He cracked the window. Salty sea air wrapped around us as Brad’s hands began to tremble. I inched out my own to hold his quaking fingers but he wrenched them away, his mind light-years distant in another place. Another time.
“It was a woman. She had a large bag—a backpack—strapped to her. She didn’t stop when we asked her to. We were on edge after two Humvees ran over IEDs the day before. Three of my buddies had died. I was running on an hour of sleep.” He swiped a frustrated hand in the air. “Forget the excuses. I was the one behind the Mark 19.” He looked at me, his eyes tortured. “Annie, we—I—thought for certain she had a bomb strapped to her. But when the smoke and dust finally cleared, beans and scattered produce lay on the ground. She’d been bringing us groceries.”
Silence swallowed up the car as I allowed his words to sink in. “Brad . . . I’m so sorry.” I reached for his hand again, but it remained motionless, cold.
“I still battle demons, Annie. And that day—the day of the bombing—hasn’t made it any easier. But I was able to get to you so quickly because of my experiences in Iraq. I didn’t think. I acted. Only this time I saved a life—yours—instead of taking one.”
I squelched the burning emotion in my throat.
He finally squeezed my hand back, the edges of the electrical tape on his wounded finger sticking to my skin. “My dad sent the ring and a letter to me a month after I shot . . . after the woman. It filled a hole inside of me. Made me look up instead of in. I knew my only chance of living out this cracked life was to give everything over to God. So that’s what I did. Only somewhere in the last decade, I wrestled back the control, stopped reminding myself that the work was done.” He swiped the back of his hand across his nose. “These last few weeks, learning about Liberty’s ring, it’s like my dad reminding me what’s important all over again. What my heritage is. And I don’t want to lose that hope again. God took the worst and healed me. Far from perfect this side of heaven, and yeah, you’re right—I still live in fear sometimes. But I get through it by making a conscious choice not to be afraid. Not to make decisions out of fear.”
Brad let silence fill the car before he broke it again. “Emilia should be able to come to the race.”
“I’m not there yet, Brad. You’re strong. Your faith—it’s strong. Mine’s not.”
“That’s the thing, though. This isn’t about you. Or me. Or even our faith—as weak or strong as it may be. Jesus is strong enough for us. We can’t keep looking back.”
“I think my faith has a rearview mirror.”
“Tear it off, then. Because after all we’ve been through together, I’m thinking that as much as I want to, I can’t finish my own healing, or yours. I’m beginning to believe there’s only one way to freedom.”
“What’s that?”
He hooked a finger beneath the chain at my neck, slid it down to the ring. “Trusting His power. Not ours.”
JUNE 1774–APRIL 1775
Hugh did not visit his brother’s home often after our falling-out. Graham and Cora agreed to keep me on, claiming they were happy for my help. Apparently Hugh had not tainted my reputation by telling them of my transgressions.
I saw him every Sunday at worship. I tried to contain my jealousy when I saw him leave with the young and pretty Widow Johnson more than once, their forms visible beyond the wooden belfry beside the meetinghouse, where she no doubt enticed him playfully. Late at night, I would pour my confusion onto paper in a scramble of words I wouldn’t dare call poetry. I gleaned no strength from them.
James continued to grow, as did political tensions. New Whig families came to Lexington to plant their kin away from the chaos in Boston, away from the inundation of King George’s soldiers beneath the command of General Gage. I wondered often about this commander, whose wife made no secret of her alliance with the Americans. I wondered if their marriage was doomed, if they felt free to speak to one another at all of their beliefs. Upon thinking of them, I often convinced myself it was better that Alexander and I would never be together. For certainly a Regular and an American could never survive what I felt in my blood was to come.
Graham and the boys made bullets each night while I kept busy with my needlework, and Cora maintained her meticulous records of our patients’ ailments. Patriots gathered to drill on the green—Graham, Hugh, Nathaniel, even Michael among them.
