The Forgotten Ones (A Completed Steamy, Historical Romance)

May 26, 1865

I slid off my horse and sat in the field of blooming dandelions. Mimi would have these cooked up for dinner.  I internally giggled at the memory. 

Mimi was like a mother to me.  She was beautiful inside and out.  I often wondered if she ever knew the touch of a loving man.  She never spoke of her life as a slave.  She never spoke period, unless it was completely necessary.  I don't think she ever truly believed she was free.  Morgan's men proved her fear in the end.  No piece of paper signed by any president could have freed Mimi.  She had too much trauma in her past.  Not even the equal pay she received convinced her of such a fact. 

Bub, is another story.  He loved his freedom and welcomed it.  I'll never forget the day he called Oliver sir. 

"Bub, you are my closest friend and confidant.  Please do not address me as sir, for you are my friend, I request you address me as Oliver."

Bub was so intellegent.  He ran this farm like no other, and loved so deeply.  Oliver once told me Bub had family in Georgia.  A wife and son, but they were sold, and Bub never found them.  These are the true forgotten ones.  The ones that suffered through slavery and war, but few have as much as a carved headstone to memorialize their lives or death.

They existed, they suffered, and they sacrificed.  I would take a thousand more beating and rapes if it meant freedom for those who need it the most. 

The forgotten ones come in every size, shape, and color.  My Rose was only a few pounds, but someday when I'm gone, she will be forgotten.  My living children will reproduce, and their names will be marked down in someone's ancestral history, but not my Rose. 

My husband will have quite the ancestral history if he has fathered more children during his 27 years on this earth.  How dare he ask me to name our lost daughter Rose if he already had a child by his grandmother's full name?  Why would he ask me to do such a terrible thing?

I am perfectly aware men are quite different than women.  They have experiences starting in their youth, where we are reared to believe we will burn in hell if we have less than our virtue to offer our husbands.  We are reared to believe our main duty is to produce offspring to carry on our husband's name. 

I have, and continue to do exactly that, no matter the hardship it causes my body.  I've carried five children within my womb.  I love my children with everything within me, and welcome every single gift God has chosen to give me with open arms, but he did not choose for me a child that is almost a decade old. 

God did not choose for me to lay with Armstrong either, but that is a burdon I will regret for the rest of my days.  This child of Oliver's, and his former lover, are both my punishment for my own indiscretion.  I will not respect or acknowledge either of the two.  Evelyn came her with hopes of damaging the happy marriage Oliver and I were building. Armstrong put his life for me on display to rub it in my husband's face.  I will never forgive Armstrong for breaking my trust. 

I heard hooves come up behind me.  I know I should not be alarmed, but I can sense my husbands presence without looking at him.  The man I was supposed to defy and break after being forced to marry him.  The man I never grew to love. The man I instantly loved upon first sight. 

"You shouldn't be riding horseback."  Oliver said as he took a seat next to me. 

"You shouldn't presume your past would never haunt you."  I replied.

"A past I shared with you.  If I thought details were necessary, I would have shared them.  I did not know of that child's existance until their arrival today."  He said.

"She is yours?"  I asked.

"Yes, I do believe so."  He replied. 

"You told me you only loved once before me."  I said.