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She realized the children would be divided up. Their makeshift family disseminated among neighbors.
Everything was gone.
Not just the building, but everything that made her life meaningful. All that she had done to try to make up for her husband’s actions meant nothing.
Melanie turned to the children. How did she choose one to give up? They were hers, but not hers. Not of her flesh, but of her heart. How was she supposed to pick?
Tears blurred her vision as she looked back at the woman who had made the offer. Melanie knew the family had two sons and one daughter. She remembered the daughter was about Rachael’s age, and so, to give her someone to connect with, Melanie reached out and stroked Rachael’s arm.
“Honey, you go with Mrs. Hibbard, all right? You sleep there now and when we have someplace for everyone to come home to, I’ll come and get you. Okay?” It was an empty promise, she knew. How would she ever have enough to bring all the children back together again? But they needed somewhere to sleep, needed care and shelter. Things she couldn’t provide them anymore.
Though she was crying, Rachael nodded her assent. Trusting as only a child could, the young girl put her hand in her benefactor’s and walked away. Mr. Hibbard approached and picked her up, carrying her to their wagon and wrapping a blanket around her bare feet and legs.
The scenario was repeated by the other neighbors. Someone had room for two, another just one, one blessed couple took three children, having lost their youngest to influenza earlier in the winter and finding themselves with a whole room to spare.
The knife in Melanie’s heart twisted just a bit deeper with each child bundled up and trundled away.
The parish priest materialized, offering room at the rectory to the Grinkovs. He had sent the old couple that served as his grounds man and housekeeper to spend Christmas with their children and grandchildren. They would not return until after New Year’s, and the Grinkovs could use their room until then.
Melanie watched with a heavy heart as one by one, her ‘family’ went away. Not all, though. There were still seven children and herself, with nowhere to go. She felt a hand on her arm.
“Let’s go home,” Nathaniel said, tugging at her.
The flames consumed the orphanage, dancing even higher than before, despite the snow that continued to fall. The fire cast his face in eerie, wavering shadow and light, soot smudging his brow and temple. He needed to wash his face she thought crazily, almost laughing at her need to still be a mother.
And suddenly, the last thing she wanted was to be his mother. She wanted to feel him hold her again, to absorb his strength. For one fleeting moment, despite the cold children and the fire snapping and gorging itself on her home, she wanted him to hold her like a lover would. She wanted to feel him comfort her like a lover would, to love her with the tenderness of a lover.
Reality struck with a thud. “Where are the rest of them going to go?” she asked, terrified she would lose them all.
“With us,” he said as though there never was any question about it.
She wanted to ask where? How? Instead, she only nodded, trusting him that everything would turn out all right.
*****
Nathaniel led the motley bunch back across the field to his home. The middle of the night glowed from the fire consuming the orphanage, so that they could clearly see where they went, could avoid stepping on anything sharp or protruding from the ground. He tried to pick up Jeb and carry him, but the boy would have none of it, his hand firmly in Melanie’s and trudging barefoot through the snow.
He didn’t know how his father had managed it, but he had a fire burning in the stove when they got there. The sudden warmth made him feel colder, if that were possible.
He had brought Ben and Bernard, Lorna and Emma, Jeb, Thomas and Miriam with him as well as Melanie. There was some discussion about just where they all would sleep. Everyone, it seemed, insisted on sleeping in the living room on the floor, a floor that would accommodate only two people, at best. It would not do.
Finally, Nathaniel drew himself up and spoke over the general clamor. “All right! Listen up!” It was the voice he used to command troops. The voice no one ignored, and so silence suddenly reigned.
“Good,” he said, nodding at their obedience. “Obviously, not everyone can sleep on the floor here.” There was the beginning of murmuring, which he quelled with a glance.
“As I said, not everyone can sleep on the floor here. So, here’s how it’s going to be. Benjamin, Bernard and Thomas, much as it pains me to say, the three of you will need to sleep in the barn in the tack room. We’ll set up a stove in there, get it warm. Between that and the animals, you should be warm enough for the time being. Good thing you boys have kept it clean in there,” he added with a smile. “Least you won’t be smelling too much. Won’t smell, neither.” He grinned at that last while the rest of the children giggled.
