Blessed Assurance (12 page)

Song followed song. In the funereal glow of the candles, Lee could not take his eyes from the old man. Jessie paced in front of the door, looking outside at the sound of each passing wagon.

Lee felt hard-earned barriers against memories of the war begin to crumble. He wanted to escape this room, from remembering, but he couldn't leave Jess. The doctor wasn't coming tonight, yet Lee took no satisfaction in being proved right.

“Son,” the old man's raspy whisper sounded loud in the silent room.

Caleb knelt on one knee and gripped his father's thin hand. “Father.”

“Forgive, son. Let go…of hate….”

Caleb pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose as though forcing back tears.

“You will…never know peace.” The old man wheezed again under the killing burden of fluid and blood.

Breaking the silence, one of the mourners intoned in a rich bass voice, “Swing low sweet chariot comin' for to carry me home.” A crescendo of harmonies and emotions coursed through the grief-saturated room.

The old preacher raised one hand. “Caleb, it's beautiful,” the Reverend mumbled. “I see it.”

Jessie came to Lee. He held out his hand. She accepted it, staying beside him. The touch of her hand in his strengthened him against the sorrow around him.

The old man tried to lift his head. “Praise God.” The dying man collapsed against the pillow. Silence descended. No one moved.

Lee waited until he realized that foreboding had immobilized everyone. He stepped close to the bed and pressed his hand to the
man's throat, feeling for a pulse. “He's gone.” Lee tenderly closed the old man's eyes.

A moan. A cry. A heartrending sob.

Lee felt his low spirits sink farther. In a heartbeat, he was transported to the past. He stood at the edge of a battlefield at daybreak. The moans and shrieks of wounded men ripped and shredded the peaceful dawn. Lee began trembling. Before it could overtake him completely, he fled the house.

Heedless of her own tears, Jessie accepted and returned the embraces of the other mourners. Inside, she felt scoured out by grief and disappointment.
Dr. Gooden, why didn't you come?

After Susan released her from a fierce hug, Jessie searched the room for Lee.
Gone
. She threaded her way through the mourners until she was able to escape outside. By the glow of the streetlamp, she spotted him and hurried to him.

Before she could speak, he took her arm and began to rush her along the alley. She couldn't keep up with him; she pulled against him.

Abruptly he pulled her close. Only then did she become aware of the trembling of his hands. “What is it?”

He groaned. The sound unnerved her, standing alone in the dark. Drawn against her will, she moved closer to him, closer. She rested her forehead on his chin. A drop of moisture, then another fell onto her cheek. Looking up, she realized the tears were not hers, but his. “What is it?”

He gripped her arms. “Oh, Will…” He swallowed convulsively and his grip tightened on her. “Hurry, Will! They're dying. Why don't they send us more wagons, more men?”

At the stark despair in his voice, she wrapped her arms around him. He was shaking. Like a mother soothing a child, she stroked Lee's back, murmuring comfort. His arms closed around her. One last harsh groan escaped him. He was still.

Then she felt him lower his cheek to hers. This slight adjustment completely altered the mood of their closeness. No longer were they mother, son. Now they were man and woman. His embrace
made her feel light, small, feminine. His breath feathered the small curls at her temples. Breathless, she turned her face into the crook of his neck.

“Jessie,” he sighed her name. He lowered his lips to hers. She did not resist. He kissed her, a demanding kiss, not a kiss to be ignored.

She gasped and he deepened his kiss. A yielding sigh drifted from her mouth. She knew she should pull away, but the same inexplicable pull she had experienced on the Fourth compelled her to remain against him

When his eyelashes flickered against her face, she trembled with her need for him. Shocked at her own response, she forced herself to step back. Grudgingly he let her go.

“You were remembering the war?”

“Yes,” he admitted curtly. He took her arm and started down the dark street.

She tried to keep up with him. “Why now?”

“I don't want to talk about it. The war should never have happened.” His pace became brisker.

“Then Susan wouldn't be free.” Jessie tugged against him, forcing him to slow.

