates were fair and promised to spread the word.
    By week’s end, Sable’s writing and reading were proving almost as profitable as her laundry job. There were so many requests, Bridget and Mrs. Reese added their skills to the operation. One evening a soldier’s request for a letter to his motherless son back home in Ohio made Sable think about Patrick as she lay on her cot that night. She’d been so busy juggling laundry and letter writing, she hadn’t had an opportunity to inquire if he and his uncle were still in camp. Patrick’s Uncle Benjamin appeared to genuinely care for the little boy, and she was certain Patrick would be well cared for.
    She’d always had a soft spot for children. Were times and the world different, she might be married now with a passel of her own to love, but as it stood, slavery had robbed her of that hope. Although she was now free, she would be thirty years of age in November. By all accounts, that made her too old for a respectable man to marry and far beyond child-bearing years. Privately, she considered herself more than capable of loving a husband and bringing their children into the world, but having been a slave, she knew how powerful social constraints could be.
    She shrugged off her melancholy and tried to sleep, but her snoring tent mates kept her awake. In another few weeks, she might save enough money to buy a tent of her own, but until then, she’d have to endure the communal living. Eventually she hoped to leave the camp and make her way North or South, or wherever the Old Queens led. Surely, now that slavery was in its death throes, there would be opportunities for a woman like her, who could teach, be a governess, or run a business like the free Blacks she’d met here. She’d even bea laundress if she had to, but she had to get out of the camp.
    Her immediate objective lay in doing as much laundry as she could physically manage, then when her workday ended, she wrote and read dozens of letters for her fellow runaways. It seemed Avery had told the whole camp about her service. Just as during her last year as a Fontaine slave, she went to bed