“Emma, Lorna and Miriam, you three take the big bedroom upstairs. The three of you should fit on the bed in there, especially seeing how skinny you all are. Might be, um, cozy, but it’ll help keep you warm.
“Miss Melanie, you and Jeb take my room. You’ll both fit on that bed.” Jeb began to protest loudly. Everyone knew he was too young to go out to the barn with the other boys, and knew as well how much he would protest that reason. So, Nathaniel put on his other hat, so to speak. The one that allowed him to connive his listener into doing what he wanted of them.
“Jeb, I’m relying on you to keep Miss Melanie safe, look after her. She starts feeling too cold or anything, you come find me so I can build up the fire more. It’s important we care for the women real good, so you be my sergeant up there, all right?”
Little Jeb’s chest puffed out and over the top of his head, Melanie mouthed, “Thank you.”
He sent Jeb and the females upstairs, pulled out an extra quilt from the chest in his parents’ old room and leaving them to sort themselves out, carried the quilt back down with him and dropped it on the floor in the living room. Then he took the boys out to the barn and they worked together to move things around in the tack room. They swept a corner of the floor clean of straw that could be a possible fire threat once he lit the stove. The last thing they needed was another fire tonight.
After getting them settled and lighting the stove, Nathaniel trudged back and forth to the house several times, hauling whatever clothing he could glean from his father’s and his own collection. Several inches of heavy snow had fallen so far this night, and as he looked to the skies, Nathaniel saw only solid black cloud cover. Not a single star twinkled above him, all obliterated by the fast-falling snow.
On the last trip out, he was surprised and relieved to see Ben milking Bossy. At least, the boy had said, they could sleep for a bit now, and not have to worry about the animal. Nathaniel could only echo that statement back in the house as he finally spread out the quilt on the living room floor and rolled himself in it. As his eyes drifted closed, he listened to the quiet of the house.
*****
It had to be dawn, but you would never know it from the darkness still surrounding the house. Nathaniel woke to a flash of lightning through the falling snow, followed by a rumble of thunder.
Thunder snow was an unusual phenomenon, but not unheard of. Thankfully, he had for the most part learned to distinguish between the sounds of cannon and thunder, and positioned himself more comfortably on the hard floor. Another flash, brighter than the first, seeped through his eyelids. But those eyes flew open when the thunder grumbled and yawned and slowly built itself into a roar.
A roar followed by a scream.
Nathaniel sat up, trying to pinpoint where and who had screamed when he heard a patter of footsteps upstairs and frantic whimpering. He stood up in time to catch Jeb as he bowled down the stairs sobbing and flailing his arms. Wrapping his arms about the boy, he tried to quiet him, but to no avail. Jeb fought and cried seemingly without awareness. Nathaniel remembered how the boy had panicked when they heard the tree fall on the roof. It had sounded like a kind of thunder and had sent him running to hide behind Melanie’s skirts. This time, though, it as though he still slept but reacted in exactly the same way to the noise.
Nathaniel dodged punches and slaps until he could slip behind the boy and catch Jeb’s arms inside the circle of his own. He lifted the lad off his feet and spoke firmly but quietly to him.
“Jeb! Jeb, wake up. Wake up, boy!”
Jeb continued to struggle and cry, his eyes open and a look of sheer terror etched on his face.
“I’ve got you, Jeb,” Nathaniel said calmly. “You’re safe here. No one’s going to hurt you.”
The words pierced through the boy’s terror and he began to slowly calm, though tears still coursed down his cheeks.
“I’ve got you,” Nathaniel repeated softly, squatting down to set Jeb’s feet on the floor and turning the boy around to face him while keeping a comforting grip on his arms. Jeb reached up and wound his arms tightly around Nathaniel’s neck and sobbed into his shoulder. He wrapped his legs around Nathaniel’s waist and clung.
