‘But Alexander!’ Jennie says, pulling at his arm. ‘After all the good Private Stone has done? Helping me. Nursing the wounded? Surely—’
I can see the moment the knowledge of it hits him. ‘You knew this?’ Captain asks Jennie.
‘Why else would you send me to the Capital with a strange man?’ she asks, so innocent. ‘I thought you found it so obvious as to be unworthy of mention.’
‘I’ve falsified records on Private Stone’s behalf! And now you’re asking for an honorable discharge?’ he says, and turns back on me.
‘Sir, I’ve got need of my back pay and the widow’s benefits coming to me. I earned them just as much as any other soldier,’ I say. ‘Please—you ain’t got to give me an honorable discharge. My family—there’s death benefits—’
Captain narrows his gaze. I am a fool for speaking so plain but I ain’t ever known how to do another way, I ain’t ever been one to turn a thing so clever or sweeten it the way Jennie can.
‘I’m asking you for the truth,’ I say, swallowing. ‘I’m asking you to list the person of Ross Stone as killed at Antietam.’
IT IS STILL dark when me and Will climb the stairs inside that hospital, our boots making too much noise on the creaky wood floor. I keep my mind on the steps. On this one thing. It is Will who raps lightly on the door.
A woman’s voice says, ‘Come in,’ and it is that nursing woman sitting at Miss Barton’s bedside, a lantern burning. Miss Barton lies there, her eyes half open.
‘We can take over now. You must need some sleep,’ Will says.
‘Oh, that’s kind,’ the nursing woman says, standing. ‘She’s been restless.’
‘Are Miss Barton’s things packed?’ I ask, when all I can think is I can’t have no one else watching.
‘That’s her valise there,’ the woman says, pointing to the foot of the bed.
‘We’ll see her downstairs when the wagon is ready,’ Will says. ‘So you can attend to others once you’re rested.’
The woman nods, and then she is gone out the door. Maybe I ought to say something to Miss Barton first, but she looks so sick, I don’t think it’s worth bothering her over what I aim to do. I kneel at the foot of the bed and open my knapsack. What I need is inside, rolled up neat.
I unfurl Jennie’s navy dress. Hold it at arm’s length. It is what I have to do. There ain’t nothing else for it.
‘You go stand in the hall,’ I tell Will. ‘Make sure no one comes in.’
He nods, looking from me to the dress, before going out.
When that door closes, I set my knapsack on the floor. My fingers shake but I make them work. I take off my coat, fold it up careful, so Jeremiah’s letter, still in the pocket, don’t get bent. My letter home to Papa and Mama and Betsy is in there too, just like I hoped when I wrote it. Only I ain’t going home to visit like I wanted. I unbutton my shirt, stuff the flannel from around my bosom down in my pack. I almost get to crying. But there ain’t time for that, not now.
I slip that dress over my head, and work my pants off over my shoes. I lay them on top of my shirt, buckle the flap. Everything inside me freezes, to see the name Stone painted there, and that part of me, that part of my life, the last of me and Jeremiah’s life together, the last of our dream, all of it packed away. Just like Jeremiah, moldering under that tree, his bones calling to me, going unanswered, and my Mama’s words echoing about how we won’t speak of it. I almost sink to the floor, missing a place that ain’t even on this Earth.
Henry said this war was all for nothing. But that can’t be the truth. Only it weren’t for any of the things I thought. I ain’t ever going to have that farm off in the territories, but I will always have my place beside Jeremiah.
I’ve got to do this. My fingers move fast over the buttons up the front of that dress. Even sucking every last bit of me in I can’t get them all done, not the ones at the waist, not without a corset only I ain’t ever worn such a thing. But it don’t matter. Even with my hair hardly past my ears, there ain’t a soul to care how I look so long as I’ve got that dress on.
I go to the cracked mirror over the washstand but when I look at myself in it, I see the life I ain’t ever wanted, alone in that Little House on someone else’s farm in that same town, a basket full of mending, a baby my husband ain’t ever seen, my family embarrassed into silence. Like my best days are done.
But I ain’t alone. If there is the least little thing of Jeremiah left to me, there ain’t a thing else to do.
And so I go to the door.
IN THE BARELY light, Will helps me settle Sully onto the wagon’s boards, Miss Barton already bundled beside him, moaning in her fever. From where he squats inside the wagon bed, Will reaches down to help me, and I gather up the long blue skirt in one hand and let him help me up with the other.
For a moment before he jumps down, Will holds me fast to him, the words Heavenly Father coming from his lips, not bothering to keep his prayers for me and Sully to himself.