by Lynn Austin
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly. How could she confess all her doubts to Phoebe or talk about all the changes in their lives now that the war was over if Nathaniel was there? “It would be very boring for you, listening to two old friends talk. I know how to get around Washington on my own.”
“I want to take you,” he insisted. “I don’t mind waiting while you visit.”
Julia knew better than to argue with him. She looked up at him at last, trying to read his thoughts. He smiled at her, his expression tender and loving. They were alone outside and the May evening was warm, but he made no move to embrace her.
“Why won’t you kiss me?” she asked.
“Right here? Someone might—”
“We’re engaged, Nathaniel. And we’re alone.”
If someone as saintly as Nathaniel could shed his self-control for a moment, perhaps Julia could finally forgive herself for her moment of weakness with James. But Nathaniel shook his head.
“A minister must live above reproach,” he said. He took her arm. “I think we should go back inside.”
The following afternoon, Nathaniel borrowed the congressman’s carriage to drive Julia to Fairfield Hospital. She had resigned herself to having him tag along; she wouldn’t be free to share her heart with Phoebe. But when they pulled up in front of the tumbledown building, he surprised her by saying, “I’ll wait here.”
“Outside? In the carriage? But …but Phoebe and I have a lot to talk about.”
“No need to hurry. Take as long as you’d like. I brought two newspapers to read.” He held them up to show her.
“I think you’re afraid I’ll start taking care of patients again,” she said, only half teasing.
“Would you?” His expression was dead serious. This was the real reason he had come.
Julia reached for the door handle. “I won’t be long.”
She climbed out of the carriage and started up the walk, then halted halfway up the hospital steps with one hand on the rickety railing. She pictured James inside at his desk, sifting through endless piles of papers as he’d been doing on the first day she came to Fairfield Hospital. She also recalled the tender expression on his face the last time she’d seen him in her tent at City Point. He had never finished what he’d come to say. A moment later, Nathaniel had pushed past him to say that he still wanted to marry her. She hadn’t seen James since.
Suddenly Julia knew that it was very wrong to see him now, to stir up feelings inside both of them that they had no business feeling. She glanced back at the carriage. Nathaniel’s face was hidden behind his newspaper. She hurried down the steps again and walked around the building to the rear entrance.
Julia found Phoebe in the downstairs ward just off the kitchen. Her friend had her back turned away from Julia, and she was seated on a chair beside a patient’s bed, coaxing him to eat. The soldier’s face had been burned and horribly disfigured. As Julia watched and listened from a distance, she realized that the man was blind.
“If you don’t eat you’ll die, it’s as simple as that,” Phoebe told him.
“I don’t want to live. I’m no good to my family if I can’t see.”
“Listen, it ain’t up to you when you’re gonna die any more than it was up to you when you was gonna be born. Those things are up to God, and you ain’t Him.”
“God should have let me die,” he said bitterly. “I can’t go home this way.”
“The man I loved was killed,” Phoebe said, her voice turning soft. “I ain’t never gonna see him again in this life. If the only thing that had happened to him was that he’d gone blind, I’d take him that way in a Yankee minute. I’ll bet the people who love you feel the same way. You ought to think about them.”
She set the bowl of food down on the table beside his bed and stood. “I’ll come back a little later, and when I do, I expect you to make up your mind to eat.” She turned around to leave and saw Julia.
“What are you doing here?” she cried as they rushed to embrace each other.
“I came to see you. I’m visiting Washington City with my family.”
“My, it’s good to see you. But why’re you sneaking up on me? Did you come in the back door?”
“Yes …I-I wanted to see if Belle and Loretta still worked here. Their children certainly have grown big, haven’t they?”
“They sure have.” The skeptical look on Phoebe’s face made Julia feel ashamed.
“That’s not the whole truth,” she said quietly. “I promised myself I wouldn’t lie anymore, and I’m already doing it.” She drew a deep breath, then sighed. “I didn’t want to run into Dr. McGrath. Is he working here, too?”
“Yeah, ever since last winter. He decided not to go back and be a field surgeon anymore. He said he never wanted to saw off another leg as long as he lived.”
Julia took Phoebe’s arm. “Let’s go into the kitchen and talk.”
She had to spend a few minutes greeting all the cooks she knew and explaining where she’d been all this time and what she’d been doing. Then she and Phoebe settled down to talk at the small kitchen table. Julia remembered sitting there with Mrs. Fowle and the other matrons on her very first morning at work.
“Why don’t you want to see Dr. McGrath?” Phoebe finally asked. “You know all them rumors about him killing a man? They ain’t true. He told me the whole story when we were at Cold Harbor. That rich man killed himself.”