Bracing himself with one hand on the floor behind him, Nathaniel lowered himself to sit on the floor, Jeb clinging like a young possum to its mother. He caught the boy in a firm hug and began rocking slightly, murmuring sounds of comfort.
Soft footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Jeb?” Melanie called softly. “Are you down here?”
“We’re here,” Nathaniel murmured, still hugging the boy.
Melanie came into the room, her bare feet poking out from under her nightgown, her braided auburn hair falling over his mother’s shawl around her shoulders. She saw the two of them, Jeb hanging on to Nathaniel who sat cross-legged on the floor, still rocking. Jeb’s crying had now turned to sniffles as he kept his face turned into Nathaniel’s neck.
“Honey,” she said, stroking Jeb’s back. “What happened?”
“Thunder,” Nathaniel said. “You didn’t hear it?” He spoke with no censure in his voice. The night had been horrific. It didn’t surprise him if she didn’t hear the noise. Not everyone developed battlefield reflexes where they awoke at every sound, no matter how exhausted they were, and quickly deciphered if it posed a threat or not.
“I slept like one d—”
She stopped herself from saying the word and Nathaniel could only guess it was something that would set Jeb off again.
“I was sleeping very soundly. I only awoke when I realized he wasn’t in the bed with me.”
“It was quite loud. Startled the both of us. Didn’t it, Jeb?” Nathaniel said.
The little head nodded slightly.
“Why don’t you come back to bed with me?” Melanie asked softly, reaching for Jeb’s hand. “We’ll let Colonel Walker go back to sleep.”
Jeb jerked his hand away, vigorously shook his head against Nathaniel’s shoulder and clung even tighter to Nathaniel if that were possible. A quiet whimper escaped his lips.
Nathaniel hugged him back. “It’s okay. He can stay here with me. It’s some time to dawn yet,” he said, the lie falling easily from his lips, for he knew morning was upon them already. But they all needed to sleep yet, and so he added, “We’ll sleep a bit more here. Jeb will help me stay warm down here, right, son?”
The little head nodded.
“Go back and sleep some more,” he gently instructed Melanie. “We’ll be fine here.” He waited while she considered.
With a nod, she turned to go back to the bedroom. “Good night, Jeb, Colonel Walker,” she whispered over her shoulder.
With that, he rolled onto his side and pulled Jeb close, settling him in the crook of his arm before pulling the quilt over both of them. He heard her go back upstairs, heard Jeb’s breathing fall into the rhythm of sleep before her steps had faded, felt the lad’s hand on his chest, quiet and trusting, and lightly dozed.
*****
The scent of coffee, ham and eggs tickled his senses awake. Nathaniel opened his eyes, surprised to find the morning half gone and everyone else in the house, it seemed, whispering in the kitchen. Jeb was gone from his side. He sat up rubbing his hands over his face massaging away the last vestiges of sleep.
“Good morning. I was afraid we were going to have to come in and wake you for breakfast,” Melanie said, bending down and offering a cup of coffee.
Nathaniel grunted a response and gratefully accepted the coffee. It took two long swallows before he found his voice. “Thanks.”
She smiled at him, held out her hand for the cup while he got to his feet, inventoried all the pieces and parts of him that ached this morning, and felt old. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, found his face at least didn’t ache and returned her smile.
“Breakfast?” she offered, waving her hand at the kitchen.
“In just a minute,” he answered, heading for the outhouse.
While he was out there, he stopped in the barn to check on the other boys. Ben—or was it Bernard?—was busily mucking out the horse stall, while his twin milked Bossy. A full bucket already stood by his side, and he had a second one nearly half filled. Bossy, it seemed, was outdoing herself this morning. He heard Jeb’s voice coming from the other end of the barn.
He found the boy in the last stall, dangling a piece of string for Morgana’s kittens to play with. “Colonel Walker!” he cried out happily, and almost immediately, he dropped his gaze to the floor and mumbled, “Good morning, sir.”