It didn’t take long for Gage to realize that the people of Massachusetts were not the country bumpkins he assumed them to be. The first week of September, after Gage had sent men to remove large supplies of gunpowder from the Provincial Powder House, six miles north of Boston, the people rioted against the homes of leading Tories in Cambridge, chasing them out of their dwellings. It seemed no secret that Gage feared the people would storm the town of Boston.
I was in the keeping room salting and peppering lumps of butter to put in a clam pie when Graham rushed into the house on the tenth of April, his breath expelled in one loud sigh, as if he hadn’t breathed in a space of five minutes. “Sam Adams has arrived. He’s staying with the reverend. I have invited Mr. Hancock, along with Mr. Adams and the reverend, to dine with us tomorrow night. Is that enough notice for you, Cora?”
To her credit, Cora appeared flustered for only a moment. “Of course, Graham. But I must admit, such esteemed company in my home—I will be a knot of worry.”
I am certain I read through her words as well as Graham did. By esteemed she meant targeted. There was only one reason both John Hancock and Sam Adams had fled from Boston to Lexington. Doubtless, Gage was no longer content to permit Patriot leaders in the town he commanded, soaking up precious information, wagging their tongues to the ears of the American countrymen gearing for battle.
With each passing day, it became more and more apparent that I hadn’t escaped the turmoil in Boston by coming to Lexington. Years later, it had followed me.
The next evening, Rebekah stayed upstairs with the younger children while Cora, Priscilla, Annabel, and I served a fine feast of Indian pudding followed by a veal roast, beans, and Cora’s potatoes. The men—including Hugh—ate with fervor. It was not until I brought Mr. Adams’s plate to the sideboard to fill it with one of Cora’s famed tarts that he addressed me, his palsied fingers crippled worse than I remembered them five years earlier. “Miss Caldwell, won’t you tell me how you fare?”
Graham cleared his throat to come to my rescue. “Miss Liberty stays with us to help with my Cora’s midwifery. She is very skilled indeed, both in her occupation and in the kitchen.”
I smiled my thanks and turned to Mr. Adams. “I am well, Mr. Adams. A day does not go by that I do not miss my brother, but I must admit you were correct when I spoke with you after the shooting.”
Mr. Adams cocked his head. I glanced at Hugh, remembering how he shared that dreadful March night with me. “At the time, I confess I did not note my brother’s sacrifice a most worthy one. But as I watch the struggle for our freedom play out, as I wonder with fear and anticipation where our country is headed, I admit—I am proud of him. He would have wanted nothing more than to be sitting at this table with you, planning the next step toward our freedom.”
A small smile tipped Mr. Adams’s mouth. Mr. Hancock raised his glass. “To James Caldwell, then, and to his sister, Liberty.”
The others raised their glasses, and while I couldn’t claim to do many things right, I felt that I had done something in that moment. I felt it in the unshed tears pressing at my eyes. I felt it in the way Hugh stared back at me, something akin to pride on his features.
If only we could have stayed just so. If only our town—our worlds—as we had known them did not have to bear such a very heavy brunt for freedom. I had given enough in the death of my brother. I could not fathom God asking me to give more.
APRIL 19, 1775
1 A.M.
The steady, methodic tolling from the belfry on the green woke me out of a deep sleep, rousing instant panic in the pit of my stomach. Instinct told me it wasn’t a fire tha
t needed putting out this night. All knew that at one point this entire fracas would come to a head. I just wished it didn’t have to be here, where my son slept.
I opened the window of my bedroom, craned my neck.
“To arms! To arms!” called Captain John Parker, commander of Lexington’s militia. “The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!”
I shut the window, thankful James still lay sleeping. I donned my petticoats, dress, and mobcap, then opened the door of my chambers. Cora stood in the hall. She grasped my hand and led me downstairs to the keeping room. “We must gather the extra muskets, anything Graham and the boys aren’t—”
“The boys? Cora, surely you aren’t letting Michael go?”
“It is Graham’s decision. And Michael’s. He wishes to go, to do his part. He is nearly a man and has not drilled for nothing. I trust Graham won’t allow anything to happen to him.”
“Where will they go?”
