He never wanted another boy to grow up believing that his suffering was something he must endure in silence.
Years later, when their son was old enough to ask how his parents had met, Rosalie told him the truth.
She told him that his grandfather had accepted fifty dollars to arrange her marriage.
She told him that she had been frightened, angry, and uncertain.
And she told him that his father had been a stranger who offered her kindness when she expected cruelty.
Their son listened carefully.
“Does that mean Grandfather bought you?” he asked.
Rosalie considered the question.
“Your grandfather accepted money for a decision that should never have been his to make,” she replied. “But money cannot decide what a person becomes, and it cannot buy another person’s love.”
She looked toward Gideon, who was repairing a fence outside the window.
“And the man I married became my husband in a church. The man I came to love was the one who showed me, day after day, that I mattered.”