“If the South could have foreseen all that the war would rob them of, and all that it would force them to endure, they would have let Susan's people go, and gladly.”

“I doubt that.”

“What do you know about it? We all joined to ‘Save the Union' and later ‘Free the slaves.'” His voice became fierce. “On enlistment posters they don't say: ‘Give us your youth,' ‘Leave your wives widows and your sons orphans,' ‘Die like dogs—worse than dogs.'”

He halted, gripping her wrists. “I have seen amputated legs stacked like cordwood. After winter battles, we had to chip men out of pools of their own frozen blood.” He jerked her closer. “The war was a travesty. No cause justifies war.”

The visions his words evoked terrified her, but suddenly she recalled all his words. She said in a dazed voice, “You said Will. You
knew my husband. You're Smith. You drove an ambulance for the Sanitary Corps, didn't you?”

His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

She touched his arm. “I won't make you talk about it. But I need to know.”

He closed his eyes as though drawing inner strength, then he nodded.

“I'm glad.” She searched for words to strengthen him. “You and Will did what you had to do. Some things are worth dying for, but we, you have to go on.”

He said at last, “Always the crusader.”

Exhausted, Jessie did not speak, but she took his arm, leading him home. She ached for Caleb in his loss and for Lee, but she could not heal their pain. Only God could. And she doubted either man would seek God's healing. Lee had suffered with her Will. He deserved peace, comfort now. Then her mind pulled up another painful thought. Dr. Gooden hadn't come.

As they were parting on her back steps, she couldn't hold back the words. “Would you be interested in renting Miss Greenleigh's room?”

“I thought you never rented to men.”

“I've—I've changed my mind,” she stammered.

“Then I would like the room.” He looked her full in the face.

She avoided his eyes. “At the end of the week?”

“The end of the week.”

Her gaze followed him as he ambled away. It was done. She should have sent him away; instead, she had brought him closer to her, to Linc.

I let him kiss me again.
Her lips tingled with the memory. She resisted the warm tide, engulfing her. How did this man make her go against her common sense and convictions? What power drew her to him? Walking through her back door, she hummed, “My Lord, what a mourning when the stars begin to fall.”

 

After Reverend Mitchell's evening funeral, the lake breeze was blowing through Jessie's parlor windows, swelling the sheers. Jes
sie pulled the crisp, white sheet up to her son's chin and patted his cheek. “Good night, son. God bless you.”

Yesterday it had been laundry day and in spite of Susan and Ruth's help, her back ached from bending over the washboard. She knew she should kneel beside her son's bed and pray with him at bedtime, but most nights she felt that if she got down on her knees, she would merely lie down on the wooden floor and go to sleep.

If only Will had come back from the war, there would be someone with strong hands to rub her back. She could easily picture Will humming softly as he worked the tenseness out of her tired muscles. Sitting down on the chair at the foot of Linc's narrow bed, she sighed.

She forced herself to stop this downward spiral into self-pity. Will had loved her, had given her a son, and left her a house with which she could support herself and their son. Many women were in much worse circumstances. Slowly she unhooked the buttons of her shoes, one by one, then she slid down her garters and black cotton hose. The first breath of air on her legs was refreshing and the bare floor felt cool to the bottoms of her feet.

The full moon flooded the room with silvery light. Linc's breathing became regular, telling her he was deeply asleep. Miss Wright snored on the other side of the curtain. She pressed down the images from the funeral tonight. Caleb's stolid grief.

Beside her chair sat her old trunk. She opened the lid, careful not to make a sound. Under her winter woolens lay the packet of letters from Will tied up with a faded blue ribbon. Keeping the ribbon in place, she let her fingers walk on top of the letters' edges.

Lee's knowing Will explained why he'd sought her out in April and had befriended her son. In this private moment, she admitted she looked forward to Mr. Smith's nightly visits as much as her son did. She closed her eyes willing images of Lee and Linc playing together away. Now that she'd invited Lee to move into her house, she needed to reinforce her memories of Will. Biting her lower lip, she opened a letter from the middle of the packet.

