EPILOGUE
1883
ConaLee
JANUARY 2, 1883
Bundled in their coats, they stood directly across from the First Exchange Bank, one of three in Weston. The cold felt blustery and raw. ConaLee ran a gloved hand along the unpainted picket fence behind them. A For Sale sign hung from the sprung gate. Set back from the street, the plain two-story house was spartan but for its faded gingerbread trim and garden lattice. A narrow front porch, near flat to the ground, ran its length. There looked to be an acre or so of land behind, a small barn. Flat for a garden, shade trees to one side. The scrubby, patchy grass allowed a straight dirt path to the house. ConaLee saw, to the side near the trees, what seemed a second-floor sleeping porch. She imagined herself there, summer evenings, watching twilight darken into night.
Weed, you must stand there, in front of the sign on the gate, until I come out.
I’ll stand wherever you like, he said.
ConaLee reflected that he was near her height now. She had turned out after all, and he’d turned out too, in his way.
The bank clerk was a middle-aged woman. ConaLee gave over her father’s enlistment papers, with the name he’d chosen, and the account book.
The clerk read the paper, then looked down at the small account book in her hand. You’re here about the account of Ephraim Connolly? she asked.
Yes, ma’am. Ephraim Connolly. Her mother had named her the name he’d taken—her given name a version of her surname. She was a hint, a riddle, a remembrance.
You are Miss Connolly, then? His family?
I am his daughter, ConaLee Connolly, she said, his only child. I’m unmarried. I’m of age. That’s his deposit book, for you to check the dates.
You have his death certificate, or a discharge paper?
We never got such, but it’s twenty-two years since he enlisted, June 17, ’61, as it says there. She paused and lifted her eyes to the woman’s gaze.
A birth certificate then, stating his name?
It burnt. And his unmarked grave…is in a wilderness—
It was not a lie, for the Asylum was a wilderness, none knew it better than she, his grave allowed in the narrow, shaded garden her mother had walked that night. Unmarked, according to her mother’s wishes, for none of his names saved him. Not a number, not a gravestone, but for the tiny white pebbles heaped under lush grass, leaves, snow, near the large tree where they’d found each other that night. Each spring, her mother circled the tree with handfuls of small stones. The year after he died, Dearbhla and ConaLee made the journey to join her. Weed watched, but took his palmfuls of white pebbles back to the ridges.
The clerk inquired, Have you a date of death?
We know…when the deposits stopped. I have this, the carte de visite he sent back as a soldier. ConaLee took it from the pocket of her winter coat and laid it gently on the clerk’s hand, atop the open account book.
The clerk was silent. The two together barely filled her palm.
Seventh West Virginia Cavalry Volunteers, said ConaLee. That’s him on the left, a sharpshooter.
The woman nodded. Not many such, showed a man outdoors, she murmured. She looked up, sympathetic now. Might you have letters from him?
A very few, said ConaLee, to my mother. She showed the yellowed envelopes, addressed to Mrs. Eliza Connolly at a Weston P.O. box.
The clerk glanced over the postmarks. You know, she said, I’ve been here thirty year. Some of the soldiers wrote on their deposit slips, the date, a place, or a phrase. I kept them in the files. Let me see if I’ve anything for this name. She left her window and turned to stand before a wooden file of drawers on the back wall opposite.
