Strange Years

"How dare you speak to me like that! I've already explained we three grew up together...though I do not owe you any explanation!  I picked you up out of slavery. I own you, remember?"

"I thought emancipation set me free?"

"Free!  You were never free. My Dear, you cost quite a bundle," he retorted.

Blossom's normally white face when a shade lighter as the color drained from her cheeks.  He spoke the truth. She had always known how much she cost even though emancipation made the sale of people illegal.  But somehow she never thought of herself in that light.  She had accepted the fact of marriage so completely.

The realization she was his by "right of purchase" as well as "marriage" had somehow gone by the wayside as her attachment for him had deepened into love. Love?  Even this was the dawn of realization. Another place she had not entertained.  Nothing had been said of love really one toward the other and yet...

"I'm chattel!"  It came as a hollow statement more than a question.  She had stated it in a casual way but the impact was there, thick, in the room as though a mason had suddenly erected a brick wall between them and the two of them had slammed into it.