Nathaniel raised a brow as he looked at the top of the boy’s head. “Good morning. How are you today?”
“Fine, sir,” came the nearly unintelligible reply. The string dangling became decidedly less exuberant.
Nathaniel pursed his lips and went down on his haunches next to the boy. “What have you got there, son?” he asked casually.
“Just string, sir.”
The boy had yet to raise his head. Nathaniel reached out to stroke Morgana’s sleek fur as she lay watching her kittens play. “Which one of these is for you?” he asked Jeb.
Jeb shrugged little shoulders. He still would not look up.
Nathaniel sighed, put a hand on Jeb’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Jeb lifted his face, tears swimming in his eyes. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“For what?”
“For being so much trouble last night. It wasn’t...wasn’t manly,” he said blinking back the tears.
“It’s all right. You aren’t a man, yet,” Nathaniel said, biting back a smile. It wouldn’t do to embarrass the boy further.
“I’m the only man left in my family,” Jeb sniffed. “I’ll have to start it all over again. There’s no one left.”
Nathaniel’s heart lurched at hearing the simple admission again. It was too soon for the boy to grow up, and much too soon for him to worry about fathering a new family.
“You don’t have to be a man, yet, son. There’s plenty of time for that. And, you weren’t any trouble last night. Everyone gets startled by loud noises when they come at you from the dark. It’s natural. Besides, you helped keep me warm,” he added.
“Are you sure, sir?”
Jeb’s tone held more hope than Nathaniel’s heart could bear to hear.
“I’m sure. Now, have you picked out your kitten yet?”
They spent the next few minutes watching the kittens, discussing the relative merits of each and their potential to be good mousers. After a time, they finally decided on an all-black male with the tiniest wisp of white at the very tip of its tail, because the mice wouldn’t be able to see him coming in the dark.
Nathaniel called for the other boys to come back with him to the house for breakfast. As they all crossed the yard, the boys falling in behind Nathaniel, he could not erase the image again of a mother duck leading her ducklings, and wondered if a mother duck ever had such a heavy heart.
*****
By some unspoken agreement, all the adults rendezvoused at the still-smoldering remains of the orphanage. The snowstorm last night had dropped over a foot of heavy, wet snow. The snow coated charred timbers, but steam rose from the center of the rubble where it was hottest and melted the snow. Obviously, nothing remained to salvage, and for the second time in as many days, Nathaniel found himself the bearer of donations from the neighbors. Where they found the items, he didn’t know. It seemed they had already given him whatever they could spare yesterday.
Still, there they were, passing over bundles of used clothing, shoes, coats, mittens, bags of flour, extra eggs, turnips, pumpkins and potatoes and more. Their generosity was at once both staggering and humbling.
The older children had come, too, and Melanie put them to work carrying the donated items back to either Nathaniel’s house, the priest’s house for the Grinkov’s use, or to one of the many neighbors who had taken in the younger children.
Finally, Nathaniel found himself alone with Melanie, surveying the damage even though they both knew the loss was total and absolute.
“Well,” she said on a sigh, “on the bright side it saves me the trouble of packing up things to move them to a new home. Not that we had much to begin with,” she added bitterly.
“That it does,” Nathaniel said. He remained silent for a few moments, kicking snow around with his boots until he couldn’t contain himself any longer. “What happened to Jeb?”
*****
He couldn’t have asked a more frightening question. In fact, the only way that question could terrify her more was if Jeb had asked it, himself.
She’d spent the last four years dreading this moment, hiding from this moment, praying to God she could escape it.
She truly liked Nathaniel. More than liked. Despite her teasing him about needing a mother, the last thing she felt toward him was motherly. And now, all because of Jeremy, it would be lost. Even in death, her late husband continued to ruin her life.
“Do you know what happened to him?” Nathaniel asked.
“Yes.” She gazed with unseeing eyes at the ruins of the orphanage. Of her life. And replayed the events of that morning yet again in her mind.
