Jeremiah woke to another day, filled as usual, with
self revulsion. He’d watched the sad play of life unfold around him with no
means to prevent its inevitable outcome and his frustration tested him sorely.
How could he stand by and let such injustice pass unfettered? How could he let
those he cared for, those who trusted him and looked to him for all that their
lives were worth, how could he let them be trodden upon in such a brutal and
disparate way? He felt deep in his bones that this was a moment in time that
would prove him either man or worse than the field mice that plagued his
workers.
His father had to be stopped; not only for the
plantation, and those who worked it, but for himself. How could Jeremiah call
himself a man if he allowed his father to ruin his future? Jeremiah climbed out of bed. Enough, he told
himself. It was more than time to take matters into his own hands. His servant,
Obadiah, came in to help him dress, but Jeremiah noticed immediately that the
elder man limped. “Obadiah, what is wrong with your leg? Why are you limping?”
“It’s nothing sir. Just an old injury.” Obadiah
limped to the wardrobe.
“Obadiah, I’ve known you all my life. You have never
limped to an old injury before. What happened?” Why had he no trouble to take a
stern voice to his man servant, but couldn’t to his father?
“No bother, sir. I be fine.”
“Obadiah. The truth, now, please.” Jeremiah moved in
front of the wardrobe, crossed his arms and stood above his favored servant,
who had taken care of him all his life.
Obadiah, forced to stop his work, hung
his head. “The master, sir. He didn’t take kindly to my going
home last night, even though I tried to tell him you gave me permission. He,
well sir, he didn’t take kindly to it. So I didn’t go.”
Jeremiah gave Obadiah two nights a week to go sleep
at his cabin with his wife. It made the man so happy to see his grandchildren,
to have some time alone with his wife of thirty years. Jeremiah felt it the
very least he could do for the one who did so much for him. “Do you mean to
tell me he, that my father, Obadiah, did he beat you?”
Obadiah stood rooted to the floor, his eyes lowered,
still as statue. Jeremiah felt his face flush with embarrassment, with shame
and horror. Obadiah was the truest man he knew, had worked for their family as
a slave and now as a loyal, and paid, servant. He had never given Jeremiah
reason to ever berate him or treat him harshly. For his father to have actually
beaten the man to the point of limping, a man who had to be at least sixty,
riled him to the point of no return. Enough was enough. This went beyond the
pale.
“Obadiah, please forgive me. I’m sorry to have
waited so long that you paid the price for my cowardly fear.”
“Oh no sir. This isn’t your fault. You aren't a coward.”
“Not anymore anyway. Obadiah, this is the straw that has broken my
cowardly back. I promise this will never happen to you again. Please, help me
dress right away.” It was time to put an end to his weakness. Obadiah helped him dress. Jeremiah chose work
clothes, those that he wore when he rode the plantation checking in on the
workers, the women and children, the fields and orchards. His father’s holdings
were vast, but the lower east fields hadn’t been worked and lay fallow, the
apples were rotting on the trees in the apple orchards for lack of workers to
pick them. Jeremiah thanked Obadiah and strode from his bedroom to face his
father’s wrath. He ignored breakfast, had no stomach for it. His anger at
himself and his procrastination drove him like a bullet to his father’s study.
Upon seeing his father, Jason Whitmore, an imposing
man even while seated at his desk, Jeremiah paused at the threshold for but an
instant. He cursed his spinelessness and strode into the room without asking the
customary permission. “Good morning Father. I trust you slept well?” At least
his voice didn’t shake the way his clenched fists would if he released them.
Jason Whitmore looked up from the paper he wrote
upon. Jeremiah felt the sharp gaze clear through to his beating heart. Stand
strong, he told himself. Think of Obadiah. “I slept well enough, thank you,”
came his father’s polite yet frigid reply. “What do you want?”
“We need to discuss the plantation.”
“And why would that be?” His father sat back in his
chair with a familiar look of condescending contempt upon his lined face.
Go right to the point, Jeremiah, he said to himself.
Don’t be a coward. “Because, Father, we are losing money.”
“And however would you know that? It’s not like
you’ve taken enough of an interest in the holding to actually know of which you
speak.”
“You know that is an outright lie. I have begged
since I was sixteen for you to let me participate; to let me study the
accounts, the basic running of the holding. I am twenty-two and still you deny
me the right to comprehend my own inheritance.”
“And you have let me deny you. You haven’t once
tried to force my hand. In my opinion that makes you less than worthy to, shall
we say, take up the reins.”
Yes, Jeremiah thought. Now is the time. Today is
the day. He clasped his hands behind his back and slowly, with carefully placed
steps, began to pace in front of his father’s desk. “Contrary to your stubborn
and determined attitude toward my aptitude, I took it upon myself, Father, to
take lessons of my own. I have studied the books of the holding for, oh, I
guess about five years now and know exactly how much we have lost. I know
exactly how this plantation is run. I know every man, woman and child that
works or lives upon it. I know the state of every building, every tool, every
implement used either in the house or upon the land.” He paused, but only for
effect.
“I guarantee that if you continue to run this
holding, this plantation, in the manner to which you have become accustomed, we
will be paupers in two years. Three fields lie fallow. Two orchards bear
rotting fruit. We have a shortage of working bodies, thirty to be exact,
because we cannot afford them anymore. We have sick children who will never
grow into good work hands because they are not being treated, and now live in
conditions worse than our pigs do.” He stopped directly in front of his father,
dared to put his hands upon his father’s desk and leaned in. “That is how well
I know the lay of this land, sir.” He righted himself, placed his hands again
behind his back and stared at his father. Now that the words had been said he
felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He had finally fought his demon
of cowardice and won. Now, he had only to deal with the aftermath of his brazen
words.
His father sat stunned and quite still, staring at
Jeremiah like he was the devil incarnate. Then Jeremiah saw his hands clench
around the arms of his leather covered seat, the knuckles whiten, and his
father’s face turn red. He braced himself for the impact of his father’s wrath.
Instead, his father opened his mouth as if in surprise, clutched at his chest
and pitched face first onto his desk. He twitched a few times then lay
perfectly still.
His father was dead.
Jeremiah was free. What a great day, this had turned out to be.
Photo from:
Not two minutes
later Barbie heard a knock. Thinking it to be her mother, again she steeled
herself to hold her ground. She yanked her front door open so fast she almost
fell over. “Hey Barb, was that your mother?” Joe stood there with his military fatigues
covering his tall perfect frame, shoes almost glistening, not a hair out of
place and a grin on his to-die-for handsome face.
I’m sitting in a hospice room listening to my father’s
increasingly labored breath. Four days
ago he had a “massive” stroke. With the bleeding in his brain, there is no hope
of him recovering. So we, my sister and I, keep our vigil, as do our families
and friends who keep checking in with us. 
Jeremiah woke to another day, filled as usual, with
self revulsion. He’d watched the sad play of life unfold around him with no
means to prevent its inevitable outcome and his frustration tested him sorely.
How could he stand by and let such injustice pass unfettered? How could he let
those he cared for, those who trusted him and looked to him for all that their
lives were worth, how could he let them be trodden upon in such a brutal and
disparate way? He felt deep in his bones that this was a moment in time that
would prove him either man or worse than the field mice that plagued his
workers.
Upon seeing his father, Jason Whitmore, an imposing
man even while seated at his desk, Jeremiah paused at the threshold for but an
instant. He cursed his spinelessness and strode into the room without asking the
customary permission. “Good morning Father. I trust you slept well?” At least
his voice didn’t shake the way his clenched fists would if he released them.
