But if Amelia recalled correctly, the verse ended before the sentence did. Curious, she drew a small black Bible from her satchel and found the passage. “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”
Tears dripped on the thin page. God had comforted her, when Hiram certainly couldn’t, and now it was Amelia’s turn to comfort someone else. She reread the last verse. Had she truly allowed her consolation to abound in Christ? Her heart pinched.
The more Hiram lashed out at her from his own private prison of pain, the more she had dwelled on her loss—not God. She stared at it every day, refused to part with grief, cuddled up to it at night when Hiram left her cold. Mourning had a place, but Amelia Sanger didn’t leave it there. She embedded it into her spirit, until the term “survivor” encompassed her being.
Would she advise this woman, about to be plunged into fresh, raw grief, to do the same?
Finally, she knew what to say. She began, not with grief, but with God, “the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort,” following Charlotte’s example. She would end with the lines of Simon’s favorite hymn.
Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Holloway Farm
Friday, July 17, 1863
Liberty’s tray crashed to the barn floor, draining cups of beef tea into the straw and hard-packed dirt. Steam curled frantically around the steady drips of rain falling from the leaky roof.
“Myrtle!” She called over her shoulder. “Get Dr. O’Leary! Now!”
Myrtle appeared in the doorway, her drenched hair and clothing clinging limply to her body. She took one look at Silas and paled. “Silas wants me,” she said. “Not you. I’ll stay with him and you go. I know how to make him better.”
“Don’t argue with me, just get the doctor!” Liberty shouted over the growl of thunder. “Tell him he needs his zinc sulfate! Hurry!”
Liberty watched the awkward girl run away, tripping on her skirt in the mud, then knelt beside Silas. His skin was cold and clammy, his lips and fingertips tinged an unearthly shade of blue. He opened his eyes, revealing small pupils.
“Liberty?”
“I’m here, Silas. And I’m not leaving.”
“Do you see him? My father is just there—how is my father here?” Terror seemed to seize Silas. He shrunk away from the lightning that flashed beyond the door. “So angry, so angry, he’s always so angry. I’m sorry, Father!”
Liberty swiveled on her knees, grinding oily straw into her skirt. “No, Silas, you’re hallucinating. Don’t be afraid.”
Please God, don’t take him.
Two pairs of footsteps came squelching in. Myrtle dripped on Silas while Dr. O’Leary examined him. He sniffed his breath.
“Does he need more medicine?” Myrtle pulled from her apron pocket a handful of opium pills. “I just gave him some not long ago.”
“Good God, girl, what have you done?” Dr. O’Leary snapped at her, and she pulled her head down into her neck.
“He didn’t feel good, and this makes him feel better.” Her voice wavered. “It makes him sleep.”
Comprehension shot through Liberty. The girl she told to take care of Silas had poisoned him. I should never have let her take my place!
“Did Dr. Stephens tell you to do that?” Dr. O’Leary did not look up as he pulled the zinc sulfate solution from his bag. Just as I suspected. Opium overdose.
“No, I learned how to do it all by myself. Sometimes Dr. Stephens gives him medicine, and sometimes I do. When the doctor is busy.”
Dr. O’Leary’s face twitched in anger, as he helped Silas take his first dose of zinc sulfate.
Seething, Liberty stood, grabbed Myrtle by the arm and pulled her outside the barn.
“I trusted you, and so did Silas, and you’ve nearly killed him.” Rain began to soak her clothes.
“What? I gave him medicine! That’s what you do for sick people, you give them medicine!”
Was she really that simple? “No, Myrtle, you don’t give medicine, the doctors give medicine. If you give too much, or if you give the wrong medicine, you could kill him!”
“Kill Silas Ford? But I don’t want to do that, I love—”
Goosebumps covered Libbie’s skin, though the summer rain was warm. “You what?”
Myrtle hung her head, slumped her shoulders, rounded her back. “Silas Ford wants Myrtle Henderson. He needs me. He asked for me.”
“That’s over now.” Liberty waved the words away, paced the trampled yard, arms crossed across her chest. She wanted to send her away for good, but with Bella gone … she pressed a hand to her aching forehead.
“But I didn’t mean to be naughty! I’m a good girl!”
Liberty stared at this childlike creature. She was not malicious. Simple, yes. But mean-spirited and calculating? No.
“Now you listen to me, Myrtle. I believe you meant well. I know you didn’t intend to harm Silas—but you have. So if you wish to stay here, you will stick to the duties of laundry, boiling water so we can use it, disinfecting the trench, emptying the chamber pots. Do you understand me?”
Tears filled Myrtle’s eyes. “You’re angry with me. You yelled at me.”
Liberty’s fists clenched at her sides. Silas could be on death’s doorstep right now. Yet she modulated her tone anyway. “I’m upset that Silas is very, very sick. I need to know that you understand me. You are not to go near Silas ever again. Nor any of the patients.”
“But he asked—”
“I am in charge here. I say you will not enter the barn again. If you do, I will personally put you on the train back to Baltimore, for if you cannot be trusted in this hospital, you cannot be trusted in any other. Now tell me that you understand.” Shuddering with impatience, she waited for some sign of comprehension.
