“The untimely death of Officer Bernard Wilkens. April 19, 1861.”
“I remember Bernie. You have some information on his passing?”
She swallowed, gripped her hands together. “His murder. Yes, I have information on his murder. I did it,” she added in a whisper.
The officer stared at her, face a complete blank, until it creased into smiles. “Go on. How could a little wisp like you best a burly man like Bernie?”
“I was his wife.”
“Well, my condolences. God rest his soul. He was a hard drinker. Wicked temper, too.”
“So you see. I had motive.”
He squinted at her. “He beat you, lady? I always suspected he was the type.”
“He did.” She held her chin higher.
“I see. And you wanted him out of the picture.”
“He went after my daughter.”
Grunting, the officer excused himself for a few minutes before coming back with a file. He jabbed some text with a stubby finger. “Says here he died of liver poisoning.”
“Who did?” Vivian’s brow puckered.
“Your late husband. Bernard Wilkens. Not surprising with the drinking he did. Someone was supposed to notify you of these findings immediately.” He flipped through another page. “Oh. This case was closed by a bloke who enlisted right afterward. Scrambling to be one of Lincoln’s seventy-five thousand before the war’s end stole his chance to fire at some Rebels. Remember those days?” He shook his head. “Well, I see he neglected to have you informed, and for that I do apologize.”
His words swam in Vivian’s foggy mind. “I don’t understand. He was alive when I found him at the bottom of the stairs. He had a pulse, but he was unconscious, I assume from his fall. I—I held a pillow over his face.”
“Did he try to fight you off?”
“No, I told you he was passed out.”
“Hm. Well, this here coroner’s report says plain as day he died of poisoning of the liver. That’s liver poisoning. Too much drinking. Do you recall, was he intoxicated that night?”
“Of course he was. He was drunk every time he set foot in our apartment.”
“Well, there you go. The straw that broke the camel’s back. It caught up with him.” He tucked his papers back in the file. “You’re free to go, in case you didn’t catch that.”
“You’re certain?” Hope fluttered in her chest.
“Yes. Now don’t go making more work for me by trumping up a fake murder when there’s none to be reported. Good day to you.”
Atlanta, Georgia
Saturday, December 10, 1864
From somewhere outside, howling sliced through the winter night. Dogs abandoned by their Atlanta owners during the siege or occupation now roamed the country in packs. The baying of the now-feral animals scraped Caitlin’s nerves. Was Rascal among them?
“Papa isn’t coming.” Ana’s hollow eyes looked haunted by her admission, and hunted by despair. “I am tired and I’m cold. No one likes us here. My tummy hurts.”
Caitlin bowed her head to hide her tears. Because of her, they were pariahs, more than she ever had been before the siege. Her decision to stay during the Federal occupation had been interpreted by those who were just now returning to town as a cardinal sin against the Confederacy. She was spit upon in the streets. The newspaper called her out by name, along with several others who stayed, whether they still remained in Atlanta or had refugeed North. The words “traitor” and “Yankee spy” had been written in coal on the white boards of Noah’s house.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Ana whispered.
Caitlin held her hand, kissed her forehead. “Where do you want to be?”
“Away from the fighting, and from hospitals. And away from fire. I want to be where I can be warm again, and eat cake. And I would love to have a new dress and something to wear on my feet. Do you suppose there is such a place in the world anymore?”
Not in your world, darlin.’ Caitlin sighed. These were outrageous requests only in the South. “There is a place we could go, but it is North. New York.”
Ana frowned. “Yankee land?”
“It is far, far from the battles. You could meet my family.”
“You have a family? I thought we were your family.”
The innocent question squeezed Caitlin’s heart. “You are.”
“Then can I please call you Mama?”
Caitlin’s eyes popped open, and her nose pricked. The letter Noah left for her the last time he left echoed in her mind. I want you to be Ana’s mother. If I don’t come home, please take her in. I have updated the enclosed will accordingly. Was Ana’s request a foreshadowing? Or just a simple grasping for connection?