ConaLee heard the turn of a key and looked away. The winter sky was a clear sharp blue this second day of the New Year, and Main Street of Weston lay dusted with snow. Dearbhla had died a week before Thanksgiving, two year ago, and mere thought, or any look at a bright winter sky these weeks between the winter holidays brought ConaLee the sight of the mounded grave bordered with rocks. That fall, even into November, stayed unseasonable warm, the second such in a generation, it was said, since the winter of ’74. They’d dug the grave deep, for the ground had not frozen, and placed Dearbhla in her shroud, with the flat rocks touching edges across the whole of her resting, and then more earth bordered with rounded stones. Dearbhla had asked for many stones, and gave ConaLee the name her father had forgot, his bankbook, his enlistment papers. Dearbhla would not travel more, she said, not in flesh or spirit, to any land or ocean, or down from this mountain. She grieved her son, but felt his strength in ConaLee’s return to her. They’d lived with Dearbhla near seven year, she and Weed, after the Asylum, ConaLee taking on more of the work, teaching Weed as she went: the trading herbs and tonics at market, hunting, gardening. And Chap was often about the place once he was old enough to ride over from his mother’s cabin. The neighbor woman who’d adopted him brought him to see them inside of a few weeks. She was curious, or needing the sound of a woman’s voice. The boy twin had died, pneumonia in his third month. And the woman who took the girl twin was long gone from the ridges. Still, ConaLee had missed Chap the most. She knew him at first sight, no matter the time elapsed, and the sight of him as he grew bound her to him. She took care to do favors, invite widow and child to suppers and holidays. Now Chap was twelve, a tall well-made boy who favored their mother. It could be said they looked like siblings, and ConaLee had taught him to read with ease. He should go to school in town. Could be Chap’s aging mother might come to help with the cooking and housework, if an invitation was phrased right. They might leave the mountain for the school year, and return to their cabin in the summers.
Weed’s light hair had darkened. Slowly, he’d made up some growth. At fifteen, he could read and write but was better at sums than books. Better at hunting and growing things, earning a wage now with the farm crew at the Asylum. They’d come down from the ridges after Dearbhla passed and rented rooms in a Weston boarding house. Hired on at the Asylum, they lived nearby in the town. Occasional visits to the Story apartments at the Asylum became frequent suppers and Sunday dinners. ConaLee found her mother again, distantly at first, then in long talks on the same paths they’d walked what seemed long ago. She knew her mother’s stories, and Dearbhla’s. Matron Bowman had gone back to Philadelphia and ConaLee worked as assistant to her replacement. Eira Blevins had left after the fire. Mrs. Kasinski, an elderly widow now, lived happily at the Asylum. ConaLee felt nearer to her father in the place where she’d seen him, known of him, and Weed’s stories came to seem her own memories. Ephraim Connolly had lost the name he’d taken and never known of his mother, the enslaved girl who’d died so young. The soft knock at the slant-hung door, as Dearbhla told it. ConaLee’s grandmothers, one the oppressor of the other, had died giving birth. Her mother would have died in a next pregnancy, had Dearbhla not set an imperfect plan in motion. So many died birthing babies, the risk taken willingly or forced upon them. Not ConaLee. She no longer saw lights, or lost pieces of time, but early losses still pained her. She mothered Weed and Chap and was satisfied.
The clerk was back and placed a paper file on the counter. These are his, she said. Deposit slips. He sent near one a month, November ’61 to April ’64. Most are just his name, always a date and place. But he wrote a line on one or two. Like this one. A quotation or such.
ConaLee touched the slip on top. It was thin as onionskin, folded precisely in half. She opened and smoothed it. His name was on the back in script. And, Brandy Station, Va. Below that, for Eliza and babe—the boat that finds the shore…
The clerk had turned back to her accounts. He has left you a nest egg, she said, the amount, and the interest earned—
What does it come to? ConaLee asked.
Well, some three hundred and forty dollars, and fifty-four cents. To be exact.
I want to ask, ConaLee said, about the frame house across the street. The one with the yard in back. There is a notice of sale.
Just across, you mean? Our bank president owns it—
Is he here? Could I speak with him?
He is not here, but I am his wife, so I can give you the particulars. Our daughter lived there and has moved to a farm outside town. Five children now. We bought them the place. But with so many little ones, they left the house to itself, and the garden is a shambles.
ConaLee nodded. Ma’am, she asked, might you know the price?
We were going to fix the place up a bit. In the spring, we thought…
It’s fine for me as it is, ConaLee said. My brother is good about fixing things, and I’ve a talent with gardens. My mother and stepfather will be a help as well.
So you have family nearby?
My stepfather, Dr. Thomas Story, is Physician Superintendent at the Asylum, and my mother, Mrs. Eliza Story, is much involved here in town—
Yes, I know of Dr. Story.