“Yes,” she hissed. “No more Silas.” Her eyes flashed. Was she angry now? Fine. So am I. Liberty matched Myrtle’s scowl with one of her own before running back into the barn.
Myrtle watched Liberty’s lithe form disappear into the gaping barn. She hated that barn with its torn-out doors. It looked like it was laughing at her.
Or yelling at her. She hated it when people yelled at her.
Glowering like the stormy sky, Myrtle plodded back toward the summer kitchen and ducked into its steamy shelter. She sat on a barrel and brought Dolly out of her pocket. At least Dolly was still smiling. Myrtle traced the smile on the rag doll’s face with her fingertip, back and forth, back and forth, to reassure her of its permanence.
Myrtle was mortified.
And heartbroken. She brought Dolly to her cheek and sobbed. No more Silas? No more Silas? But I love him! And he needs me! I helped him feel better whenever he felt any pain!
Rain splattered against the broken windows, spitting moisture on Myrtle as she sat there. It was as if the sky itself was hissing at her!
“Liberty is mean,” she told Dolly.
No, she isn’t. She just cares about Silas.
“I care about Silas! I love him!”
So does she.
“What? Who told you that?”
Dolly was lying again. She must be.
I’m not lying, Myrtle. She loves him, and it’s plain as your face that Silas loves her, too.
Myrtle’s fingers cinched around Dolly’s waist and squeezed. “How dare you say that? Maybe she’s cast another spell on him. I have to warn him.”
You idiot. You simpleton.
Myrtle shook the doll for being so impertinent and rude. How could Dolly be so rude with that wide smile on her face?
“Why else would Silas ask me to be his nurse if he didn’t care for me?”
Don’t you get it? He wants her to be his sweetheart, not his nurse.
“Shut up.” Myrtle jumped to her feet and slammed the doll down on the barrel. Dirt smudged Dolly’s face. Myrtle smiled. That felt good.
He loves her. She’s beautiful, kind, and smart. You might be kind sometimes, Myrtle, but you sure aren’t much to look at, and you definitely could never be accused of intelligence.
“I said, shut up!” Tears watered Myrtle’s cheeks, and her face swelled with anger. She hurled Dolly against the opposite wall and sat on the barrel, heaving with emotion.
Lightning split the sky outside, and thunder cracked in her ears, but she did not hear Dolly’s voice. Myrtle took a deep breath. She had won. She wiped her face with her hands, then her hands on her apron.
Dumb. Why not just wipe your face with your apron in the first place?
Myrtle jerked. “Why are you so mean to me, Dolly?” She crept over to the doll, lying face down on the jam-stained floor. Hesitantly, she turned her over. Squinted at her.
Faded red dress. Black hair. Pretty, except where the dirt smeared across her face.
Just like Liberty.
Stay away from Silas.
Now even her voice sounded like Liberty.
Myrtle’s gaze skittered around her until landing on a silver gleam. So, Myrtle Henderson wasn’t smart, was she? A smile curled her lips over her small teeth as she swept a loaf of bread off the cutting board, and put Dolly on it instead. Grasping the knife in her sweaty palm, Myrtle brought the blade down with a whack on Dolly’s neck, amputating her head from her body.
“I told you to shut up.”
The next day, after Silas had been purged of every last trace of opium in his system, Dr. O’Leary came back to check on him. Sighing, the doctor sat on his three-legged stool and rubbed the back of his neck. “Silas, we need to have talk.”
Silas sat up. He’d already learned the cause for what happened yesterday. Apparently, between a sympathetic doctor and a sympathetic, amateur nurse, he had been given too much opium to numb the pain. It played tricks with his mind, and assaulted his body.
“Your leg is healing as it should, but some pain can be expected. Some patients take opium—or morphia—for the pain in the stump, and some take it for the pain in their hearts. I believe that your overdose yesterday was not by your own design. But now you know what it can do, and you have a choice. Numb the pain and your spirit both, or manage it.” He paused.
“Just how much of my letter did you read, Dr. O’Leary?”
“I didn’t need to read the letter to be able to read you. You’ve experienced pain before this that has perhaps never fully healed. I work with sutures and needles and tinctures and sulfates, none of which can fix the human spirit. But I know a Physician who can. Have you consulted the Lord about it?” He glanced heavenward, and a raindrop splattered on his forehead from a leak in the roof.
“He isn’t listening.”
The doctor frowned and he wiped his face. “Says who? The Bible tells us to pour out our hearts to Him. To pray without ceasing.”
“‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.’ I can’t help but wonder if losing my leg is punishment for my sin.”
“I don’t think God works that way. You’re quoting Psalm 66:18. But what about the rest of the chapter? You’re reading your own fear into that verse.”
“Excuse me?”
“To regard iniquity in one’s heart, as that verse is written, means to harbor it. To know you have done wrong, but to refuse to confess it and ask for forgiveness. Now let’s read the next few verses along with it and see what you think now.” He reached into his black leather bag.