The unit had marched into Virginia. The men were young, many of them still boys practically. And itching to engage the “enemy.” Never mind that the enemy were their countrymen up until a few short days ago. Neighbors. In some cases, kinfolk. But both sides seemed consumed by a fever. War fever.
As was the case in so many units, the women followed their husbands, brothers, and fathers on the march, caring for the wounded and sick, cooking for them, seeing to their needs. Sometimes, they weren’t family. A group of women who were not family saw to entirely different “needs” of some of the soldiers in General Hooker’s unit. At times, there was almost a party atmosphere, as if trying to kill your countrymen was sport rather than war.
It turned Melanie’s stomach. And astonished her when Jeremy announced he had joined up to fight, since she had thought he shared her views. But bloodlust was catching.
The enemy had been sighted the other side of a ridge they were about to crest. Excitement ran high as the men readied themselves for battle. And the women, too. Men packed shot and sharpened knives. Women tore cotton strips for bandages and held their needles to the flame to clean them.
She saw a farmhouse a short way off to the west. Smoke puffed out of the chimney and she could just make out the figure of a toddler walking hand in hand with a man. Her attention was drawn back to the ridge by a shout and without warning, a whole brigade of Johnny Rebs came charging at them. The Union soldiers affixed their bayonets and took their stand.
Except Jeremy.
He stood transfixed, eyes round and white with terror. He was in charge of one of the cannons, and when his officer gave the command to fire, Jeremy didn’t move. The officer shouted the order again, but still Jeremy stood motionless.
Finally, the officer, a lieutenant she thought, rode his horse to Jeremy and gave the command again. This time, Jeremy responded, but not in any way they expected.
He went to the side of the big gun and turned the wheel that raised and lowered the barrel. He cranked it until the cannon was aimed in a straight line and despite his lieutenant’s panicked shouts, lit the fuse.
The ball fired directly into the midst of his own men.
The blast threw the lieutenant high into the air, as it did many of the soldiers. In the ensuing chaos, Jeremy spun and ran to the west. His own men gave chase, firing at him as he fled.
Melanie watched in horror as Jeremy pulled a pistol from his belt and fired back at his comrades. He zigzagged across the farm field. The man with the toddler turned at the shouts and shots behind him. Jeremy fired one last time. The farmer fell, faceless, pulling the toddler down with him.
The mother burst out of the house. A haze of bullets came from every direction and Jeremy fell. So did the mother.
All Melanie remembered was the pitiful wailing cries of the child. As soon as Jeremy fell, the soldiers turned back to the battle, their revenge taken.
And Melanie stood alone, the widow of a coward and traitor, while all around her war raged.
She was responsible for that child, she knew. This child her own husband had orphaned. He was now hers, as surely as if she had birthed him herself. And ever since that day, the crack of a pistol—or a breaking tree branch, or thunder rumbling—sent Jeb into a blind terror whether awake or asleep.
Melanie drew a deep breath. She would, she knew, have to confess all to Nathaniel. She had always known there would come a time when she could no longer hide the past. At some point, it would come to light again. She would lose the respect of this soldier, the camaraderie and teasing they had shared. It would cost her the affection and attraction she had felt simmering just below the surface whenever they were together.
In a voice sounding flat and lifeless even to her own ears, Melanie related the story.
*****
Nathaniel heard the bitterness when she spoke her dead husband’s name and understood it. He heard the shame and understood that, too.
But when he heard her take the blame for her husband’s actions—that he most certainly did not understand. And said so.
“How can you possibly think you’re to blame for what he did?” he asked incredulously. “You didn’t hold the gun. You didn’t fire the cannon. If this was anything like the battles I’ve been in, you were nowhere near him to even stay his hand.”
“That’s the thing,” she said, still with her back to him. “If I had only seen the signs, known that he would break under the strain of fighting, I could have stopped him from joining up in the first place.”
Nathaniel snorted. “You can see inside people’s heads? God help me if you ever look into mine.” And he realized the truth of those words. He didn’t want her to ever see inside his head—to see the horrors he carried around buried inside him. “If you had any kind of marriage at all, you would know you could have never stopped him from doing something he really wanted.”
