The room spun, grew dark, and disappeared.
Aiden! I’m here! Ruby dropped to her knees and spread her arms to her son. His eyes were bright, his cheeks ruddy, and he smelled of hay and clover.
Mama?
Yes! I’ve come back for you at last!
Mama? He said again, louder this time. But why was he looking over his shoulder? Why—why was he walking away? Mama! Mama!
I’m right here!
But he shook his head furiously, chubby legs pumping to carry him away from her, until he reached a sun-browned woman milking a cow.
Mama! he said again, and she caught him to her bosom, laughing.
There you are, my sweet! Did you find a fox in the henhouse? Or are you just happy to see your mother?
“Aiden!” Panting and damp with sweat, Ruby heaved out of her dream.
Edward jerked in the armchair next to her bed. Though the room was layered in shadows, she could see his rumpled clothes and haggard expression. She had awoken from only one nightmare.
“It will be all right,” he told her, but she wailed into her pillow.
“Aiden is out there somewhere, wondering why I don’t come to him, and I have no idea how to get him back!”
“Ruby, darling, listen to me, please.” He turned up the lamp, chasing the darkness to the corners of the room. “Emma told me everything. We’ll sort it out. As soon as day breaks, Father and I will go have a talk with Mr. Pease while Aunt Viv stays with you. She’s in Charlotte’s old room even now. We’ll have Mr. Pease telegram Caroline himself— Charlotte, too, if he likes—and when they clear your name, he’ll have no choice but to get Aiden back for us.”
“Wh—what if he won’t?” she sobbed.
“He will. Of course he will, once he knows the truth. The Five Points Mission partners with the Children’s Aid Society to send orphans west, and I went to the same seminary as the Society’s founder, Charles Loring Brace. I’ll talk to him. Brace’s best friend is Frederick Law Olmsted, and you know Mr. Olmsted would vouch for you, too, if need be.”
Hope glimmered. Ruby sat up, pushed a strand of hair from her forehead. Yes, Mr. Olmsted. The executive secretary of the Sanitary Commission, and the landscape architect of Central Park. He’d taken a special interest in her when they’d worked together for the soldiers in Washington and on the Virginia Peninsula. Probably because he felt guilty I’d been evicted from Seneca Village to make way for the park. Surely their mutual friendship with Charlotte helped, too. “You’ll talk to Brace? And Pease?”
“As soon as the hour is decent. Mr. Pease means well, and I don’t doubt that most of the children on that orphan train will, indeed, be better off in the country. But Aiden belongs with us. Those half-truths were quite condemning. But the truth—the whole truth—will set us free.”
New York City
Wednesday, March 8, 1865
Spice-scented steam curled and divided above the teacup in Vivian’s hands, as Caitlin’s murmuring to Ana floated through the wall to the sitting room. Vivian’s heart squeezed. Caitlin sounded like a mother, indeed. She sounded like Ruby when she had put Aiden to bed so many nights in that very room. And now Aiden was gone. But surely, he’s coming back. Mr. Pease had telegrammed Caroline Waverly, and if she hadn’t already responded, certainly she would soon, and then Aiden would come home. Ruby’s agonizing ordeal dwarfed Vivian’s own dilemma.
The letter lay heavily on Vivian’s lap. Placing her teacup back on its saucer, she fingered the edges, and the grey scrawl blurred on the paper. No more secrets, she told herself, and prayed for strength to do the right thing by her daughter. Clinging to her, even after such an excruciating separation, would be utterly selfish.
The door latched in the hall, and Caitlin entered the sitting room, unpinning her braid from its coil on her head as she did so.
“Tea?” Vivian nodded to the silver tray on the table.
“Yes, thank you!” Caitlin helped herself and settled into the sofa with a sigh. “And shall I find some Shakespeare to read aloud, as well?”
Vivian smiled at the reference to their long-ago tradition. “Actually, I’ve brought different reading material tonight.”
“Oh?” Caitlin popped a piece of shortbread in her mouth and leaned her head back on the sofa, eyes closed. She seemed so tired lately. Vivian worried it was more an exhaustion of spirit than body.