“Buckman’s. Hurry now, all the muskets. We will hide them beneath the mattresses. Many women will be in labor tonight.”
The cold metal of a musket was shoved into my hand as I tried to comprehend Cora’s words. “The tavern? But here—in Lexington?”
“The Regulars are on their way to Concord. Military stores are there—provisions, cannons, gunpowder. They must be stopped. This is where a stand will be made.”
Hugh . . . Graham . . . Nathaniel . . . Michael. They would all be in harm’s way. What would this day bring? I did not have time to dwell on it. I watched Cora press a kiss to her husband’s and two sons’ cheeks and send them off to battle the unknown. I hid extra weapons in barrels of feathers in the barn and under my mattress. If a Regular invaded our home, I would lock myself in my bedroom and, if needed, mimic the sounds of a woman in labor. Cora would claim to be my midwife, which was not so very much of a stretch. We were confident no redcoat would press the matter to search within the room, where the weapons would be safely stored.
“Are we secure here, with the children?” I strained my ears to hear the telling sound of drums—the Regulars would not come quietly or stealthily. They always came with show. I pictured Alexander in their lines, marching steadily toward our town. The thought of seeing him again, under such unpleasant circumstances, was reason enough to make me want to hide in the woods with my son.
Cora put a cool hand to my cheek, the first motherly gesture I ever received from her—the first time I likely would have welcomed it. “None of us are safe. But my husband and two of my sons may need assistance I can give them—not to mention the other men. Being a midwife is not about safety. It’s about putting others before ourselves. Though I admit, I cannot imagine the Regulars would harm women and children. They are men with hearts, red-coated or not.”
Though I knew the truth of her statement, I certainly had need of the reminder at the moment. Would I flee in the face of trouble when I was needed? Or would I do my part in this fight for freedom? Would I be able to tell my son a tale that would make him proud?
I swallowed my fears. “We should have the girls confine the children upstairs. Priscilla could be on the lookout to free us to tend to the men.”
Cora smiled, the crow’s-feet heavy at her eyes. “That is a brilliant plan.”
Once downstairs, we looked over our supplies—tinctures of honey and camphor, juniper, balsam, poultices, and our prepared tea of yarrow, catnip, and mint for fevers. Even a bit of brandy to administer before giving stitches. Cora paced the room, wringing her hands, then held them out to me. “Pray with me, dear?”
We knelt on the hard planks of the floor in the midst of our supplies and poured our hearts out to our Creator. There, with Cora, I felt my spirit open to the presence of God. Perhaps it was the act of beseeching the Lord with another soul, perhaps it was the sincere openness of our prayers, or perhaps it was Cora’s certainty that God loved us enough to carry out our good and His glory this morning.
I felt the cleansing of my spirit as surely as I had heard the tolling in the belfry on the green. I didn’t want to leave that place of peace, that place of prayer and healing and power and strength, that place of intimate communion with Christ, and yet Cora closed out the prayer, handed me a handkerchief for my tears, and gently urged me to my feet.
We were quiet after that, organizing already-tidy supplies in the keeping room, slipping out onto the front stoop now and then to listen. The peace I felt while praying with Cora lingered, a faithful companion. The night wore on in silence, with no sign of the king’s regiments.
It appeared the warning had been misunderstood or, perhaps, wrong altogether. The crowd of men at Buckman’s Tavern slowly dispersed to go home to their own beds. Just shy of three in the morning, the Gregory men returned home as well. Cora and I sent the girls back to bed and lay down ourselves. And I praised God for answering Cora’s prayer that no one would be forced into battle this night.
AS APRIL SETTLED IN to rouse us with thoughts of warm weather and new beginnings, Grace and I became more and more a team. With her help—competing, urging, encouraging—I remembered my running legs, and with some hard work on my own during the week, we ran together on weekends, pushing one another in a way that brought us closer together.
