They did not speak as they returned to the farm. Gretchen was glad. What could they say? That viewing the president’s casket was anticlimactic? That seeing Gregory Miller on the killed-in-action list should have been a surprise? That they should have figured something in Columbus would trigger Karl’s memory?
Gretchen had a terrible ache in her side that would not fade. The corset had dug into her when she dashed back to the wagon after seeing her father’s name. She refused to let anyone see her tears. Without a word, Karl had helped her into the wagon before Tante Klegg could admonish her for making a scene.
Gretchen did not know why Karl persisted in pretending to care about her. They did not need to pretend their engagement was real in as large a city as Columbus. No one knew them there, and Alina had made it clear she did not want to see them before her wedding photo. Gretchen was Karl’s nurse and a bad one at that, nothing more.
Gretchen alternated between clutching her pinched side and rubbing her forehead. She ignored the worried frown Karl kept throwing her way as Tante Klegg urged the horse home. She struggled to dampen the warm feeling of his hand holding hers in the statehouse rotunda. She hated that he had looked so gallant ripping up their copy of the killed-in-action list. She scowled.
It was annoying that Karl chose to return to the farm. If there were a time for him to escape Werner, Columbus had been it.
Karl was wasting his time worrying about Gretchen. He had his memories. He was not the president’s murderer. No one had tried to arrest him in Columbus. Gretchen was sure he knew he could go as he pleased. Yet he sat beside her. Every time the wagon bounced, their arms brushed. Gretchen’s cheeks felt hotter and hotter until she was sure she looked redder than a beet.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Karl said, nudging her.
“Won’t take less than a dollar,” Gretchen said.
Tante Klegg snorted. “Nothing in your head is worth such extravagance.”
“Can’t you be nice for once?” Karl said.
“Why?” Tante Klegg said. Her shoulders hunched, and she slapped the reins. The horse lurched forward with an alarmed whinny. “Her problem is that the world is not what she imagined it to be, and she is not the person she thought she was. We must all learn that. Why treat her as though that is special?”
Karl leaned back. “What if it is special for some of us? What’s wrong with that?”
Gretchen glared at him from beneath her bonnet brim. She did not need him to fight her battles. He winked at her. And blast it, she might have grinned.
Tante Klegg snorted again. “Yes, and you know because your memories returned. You know everything now. You have life experience and wisdom and friends and family again. Is there a special girl waiting for you? Have you remembered her?”
Karl rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t think I have a home or a girl to go back to.”
Gretchen glanced at him, suspicious about his neutral tone.
“Pretty sure my parents gave me up to the soldiers so they could afford meat for my brother.”
“What?” Gretchen said, horrified.
Tante Klegg’s shoulders hunched higher.
“He, my brother, that is, got wounded. I never did find out the battle, wasn’t even in the house long enough to hug my ma. But she had sent word I had to come home. It was worrisome since both my parents had disowned me when I refused to fight. But family is family, ain’t that right, Ms. Klegg? And if they called me home it had to be for good reason, I thought.” His voice trailed, and he stared at the trees in the distance.
Gretchen bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from demanding to know more. If he did not tell her the rest, she was going to push him out of the wagon and make him walk the rest of the way home.
“Anyway,” Karl sighed, rousing, “all I remember is the blue coats were in the door before I took my hat off. They said I was a spy. I wasn’t, but that didn’t stop no one.”
“So you won’t be leaving, then,” Gretchen said.
He grinned. “Reckon not. Unless they want to sell me to some other army.”
“Sell you?” Gretchen said, recoiling. “Like a slave?”
“You can be this flippant about never returning to your home?” Tante Klegg said.
“Not all departures are bad,” Karl said. “I hated being in that prison, but at least I knew where I stood with my family.”
Tante Klegg’s nostrils flared. “And what will you do now? Will you return to Southern slaveholding ways?”
Karl shuddered. “We didn’t own slaves; too poor. Anyway, been on the receiving end of having no control over my life for too long. Don’t know why I’d want control over someone’s life like that.”
“Because it gives you power,” Tante Klegg said.
Karl shook his head. “Not the type any sane person wants. Sooner or later, all slaves, all prisoners, revolt. All beings can sense they’re meant for something more than working and dying.”
Gretchen listened, unsure what to make of this. She knew all Confederates owned slaves because the papers said so. She knew all Confederates wanted to destroy the Union, and Booth came close to succeeding.
Yet, here sat Karl, gaining pieces of his memory every minute, saying he was never a slave owner. And he was never a soldier, but a war photographer. And he was not sent to prison for a war crime, but because his heartless family gave him up for the favorite sibling.
Gretchen could relate to that. “I can’t believe Pa’s dead,” she whispered. “Only, he was never my pa.”
Karl held open his hand in the small space between his leg and Gretchen’s skirts out of sight from Tante Klegg. Gretchen laid her hand in his after a small hesitation.
“I never had a father, I guess,” Gretchen said.
Tante Klegg’s posture hunched further, her expression turned thunderous.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Karl said. “He left you the revolver and taught you how to shoot and to protect the farm. Sounds like he took an interest. More than mine, anyhow. My pa always thought me weak and sickly, so he poured attention at my brother.” He frowned, concentrating. “Must have crushed Pa when… when… my brother returned without his legs.”
Gretchen shivered. Bad enough to lose an arm, but to lose a leg, or both? A farmer needed his legs. Might as well have stayed on the battlefield to die. “What is his name?”
Karl turned. “What do you mean?”
“You keep calling him ‘your brother.’ He had a name, you have a name.” Gretchen shrugged, tilting her head up to peer at him from under her bonnet. “What is his name?”
“Well, I’m… Elias…” Karl said. His expression slipped into a panic as he began to stutter. “H-h-h-his… his n-n-n—n-n-n…” He clapped his hand over his mouth.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer,” Gretchen said, eyes wide.
Karl shook his head. He closed his eyes and inhaled. “His name was A-a-a-ambrose.” His voice trailed off as Tante Klegg pulled into the farmyard.
“Ambrose and Elias. Those are fine names,” Gretchen said.
Karl’s smile was wan. “Looks like Alina and Werner are back,” he said. The pastor’s buggy was waiting outside the house. He hopped from the wagon and helped Tante Klegg down. She set to removing the horse tack, otherwise ignoring Karl.
Gretchen moved to hop from the wagon like Karl, but stopped short when the corset bit her side.
Karl held out his hands.
Rolling her eyes, Gretchen allowed him to take her waist and lift her off the wagon. She pulled away as soon as her toes touched the ground, but not before realizing how easy it would be to tip her chin up and kiss his cheek.
“Don’t get any stupid ideas,” she said, warning herself as much as Karl. “I’m dressed like a lady, but I can still shoot an apple off your head.”
“Stupid’s my middle name,” Karl said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he followed Gretchen.
Gretchen shook her head. “How you can joke at a time like this…”
“Time like what? I ain’t killed anyone. Even in the war I wasn’t a soldier. I’m not your enemy. Never was. And since you nursed me back to health, gave me the opportunity to know myself, don’t see how I ever will be.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gretchen said. “Everyone else has taken their turn.”