This time, however, it was Shakespeare’s words that caught his eye.
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide …
Wind whipping his hair, he stilled his footsteps and lifted his face to the sky, streaked pastel by the fading sunset. Are Ana and Caitlin looking at the same sky at this moment? Or are one or both of them taken ill to their beds even now? His chest knotted, and suddenly, he was loath to be alone with his imagination.
From twenty yards away, baritone and tenor voices melded in hymnsong, a prelude for the evening service. When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply … Noah followed their harmony until he was sitting on a rough-hewn bench in the log chapel, staring at the cross of pine at the front.
Head in his hands, he prayed for Ana first and longest, and then for the roster of women suffering under his roof. Susan, Naomi, Minnie. When he reached Caitlin’s name in his silent prayers, his heart caught in his throat. He should have asked after her family. If she died caring for his child, whom would he notify?
Guilt hovered over Noah throughout the service, clouding his countenance, slumping his shoulders. How can I think so much of Caitlin when it is Ana, and only Ana, with whom I should be concerned? His daughter was in danger. The fact that he could think of anything— anyone—else shocked him.
Later that night, he lay sleepless on his mattress. For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide … Turning on his side, Noah punched his fist into his pine needle pillow, a scowl on his face. He needed to be home, regardless of what the law said. It was time, he decided, for grace.
Atlanta, Georgia
Monday, February 29, 1864
Wind feathered Caitlin’s face, while her raw hands stung from the lye water that sloshed with Susan’s soiled sheets in the laundry tub. Fingers clenched on the broom handle, she swirled the linens back and forth under a sky that threatened rain.
The days had inched by since Dr. Periwinkle’s visit, each revolution around the sun moving as slowly as a slug through syrup, and now it was Leap Year day, as if this month of scourge refused to turn its page. Susan’s descent into the throes of the disease had left her insensible as the smallpox multiplied on her body. Soon not an inch of her face was unmarked by the raised pustules. Her arms and legs were barnacled with sores as well.
For those yet untouched by the disease, one chore bled into another. In the kitchen, Ana ground corn into gruel. Minnie, Naomi, and Caitlin laundered soiled clothes and sheets, or attempted to feed Susan, or pumped water to drip into her mouth. Sleep grew as scant as their strength.
Caitlin threw a glance toward the house before hoisting the sheets into the tub of rinse water. As soon as this chore was done, she could steal a moment to record the day’s progress. She kept a running letter to Noah on a page in her Shakespeare volume, while using different pages for her personal use as a journal. She would not burden Noah with the details of caregiving, and her own musings, but neither could she bear to keep her emotions bottled up inside her heart. Thank God that today she could pen good news. Dear Mr. Becker, she would write. Susan is finally recovering, and still we see no sign of disease in anyone else. Our prayers have been answered.
A moan sounded from inside the house, and Caitlin surmised it was Susan weeping at the face in the looking glass. As her pustules dried, dark red scabs took their place, covering large swaths of her skin with crust. The scabs were beginning to fall off now, but the pitted scars beneath were even deeper than Minnie’s. A twinge of pity tweaked Caitlin’s heart for the woman who once told her, “You’re only as valuable as the man you catch.” If Susan did not alter her attitude, her misery would be more contagious than her pox.
A door slammed, and Minnie hurried out to Caitlin. “It’s Naomi. It has begun.”
Caitlin’s heart sank as she plunged her broomstick to the bottom of the tub. Further words unnecessary, she hurried to finish rinsing the sheets as Minnie pumped fresh water to cool Naomi’s brow.
Inside the kitchen, a wooden bowl dropped onto the table, and a chair rasped against the floor. Ana staggered outside holding her stomach.
“Ana? What is—”
The girl bent and retched onto the winter-hardened ground. Tears gathered in Caitlin’s throat against her will.
“Go to her,” Minnie said, peeling the broomstick from Caitlin’s stiffened grip and replacing it with the bowl of water.
“I’m scared,” whispered Analiese as Caitlin neared. “Can’t Papa come home now? I need him more than the army does.”