“Dearest Jessie.” Will's greeting still had the power to move her
six years after his death. Her eyes scanned the page and then more pages—accounts of battles, bravery, deaths. Then a notation jumped out at her. “March 3, 1864. Jess, bad news today. Smith, the driver, died last night. I am sorely grieved.”

She pressed the letter to her throbbing heart. If Smith died March 3, 1864, who was the man who had mourned with her tonight at Reverend Mitchell's funeral?

September 28, 1871

“Oh, Mr. Smith, are you leaving now, too?”

Just as he was about to leave Jessie's house, Mrs. Bolt's insinuating voice froze Lee's insides. “I didn't expect you to be up and out so early on a Saturday morning.”

“I have a little shopping to do downtown. How nice we are going the same way.” As slick as an escaping cat, the redhead slipped her arm into his.

The urge to box the woman's ears nearly overwhelmed him, but taking a deep breath, he nodded. The stroll to town began. The widow kept up an uninterrupted gush of meaningless chatter.

Lee held his temper precariously. Her proprietary manner—as though she had some claim on him—aggravated him.
I don't know how much longer I can be polite to this woman.

At the sight of the first office building they came to, he halted. “I must leave you here, ma'am.” He disconnected himself from her clinging gloved hand.

“Oh, could I see your office?” she cooed as she stared up at the sandstone edifice.

“So sorry. I'm due in a meeting immediately. Good day.” He charged into the building and up its flight of marble stairs. By the second floor window, he watched as the redhead disappeared up the street. Within minutes, he headed south for the Workman's Rest. When he entered its alley door, he found Pearl waiting for him.

Wearing a dress of royal blue cotton, she gave him a sidelong glance. “You dress like a banker, but you don't work banker's hours, Mr. Smith.”

“I was delayed by…ah…business.”

Pearl gave him a provocative smile. “You could move up your position here, you know. How would you like to be proprietor?”

Lee's mouth went dry.
Why did I ever let a flirtation with my boss start?

“Think it over.” Letting her lacy, royal blue bustle sway, Pearl walked away into the main room.

Think it over?
Lee groaned inwardly. He should never have—even subtly—encouraged his employer's initial forays into flirtation. Instead, amused by it, he had let it go on. He had misled her and for that he felt guilty.

Lee hung up his coat and hat, tied on his white apron, and tucked a clean towel in its band.

I'm surrounded.
Pearl at work. The redhead at the Wagstaff's house.

Jess's face appeared in his mind.
Jess.
He felt her lips against his, her soft body pressed to him.
Jess.
Holding her had been bliss. But the comfort in her caring touch had meant more to him than any passion he had felt.

Jessie continued to clothe herself in black and gray, trying to conceal her beauty. To the world, she presented a stern-widow mask. It no longer fooled Lee. Jess was a tenderhearted, loving woman.

He felt unprepared for this turn of events. His years in the army and his life after the war had kept him immune to affairs of the
heart. He had only the remembrance of a few infatuations in his salad days.

Had he fallen in love with Jess? He rubbed his forehead, wishing he could reach inside, smooth out his thoughts, and make sense of this. He took the broom to the sidewalk in front of the saloon.

He swished the broom back and forth, his pointless action mimicking his mental confusion. With an exasperating combination of softness and fortitude, Jess insisted on taking care of Miss Wright, an old witch anyone else would show to the door. She brushed aside his attempts to give her money to help with expenses, even for Linc. When the good doctor, who was still courting her, had explained his not coming to the Reverend's aid because he was caring for a critically ill child, she'd forgiven him, much to Lee's dismay. Jess was absolutely genuine. She would never play him false.

And I lied to her.

Her crusade to find a physician for Susan's people made it impossible for him to reveal his true identity now. With shame, he recalled how after each rejection, she'd returned home, looking crushed. What if she ever found out the truth about him?

If she finds out, she'll never forgive me.

 

“Missy, we need to have a talk.”

