I hammered repeatedly. My arms burned. My shoulders ached. Sweat poured down my face. But I was doing physical labor, shaping the metal with my own hands. When the iron cooled, Josiah lifted the slightly bent piece.
“Your first project. It’s not much, but you did it.” He put down the iron. “You’re stronger than you think. You’ve always been strong. You just needed the right business.”
From that day on, I spent hours at the forge. Josiah taught me the basics: how to heat metal, how to hammer it, how to shape it. I wasn’t strong enough for heavy work, but I could make small objects: hooks, simple tools, decorative pieces.
For the first time in 14 years, since the accident, I felt physically capable of doing something. My legs didn’t work, but my arms and hands did. And in the forge, that was enough.
But something else was happening, too. Something I couldn’t control.
June brought a different revelation. One evening we were in the library. Josiah was reading Keats aloud. His reading had improved to the point of understanding complex texts. His voice was perfect for poetry. Deep, resonant, capable of giving weight to every line.
“A thing of beauty is an eternal joy,” he read. “Its beauty increases. It will never fade into nothingness.”
“Do you really believe that?” I asked. “That beauty is eternal.”
“I believe that beauty in memory is eternal. The object itself may fade, but the memory of beauty remains.”
What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?
She was silent for a moment. Then: “Yesterday at the forge, covered in soot, sweating, laughing as you hammered that nail. It was beautiful.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Josiah, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
“No.” I moved the wheelchair closer to where he was sitting. “Say it again.”
“You were beautiful. You are beautiful. You have always been beautiful, Elellanar. The wheelchair doesn’t change that. The broken legs don’t change that. You are intelligent, kind, brave, and, yes, physically beautiful.” Her voice grew prouder. “The twelve men who rejected you were blind idiots. They saw a wheelchair and stopped looking. They didn’t see you. They didn’t see the woman who learned Greek just because she could, who read philosophy for pleasure, who learned to forge iron despite having broken legs. They didn’t see any of this because they didn’t want to.”
I reached out and took his hand, his huge, scarred hand, capable of bending iron, but holding mine as if it were made of glass. “Do you see me, Josiah?”
“Yes, I see you all. And you are the most beautiful people I have ever met.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Dangerous words. Impossible words. A white woman and a black man enslaved in Virginia in 1856. There was no room in society for what I felt.
“Ellaner,” he said carefully. “You can’t. We can’t. If anyone knew, they would…”
“What would they want? We already live together. My father already married me to you. What difference does it make if I love you?”
“The difference is safety. Your safety. My safety. If people think this arrangement is dictated by affection rather than obligation.”
“I don’t care what people think.” I stroked his face with my hand, reaching out to touch him. “I care what I feel. And for the first time in my life, I feel love. I feel someone sees me. Really sees me. Not the wheelchair. Not the disability. Not the burden. You see Ellanar. And I see Josiah. Not the slave. Not the brute. The man who reads poetry, creates wonderful things with iron, and treats me with more kindness than any free man has ever had.”
“If your father knew.”
“My father arranged everything. He brought us together. Whatever happens, it’s partly his fault.” I leaned forward. “Josiah, I understand if you don’t feel the same way. I understand it’s complicated and dangerous. Maybe I’m just lonely and confused. But I needed to tell you.”
He was silent for so long. I thought I’d ruined everything. Then: “I’ve loved you since our first real conversation. When you asked me about Shakespeare and actually listened to my answer. When you treated me like my thoughts mattered. I’ve loved you every day since then, Elellanar. I never thought I’d say that.”
“Say it now.”
“I love you.”
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