The same question, over and over. “I’m sure he wants to be here, darlin’, but I don’t think he’s allowed to come home. We can write to him, though.” The same answer.
Ana groaned. “It’s not like having him here.”
“No, it isn’t.” But it’s all they had. Caitlin offered Ana a tin cup of the water from the bowl. “But I’m right here, I won’t leave you.”
With fever-flushed face, Ana blinked up at Caitlin. “I wish you were my mama.”
The words expanded in Caitlin’s heart until the swelling nearly choked her. “I would be so proud and happy if you were my daughter.” She kissed the top of her head.
By the time Caitlin and Ana reached their bedroom, Ana’s body radiated heat. Gently, Caitlin helped her out of her clothes and laid her on the bed, wiping the perspiration from her skin with cool rags. “My body hurts!” she whimpered, thrashing about, as if searching for relief.
The doctor had said the joints would hurt and the muscles ache along with the fever. Opium would have calmed her, but of course there was none to be had for civilians, and not much more for the soldiers.
“You are fighting the disease, darlin’, and it doesn’t feel very good, I know.”
“I feel so sorry for my body!” Ana’s eyes were closed, and her brow creased even as Caitlin continued gently dabbing her skin.
From across the hall, Naomi moaned in fever’s grip. As if on cue, Minnie bustled up the stairs and into Naomi’s room with water and rags just as Susan began weeping anew from her room. “Why didn’t I die? Why couldn’t I have just died?” Her mournful refrain haunted the hall.
Hours passed as Caitlin wiped Ana’s fiery skin with rags, held the bedpan for her, and passed Minnie on the stairs several times as they each emptied chamber pots and drew water for their patients. Darkness dropped like a curtain, shrouding the house until dawn lifted the veil, and the boot-black sky faded to Confederate grey.
Caitlin faded, too. Hunger gnawed and her hands shook until she grasped the cold metal of the pump. As fresh water sloshed into her pail, Caitlin pumped a prayer for help from the dormant well of her faith. She believed that God could flood her with new strength. She just did not know if He would.
Atlanta, Georgia
Monday, March 7, 1864
The empty pail in Caitlin’s hand might as well have been full of grapeshot, so strong was its pull on her arm. Stiffly, she set it down on the back porch and leaned her throbbing head against the post before fetching more water. Her muscles ached. Her hair needled her scalp, even when she loosened her braid and let her hair fall down her back. I only need sleep, she told herself, but just as quickly dismissed the idea, though it was the dead of night. Even Rascal had given up following her and curled into a snoring heap.
Though few pocks had appeared on their bodies, Ana and Naomi were still clutched in the fever’s talons, even after eight days. The cool rags Caitlin laid on Ana’s steaming body warmed almost as soon as they touched her. Spooning water and tea past the girl’s parched lips was painstaking and tedious. No
, Caitlin could not sleep yet. Mustering the dregs of her strength, Caitlin plucked up her pail and stepped into the inky night toward the pump.
And froze. Was she hearing things? There it was again. Someone in the kitchen, or in the carriage house right next to it, or in the slave quarters right above it. Food thief! Or a vigilante, or a ly-out … The empty quarters Bess and Saul vacated were the perfect hiding place for any of them. But what could she do in her weakened state?
The pistol. A thin ribbon of energy trickled back through Caitlin’s veins as she set her jaw and spun back toward the house. She nearly lost her balance as she turned, and bit her tongue to keep from growling in frustration.
As though she were walking under water, Caitlin dragged her feet up the stairs, and dug the derringer and its small lacquered box out of Noah’s bureau. By the light of the fire, she loaded the pistol with shaking hands before sidling down the steps once more.
Her foggy mind could not keep up with her intentions. Her heart should be racing right now. Instead, it beat only sluggishly, as if there were not an intruder threatening her at this very moment. As if she did not hold in her trembling hand a weapon that she may or may not have loaded correctly.