Recognizing her stepfather's harsh voice, Jessie paused in midswing with the rug beater, held in both hands like a bat. The rag and woven rugs from the bedrooms hung over the clothesline on the side of the house. “Why are you here?”

“I see you no longer make any attempt at common politeness—”

“Why should I?” She continued swatting a rug with an even rhythm. “You've never shown any politeness to me—that was more than a paper-thin mask.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his lips crimp in disapproval.

“I am here—for your own good. The way you have been behaving has reached my ears once more, missy.”

She tried to avoid the coming argument. Looking at the rug, Jessie did not miss a stroke as she moved ahead to beat the next rug.
The stale scent of dust hovered around them. “I'm not interested in anything you have to say. For my mother's sake, please leave.”

He drew himself up. “I'm not leaving till I've said what I've come to say.”

“Suit yourself.” She went on swinging the beater, feeling each impact through her arms and back.

“Put that rug beater down. I think we should go in so we won't be overheard.”

“I've told you I don't want to hear what you have to say and I've asked you to leave.”

“As your father, I have a responsibility—”

“You are not my father. You have never treated me as though you were my father—”

“I provided for you for nine years—”

Jessie moved to the next rug and swung at it, matching each swing to the beat of her words. “
And
I'm
sure
you have
written
down in your household ledger
every
penny you were
ever
forced to
spend
on me.
But
since you made me
work
off each
penny
, I feel
no
obligation to
you
.”

“Your attitude is totally unacceptable—”

“Thank you.” She moved on to a rose-patterned rug and attacked it.

“Enough of this.” Huff hurried forward. “This morning one of the other fire captains, who has a brother who is a doctor, asked me if my stepdaughter's married name was Wagstaff.”

Jessie kept the clothesline dancing rhythmically. With each moment, her irritation expanded, growing into anger.

“He proceeded to tell me about an embarrassing visit you made to his brother.”

“His brother should be embarrassed.” Jessie spoke through gritted teeth. “Indeed, he should be ashamed for not helping people who need him.”

“No one elected you his judge. ‘Judge ye not, lest ye be judged.'”

Her anger blazing white hot, Jessie stopped in midswing. “How
dare you quote scripture to me—you hard-hearted, mean-fisted hypocrite! Have you ever heard—‘Love one another even as I have loved you'? When have you ever loved anyone, but yourself?”

He spluttered with outrage.

Jessie felt herself lose control. Scalding words long held back poured forth, “I have never forgotten how you criticized Will when he enlisted to help free the slaves. But how could you understand his love for people he didn't know—when you don't even love the people
you do know
.”

With a hand upraised, Hiram crowded close to her. Automatically Jessie took a batter's stance, gripping the rug beater like a baseball bat.

Hiram stopped. “You'll never see your mother again,” he hissed. He turned and marched away.

Jessie felt light-headed, her head throbbed.
He was going to strike me.

 

Esther was polishing silver when her husband walked in, slamming the door behind him. She dropped the spoon she held. It clattered to the floor. “Hiram, what has happened?”

“That daughter of yours!” he thundered and started pacing. “I went to her house to confront her about the way she's been disgracing us all over town. Captain Phelps described your daughter's outrageous attempt to persuade his brother to take on her black friends as patients—”

“But those people do need a doctor,” Esther said softly. Her heart sped up as she added, “Perhaps God wants Jessie to do this.”

“Nonsense! God wants no such thing!”

“Do you speak for God, Hiram?”

Silence. Hiram stopped pacing. “Esther, you have never spoken to me like this before.”

She clutched the edge of the table, her knuckles white. “You have never spoken for God before. I know it's your nature to feel things strongly and to express yourself strongly—”

“A Christian wife does not contradict her husband.”

Her voice remained soft, but she stood up, facing him. “Even when he is wrong?”

“I'm not wrong! Your daughter—”

“Again. Do you speak for God?”

He stared at her as though he doubted his ears.

She looked at him, frowning a crease between her brows. “I have been doing a lot of thinking over the past few weeks. We have been married for over twenty years. In that whole time, Hiram, I have never once said what I was truly thinking. That's a long time to keep silent.”

