Widow of Gettysburg (45 page)

A sob trapped in her throat as he whispered, “Be well,” and followed the officer out of the room.

Though her heart kicked and screamed, her tears had all run dry. No words formed with which she could call him back, or call him out. Liberty was utterly spent.

Dr. O’Leary crossed the room to her side, his eyes tired. “I do apologize, Miss Holloway. They’re taking everyone. All those who are well enough to travel are being rounded up for prison. Those who are not are being evacuated to Camp Letterman, a general hospital a mile outside of Gettysburg along York Pike.”

“Where will he go?”

“Fort Delaware, most likely, along with about six thousand other Confederate prisoners from Gettysburg. That’s in addition to the thousands already there.”

Her throat ached with dread. “Will he be all right?”

Dr. O’Leary sighed. “I don’t know. The prisons are lousy with disease, and there’s never enough food or clothing. Some of the Christian Commission’s most important work is getting supplies into prisons to ease their existence a little bit. Of course, our focus is on Union prisoners. But Confederate prisoners fare poorly too, I’m sorry to say.”

Of course they did. This was war.

“I came to help clean up in here, since my work with the patients is done.” The floor was sticky with the sour residue of the struggle. Dr. O’Leary crossed to the window and leaned out. “Amazing that Silas hit his mark from that distance and angle.”

Liberty jolted. How could she have forgotten to ask who shot Isaac? “Are you telling me he’s the one who fired into the bedroom?

“Indeed.” He straightened and turned to face her, rolling up his sleeves.

“You must be mistaken. He refuses to use a weapon. It could not have been him. He only came up after the struggle was over.”

Dr. O’Leary shook his head. “No, Miss Holloway. He helped end it.”

“You’re certain?”

“Fitz handed him the gun and watched him do it. He’s a crack-shot. He didn’t want to kill him, just disable him, to protect you. I know he said he’d never handle a gun again, but love is a powerful thing.” He knelt to scrub the floor. “That was the difference between Silas and Isaac, you know. Love gives, lust takes. Love is about the other person. Lust is about self. Love gives birth to passion as an expression of a couple’s love and commitment. But lust gives vent only to greed for satisfying one’s own appetites. Love cares about who you are. Lust cares only about what you can do for him.”

Dr. O’Leary sat back on his heels and looked into her eyes. “Silas
Ford, as far as I can tell, is a man who knows how to love.”

Liberty broke his gaze, turning away. Silas was gone now, and there was nothing to be done about it.

A long moment later, Liberty found her voice again, willed it to remain steady. “I do appreciate your help cleaning in here, Dr. O’Leary. But first, would you mind if I change my dress?”

The doctor left her in privacy while she peeled off her ruined dress and replaced it with all she had left.

Wilted crepe from neck to toe, faded from fresh black to worn rust, cloaked her. It was not the dress of one in fresh grief, but of one who had lived with it, day in and day out, until it had become a second skin. Somehow, her mourning clothes suited her now. She was surrounded and filled by loss.

A
heavy breeze stirred the branches of the apple tree above Myrtle, rustling the lacey canopy of leaves. Sitting cross-legged next to the mound of earth where Isaac now slept, her hands shook as she threaded the slippery, silver needle. Hunched over her work, she cursed her large fingers as they fumbled with Dolly’s head and body. She needed to talk to someone, and Dolly wasn’t talking back anymore. Maybe she shouldn’t have chopped her head off.

Maybe she shouldn’t have killed Isaac.

Myrtle pinched Dolly’s head and body together and stabbed the needle through the fabric, pulling the thread until the knot tugged from one side. She made another stitch, and other, carefully turning Dolly until the head was secured back onto the body. Myrtle tied a knot and snipped the thread, gazing at her handiwork.

Dolly didn’t remind her of Liberty anymore. Her neck had shrunk with the stitches so she looked a little more like Frankenstein’s monster.

No
, said Dolly.
I look like you. Myrtle the Turtle.

Myrtle moaned. She wasn’t in the mood for Dolly’s attitude today. She needed a friend who would listen, that was all.

“I didn’t mean to kill him.”

Yes you did. You meant to kill me, and you meant to kill Isaac. Only, you can’t put him back together again.

Myrtle pinched the stitches of Dolly’s throat between her thumb and forefinger. “I wanted to help Silas. I heard him outside, as I was bringing the coffee up to Liberty. He said, ‘Help me.’ That’s always been my job. Take care of Silas Ford.” She eased her hold on Dolly’s neck.

Even though it meant keeping Liberty alive?

Tears bit Myrtle’s eyes. “I said I would help him. And I did. Myrtle Henderson helped Silas Ford.”

Because you wanted a kiss. But he didn’t, did he?

Myrtle didn’t respond. The truth was too bitter to taste on her tongue.

“I was a hero. To both of them.”

Yes.
Dolly nodded between Myrtle’s fingers.
Like Éponine.

Myrtle froze. She was exactly like Éponine.

You’re forgetting one little thing. Marius kissed Éponine only after she was dead.
The smile on Dolly’s face turned into a sneer.
Is that what you want? Because if you do, you know exactly how to—

“No!” Myrtle yelled at the doll in her fist. “You’re not my friend if you say things like that to me. I don’t need a friend like you.” Tears slid down her broad cheeks. “You’re just a doll. You aren’t even real.”

