Here and Again

“A beautiful novel of letting go, healing, and redemption. Setting her story in the west of Ireland, Nicole Dickson draws the reader deeply into the magic of a mystical land. A stunning debut.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Susan Wiggs

“A remarkable novel about finding your true home, and of holding on and letting go. With lilting and lyrical language, Dickson immerses the reader in the lives and histories of a cluster of tightly knit families on an island off the coast of Ireland. I could hear the soft Irish voices and taste the salty spray of the ocean as Dickson works her storytelling magic, creating characters as complex and beautiful as the Irish sweaters at the heart of the story. This was a hard-to-put-down book, and I’m already anticipating the next offering from this wonderful author.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Karen White

“With a pattern as intricate as the sweaters knit in the novel, Nicole Dickson weaves her words into a powerful story of redeeming love and forgiveness.
Casting Off
grabbed my heart on page one and didn’t let go until the last breathtaking sentence.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry

“Casting Off
weaves a lyrical, emotional, and sometimes ghostly tale of love and loss, and of finding love again. Determined to escape the past, Rebecca arrives on a tiny island in Ireland with her young daughter to study the lore and tradition of its renowned sweaters. There, the two are gathered into the folds of a small old-world community, where their lives intersect and entwine with the colorful locals, and with mysteries as deep as the blue sea that surrounds them. Nicole Dickson never drops a stitch as she reveals ever-deepening twists in this lovely yarn of surrender, forgiveness, and redemption.”

—Jennie Shortridge, author of
Love Water Memory

“Lighthearted humor. . . . Rebecca’s tale of personal growth and letting go . . . keeps the reader interested.”

—
Woman’s Day

Casting Off

NAL Accent

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library,

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First Printing, June 2014

Copyright © Nicole R. Dickson, 2014

Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014

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Dickson, Nicole R.

Here and again / Nicole R. Dickson.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-698-13786-8

1. Nurses—Fiction. 2. Widows—Fiction. 3. Soldiers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3604.I328H47 2014

813'.6—dc23 2013035276

PUBLISHER
’
S
NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my grandmothers

Martha Dora Barnes Beebe

and my blue ribbon

Lola Virginia Swenson Dickson

and the magic of applesauce

A path is best if shared. It becomes a journey where discoveries are made not only by what we individually take in, but more importantly what we learned through the experiences of others—to see the world and road through another’s eyes. For this novel, I’d like to acknowledge those who walked this path with me and all the others I met along the way.

Thanks to my traveling partner, my daughter, Elspeth Rowan Dickson Bartlett, for quiet company walking through the battlefields of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. I am grateful to Mary Hanes for driving the Shenandoah with me the first time and keeping us on the road when I first arrived at Harpers Ferry. Thanks also to my family, Laurel, Andrew, Amy, Emily, and Arden Dickson, for wandering with me through Petersburg and Appomattox.

I’d like to remember Boyd and thank Barbara Lyon for sharing so much with my family and for the use of their cabin so long
ago, where I met the goat and learned a mighty lesson at Steep Ravine.

Thanks to Elaine Legg, RN, for her medical knowledge and discussions about her emergency room experiences. Scott Hanes—thanking him for general farming knowledge and equipment discussions. Also, appreciation to Meredith Scales for conversations regarding farming in rural Virginia and the nature of goats. Thank you, Kathy Green, for information on herdsmanship and for your patience as I worked through the novel.

Thanks to Susan Coulter for her first edit. To Christie Scott I owe gratitude for editing help and for working through specific plot points. Thank you to Merry Creed, Terrie Parrish and Denise Robinson for reading the first drafts of the book, adding commentary, and helping with the conversation guide.

I’d like to acknowledge the service of the park rangers in our national parks and the volunteers there, especially those in Gettysburg, Antietam, Manassas, Petersburg, Harpers Ferry, and Appomattox. Thank you also to the visitors’ center in Lexington, Virginia, for information regarding Thomas Jackson, Washington and Lee University, and VMI.

Thank you to Claire Zion, editor, and my agent, Linda Chester of Linda Chester’s Literary Agency, for support with this book.

