The Last April

by Belinda Kroll

  “I’m mighty thankful for your interest, Miss…” Karl waited for Alina to supply her name. “Miss Alina. Well, ain’t that a pretty name. Does it have a meaning? Seems like it should. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a name like that. But then, I don’t have my right mind so it could be that I have. Don’t remember either way.”

  Alina flushed and dropped Karl’s hand so that she could untie her bonnet strings.

  Gretchen and Tante Klegg stared at Karl as if he had grown horns and pustules on his face. They did not dare look at one another, not with Alina distracted.

  “Right glad you’re sitting there, Miss Alina,” Karl continued. “You see, the light from that window there hits your hair and makes it shine a bit. What would you call your hair?”

  “My mütter calls it corn yellow,” Alina said to her lap, her ears red.

  “Corn yellow?” Karl scoffed. “What a thing for a mother to say. Why, it’s a sunflower sort of yellow. Have you ever seen a sunflower? They rejoice under sunlight, reaching to the sky, to God. Boasting their love of life so tall that no one can avoid seeing them.”

  Gretchen did not understand this change in Karl. Was it only yesterday he cowered in her brother’s bed, eyes so wide, voice so frail? This Karl kept his voice low, pleasing, and deferential. He was confident. He knew how to distract pretty girls.

  It was all Gretchen could do to stand there and watch Alina eat Karl’s words like dessert. Gretchen could not leave; she had to make sure Karl did not betray them. But she also could not stay, not with things going the way they were.

  Alina looked up, entranced. “Sunflowers sound beautiful,” she said. Her voice was so full of yearning it begged Karl to complete the compliment and call her beautiful, too.

  “Do you think Werner has seen any sunflowers?” Gretchen said.

  Alina jumped in her seat and turned around, having forgotten anyone else was in the small kitchen. Karl glared at Gretchen.

  “I hope so,” Alina said, now wistful. “Werner loved my hair. I hope sunflowers make him feel closer to me.” She rummaged in her little fringed purse for a handkerchief. “I have nothing to make me feel closer to him.”

  “Nonsense,” Gretchen said. “You have us, don’t you? Isn’t that why you come every day?”

  Alina sniffled behind her handkerchief. “I come to tell you the news, because you are so far from town. You have no idea what is happening in the search for the president’s killer, do you?”

  Gretchen wished she had kept her mouth shut.

  “What are they saying?” Tante Klegg asked. Her stern expression dared Karl or Gretchen to breathe a word and see the consequences.

  Alina clenched her hands in her lap. “You were not at the capital yesterday. My parents and I, we rushed to Columbus to hear the latest after I left this house. It takes so long for the news to come to Grove City,” she said in an aside to Karl. “We could not wait after we heard what happened.”

  Gretchen rolled her eyes.

  “They wound black fabric around the capital building’s columns,” Alina said. “Everyone spoke in hushed voices. We were all so shocked, so sad. Flags were so low on their poles, they almost touched the ground. There were military companies from the Tod Barracks and Camp Chase, too.”

  Karl stiffened at the mention of Camp Chase.

  Alina described the masses of people wandering Columbus. Businesses closed every minute as the news spread of the president’s death. Columbus was usually a place of grand adventure, so many people, so many shops! But not on Saturday, not on the afternoon of the president’s death.

  “To think,” Alina said, shaking her head, “we won the war, to have our president killed like this.” She slapped the table, startling everyone in the room. “I hope to God that Werner killed every last one he saw. Those dirty, terrible rascals!”

  Karl glanced at Gretchen. A bead of sweat appeared at his temple, which should not have comforted Gretchen, but it did.

  “These are hard times,” Tante Klegg said. “We hate the Confederates for splitting away. They hate us for forcing them to stay.”

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Tante Klegg,” Alina said, “you sound… sympathetic!”

  “I have been through a war before, child, you forget that. It is never as simple as the papers will make you believe.” Tante Klegg turned when the stew popped behind her. “Now, you must tell me why you told your papa that Gretchen was engaged to Karl.”

  Gretchen grabbed the chair opposite Karl and plopped into it. “Yes, Linnie,” she said, using Werner’s pet name for Alina, “tell us.”

