Good Dirt

Henry wants to talk to Ebby. He is worried his father’s friend knows something about the crime done to her family. He begs for Ebby to hear him out and explains that he was uncomfortable that this man knew that the jar was broken when Baz was killed. Ebby has always suspected that the robbers were there specifically for the jar.

Ebby describes to Henry what she saw the day of Baz’s death: two robbers in ski masks asking Baz where “it” was. She is sure they meant the jar. She never mentioned this detail to the police or to their parents because she feared that the robbers might come back. Now, Ebby is angry that her identity has “continued to be shaped by what had been taken from her family. Her brother. Her first home. Her family’s privacy. Their heritage” (208). Henry knows that his father’s friend Harris is in the insurance industry and that people steal art. Henry hates confrontation, so he avoided mentioning the issue, but in running away from Ebby, Henry realizes that he “has taken himself down a notch as a man” (210).

Avery has been reading about rebound relationships. As she approaches the cottage, she sees Henry and Ebby together. Ebby is angry with Henry, telling him that, with his silence, “You decided that your people were worth more than my people” (213). Avery sees another man in the yard, who greets her.

Robert, after seeing Ebby with Henry, feels that he has been foolish. He has been lonely after his wife died, and that made him hopeful about Ebby.

Ebby is glad to hear Henry say that he never stopped loving her. She lets slip that she was pregnant.

Ebby still longs for the version of Henry that she was supposed to have married, but she realizes that this Henry is not that man. Henry cries over her lost pregnancy. They make love, but then she tells him to go.

Ebby eavesdrops on Henry and Avery’s argument. Avery takes her luggage and leaves.

In 1829, the chief’s daughter is cast out of her tribe for carrying the child of an escaped African whom the tribe allowed to live with them. The woman and her lover find shelter with a formerly enslaved farmer. He gives them provisions and a scrap of wood with an X burned onto it. Where they stop next, they can show that piece of wood and get help. They arrive in Massachusetts. They purchase land, and although “[t]hey had found a place with good dirt, […] they could not be sure of holding on to it” (226). The chief’s daughter gives birth to a daughter, Aquinnah, who later meets and marries a man calling himself Edward Freeman, but whose other name is Willis.

Willis sails for a time, but he doesn’t want to continue whaling. He makes money with his carpentry business and the designs he paints. The jar made by Moses, which stands in the Freemans’ kitchen, becomes a place that people can leave and exchange notes. When the Fugitive Slave Act is passed, they discuss Willis’s leaving, but he doesn’t want to be apart from his family.

Back in 2019, Henry considers what Ebby told him. He knows his mother never approved of Ebby. He hopes Ebby will stop him from leaving, but she doesn’t.

Ebby hears Henry leave. She finds her cardigan and realizes that Robert must have come by while she was with Henry.

Ebby finds Robert to apologize. They spend the day at his grandfather’s, and Ebby learns about Robert’s wife.

Avery decides to rebuild her life. Henry thinks about going to an artist’s residency for photography. Ebby realizes that it’s time to return to Connecticut.

Ebby hesitates to leave France because she wants to see more of Robert.

In 1873, Willis isn’t overjoyed that his sons, Edward Moses and Basil, are leaving to work on whaling ships out of San Francisco, but he knows that they need work. Aquinnah finds letters from them in the jar. They keep the small square of wood with the X in the jar as well.

In 2019, Ebby looks for a therapist in France. She talks to her mother, who has spoken with Henry and Harris. Harris knew about the jar being broken because Ed told him when he asked about insurance policies. Her mother says that Ebby’s father is brooding. He worries that Baz’s death was his fault because Ed was the one who wanted to move to Connecticut.

Ed has left Soh and gone to stay with his parents.

When Henry finally confronts his father’s friend Harris, he learns that Harris is also a friend of Ed Freeman’s, and that’s how he knew what happened to the family jar. Harris thinks that Henry ought to approach the Freemans himself. When he does, Soh slaps Henry across the face.

As Henry talks to Ebby’s parents, he sees their faces when he reveals that Ebby still has nightmares. Henry admires Ed and Soh and is humbled by how they have persevered after the death of their son.

Ed recalls how, after Baz’s death, he and Soh “had been, if nothing else, organized and discipline in their grief” (254), but now he worries about her coping. He thinks she depends too much on Ebby. He worries Soh might blame him for wanting the house in Connecticut. This is what makes him drive away.

Ebby tells Robert she wants to come back to France but will make no promises.

Ebby says goodbye to her friend Hannah, then flies to New York. She plans to visit her friend Ashleigh in Rhode Island.

Ebby reflects on what she never told her parents about the day Baz was killed. They’d been playing hide-and-seek, and Ebby was hiding upstairs but heard the conversation when the thieves entered. She knew that she should call the police but froze with fear.

Ed, now staying with his parents, recalls time spent with his children. His parents never liked the fact that he moved to Connecticut, although his sister, Kandy, supported his decision. Now, Ed reflects on the dangers of being a Black minority, even in a prosperous area.

Ed recalls an incident in 1988 that made him want to leave Refuge County, Massachusetts. A car of young white men passed him on the road, and one of the men held up a card with three letters on it.

In 1877, Willis’s son, Edward Moses, returns with a wife, while Basil becomes a favorite uncle. When a grandson marries, Willis and Aquinnah gift the jar to them and move it to the larger home on their property. There it stays for generations, since the family “understood that the old jar was the most valuable thing they had, apart from their freedom” (271). No matter what else is placed in the jar, the scrap of wood with the X always remains.

In 1910, Willis’s granddaughter, Eliza, shows him her medical degree.

Back in 2019, Ed is surprised when Ebby arrives to see him.

Ed and Ebby talk. Ebby finally reveals that she knows the robbers were after the jar. She never spoke of it because she feared they would come back. Ebby blames herself for Baz’s death because she begged her brother to play hide-and-seek. Ed realizes that “[i]t is time to tell his family the truth about the jar” (278).

Ebby recalls a game that her family used to play using the title of books. Granny Freeman had been one of the first African American librarians in New England. Ebby finds some of the game clues in her brother’s handwriting.

The Pitts, Adelaide and Bob, were the Freemans’ neighbors in Connecticut. They were friendly and welcoming when Ed and Soh first moved into the neighborhood. The families have remained close.

Mrs. P greets Ebby and reflects on the tragedy that visited her family, which the Pitts family mourned, too. After Baz was killed, the Pitts also sold their house and moved away.

Soh arrives at the Pitts family’s house. Ebby recalls how Mrs. P helped her the afternoon Baz was shot. Ebby sees that Soh isn’t ready yet to forgive Ed.