And you are…? ConaLee asked.
I am Mrs. Paine. Pleased to meet you, Miss Connolly. She offered her hand.
Just then, the minute hand of the large wall clock behind her trembled before it moved.
ConaLee removed her glove to take the woman’s cool, dry palm. Happy to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Paine. You see, she went on, I’m employed at the Asylum, as a nurse attendant, and my brother is apprenticed to the landscaper and groundsmen there. I have these letters as well, one a letter of reference, and the other, witnessed, from my mother, renouncing any ownership of my father’s funds. She’s remarried now, as you know. ConaLee reached into her purse for the envelopes. Perhaps you would show these to your husband, on the matter of buying the house.
Mrs. Paine opened the letters and glanced over them. Yes, this, from your mother, is what I need. May I set up an account in your name, Miss Connolly? We can transfer the monies into it.
ConaLee nodded. I’ve had the account book since my grandmother died near two year ago, but I needed to be of age to claim what he intended for me. Mrs. Paine, I want to offer the full amount—three hundred and forty dollars and fifty-four cents—for the house.
It’s not so easy to sell property now, Mrs. Paine allowed. It seems a fair price— And we’ll commit, on the bill of sale, to painting the house in the spring, and fixing the fence. All else, as is. Of course I must talk with my husband, but we do want the place to look nice. Well, my son-in-law—he’s not one to keep things up, and we couldn’t tell him what to do.
No, said ConaLee. She watched the woman mark her ledgers.
There, Mrs. Paine said. I’ve closed your father’s account. I believe…it’s the last of the War accounts to be settled. And so today is an important day. She looked at ConaLee over her bifocals as her eyes filled. I lost two brothers at Gettysburg. My husband came back, but struggled to be himself.
My father, ConaLee began. For so many years, we didn’t know what became of him.
Mrs. Paine nodded. He thought of you, long as he could. And now his account is yours. You must sign this form to establish your own account, and this receipt for the transfer of funds. She watched as ConaLee read through the two pages, and signed her name. And if you think on it, Miss Connolly, and you’re still certain, about buying the house…
Oh, I’m certain, ConaLee said. It’s what my father would have wanted, to provide me a home. Embarrassed, she felt her voice falter. This man, before the War and during, from the day he became someone else and ever after, was her father. She’d found him, despite all odds, come to admire him, even before she learned how he’d died, that day in Dr. Story’s office. She would not judge Dearbhla, but mourned that Ephraim Connolly, self-named at last, had never known who he truly was. ConaLee knew him in herself. Mrs. Paine, she asked, shall we meet here tomorrow then, with your husband, and a solicitor?
My husband is a solicitor, and often works with bank clients—
I work with my stepfather’s solicitor, a long-standing connection—
Fine, then. Let us meet this time tomorrow.
And might I have his—my father’s—deposit slips, when all is done. With his writing on them, as you said.
Surely, Mrs. Paine said. She looked beyond ConaLee, out the large windows of the bank doors. We might have asked your brother in. It’s so cold today. And now the snow has started.
Oh, he’s strong, ConaLee said. He doesn’t mind the cold. Tomorrow, then.
A mist of powdered snow seemed to lift from behind the house as ConaLee crossed the street, furling her scarf against her face. Weed stood with his back to her but turned as she reached him.
The bank transferred his account to me, she told him.
The Night Watch, Weed said. His account.
He was your father, Weed, as much as mine. You knew him better. And the president of that bank owns this house. I think his wife agreed to a swap. We must go to Mama and bring the lawyer tomorrow. Wait, where has the sign gone?
Weed pulled back his collar to show he’d put it into the front of his coat. You’ll want it later, he said.
ConaLee surveyed the house once more. It would be hers. Who lived there, came to stay—would be up to her. ConaLee, there is no forever. We are on our walk and the day is fine. Not so many families owned a house. Some owned more, this and that, houses, stores, railroads, vast lands. Others…died, or fled, or forgot who they were. Endurance was strength. The courage of the lost swelled and moved, a force separating the days, clearing the way.