“You may call me whatever you like, love.”
Ana wrapped her arms around Caitlin. “Then take me away from here, Mama. I will go wherever you go.”
Atlanta had long since fallen. It was time to climb out of the rubble.
New York City
Thursday, December 29, 1864
Vivian’s teacup and saucer clattered to the floor, spilling steaming Earl Grey down the front of her tartan plaid skirt. In the periphery of her vision, Mr. Schaefer scooped up the china and bowed out of the front foyer. But her gaze remained fixed on the bone-thin woman and little girl before her.
“Mama.”
A cry burst from Vivian’s heart as she captured Caitlin into a fierce embrace. “You’re home, at last! Oh thank God, you found your way home!” She pulled back to look at her.
“Jack gave me the address …” Her chin quivered. She looked absolutely exhausted. “Mama, I’d like you to meet Analiese Becker. Ana, this is Mrs. McKae, my mother.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” The girl’s forget-me-not blue eyes were enchanting, even if they looked too big for her face.
Vivian bent down to her level. “It’s my pleasure. How would you like to have some bread with marmalade and a little milk while we draw a nice warm bath for you?”
Her eyes grew even wider. “You have bread and milk here?” Wonder laced her voice.
Vivian’s throat constricted as she nodded. Were bread and milk really such delicacies? “Yes. Come, you must be hungry from your journey. I’ll have Mr. Schaefer bring in your things.”
Caitlin shook her head and raised a single satchel. “I have a few books. That is all.”
Vivian clamped down on her surprise. “No matter. We’ll take care of everything you need. Well, your Uncle George will, anyway.” She smiled, though she felt like weeping for the poverty that stood before her with large eyes and empty hands. “Come, come. You’re home now. Everything is going to be fine.”
“When I said ‘go away,’ I didn’t mean forever.”
Caitlin closed her eyes and let her mother brush through her hair while Analiese was in the bathtub down the hall.
“I was trying to protect you from Bernard.”
Tears gathered in Caitlin’s throat as she remembered the birdlike woman her mother had been beneath his domineering hand.
“Why, why did you disappear?”
Caitlin glanced into the mirror. The hurt reflected in Vivian’s eyes sliced to her heart. Now Caitlin understood just what it was like to be left behind, to never know whether the one you love is dead or alive, or whether he thinks of you at all. But, “You told me to make my own way, didn’t you? Without depending on a man?”
“I didn’t intend for you to become one in order to do it.”
Caitlin looked down at her hands, still cracked and rough from harvesting minié balls. “There is a bigger reason. I—I tried to protect you from Bernard too, Mama.”
Vivian’s brush stilled on Caitlin’s hair. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“I wanted to get him away from you.”
“He was three times your size, child, what were you thinking you’d do? Oh such Irish impulsiveness!”
“I know.” She shook her head. “But it worked. I lured him away from you, but he a
ttacked me and I—I fought back.”
“Good girl.” Vivian’s voice was steel.
With halting voice, Caitlin choked out the rest of the story. She had committed murder. “Are they still looking for me?” she whispered. “It was an accident. Do you think they’ll believe me?”
Vivian knelt in front of her now, grasped her hands. “You did not kill him.”
“But he was dead! I’m the one who pushed him down the stairs, and I cut his throat with a piece of glass!”
“It’s not what killed him,” she said again.
“How do you know?”
Vivian drew a breath, released it slowly. “I went to the precinct a few weeks ago, and they told me the cause of death was liver poisoning. He drank himself into his own grave.”
Caitlin blinked. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what I asked them. I couldn’t believe it myself.”
Caitlin drew back, withdrawing her hands from Vivian’s hold. “You suspected I murdered him, and you went to the police to tell them, now?” Her heart skipped a beat.
“No, darlin’. I suspected I murdered him, and I couldn’t live with that guilt any longer. That’s why I went—to confess.”