“I took the liberty of writing to your former instructor at the Hartford Female Seminary. I thought she’d like to know you put your training to good use teaching down South for a time.”
Caitlin’s eyebrow spiked. “And?” She ducked back into her tea.
“And she wrote back. With an idea.” She tapped the letter in her lap. “The National Popular Education Board—you remember, the board that partnered with your alma mater, the Hartford Female Institute—well, the board sent a teacher out to Astoria, Oregon, some years ago, and she has decided to come back east. She was too lonely for her family. They need a replacement.”
Caitlin swallowed, and lines grooved her brow. “Why tease me so? You know the board no longer finances transportation to the sites.”
“True. But your uncle would.” The spark of hope in Caitlin’s eyes drew a smile to Vivian’s lips.
“What are you saying?”
“You’ve always wanted to teach out West, and I’ve always been sorry that opportunity was lost—but now we have another one. There is still a surplus of teachers in New York, but the need in the West only grows greater, though the teacher placement program is defunct. Since the Homestead Act went into effect two years ago, settlers have been flocking west to claim their free land. Their children need teachers. Miss Dunn is ready to appoint you the post, especially now that you have professional experience on your resume.”
“But—Astoria! It’s on the other side of the country completely!”
Vivian knew. Nestled on the Pacific coast, it was three thousand miles from New York, more than three times the distance to Atlanta. And yet, “You were gone three and a half years without a word. I suspect homesickness will not impede your success.” Vivian hoped her smile looked sincere, not sarcastic.
Caitlin dropped her lashes to her cheeks. “I did miss you, Mama. Remember, you were the one who told me to leave. I would have stayed and taken care of you, you know.” She looked up with hooded eyes. “And now you’re telling me to leave again.”
“No, child. This is not a forced evacuation. It is an invitation to follow your own dreams. I’ll miss my girl, to be sure. But who am I to keep you here if God is calling you somewhere else?”
“Would you really be all right if I left again?”
“I won’t be alone. I think George needs me, though the old grouch would never say so. And you have Ana to think of. She isn’t happy in New York, is she?”
Caitlin shook her head and sipped her tea. “I wonder if she will be happy again until she sees her papa.” Her shoulders drooped.
“She is happier with you than she would be with anyone else. But what about you? Are you still waiting for word from Mr. Becker? Have you hung your happiness on this man?” Vivian could tell her questions trod upon her daughter’s brittle heart. She hoped it would hold firm.
“I’m trying—” Caitlin’s voice caught. “I’m trying to hope.”
“My darlin’ girl.” Vivian placed her hand on her daughter’s knee. “I understand. But don’t let that hope hold you captive. Move forward with your life.”
“But if I don’t have hope—” Her composure cracked, and she held open empty hands, palms up.
“Hope! Always hope, but in God alone. Wait, yes, but on the Lord. Expect Him to do great things, and trust His timing rather than demanding that He follow yours. He will renew your strength. You will rise again. You will run, and not be weary, walk, and not faint. If Mr. Becker is meant to find you, he will find you.” Vivian wrapped her arm around Caitlin’s shoulders. “Now. What will you do in the meantime?”
The mantel clock ticked
inside Caitlin’s pause, and Vivian held her breath. Then, “Ana can come with me?”
“Indeed. And you’d not be without an escort. Miss Dunn writes of a Union veteran from her church—Alan Wilcox—arranging to join his brother on his homestead in Oregon. She vouches for his character. But I do believe—he fought in the Atlanta campaign.”
A wry smile tipped Caitlin’s lips. “We’d have plenty to talk about.”
Vivian chuckled. “I have no doubt of it. The road would not be easy. But as I’m sure you already know, sometimes the most challenging journeys are the most rewarding in the end. Now. Mr. Wilcox leaves in three weeks, so you have some time to decide.”
Closing her eyes, Caitlin leaned her head on Vivian’s shoulder, and Vivian stroked her hair as she had done countless times before. She spoke the words of the prophet Isaiah, as much for her own ears as for Caitlin’s. “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
In the quiet that followed, she wondered if Caitlin had fallen asleep. Until, “I’ll miss you, Mama.”