She stepped out onto the porch, eyelids and pulse fluttering. “Who’s there?” Her voice sounded weak and far away. She was an easy target, truly. Help me. The only prayer her mind could form.
The derringer grew slick in her palm, and seemed like ten pounds in her outstretched hand. She braced her right hand with her left and scanned the perimeter beyond the pistol’s barrel. Though the night air was cool, perspiration sprang from her hairline, beneath her arms, her lower back, until her entire body was filmed with it.
A dark figure emerged from the shadows. She aimed, but her slippery, shaking thumb could not cock the hammer. “Stay back,” she gasped. Gulping for air, she was drowning on dry land. Was this the fever that strangled her? Was this how Ana felt, and the rest of them?
The man surged forward, his silhouette rippling before her eyes.
The useless pistol clattering to the porch, Caitlin clawed at the bodice of her dress for breath. “I have the pox!” she forced out. “Stay away or you’ll catch it.”
Sweat rolled down between her shoulder blades, and slipped into her eyes. Caitlin meant to blink the moisture away, but once closed, her eyelids refused to lift. The floor tilted wildly beneath her feet, as a ship pitching and yawing in the rolling sea.
Caitlin sank down but as through water, her feet swept out from under her. Strong arms cradled her body like a hammock, swaying gently. A trace of alarm swam upstream through her murky consciousness, but the wind blew its lullaby, calming her. Shhhhhh. Shhhhhhhh.
Caitlin.
That voice. But it was impossible!
It’s me. I’m home. I’ll take care of you now.
“But I’m contag—”
Her warning swallowed up in darkness.
Noah’s heart buckled as Caitlin surrendered to the fever in his arms. She was as light as cornhusk, and as brittle. Quickly, he carried her into the house and up the stairs to her room, but discovered the room was already occupied. The dying fire cast ghastly shadows upon the gaunt woman’s pitted, yellow complexion as she slept. Were it not for the color of her hair, and the letter Caitlin had sent informing him of her illness, he would not have recognized Susan Kent, the woman who had once both captured his heart and shattered it. A bitter cocktail of shock and pity stole a moment at the foot of her bed. His grip on Caitlin tightened.
Then he heard it. A raspy, plaintive plea that sounded more like a kitten than a person. In three long strides, he was in his own room, and there, in his bed, was Ana.
“Papa?”
For a moment, words webbed in his chest. “I’m home, Dear Heart.” Carefully, he laid Caitlin down next to Ana on the bed and cupped Ana’s face in his hand. “I love you.”
“I wanted you,” she said. Her eyelids drifted closed, and Noah’s love for her cracked open inside him until he could scarcely bear the ache.
Gathering her willow reed body into his arms, Noah pressed his Heart back into his chest, careful not to break her. His tears fell into her hair as he rocked her back and forth on the edge of the bed. Her entire body was soaked with sweat, her muslin chemise stuck to her body. But her skin was not hot. Hope flared, and he dared to believe her fever had broken.
“You’re going to be fine now.” It had to be true. It must be true.
Caitlin moaned in delirium behind them, and Noah turned in time to see her pulling at her clothes again, strands of hair clinging to her neck and face.
“Oh no.” Ana’s eyelids fluttered. “She is … so hot … Papa.” The girl slumped against him, asleep once more in his arms. Tenderly, he laid her back down, then circled the bed to reach Caitlin’s side. He brought his hand to her brow, and it nearly singed him.
Ignoring the lead suddenly filling his bones, he willed his mind to clear. She needed to be undressed, and quickly. Minerva Taylor. Wasn’t she here somewhere? Minerva could help. Rubbing the back of his neck, he went in search of her.
He didn’t have to go far. In one of the rear bedrooms, another smallpox patient was laid out on the bed. A rag still in her hand, Miss Taylor had collapsed on the floor beside her. Little wonder. From what Caitlin had written to him, the twenty-year-old music teacher had been nursing the sick for weeks now.