“But how—”
“I found Bernard at the bottom of the stairs where you left him. I could see you two had been struggling, and I—” Her face knotted. She swallowed, smoothed away the wrinkles in her brow. “I couldn’t stand the thought of him doing to you what he’d done to me. I wanted him dead.” She locked eyes with Caitlin. “I suffocated him with my pillow. Or at least, I thought I did.”
Shock shuddered through Caitlin. “You tried to kill him? With a pillow?”
A nod.
“But he killed himself with drinking?”
Another nod.
A brittle laugh slipped from Caitlin’s lips. She covered her mouth with her hand. “All this time, I stayed away—”
“Would you have come home if you knew?”
The last three and a half years scrolled through Caitlin’s mind. Her army days, the tedium in camp and terror in battle. Her two and a half years in Atlanta, teaching at the Institute, then her spartan life in Noah’s home with Ana, Naomi, Minnie, and Susan. “Home from battle, yes. Home from Atlanta—not until now.”
Vivian’s eyes sparked. “You love him, then. Ana’s father. Though he fights against your brother? Your country? Freedom itself?”
“Don’t.” Caitlin’s skin crawled at the speed at which Vivian judged Noah. “It’s complicated. He is an immigrant, like Da, but from Germany. A lawyer and languages instructor before he enlisted, which he did only to defend his home. In fact, he came to America for asylum after he fought to unify Germany—and failed.”
“And he loves his daughter,” Vivian prompted.
“As much as Da loved me.” Tears glazed Caitlin’s eyes.
For the first time since his death, Vivian did not swat away the reference to her late husband. Instead, she only nodded, a fragile smile on her face. “Does your Noah love you, too?”
“I thought he did.” Her heart flipped. “But I don’t know where he is, or when—or how—I’ll see him again.”
“You will find each other. His daughter calls you Mama. You will find your way home again.”
Caitlin shook her head, fatigue suddenly weighting her body. “We have no homes.”
Chocolate eyes twinkling, Vivian cupped her chin in her hand. “I know you, daughter. You will make a new one.”
New York City
Sunday, January 1, 1865
“More cake, dear?” Vivian served up another slice and passed it to Analiese, her heart swelling at the grin on the child’s face. She turned to Caitlin. “How about you, birthday girl? We’re making up for four years of missed celebrations here, so don’t be shy.” Vivian could hardly believe her daughter with the freckled nose was twenty-five years old already. And yet the depth in her eyes, the faint lines on her brow showed she had aged far more than that.
“No more cake, thank you, but I’d love some more coffee, if you don’t mind.” Caitlin held out her cup, and Ruby poured, the servants being dismissed early for New Year’s Day. “You’ve no idea how I’ve missed it.”
Sunshine poured in between velvet curtains and bounced off the silver service. Yesterday’s fierce snowstorm had draped a plush white rug over the city, but today dawned clear, a fresh, bright beginning for a new year. Vivian had never been so glad to turn the calendar.
“How about some more potatoes? Or brisket? Let’s put some meat on those bones!” George teased the niece he’d only just met, clearly smitten with both her and her tiny Southern shadow. You had two broken legs! he’d said to Ana earlier. Why that’s just like me, but my arms were broken too! But look at me now. Fit as a fiddle! George insisted they take the master suite that Ruby and Aiden vacated, denying he was strong enough to reclaim his old room just yet.
“So, Caitlin.” Edward rested his fork on his plate with a clink. “Do you plan to register on the list of Southern refugees?” He winked, but Caitlin did not return the smile. Vivian shifted in her chair, irked her nephew had brought up the distasteful topic.
“What’s that?”
“I’m only teasing. I wouldn’t expect you to, really.”
Caitlin shook her head as she looked around the table. “I don’t understand.”
Edward kissed Aiden’s cheek as Ruby guided him down from the table. “Sorry. A band of Confederates plotted to burn down New York by starting fires in a dozen or so hotels last November. Some said it was in retaliation for Lincoln winning the national election—even though he lost to McClellan by a landslide here in the city. If McClellan had won nationally, there may have been peace negotiations that would have recognized the Confederacy as its own nation. Obviously, Lincoln’s reelection means the war goes on. Others say the hotel fires were in retaliation for the burning of Atlanta.”