  “Wait,” Karl said, holding up his hands. “I thought y’all was joking.”

  “That’s what ‘verlobter,’ means,” Gretchen said. “It means we’re courting.”

  Karl ran his finger along his collar. “Ain’t that something.”

  Ears redder than before, Alina dabbed her handkerchief at her temple. “You must not think me wicked.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Gretchen said before she could help it. She rested her elbows on the table, even though she knew she would get a slap from Tante Klegg.

  Alina pulled out a careworn piece of paper from her purse. She placed it on the table and would not remove her hand from it. “I received a letter from Werner.”

  Tante Klegg dropped the ladle on the floor and glanced at her sister’s bedroom.

  Gretchen jumped. “And you kept it from us?”

  “I’m sharing with you now,” Alina said, as if to a child.

  “Alina,” Gretchen said, “that letter is fraying. How long have you had a letter from my brother?”

  “It wasn’t a letter for his sister, it was a letter for his love,” Alina shot back. “And I’m sharing it with you, now that you also have happy news, now that you have a verlobter!”

  “You should have shared the letter anyway!” Gretchen said.

  Tante Klegg hissed from the stove, “Lower your voice while your mother sleeps! How will she react to knowing there was a letter from her son and she did not know it?”

  Gretchen and Alina looked at each other and sat down.

  Karl broke the heavy silence. “What does it say?”

  “I thought you would be happy to know he lives,” Alina whispered. Tears gathered in her eyes. “I thought this would make Mütter happy.”

  “Please do not share the parts specific about your love,” Gretchen said. “I have to eat Tante Klegg’s stew later.”

  That remark earned a soupy slap on the back of her neck from Tante Klegg, but Gretchen did not care. There was a letter from Werner, which meant he was alive. Or he had been alive whenever Alina received the letter. Or he had been alive in the weeks before Alina received the letter.

  There were still battles in Tennessee despite the ceasefire. And there was no knowing where Werner’s regiment sneaked to these days.

  “It’s short,” Alina admitted. “I was unsure it was Werner’s hand, at first. He said he’s glad to come home soon, that he couldn’t wait to settle, to forget the horrors he had seen. He wants a family of his own.”

  “What’s wrong with the one he has now?” Gretchen said.

  “You remember those days before he left for the war,” Alina said. “He itched under your papa’s command to stay home and take care of you, your mother, your aunt. How many times he cried into my lap, saying he wanted to defend his country! And you were all so angry with him when he finally left!”

  Gretchen stared at Alina, dumbfounded. That was not the brother Gretchen remembered. Crying into a girl’s skirt? Angry with their father? Werner seemed so calm in the days before he ran away.

  “He wants to be a father,” Alina continued, her face aflame. “And he wants to see you happy and married, too, Gretchen.”

  Karl leaned forward. “So when you learned about me, you thought I was the perfect fit, and it was time to let them know Werner was returning.”

  Alina nodded, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. “But, your accent�
��”

  Karl leaned back. “What about my accent?”

  Alina paused, unsure how to continue. “It would be so good if you could remember who you were in time for Werner’s return. If we knew… You sound so southern.”

  “He thinks his family is from Ironton,” Gretchen said, perpetuating Tant Klegg’s lies.

  “Wonderful!” Alina clapped her hands. “We could have a double wedding! My papa would be happy to do it!”

  Gretchen and Karl looked in opposite directions, mortified.

  “If not for each other, for Werner?” Alina said. “His letter says he could arrive any day.”

  Everyone jumped when Gretchen’s mother slammed her bedroom door open. “Werner?” she screamed. “My Werner returns?”

  Twelve

  Sunday, 16 April 1865 / Grove City, Ohio

  Gretchen rolled her eyes at Alina, who dangled the letter from her fingers. Alina stared at Gretchen’s mother, horrified.

  “You had to raise your voice,” Gretchen said.

  Karl half-stood, gripping the back of his chair to stop the room from spinning. “Think I should head on back to the barn?”

  Tante Klegg pointed at the chair with her dripping ladle. “Sit.”

  Karl sank. “Don’t see how my face will help anything.”