“Thinking?” he sputtered.

“I know it has probably never occurred to you, but I have my own thoughts and feelings. Last week Jessie told me that when she was a child, she thought I didn't love her.” Her voice cracked. “Can you imagine how that wounded my heart?”

“That has nothing to do with this—”

“It has
everything
to do with this. Do you remember what you promised me about Jessie before we married?”

“I told you I would treat her as my own child.”

“Yes.” A sob formed deep inside her, but she held it in. “But how was I to know what a rigorous and unloving father you meant to be?”

“What?” His face registered disbelief.

“You browbeat our sons with your rigid rules and cold discipline. You never show them love or even common kindness.” Esther looked down at the floor, ashamed of her words.

“You're losing your mind.” He sounded incredulous.

She faced him. “No, I am
speaking
my mind for the first time.”

He stepped up to her. “It's your daughter's rebellion I've to thank for this attitude. I will tolerate no more of this defiance from either of you.” He gripped her arms painfully. “You will not speak to her again till she apologizes to me.”

“No.”

He squeezed her arms tighter.

She wrenched away from him. Feeling as brittle as the first, thin
sheet of winter ice over a pond, she turned to leave the room. “You have always wanted to separate me from my daughter.”

“Esther, I forbid you to speak to your daughter until she apologizes to me. You will obey me.”

“No, Hiram, I will not obey you in this.”

He lunged forward, grasped her arms once more and jerked her toward him, hurting her, his livid face just inches from hers. “You promised to love, honor, and obey me. If you defy me, you will be breaking your wedding vows.”

Esther ignored his agitation and the pain in her arms. “Hiram, you promised to love, honor, and cherish me. You have never kept even one of your vows to me. Let God judge between us.”

Hiram raised his hand so quickly Esther didn't have time to dodge his blow. Her head swam and she couldn't get her breath. Trying to speak, she felt herself losing consciousness.

 

Mrs. Bolt held herself upright, making the most of her five foot four inches, as she marched at the front of a dozen or more of her compatriots in the Temperance Union. Everyone around her chattered with excitement. Their common zeal had finally prompted them to take action against liquor. A thrilling combination of trepidation and ardor carried Mrs. Bolt up to the swinging doors of the first gin mill where she would crusade this evening.

Ever since childhood when passing any saloon, she'd crossed to the other side of the street. This was her first chance to peer over swinging doors. A striking blond woman, standing at the bar in the long, narrow room caught Mrs. Bolt's eye.
A fallen woman!
Mrs. Bolt avidly absorbed every detail of the woman's costume. Though somewhat disappointed by the modesty of the apparel, she gloated that no decent woman would wear all that showy lace atop the flaring blue bustle.

Mrs. Bolt chanted along with the others while she observed the woman flirting in a common and obvious fashion. The fallen woman tapped the arm of the man standing beside her. Mrs. Bolt caught the end of the hussy's sally, “I should pay the most charming
bartender in Chicago more.” The blonde counted four dollars into the open palm of…

When Mrs. Bolt recognized the face of the man, she smothered a faint shriek.

 

Aching with fatigue, Jessie sat at the head of the dining room table. As she slipped a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped away the perspiration at her temples, she wished summer would finally end and the cool, damp days of fall would begin. Her confrontation with her stepfather in the backyard that afternoon had shaken her.

“That was a delicious meal, Mrs. Wagstaff.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chaney.”

Mr. Chaney, a young carpenter journeyman, had rented Miss Greenleigh's former room yesterday.

“My condolences on the loss of your husband,” the young man said.

“What?” Jessie asked, startled.

“You're still in mourning. I realized I didn't mention it yesterday. Please excuse me.”

Miss Wright directed her attention across the table to the young man. “Her husband has been gone for over six years now. It's time you put mourning clothes behind you, Jessie.”

Before Jessie could think of what to say to this, Lee ruffled her son's hair. “Go get the checkers and board, Linc.”