“I know he isn’t a murderer, Phoebe. I saw how hard he works to save lives—as if he has a personal grudge against death. I don’t believe he’s capable of ending someone’s life.”
“I know he can be mean to people sometimes,” Phoebe said. “I hear him barking at the nurses, and I know he must have barked at you, too. It ain’t right for him to act that way, but I think he’s hurting inside. The folks back where he comes from still think he killed somebody. He told me that the scandal ruined his life. Your preacher friend accused him of being a murderer, too.”
“Nathaniel?”
“Yeah. Someone from Dr. McGrath’s hometown came to see Reverend Greene and told him that the doctor had killed a man. I happened to be there and overheard the whole thing. It must be awful to walk around with everybody thinking terrible things about you.”
Julia looked away, remembering how she and everyone else had falsely accused James of being an alcoholic.
“But there’s more to Dr. McGrath than what everybody sees on the outside,” Phoebe continued. “You know how the doctor comes to work all mussed up sometimes? I found out why. He goes to the shantytown and helps all the sick folks who live there, even though they can’t even pay him for it. I worked all night with him once. He don’t want anybody to know because he takes the medicine and stuff he needs from here.”
Julia wasn’t surprised to discover yet another piece of the puzzle that was James McGrath.
“He really cares about his patients, too,” Phoebe said. “Even when he has to be tough on them in order for them to get better. They can tell how much he cares, and they all love him for it.”
“Phoebe, I know that what you’re saying is true. I saw glimpses of the real man when I worked with him. I don’t know why he pushes people away and builds walls around himself. But I don’t think he’s really like that, deep inside.”
“Then why don’t you want to see him again?”
Julia stared down at the scarred tabletop. “Does he still get letters from his wife every week?”
“Yeah, one came in the mail this morning.”
“That’s why,” Julia said, looking up again. “Because he’s a married man. I have feelings for him that I shouldn’t have. And I think he was starting to feel the same way about me. Otis Whitney accused me of being a flirt and of leading him on, even though I had no intention of doing so. I don’t want to play with fire again. I didn’t mean to do anything to encourage James that way—” She stopped, remembering how she had responded to his kiss. “I-
I have to avoid him, Phoebe.”
“You once told me that we can’t help falling in love with someone,” Phoebe said quietly. “Remember?”
“Yes …I know I can’t always control what I feel. But I can control how I act.” Julia reached across the table to squeeze Phoebe’s hand. “Tell me what happened when you went to see Ted’s mother.”
“We grieved together for a good long while. I reckon I needed that. Then I was able to let go. One of the last things Ted told me was to go on living, knowing that each day counts. That’s what I aim to do.”
“What will you do after the hospital closes?”
“Well, first I’m going back home to see if my brothers, Jack and Junior, made it through the war. After that …I don’t know. But I reckon God will show me. What about you? Are you still gonna marry Reverend Greene?”
“Yes. He’s waiting outside in the carriage, in fact.”
“Why’s he waiting out there?”
Julia gave a humorless laugh. “I ran away to be a nurse twice before against his wishes—once to Gettysburg and again to Fredericksburg. I think he wants to make sure I don’t do it again.”
“I know he was awful mad at you for it. He said you could either be his wife or a nurse but not both. Why did you go back to Fredericksburg if it meant losing the man you love?”
“Because I was convinced that God wanted me to go. That’s what I don’t understand about marriage, Phoebe. Nathaniel says he’ll be the head of our household and he’ll make all the decisions. But aren’t women allowed to hear from God? Are only our fathers or our husbands qualified to tell us what God wants? I thought I’d heard God speaking to me—but when it came to being a nurse, what Nathaniel said was very different from what God said. Society tells me I must stay in my place and obey my husband. So should I try to become the person he wants me to be or the person God wants me to be?”
“I don’t think they should be telling you two different things.”
Julia looked at her friend and smiled. Phoebe had more wisdom than most of the other women Julia knew. “You’re right. They shouldn’t be. You know, when I was growing up I used to think that all I needed in order to have an ideal life was to find the perfect husband. He would give my life meaning and purpose. And, of course, Nathaniel was perfect—hardworking, devout, committed to God…”
“Handsome,” Phoebe added.
“Yes, handsome, too,” she said uneasily. “But sometimes I get the feeling that he’s marrying me to complete himself, to fill the part of ‘wife’ in his life. I wish I knew if he loved me for myself, as someone who is whole and unique, not as an accessory to himself.”