  Gretchen’s mother shoved her out of the way. “What do you know of Werner?”

  Gretchen caught herself on the table corner. “Have a nice nap, Mama?” she said.

  Tante Klegg clapped her hand on Gretchen’s shoulder and shook her head. Gretchen shrugged.

  Alina flourished the letter. “Werner returns!” She scurried around the table, her skirts swishing as she reached for Gretchen’s mother. “He wrote, and I waited for the right time to tell you…”

  Gretchen’s mother expression hardened as she backed away from Alina. “Do you believe I would let my son marry a girl like you?”

  Alina’s smile faltered. “Mütter?”

  Gretchen’s mother pointed at Alina, but spoke to Tante Klegg. “You have seen this letter?”

  Tante Klegg shook her head. “The child showed me nothing. She keeps it in her hand.”

  Alina inched behind Karl, who remained frozen in place. She pressed the letter into Tante Klegg’s hands, now afraid to approach Gretchen’s mother.

  Tante Klegg looked at her sister, at Gretchen, and down at the fragile paper in her hands. “It looks like his handwriting.”

  Gretchen’s mother snatched the letter from Tante Klegg. She read it, her lips moving as she brought it closer to her face until she stood there smelling the paper in silence.

  “He’s coming home to us, Mütter,” she whispered.

  Before anyone could stop her, Gretchen’s mother ripped the letter into shreds.

  Alina fell to her knees to gather the pieces. She scooped them into her lap, her skirt puffing around her as she sat in the dust. “I wanted to wait until I was sure,” she cried. “Now that the war is over, I knew Werner would come home soon. I wanted to make you happy.”

  “You thought you would be my hero?” Gretchen’s mother’s voice was soft and cold, far more frightening than her usual hysterics. “My hero is my son coming home to me. My hero is my husband bringing my son home from war. My hero is bringing my life back to order. You are a manipulative child.”

  Alina sobbed, shaking her head and pressing the letter pieces to her heart.

  Gretchen scratched her eyebrow with a grimace. If anyone were to make a letter the subject of dramatics, it would be her mother and Alina. Not that she was in any place to judge. She was furious with Alina for hiding the letter. Watching Alina cry made Gretchen happier than she had felt in a while. The fact that her mother brought Alina to tears only made it better.

  Tante Klegg moved the pot of stew off the burner. The scraping noise startled everyone. “Your son has written to say he returns,” she said. “Why are you upset?”

  “You know why,” Gretchen’s mother said. “Why did he not write me?”

  “You do not know he did not,” Tante Klegg pointed out. “The post is unreliable. We should be glad we know anything about Werner.”

  Gretchen’s mother crossed her arms over her chest. “You cannot believe that.”

  “What is there to believe these days?” Tante Klegg said with a shrug. “We live in the days of men shooting presidents. What I believe does not matter.”

  Gretchen’s mother leaned over the table. “This is exactly when what you believe does matter.”

  Tante Klegg inhaled as if struck.

  Gretchen flinched, waiting for another outburst. Next thing she knew, her mother was in her bedroom again. No one followed her.

  Karl heaved a sigh and slouched. Tante Klegg huffed and turned back to the stove, clanging her spoon as she stirred.

  “So we discovered what it takes for my mother to turn on you,” Gretchen said to Alina.

  Alina stared at Gretchen, eyes narrowing.

  “Good luck getting on her good side again,” Gretchen continued. “I’ve been trying since I was born.”

  Alina smiled, rested her hands on her hips, and said, “Don’t you ever get tired of being ignored?”

  “What?” Gretchen said.

  “I was trying to help you,” Alina said. “Nothing makes a young woman more important than her wedding. She means something if she’s a wife. Don’t you pay attention in church? This would have been the making of you!”

  “I pay plenty of attention,” Gretchen said, “and I don’t need your help. My papa told me everyone means something in this world, and I don’t have to get married to mean something.”

  Alina snorted. “Your papa was a lazy man. He pretended he was a philosopher. He fooled no one. He was an Ohio farmer who married the daughter of a German intellectual. Or so she claims.”

  Gretchen’s fist landed on Alina’s jaw before she gave it much thought. Alina fell back, screaming, using both hands to hold her face together.

