“In one village, Andrew fell in love. He married and wished to settle down. I left him there. He and his wife were blissfully happy. I told him he would need to bite her to give her long life, but when she found out who he was, what he was, she ran home to her mother. They alerted the town. The villagers came for Andrew with torches and knives. He was wounded badly.
“Something told me deep in my soul that Andrew was in trouble. I returned to the area. When I found him hiding in the swamp, he was half dead. I restored him to health, and we left. We’ve been together ever since. I think he still grieves for Madeline, and he has never wanted to find another mate.
“Am I boring you with my sad history?” Timothy asked, looked up at me with a worried expression.
“No, I want to hear. I need to understand everything.”
Timothy nodded and then continued. “Eventually, we signed on for a ship that sailed to the new lands. You call it America now, or rather, the United States of America.
“Here we felt freer. We became farmers in one period of time, clerks, shop keepers, and then explorers. Andrew had problems because of the color of his skin, so we had to journey far away from the lands where slaves were owned. Of course, I forged papers to say I owned him. It kept Andrew from being sold or worse.
“We hit gold in California and Nevada and became wealthy. Of course, Andrew couldn’t own anything. It had to be in my name for a long time. But over the years, things improved, and blacks were not treated as badly, at least if they were under the protection of a rich white man.
“After all those years together, Andrew and I share a close bond. He is as rich as I am, with bank accounts in several places, land he owns, everything he wants, but he stays nearby. In fact, he insists on driving for me and doing odd jobs, and I have been grateful for it. He is my best friend.”
I nodded and cast a brief smile. “I knew that Andrew and you were close. I could feel that. In fact, I even wondered if you were lovers, except . . .”
“Yes, we had that thrown at us now and then, that we were engaging in immoral acts, but there was never that between us. Andrew is not a womanizer, but he prefers his relationships to look like females. I am of a like mind.”