Widow of Gettysburg (36 page)

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.”

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?”

Liberty pressed her lips together. “Wood is a rare commodity around here, but I found something I hope will suffice.” She pointed to a long slab of mahogany leaning up against the front of the stone house. Dr. O’Leary carried it over and laid it on top of the table for Silas to inspect. “It’s the top of the sideboard, from the dining room. Will it do?”

Silas ran his hand across the polished surface. Only a few nicks and scratches marred its sheen. “This is too good to be made into a crutch!”

“But will it work? Will it serve the purpose?” Liberty prodded.

“Yes.”

“Then it will be in the greatest service it has ever seen. Far better to hold up a fine man than fine china.” She winked.

Silas was itching to get started. To craft something with his hands, to walk again without assistance from another. If skipping medication meant he could think clearly enough to work again—and hold a coherent conversation with Liberty—then he’d gladly put up with the pain.

Dr. O’Leary clapped a hand on Silas’s shoulder. “Well then, old chap! I’ll leave you to it!”

Alone in her room, Liberty looked around for something to use as a pad for Silas’s new crutch. She had no more dresses to cut up, save her old mourning clothes, and she did not want to use those. Her quilt was ruined. Sheets already stripped into bandages. There was only one thing left to use.

Her baby quilt. Kneeling on the hardwood floor, Libbie opened her cedar chest and pulled it out from the bottom and grazed the odd shapes of wool, flannel, cotton, and silk with her palm.
Why have I been keeping this, anyway?

But she knew why. As much as she hated they story of how she was born, she could not help but believe that her mother would not have taken the time to create this quilt if she hadn’t cared about her well-being,
just a little bit. And wasn’t it normal to long to be loved by one’s own mother? Libbie sighed.
A mother like yours is best forgotten
, her aunt Helen had told her. Maybe she had been right.

She should be past this by now. Liberty had memorized several verses that told her she was God’s child, amazing verses that spoke directly to her heart.

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Isaiah 49:15

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Psalm 27:10

A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. Psalm 68:5

An orphan and a widow—Liberty was both! According to the Bible, she had a special place in God’s heart. Shouldn’t that be good enough?

Liberty wished it was. She wished, she prayed, she could forget she ever had a mother. Every time she thought or talked about her only brought her pain.

Her thoughts drifted back to her conversation with Bella, who had said her mother had loved her. How could she know? She was just trying to make Liberty feel better.
And then I sent her away.
At least, that was what it had felt like. Guilt lurked in her spirit over their parting, when all Liberty wanted was to be full of joy that Silas had escaped death.

Yes, Silas. She was supposed to be focusing on him now, and his crutch. Liberty dug into her sewing basket, pulled out a ripper, and surgically removed a large patch from the top layer of the quilt. Holding it up, she smiled. No one would ever mistake Silas’s crutch now. The pad was a patchwork quilt of four difference pieces of fabric. She would fill it with sawdust from a box of brandy bottles. It would be perfect.

A slight twinge of regret pricked Liberty’s heart as she laid the remnant of the baby quilt back in the cedar chest. Slamming the lid shut, she closed her heart to the memory that only hurt her.

“HAVING BEEN ABLE
through Divine help, to pass through all that I [did], I can now say, I would not part with my experience for anything the world can offer. I am proud that I was able to do and to suffer, even so little, during this fearful struggle, ‘that his Nation,’ in the words of our beloved Lincoln, ‘might have a new birth, that the Government of the people, for the people, by the people, should not perish from the earth.’”

—FANNIE BUEHLER, Gettysburg housewife