  Karl leaped from his seat to catch Alina. Tante Klegg wrapped her arm around Gretchen’s shoulders.

  “Try to marry my brother after saying a thing like that,” Gretchen said. She panted, struggling against Tante Klegg’s grip. “I dare you.”

  Karl righted Alina. She let him check her jaw and smirked at Gretchen even though tears ran down her face.

  Gretchen lunged. Tante Klegg threw her against the wall.

  “Compose yourself,” Tante Klegg said. “You—what’s your name—Karl, escort Alina out.”

  “How am I supposed to get home? You made me ride with you!” Alina whined.

  “It is broad daylight, girl,” Tante Klegg said. “Walk.”

  Alina swished her skirts and held out her hand in a way that implied she expected Karl to offer his arm. He did, but with a little frown as Alina led him to the porch. Every step echoed on the puncheon floor, inflaming Gretchen’s anger.

  “Let me loose,” Gretchen said. She met Tante Klegg’s glare from the corner of her eye. “Are you going to take her side after the way she spoke about Werner?”

  “You attacked Werner’s betrothed,” Tante Klegg said, releasing Gretchen. “She is his choice. If this ever gets back to him, what do you think he will do to you?”

  Gretchen’s mind flashed back to when Werner had tied her to a post in the back of the chicken coop. It had taken her hours to loosen the knots. Everyone had blamed her for upsetting the chickens, which refused to lay eggs for weeks after that. All because Gretchen had said Werner’s hair looked silly all done up with pomade.

  “You are so rash, Gretchen,” Tante Klegg sighed. She rubbed her hands down her face, muttering that Gretchen was too like her mother.

  Gretchen’s face inflamed. She might be rash, but she was not hysterical or silly. “I am nothing like her,” she said, surprising Tante Klegg. “When Papa and Werner left, she cried for weeks. They left me with the revolver. They left me to look after you and Mama.”

  Tante Klegg’s smile was wry. “And you did not thi
nk, not once, that your papa might have asked someone to look after you?”

  Gretchen blinked. No, that had not occurred to her. It had never occurred to her that her father would ask her aunt to watch after her, rather than her own mother. She looked at her mother’s bedroom door, which muffled her mother’s sobs. Her face crumpled. Did her mother hate her so much that even her father did not trust Gretchen to her care?

  Tante Klegg patted Gretchen’s cheek. “Do not let your Karl leave the room before I return.” She left the kitchen as Karl entered it.

  “You all right?” he asked, finding Gretchen staring at her hands.

  Gretchen shrugged. “As all right as a person who’s no good for anything could be.” She watched the sunset blaze through the kitchen window, shielding her gaze. “Day’s almost done. We’ll have to figure out where to put you for the night.” Gretchen squinted at him. “You seem to be feeling better. You walked Alina all the way to the barn and back by yourself?”

  “Food and water does wonders,” Karl said.

  “You hardly ate anything,” Gretchen said.

  “Saw a man come out of a fever in the prison, and he ate so much so fast he had pains for days and died anyway. I’m fine with taking my time.”

  “Obviously,” Gretchen said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Karl scoffed. “Tell me you’re not jealous.”

  “Of course not! I’m worried. Alina’s got her own agenda with you, and I don’t understand it. We’ve got to get you well enough to get out of here before anyone realizes we’re not engaged.”

  Tante Klegg reappeared with rope in her hand. She gestured at an empty chair. “I will take the legs.”

  “What?” Karl and Gretchen said in unison.

  Tante Klegg clicked her tongue against the top of her mouth. “We will tie him to the chair. I will take the legs. You will lift from behind.”

  “I’m not doing this,” Gretchen said. “He won’t be any trouble. We can lock him in the barn. Or he can sleep in the hayloft.”

  Tante Klegg motioned for Karl to sit in the chair.

  Karl studied the chair, considering his options. The chair seat was smooth from years of family meals. It was more comfortable than the rough boards he used to sleep on in the prison. Sure, it would be less comfortable sitting upright all night. But there would not be wind whistling through large gaps in the walls. And it was still better than his imprisoned nights at Camp Chase.