While we increased our distance, any topic of conversation came up for grabs. Her social life, mine. The past—her struggles, mine. I better understood my sister’s pain by hearing of Grace’s many doctors’ appointments, how she finally came to accept that living with a fake leg would be her life. She lamented over the fact that she’d never be one of the cute girls in a bikini on the beach. She shared her fears over living alone at college in a couple short years. She told me of dreams where she could run without pulling on a prosthetic. And I tried not to feel the guilt all over again.
Brad and I chiseled at the poem daily, each time coming up with half a story, half a mystery that might never be known. We waited patiently for word from the genealogist we had hired in London. And at night I pondered Brad’s words from the beach, wondered over the strong, inexplicable way I felt tied to Liberty. Whether or not I knew her entire story, I could deduce the majors from her poem. She’d known suffering. Guilt. Love.
She had clung to a God I gave new pieces of my life to with each rising sun.
I was on my lunch break, walking along the brick pavers of downtown Lexington, when I caught the news in the passing conversation of two men in business suits. I ducked into Panera Bread and opened the newsfeed on my phone. Sure enough, a CNN report confirmed it.
I stood huddled in the corner of the lunchtime rush, feeling little more than numb.
The first part of the trial had ended, guilty stamped on the soul of the younger brother who chose to put a pressure-cooker bomb in a backpack behind a group of spectators that included children.
The rest of the workday went by in a blur of accounts opened, checks scanned, drawers balancing. All I could think about was getting to Grace and Lydia. When I arrived at their house in my workout clothes, Grace met me at the door.
We clasped one another in an embrace. Her tears wet my shirt. When we pulled apart, she swiped at them, apologized, then suggested we not wait any longer to go for our run.
We didn’t speak much but rather let the pounding of our sneakers—and her blade—on pavement, the heavy breaths, the beads of sweat, do the talking for us.
When we returned, Lydia waited on the porch. She sat on the front steps, her arms clasped around her knees, her gaze straight ahead. She looked so small sitting there, guard down for once.
When we approached, I hung back. She broke her intense focus to look at me as she stood.
Then she hugged me. A good hug—the squeeze kind. I felt a thousand unspoken words in the gesture. I sobbed—partly from shock, partly from relief—into her shoulder, inhaling the chamomile scent of her hair. My body trembled and hiccuped against hers as I tried to speak through my weeping. “I’m sorry, Lydia. I’m s-so sorry. I wish I could go back and do it over.”
She didn’t speak, didn’t shed tears of her own, but she did hug me a little bit tighter.
A piece of the wall between us came down with that hug. While it wasn’t exactly a pardon or an acknowledgment of forgiveness, I clung to it and the hope of which it whispered.
APRIL 19, 1775
I startled awake at the sound of far-off drums and fifes. Sitting halfway up in bed, I squinted at the pink light of dawn just reaching past the thin gauze of my curtains. I sat still, exhaustion causing me to wonder whether the drums were a product of dream—nightmare, rather—or reality.
The steady thrum and sickeningly jolly tune entered my being, where they rattled around, creating a rift of fear larger than the span of Boston Harbor. With a horrified sense of betrayal, I realized God’s plan had not been to deter the redcoats after all. They were coming.
The belfry on the green sounded the next moment, and I scooped up a sleeping James, pressed a kiss to his matted head, and scrambled out of my room to where Cora ushered Cilla and Annabel into her chambers along with the rest of the children. The boots of Graham and his two sons echoed down the stairs. A moment later, the door closed.
“Stay in this room and keep away from the windows. You mustn’t leave until we come fetch you. Do you understand?” Cora’s calm voice smoothed my frayed nerves. Cilla, Annabel, Rebekah, and Thomas nodded, their eyes now wide and cleared of sleep.
James tugged at my arm. “Momma?” He no doubt sensed the fear in the room. Though he was almost too heavy to hold, I lifted his warm little-boy body in my arms, breathed a prayer for every child in the room. I handed him off to Rebekah, who was his favorite, and left the room without looking back.
The drums and fifes grew louder, closer still. Cora hummed “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” to mask the sound, but soon it overpowered her hymn. We gathered at the window and pushed aside the drapes with trembling hands to watch what would become of our men.
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