“Miss Taylor.” Noah gently shook her shoulder, hoping his presence would not startle her out of her wits. His concern was in vain. She could not be roused from her Rip Van Winkle slumber. Giving up his original errand, Noah scooped up the thin woman and brought her to her own bed in the fourth room upstairs. She was doing her patient no good in a heap on the floor.
God, bless the women, Noah prayed, overcome by the hardships they endured. He returned to Caitlin’s side and wasted no more time. What would have been criminal before the war now mattered not at all next to life itself. Speaking in low murmurs to her the entire time, Noah stripped Caitlin of her shoes, stockings, apron, skirt, petticoat, and shirtwaist until her limp body steamed beneath only her pantalets and chemise. Her chest heaved and sank with every labored breath, as though the shaft of moonlight that fell across the bed was the Angel of Death, strangling her.
If Noah could have lifted the invisible weight sitting on her chest, he would have. If he could have siphoned her fever into his own body with a kiss, he would have done it. Relief over Ana’s broken fever battled with desperation over Caitlin’s agony.
How was it possible that he should feel this so deeply? Ana was his Heart, she filled it completely. There was no room for anyone else.
But as he held her head in his lap and tipped water from a nearby tin cup past her lips, Caitlin’s likeness, as he remembered her, unfurled in his mind. Sun-kissed and freckled, a rebellious strand of hair sashaying across her face. Eyes sparkling like dark brown sugar. And a scar she never spoke of lining her delicate but determined jaw. He saw her playing chess with Ana, making soap with Bess. He saw her with her nose in a book, or writing—to him.
When the cup was empty, Noah slid Caitlin’s head back to the pillow and pumped fresh water outside. Back in his own room, he wiped both Ana’s body and Caitlin’s to cool and cleanse their skin. The air itself was tainted with the distinct odor of fever-sweat. Noah pushed up the window’s sash, and the night breeze tousled his hair before sweeping through the room. The rustle of paper turned Noah’s head until he found an open book on his writing table, the wind turning its pages recklessly.
Noah crossed the room, spread his hand on the pages. It was Shakespeare. And it was marked with a ribbon to a letter she had been writing him. With one more glance over his shoulder, he satisfied himself that he was not needed just now, and eased himself into the chair.
Dear Mr. Becker, he read, and dipped the page deeper into the stream of moonlight. It was a running letter, with only a sentence or two written every day for the last week, informing him of Ana’s condition.
Even though he had just seen Ana take a turn for the better with his own eyes, his heart dropped with every sanitized report.
He turned the page, and continued reading Caitlin’s script, winding in and around the text.
Ana is ill, and I fear she is too weak to pull out of this dreadful disease by herself. I don’t know what to do. I’m tired but I cannot sleep. I am hollow with hunger but the little nourishment we have must go to the sick. Thank God for Prudy’s basket or we would surely starve.
Noah stopped, confusion creasing his brow. It was the first time Caitlin had ever written about herself. Why had she never told him?
I fear Noah misplaced his trust when he put it in me. I have been trying to take care of people since my father died when I was seventeen years old. Inevitably, I fail. God help me, I cannot fail with Ana.
How little Noah knew of this woman! What had she been through before he met her? Why hadn’t he asked? You know why, the answer came. You were keeping her at arm’s length. And now, his arms ached to hold her. His gaze lingered on her face for a moment before he turned back to the book.
I had a dream last night from which I was loath to wake. Ana was healthy, smiling, and laughing. Noah was back from the war all hearty and hale, and so was Jack. We were enjoying a picnic in an emerald green meadow under a brilliant, cloudless blue sky. We had chicken and lemonade, cold ham, hard rolls with butter, and even chocolate cake and milk. I was worried Jack and Noah both would hate me, but they embraced me instead, and held my hands, one on either side of me. Their arms were so strong and warm that I cried when I awoke and found myself without either of them …
Noah slammed the book closed. She was not writing to him anymore. He had been reading her journal, private words not intended for his eyes to see. But who is Jack? Noah scolded himself for even wondering. She had a right to have relationships he was not privy to. She was his daughter’s governess. That was all.
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