“You carry your Bible in your medical kit?”
Dr. O’Leary smiled as he pressed the small black book into Silas’s hands. “Several. Don’t forget, I’m not just a doctor. I’m a delegate of the Christian Commission, too. But between you and me, even if I wasn’t on the commission, I still wouldn’t dare leave home without my own Bible. Man does not live by bread alone but by the word of God. Now read.”
Silas opened to Psalm 66 and began reading at verse 18. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.”
“You see? The chapter ends there. The last word is not despair and isolation, but mercy. If you confess, God will forgive. That’s a promise found throughout the Bible. King David mightily made a mess of things, didn’t he? He already had wives and concubines a plenty, and yet he had an affair with another man’s wife. A soldier in his own army. Then he made sure that soldier was killed in battle by putting him on the front lines.”
“Yes, I know the story.”
“Then you also may know David repented, thoroughly, and the Bible calls him a man after God’s own heart. Flip a few pages back to Psalm 51.”
Silas scanned the chapter, recalling the familiar verses as he read them. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. But when he reached verse 17, he stopped. Had he ever read this before?
“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” That was Silas. He looked at Dr. O’Leary.
The doctor smiled. “God is close to the brokenhearted. Your father may have been hard to please, but our heavenly Father will not turn you away. Don’t push Him away yourself.”
Rain dripped in the quiet space between the two men.
“Keep that,” Dr. O’Leary said. “I’m done preaching for now, but you will find more healing within those pages than I can possibly give. Your physical pain will get better with time, you know.”
Silas didn’t know. What he knew was that his brain was still unconvinced of the absence of his right leg. But that was crazy. He’d already acted crazy enough.
Dr. O’Leary narrowed his eyes at the suspicion that must have been written on Silas’s face. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
Silas hesitated.
“You sometimes sense your right leg is still there, don’t you? Does it cramp, or itch, or both?”
Silas’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t worry, old chap. You are not going crazy. These sensations have been documented by countless veterans. In fact, Turner’s Lane Hospital in my hometown of Philadelphia is devoted to nervous injuries like those, and Dr. S. W. Mitchell is pioneering the field. Good news, Silas. You will be fine. Those pesky sensations will occur less and less, and eventually your brain catches up to your body. Oh yes, there are those whose nerve damage causes far more severe consequences, but I can tell you are not one of those cases.”
“How?” A small pinprick of light punctured the dark fog in his mind.
“One example—it’s raining. And you’re not writhing on the floor.”
Silas’s face twisted in confusion. “Why would I do that?”
“At Turner’s Lane, otherwise called the Stump Hospital, every time it rains, at least two hundred of our worst cases are thrown into seizures at once. Now, I’m not the nerve expert that Dr. Mitchell is, but I know enough to be able to tell you, you are headed on the path to recovery. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that you’d been sleeping so much this last week and, not to mention our terrible shortage of crutches, you should be up and walking around.”
Silas stared at the doctor. Had he heard him right? “I could be walking?”
“With the help of a crutch and for very short spells, yes. But as I said, we don’t have any.”
“Could I make one?”
Dr. O’Leary smiled. “Miss Holloway thought you might be able to.” He held out his hand. “Stand up.”
&n
bsp; Silas planted his left foot on the floor, clutched the doctor’s outstretched hand and pulled himself up. “I thought you were taller than me.” The doctor smiled up at him. Hope sparked in Silas’s chest. It had felt like a lifetime since he had stood on his own two—since he had stood.
With his arm around the doctor’s shoulders, he hopped over to the gaping doorway of that miserable barn and looked out. The world was colored in shades of grey and brown as drizzle pooled in footprints and wagon wheel ruts in the mud. It was beautiful.
Dr. O’Leary pointed to the house. “If you can make it that far, on the other side is a porch where a young lady has a surprise for you.”
“I can make it.”
Silas should not have been surprised at how much effort hopping from the barn to the house required, nor at how much strength he had lost since his injury. But when he saw Liberty standing on the porch, waiting for him, new life filled him. Her hand rested on the back of a red velvet armchair she must have dragged out from the parlor. In front of the chair, two barrels supported long planks of wood in a makeshift table.
Silas hopped up the porch steps with Dr. O’Leary supporting him. Liberty beamed up at him as he stood in front of her, dimples twinkling in her cheeks.
“You’re much taller when you stand up, aren’t you?” she teased. He had forgotten she only came up to his shoulder.
“Now that you know that, would you mind if I sat down?” His left leg began to wobble from the exertion. Silas lowered himself in the armchair and let his gaze roll over the bounty on the boards in front of him. Nails, hammer, screwdrivers, screws, saw, chisel, sandpaper.
“Aunt Helen’s old tools,” Liberty said. “I’ve never had much use for them, myself. I thought maybe you might know what to do with them. They seemed so forlorn just sitting in the toolbox, without any purpose.”
Silas knew exactly how they felt. He picked up the chisel and relished the feel of the round, smooth wooden handle in his palm.
“Will they work?”
“Just fine,” said Silas. “But what of wood?”
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