“Could be both reasons,” George added. “If Atlanta had not fallen when it did, Lincoln very likely would have been defeated. He needed that victory to defeat the ‘four years of failure’ plank of the Democratic platform.”
“Quite.” Edward stirred cream into his coffee. “Thankfully, the plot to burn down New York City fizzled out with no lives lost and only four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damage. Anyway, ever since the fires, especially, New York has been nervous about Southerners coming into the city. They want a list of names so they can feel better about the copperhead population.”
George snorted. “Feel better! Ha! They’ll feel better all right, once they come after those Southern gents and use them to fill up the Union quotas!”
Caitlin’s eyes grew round. “Would they?”
“It has already been tried elsewhere in the Union.” Edward sipped his coffee. “Civilian men of a certain age are eligible for the draft throughout the Union, but they harvested new soldiers from prison camps, as well. From what I’ve heard from the officers at the hospital, however, the strategy was not successful.”
“They forced Confederate prisoners to turn and fight against their own people?”
“Recruited, not forced. But yes, and therein was the problem. Once in the Southern states, they very often deserted, presumably to get back to their own homes. Those who met with the misfortune of capture by the Confederate army were treated worse than regular Yankee prisoners.”
Vivian glanced at Ana, but the girl did not seem troubled by the fates of her fellow Southerners. Perhaps she was too busy licking the icing on her cake to notice.
“They’ve locked up some Southern civilians at Fort Lafayette, too,” Edward continued.
Caitlin wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup. “On what charge?”
“No charge, the writ of habeas corpus being suspended. A fellow named Amherst Stone has been stowed away for more than a year now.”
“Amherst Stone! Why, I knew his wife Cyrena in Atlanta! They are both loyal Unionists who lived in Vermont before moving to the South!”
<
br /> “Well, he came north with a half-baked blockade-running scheme that just seemed suspicious.”
Caitlin’s eyes glowed in her gaunt face. Vivian worried about her health. “And what else can a Southern refugee expect from New York?”
“Cake!” Vivian jumped in. “Lots and lots of cake. And unlimited supply of coffee.” Caitlin’s lips bent in a weary smile, but Vivian knew it would take more than food to make her daughter—the Union veteran from the South—feel welcome in a city that fed on war.
Rock Island, Illinois
Friday, January 27, 1865
Cold burned Noah’s bare feet and bit his nose as he waited, shivering, for a turn in front of the barracks stove. Wind burst through the door, scraping his face and piercing his rags like a bayonet, and he wondered if this frozen purgatory was punishment for his answer to Colonel Johnson’s proposal that he enlist with the Union army. No longer prisoners but not yet soldiers, he had been here, crammed into a forced huddle with hundreds of other men, for nearly four bitter months, with no new clothing issued to them. A thousand pinpricks needled his skin every moment he was not before the stove, unless numbness brought sweet relief.
Longing for Caitlin and Ana swirled like snow. Noah’s memories were growing brittle. He’d held Caitlin in his arms, hadn’t he? Why didn’t I kiss her? Had Caitlin said she loved him? Did she even say she would wait? It would not have been fair to ask her to.
The bleak winter days dragged their frostbitten feet and still Noah Becker went nowhere.
New York City
Monday, March 6, 1865
“Please don’t drop him.”
Edward tightened his grip on Aiden’s legs and slanted an amused gaze at Ruby’s pinched face. “I won’t drop him.” Besides, the crowd was so tightly packed around them, even if he lost his grip, Aiden would never hit the ground.
All necks were craned toward the seven-mile-long procession now snaking its way through lower Manhattan. It was a National Jubilee in honor of Lincoln’s second inaugural and the recent Union victories, and in anticipation of impending Confederate defeats.
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