She’d stiffened at his last words. He knew they sounded harsh. Harsher than he’d intended. He put a hand on her shoulder, tenderly kneaded the knot he felt there. “You could not have stopped him, before or during. No one could have.”
She turned to him, tears glistening in her eyes. “It was just so horrible. And then...the way everyone treated me...like they knew I’d failed them all. I was a coward by association. A pariah. I took Jeb and left immediately.”
“You are most definitely not a coward,” he stated emphatically. “By association or any other means. I’ve never known a braver woman. A braver person. You put most soldiers to shame.
“What you’ve done with and for these children is beyond courageous,” he added. “You’ve given them care and guidance like their parents would have. You’ve made a home for them again. You love them.”
“But I can’t give them a home now,” she said, a single tear tracking down her cheek.
He smiled, wiped away the tear with his thumb, lowered his head and kissed her on the lips gently, reverently. Pulling back, he tilted his head and searched her eyes. “Don’t you know that ‘home is where the heart is’?” he asked. “And that’s the most important thing you’ve given them – your heart.”
He folded her into his arms and stood in front of the smoking ruins of the orphanage. “So, Jeb was your first?” he asked, deliberately using the double entendre to lighten her mood while his brain scrambled. There had to be a way...
He was rewarded with her giggle.
“Beast,” she said playfully pushing against him.
He tightened his arms, pulling her back against his chest and felt her relax.
“Yes, he was the first I took in. As I went looking for a home for us, the others just sort of latched on to us. It was rather like the Pied Piper at one time,” she laughed. “People looked at us strangely. A few helped with a night or two in their barn. But the longer it took to find a place to live, the more of us there were and the bigger the building we were going to need.”
He watched her face, marveling that she could smile at a memory that had to be so wrapped in horror. That strange feeling popped up in his chest again, like the flutter of a butterfly’s wing, and he wondered at her power over him. “And the Grinkovs?” he prompted, wanting—needing—to hear her whole story.
“A gift from God,” she went on, turning her face up to him. “They were on the road themselves, their house having been destroyed in a flood. They were trying hard to keep ahead of the war while looking for a new place to live, their old homestead turned into a swamp. I was walking with the children, trying to find a place to set up for the night while keeping some kind of control over them. Does the term ‘herding cats’ make any sense to you?” she said, smiling.
He grinned back. “If it’s anything like controlling a bunch of rowdy hillmen, yes.”
“Mrs. Grinkov saw me and pulled her husband over. They didn’t even tell me their names then, just started helping. He corralled the boys and gathered firewood. She put the girls to work getting what little food we had together. I’ve never seen anyone more adept at stretching food. It was like the parable of the loaves and fishes,” she said shaking her head. “I didn’t think we had enough to feed half of us, and suddenly there was enough for all, including the Grinkovs, and still food left over.
“It was truly a miracle. But the real miracle came the next day,” she continued, “when we came across this old building. Mr. Grinkov went to talk to the owner. I don’t know what he told him, but suddenly we had keys to the place and permission to live there free as long as we took care of it. That is, until the owner got an offer from some company that wants to turn it into a factory.”
“A foundling,” Nathaniel said and at Melanie’s confused look, explained Emma’s misuse of the word when she’d given them her news.
“So. Here we are,” Melanie said, shrugging. “It was so good of the neighbors to take in what children they could, and I know it’s the best for the children, but it still feels like they’ve been ripped from my heart. My punishment for Jeremy.”
He stroked her back, offering what comfort he could. “I will say again, you are not responsible for his actions. And even if you were, you have paid for them a thousand times over.”
He tipped her chin up to look into her eyes. “These children were meant to be with you, to be raised by you, loved by you. They belong with you and we’re going to get them back together. Every. Last. One. Of. Them.”
He led her back to his home, to the children that were with them, his mind whirling like the wind in a summer storm.