Dolly said nothing.

“I made a good decision to help Liberty and Silas, and I made it without you telling me what to do.” Myrtle drew a fortifying breath. “I don’t need a friend like you.” Myrtle stared at the doll, daring it to talk back. To sneer. To so much as twitch. It didn’t.

With a glance over her shoulder, Myrtle dug a small hole in the soil, placed the doll inside, and replaced the patch of earth on top of it. “That’s more like it,” Myrtle said, but only to herself.

Silas was gone along with the rest of the patients. Myrtle Henderson
had helped him the best she could. Now it was time for Myrtle Henderson to leave.

Liberty laid Amelia’s letter on the black crepe of her lap and looked out from her armchair on the porch. So much had changed in just a few weeks’ time. Now Amelia was working with the wounded, and Holloway Farm was barren. Liberty had lived on this farm by herself before, but she had never felt such emptiness crushing around her as she did now.

Wind groaned through the barn, which was so hopelessly laced with vermin and the floor soaked with blood she dared not go near it. Her gardens were completely obliterated. Fences gone, the beds looked no different from the dirt dooryard.

Dr. O’Leary had raked out and burned the soiled straw before leaving, but the floors of her home were stained and infused with the odor of a hospital. Her house was a shell of what it once had been. Most of the furniture had been destroyed. Or used for crutches.

Everything had been hollowed out and used up.

Including Liberty. True to Mr. Stahle’s word, more papers had come to find out if the story in the
New York Times
about her and Bella and Silas was true. She had told them it was, and they had sold their papers with her story.

Hunger clawed at her stomach, but she had no food. She had no money. All she had was memory, and even that did not serve her well.

Silas’s parting words still haunted her.
Surely you must know that we cannot be together. Not now.
He told her to live her life. He might as well have added, without me. Was it because he was being sent away to prison, or because of the news that she was one-quarter Negro? If prison was the only obstacle, why did he tell her not to wait for him? If her heritage was the problem for him, why would she want a man like that anyway?

Though the discovery of her parentage had rocked Liberty, it also served to prove to her that the color of one’s skin, or the composition of one’s blood, did not define a person. It did not make people better or worse, more or less valuable than anyone else. If Libbie had not fully believed that before the issue became a personal one, she was convinced of the truth now.

As for what others thought of her—she had not the energy to care. Before Dr. O’Leary escorted Myrtle to Baltimore on his way home to Philadelphia, he reminded her where to anchor herself. “Above all else,” he had said, “you are a child of God, and the bride of Christ. Love Him above all else. Serve Him. When you do that, you’ll begin to see yourself as God sees you, and your relationships to everyone else will fall into place.”

Lord, make me into the woman you want me to be.
Major grunted as he rolled on to his side at her feet, and she bent down to pet him. When Liberty sat up again, she saw a lone figure coming up the lane, carrying a package.

A dark figure.

Bella.

Liberty jumped to her feet, hiked up her skirts and flew down the steps to meet her. Bella set her package on the ground.

“It’s you.” Nearly breathless, Liberty flung her arms around Bella’s neck. “I missed you.” Tears tightened her throat as Bella wrapped her arms around Liberty and squeezed. “I missed my mother.”

Bella inhaled sharply and pulled back to look Liberty in the eyes. “You know?”

“I know. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, for everything. Thank you for trying to protect me. I understand now why you did it.”

Bella touched the yellow bruise on Liberty’s face, and a fire lit behind her eyes. “Somebody hurt you?” Her voice was low. “Jesus,” she whispered, not in blasphemy, but prayer.

“Not like they hurt you.” Liberty swallowed. “I read the
Journal.
I fought back, just like you did. And I won.”

Bella’s mouth trembled, and tears traced her cheeks. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered. “Thank You, Jesus.” Then, “Where is he?”

“Dead. It was Isaac.”

“You—you killed him?”

Liberty shook her head. “No. Myrtle did, with chloroform. After Silas shot him through the bedroom window.”

Bella’s eyebrows curved high in her forehead. “And where is Silas?”

“Gone, too. Prison camp.” She managed to say it without crying as she studied Bella’s face for her reaction.

“Just as well,” Bella said. But it wasn’t. Liberty looked away. There was no use arguing, anyway. “I brought you something.” Bella picked up her bundle and began walking to the house.

Sitting on the porch, she drew a cheesecloth off the package.

“A birthday cake?” Liberty laughed. “Did you carry a birthday cake three miles?”

Bella smiled. “Happy birthday, Liberty.”

Libbie frowned. “But my birthday is—”

“Today.”

“Not the Fourth of July?” Confusion rippled Libbie’s brow. “But I thought I was named for our country’s birthday.”

“You were named for yourself. I named you Liberty, because even though you were born in bondage, a slave by birthright, you were given an inheritance of freedom by my master, Gideon Holloway. You need to know this. You were not named because your birth fell on Independence Day. You were named for your own freedom.”

Liberty’s brows knitted together as she looked into the depths of
Bella’s eyes. “I need to ask you something. Do I really look like him? Like my father?”

Bella laid a hand on her shoulder. “You look like you. You are your own person. You are not who your father was, and you are not even me. You and God get to decide who you are—nobody else.”