Finally, I’d like to personally offer my gratitude and appreciation to all those in the armed forces, in this country and abroad, now as back then, and to their families who continue to give up all or part of their own lives in service to others. For my own family, I’d like to recognize my father, William H. Dickson, my brother, Andrew A. Dickson, my uncles, Stanley Houghton and George Iaeger, and my cousins, Kathleen Iaeger Shroy, Lee Ann Iaeger, and Mike Carey. Love and thanks to all of
you.

May 10, 1861

Laurel Creek

Dear Juliette,

When I awoke this morning, my body was wound tight like the string of a violin that awaits the bow. I wanted to go, yet Laurel Creek babbled softly to the birds singing in the tree outside my window. I could only think of home, spring, and the fields rising to flower. All was still in the house as I dressed. To my surprise, I found the buttons to Grandpa Samuel’s uniform sewn onto my own. The dawn glimmered on them, causing me some difficulty securing my sword.

I walked from my room as quietly as I could, but found greeting me with murmured morning voices my father, my sister, Ann, and her husband, Peter. Their eyes were swimming and I could not long look upon them nor speak—so thick was my throat. I headed for the front door. Before I reached it, Ann stopped me, making small adjustments to the placement of the coat upon my shoulders. Her hands knew this uniform for from them it was made. She kissed my cheek with a God Bless and I thought that to be the end of it, but my father followed me to the creek. He was stumbling over the slippery rocks so much so that I had to help him back to the other side. When I return, the first thing I shall do is build a bridge over that stream—a bridge with a roof. It’ll be the death of him if I do not. His final words to me were that the buttons would bring me home. They had kept his father’s father alive through the last Revolution, so they should bring me safely home through this one. He took
me in his arms, after which I, once again, crossed Laurel Creek. I looked back only once to ensure he had stayed on his side of the water. He had done, thus I headed for Jeb and Zachary’s house.

I arrived in time for breakfast. Zachary was waiting at the door and when I walked in his mother shook me out of my coat like dirt off of a rug. Immediately, she tore off my brass buttons, replacing them with several mismatching ones from various coats of the late Reverend. Zachary said he could have shot me a mile off, the buttons shined so. No shiny target would I make, declared his mother. I did try to explain what my father had said, but she felt it superstitious and nonsense.

As Zachary and I ate in silence, his mother secured the orphaned buttons to my coat and I stole peeks through the window as Jeb said good-bye to his promised, Ruth. She wept as he kissed her cheek so softly. I thought of you then.

I have grieved with you, Juliette, in your loss this last year. Charles was a good and honorable man and a true friend. If I had to lose your hand, it would not have been so easily endured had it been to anyone else but him. The four years since I left Lexington have been at once hollow and painful as you did not return with me as my wife. But, also, they have been joyous and without worry for I left you with a better man than myself. Only your happiness has helped settle me in contentment these last years.

Juliette, I have walked letter by letter with you down the widow’s path. I would be nowhere else. My intention has always been to see you happy once more—to have you loved as you deserve to be loved once more. So I have received your last letter with both jubilant elation and unfathomable sadness, for in it I find words of love given to me. Oh, Juliette, I have loved and will love none but you. In the joy of receiving such a gift as your love, my heart weighs heavily. Duty calls me, Juliette, and I can only answer. War is come. I am a soldier. My duty takes me from you, and as I leave, I leave you free. I would not suppose to press my love for you until I can, with open heart and clarity of the future, ask for your hand if you would have me.

So, I shall take up the sword, and as I do, I feel your whispered breath upon my ear and your hair brush gently my neck as you rest your head upon my shoulder. So
quiet and deep do I feel you, like the waters at the bottom of the river flowing over its bed.

Though I promised with this pen and paper to write home as often as I could, I think I shall write mostly to you. I shall send, also, one of my grandfather’s buttons with each letter—a token of my family’s past to one who, with hope, shall hold my future. Thus, when I return, you shall have and know all of me that you have missed and we can then speak only of you, whom I have missed, filling my mind and heart with you, having emptied both on the road of war. To return from war with a clear conscience is my most longed-for wish.

I must go now. Captain Tiffany calls a muster. Four years has it been since I have strayed from home and upon my return from university at Virginia Military Institute, I swore I should never leave again. But now, I can only say my heart is forever home with you—whether upon Laurel Creek or any other water beyond which I may find thee.

Your devoted,

Samuel E. Annanais