Tears gathered thickly in Vivian’s throat. “I’ll miss you, too. But you’d miss so much more if you stayed.” She pressed a kiss to her daughter’s temple and wondered how she would bear the ache of this new thing springing forth.
New York City
Thursday, March 9, 1865
“Don’t be nervous,” Ruby said, though her own hands still trembled with suspense. Caroline and Charlotte Waverly had both tele-grammed Mr. Pease yesterday, and Mr. Pease had sent word to the agent on the train to turn around and fetch Aiden back to New York. All Ruby and Edward could do now, was wait.
In the meantime, Ruby took a cue from Vivian, who still cared for the people within her reach even when her own daughter had been missing. “Dr. Blackwell is an excellent doctor.” Ruby spoke to Emma in low tones in the waiting room of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Edward, who had insisted on taking them in the carriage, sat across from Ruby with his newspaper.
Emma’s forehead knotted as she twisted her hands in the pleats of her green merino wool dress. It was the first she had sewn for herself, with Ruby’s help, back when Ruby had thought sewing would save her life. She’d been wrong.
“You’re making me crazy, you are.” Emma sniffed, eyebrows darting toward her trembling mouth.
Ruby flinched. “Why?
Her chin trembled. “’Tisn’t right, lass. What I did was awful. I don’t deserve your concern. I don’t deserve anything good at all.”
“Nonsense.” Ruby handed her a handkerchief even as she battled her own tears. “You didn’t know how things would turn out. Sean—”
“Sean didn’t need to put pressure on me so much as you might think. I wanted you to steal for me and spread the wealth around. I meant to do you wrong, even after all you’ve done for me. And now your son is gone.” She covered her face with her hands.
“He’s coming back,” she whispered, an echo of the constant mantra in her mind. But her hands would not stop shaking until they held her son.
“I can’t understand why you don’t hate me. I hate myself, and I could not be sorrier for the pain I caused.”
Ruby squeezed her hand. “I forgive you.”
Ridges seamed Emma’s brow. Her eyes narrowed into glittering slits. “Why? How?”
“Ah, Emma. None of us is without guilt. You know my wrongs—you even tried to talk me out of deceiving Edward! I didn’t listen to you, and I broke my husband’s heart. But he forgave me, too.”
Emma’s gaze flitted to Edward, who kept his nose buried in his paper, though Ruby suspected he heard every word they spoke.
Ruby smiled at the obvious confusion swirling in Emma’s eyes. “And do you want to know why and how Edward could forgive the likes of me? It’s because Jesus forgave him, too. Yes, even chaplains do wrong. Jesus forgives all of us if we but ask Him to. Then, not only does He withhold the punishment we deserve, but He invites us to be His children. He can heal your deepest hurts and replace them with peace and joy. That, dear Emma, is grace.” She held Emma’s red-rimmed stare.
“Can He heal this diseased body of mine?”
“If He chooses.” Ruby nodded. “But even better, He can heal and restore your soul.”
At length, Emma thinned her lips and nodded. “All right, lass. Tell me again how this grace can be mine. This time, I’m listening.”
New York City
Monday, March 13, 1865
Ruby could not get out of bed. Not since Mr. Pease had crushed her with his pronouncement that Aiden could not be found. A farmer took Aiden from the train station in Cedar Falls, Iowa, but no one knew how to reach him now. “Farmers travel up to twenty-five miles to choose children, you understand,” Mr. Pease had said. “But we’ll find him. It will just take time.”
The voices in Ruby’s head were deafening. There is a reason they have not been able to find Aiden again. You almost killed him before he was born, you do not deserve this child. You do not deserve any happiness at all.
Moaning, Ruby writhed in condemnation’s clutch. I can never be free of my past. I may be forgiven, but there are consequences for what I’ve done. If I hadn’t kept company with Emma and Sean, none of this would have happened. My sins have ruined Edward’s reputation and taken Aiden away from me.
Faded images of Aiden on a farm bloomed in her mind. He was safe, and happy. Without her.
