“I know.”
“So I had to think creatively, very creatively, about solutions that… pushed the boundaries of convention.”
Something in his tone worried me. “What do you mean?”
He stopped pacing and looked me straight in the eye. “I’ll give you back, Dalila.”
I looked at him, sure I’d misheard. “Sorry. What?”
“Delila, a peasant woman. I give her to you in marriage as a companion. Your de facto wife.”
The words made no sense. “Father, you can’t suggest…”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you what will happen.” His voice had hardened. The same tone he used in court, when he announced the verdict. “No white woman will marry you. That is an indisputable fact. But the Callahan line must continue. The plantation needs heirs, even if those heirs are unconventional.”
The horror of his proposal struck me. “You want me… with a slave? Father, then… even if I could, and the doctors say no, that’s not how inheritance works. A child born to a slave wouldn’t be your heir. He’d be your property.”
“Unless I free them. Unless I legally adopt them, unless I carefully draft a will, which, as a judge and lawyer, I’m the only one who can do.”
“This is madness.”
“It is necessary.” He sat back down, leaning forward. “Thomas, listen to me. I have thought this through. You cannot have children. The doctors have been unanimous on this. But children can be sired in your name. Delilah is strong, healthy, and intelligent. I will arrange for her to be mated to a suitable male from another plantation. A strong lineage, proven fertility, and good looks. The children she bears will be legally mine, thanks to papers I will prepare. When I die, I will leave them to you, along with documents that will release them and establish them as your adoptive heirs. They will inherit everything.”
“You’re talking about raising people like cattle.”
“I’m talking about ensuring the survival of this family and this plantation. Is it an unconventional solution? Yes. Is it legally complicated? Absolutely. But it’s possible, and it solves our problem.”
“It’s not my problem.” I stood up, my hands shaking more than usual. “Father, what you describe is wrong. You want to use a woman’s body without her consent to father children, whom you manipulate through legal artifice to become heirs. You treat people like reproductive material, like animals.”
“In the eyes of the law, they’re animals.” His voice rose to match mine. “Thomas, I know you’ve read those abolitionist books. Yes, I know them. I’m not blind. You’ve filled your head with sentimental nonsense about the humanity of slaves, but the legal reality is that they are property. I own Delilah as much as I own this house or this chair. And I choose to use her in a way that solves the problem.”
“What does Dalila think?”
“She’ll do what she’s told. She’s your property, Thomas. Her opinion doesn’t matter.”
Something inside me broke. All my life I had submitted to my father’s authority, I had accepted his decisions, I had tried to compensate for being a disappointing son, but it was too much.
“NO.”
He said the word softly but firmly. My father blinked. “What did you say?”
I said, “No.” I will not participate in this. If you wish to carry out this obscene reproductive project, you will do so without my participation or cooperation.
“Ungrateful…” He stood up, his face flushed. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve sacrificed for you? The opportunities I’ve missed because I had to focus on finding solutions for my disabled son. The social awkwardness of having a successor who can’t perform the only basic function he has.”
“I didn’t ask to be born this way, and I didn’t ask to have a son to extinguish the lineage.” He threw a glass, which shattered against the fireplace. “I’m looking for a solution, and you hold it against me, driven by a supposed moral superiority derived from abolitionist propaganda.”
“This isn’t propaganda to say people shouldn’t be raised like animals. Father, if you don’t see the evil in what you’re proposing…