“Ruby?” Edward appeared in the doorway with a tray of tea, toast, and applesauce. “Will you eat?”
Oh. Did people eat so often? She could not imagine why. Her appetite had vanished and she hadn’t even noticed. “Aren’t you going to the hospitals today? Or the prison?” She licked her dry lips, and he passed her the cup of tea.
“Not today. I’m needed here.” A ridge between his eyebrows, he sat in the chair beside the bed. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his caramel hair tousled the way it always was after he’d been deep in thought. “Aunt Viv is here, too, if you’d rather talk to her. Caitlin will be coming soon to sit with you, as well. Did you sleep last night?”
She blinked, her eyelids weighted with exhaustion. “Of course not.” Fatigue cloaked her but could not blot out the one idea that had been crowding her consciousness for days. “Edward,” she whispered, eyes burning. “What if this—Aiden growing up in the country—is really meant to be?”
“It isn’t.” He frowned, the very likeness of his father.
“My worst fear is that Aiden would lose his way and love the world. But a life in the country, away from the city’s temptations and rough edges—what if that’s the answer?” Her voice trailed to a croak.
“A life without us? His parents? Surely that is not the answer.”
Tears slid down her cheeks and beneath her chin. She was so tired. Tired of waiting, tired of trying to be a good wife and mother and failing at both. She was exhausted from being a constant disappointment to Edward. This marriage wasn’t what a marriage should be. But Caitlin’s story about Noah Becker annulling unconsummated vows had inspired her. All that had stopped her from suggesting it was Aiden. How selfish I’ve been.
But now … The lump in her throat grated as she swallowed it. “You entered this marriage not knowing what it would be. I have not been a true wife to you. I release you from this arrangement, if that is what you want. Annul the marriage. Do not feel obligation to me, or to Aiden.”
Edward shook his head, began to speak, but Ruby plunged ahead like a river towards the falls. “He will grow up where the air is fresh and the work honest. I can go back to Mrs. Waverly if she’ll have me. We have burdened you enough.” Her breath shortened with every sentence that spilled from her.
“Is that what you think? You’ve been a burden?” Edward’s voice wavered as he stood and paced the room.
“Aye, I know it and so do you. I was so afraid of b
eing hurt, I didn’t realize—I never wanted to cause you such pain. I’ve been the black sheep in your fold.” Her words rushed and tumbled over themselves, careening toward her own martyrdom. It was only what she deserved.
“No, my dear.” He clasped her hand in both of his, looked deep into her eyes. “You’ve been the one sheep for which I would leave the other ninety-nine.”
“You’d do better with another.” A fresh wave of grief swallowed her, and she turned from his stunned expression.
He dropped her hands. “What—what are you saying? You want to dissolve the marriage?”
She sluiced the tears from her cheeks with trembling hands. “Consider it. For your own good.”
Edward dropped into the chair once more. “What about Aiden? You would just pretend you don’t have a son anymore?”
She fought to keep from covering her ears. This conversation was strangling her soul. “He is not quite three,” she gasped. “He will forget me.”
“Like I forgot my mother.” His eyes were rimmed with red. A sigh broke from his lips. “I miss her, Ruby.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember her and yet I still miss my mother. I don’t have memories of her singing to me, or wiping the dirt off my knees or kissing away my tears. I am told that she loved me, but I never felt it—at least not that I recall. I don’t know if she held me close even when I wasn’t crying, just because she loved me. I don’t know if she scratched my back to help me fall asleep, or if she tickled my belly to make me laugh.” He swallowed, dipped his head for a moment before straightening again. “I turned out fine, I suppose. But I did not know my mother’s love, and that will always be a gaping hole in my heart.”
Even in the midst of her aching for Aiden, Edward’s words peeled the scales from her eyes. I am told that she loved me, but I never felt it. It was his mother’s touch that he missed. The physical contact was a conduit of love. It was the very thing Ruby had withheld from him, too, and not just in the bedroom. She had told him she loved him, but he never felt it. She closed her eyes as the realization pierced her weary mind.
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