“I don’t know much about marriages,” Phoebe said, “because I ain’t seen too many of them. Tell you the truth, I doubt if anyone will ever marry me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t marry, either. My mother and most of the other women in my social class don’t seem to mind being accessories to their husbands. If I want to be my own person, maybe I should stay single, like Dorothea Dix.”
But Julia knew that wasn’t the answer, either. She thought about the deep scar on Phoebe’s back, how she had been wounded trying to protect the man she loved. How he had died protecting her. That was the kind of love she longed for. “I always thought love was about me,” Julia said. “Someone loving me. But it isn’t about possessing someone or being ‘theirs,’ is it? It’s about loving others, giving yourself to them and for them …the way you and Ted loved each other.”
Phoebe nodded silently.
“I had no idea who I was before the war,” Julia continued, “or what I was really like deep inside. How could I give myself to anybody in love if I didn’t know who I was? I used to think I was a pretty good person. Then God used the war and all the hardships He brought me through to break me and change me and shape me into someone He could finally use.”
“Seems like we never see the truth about ourselves,” Phoebe said, “as long as everything’s going pretty good in our lives. But when everything starts falling apart, then we’re ready to hear what God has to say. I used to think I was no good—and I wasn’t. God used the war to show me that He loved me anyway, and then He helped me learn to love other people.”
“So what do we do now?” Julia asked. “I found out who I was while working on the battlefields and in the hospitals. So did you. Now we can give that gift to others. But Nathaniel has his own ideas of who I am and what he thinks I should do. I’m so confused.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Julia. I’m just as confused as you are, but in a different way. I used to live all on my own, figuring I didn’t need nothing from nobody. Then the war forced me to work together with all kinds of people—rich and poor, men and women—and I found out how much we all need each other. I think God wants people to work together, to take care of each other. But when I leave here, I’ll be living all alone again.”
“I wish you and I could stay together,” Julia said. “I wish we weren’t as different as a polecat and a porcupine.”
“I know what you mean. But we are different. We have two different lives to live. But even if we can’t see exactly where we’re going, I reckon God will show us the way. I found this verse that I really like. … ”
Phoebe pulled out the battered, water-stained Bible Julia had often seen her reading and opened it. “It says, ‘The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”’
“Yes…” Julia murmured, “I like that.”
They both knew it was time to part and that it was going to be very difficult. When one of the nurses came into the kitchen suddenly, to tell Phoebe that Dr. McGrath was looking for her, they had an excuse to do it quickly. Phoebe and Julia hugged good-bye, promising each other that they would write. Then Phoebe hurried away.
Julia waited a moment, drying her tears, then walked through the ward toward the back door. As she passed the blind soldier’s bed, he called out to her.
“Nurse Bigelow? Phoebe, is that you?”
“No, I’m her friend Julia. Can I get you something?”
“I just wanted to tell her I’ll eat now.”
Julia knew how upset Nathaniel would be if he came inside and found her feeding a patient. But the urge to help the man, to comfort and soothe him, proved too strong to resist. She walked over to his bedside. “I’ll help you with your dinner if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
She sat down and picked up the bowl, then took the soldier’s hand. “Here, you hold on to it yourself. It’s vegetable soup.”
“I can’t. I’ll spill it.”
“No, you won’t. Here’s the spoon. If you hold the bowl close to your mouth it will be much easier.” She guided his hands for the first few mouthfuls until he got used to doing it himself.
“Tell me something…” he said between swallows. “I been wondering what Phoebe looks like.”
“Well, she’s very tall.”
“I knew that. I can tell she’s tall because her voice comes from farther away than all the other nurses when she stands beside the bed. What color hair does she have?”
“It’s blond …a very pretty color blond. And her eyes are blue.”
“But what does she look like? She won’t tell me the truth. She keeps saying she’s as homely as a hound dog, but I think she’s lying.”
“What do you think she looks like?” Julia asked quietly.
“I think she must be very beautiful. I once saw a picture of angels in a Bible and they had blond hair, too. I think she looks as beautiful as them.”
Julia was glad the man couldn’t see the tears that came to her eyes. No one with natural sight would ever call Phoebe Bigelow beautiful. But the true beauty of Christ’s love shone through her life.
“You’re right,” Julia said. “Phoebe is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met.”
“Were you looking for me, Dr. McGrath?” Phoebe found him in the supply room, rummaging through boxes and bottles and p
iles of bandages, searching for something.
“I can’t find the calomel,” he said. “Are we all out of it?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
He had his battered medical bag with him, the one he took whenever he went to the shantytown to work.
“Loretta and Belle told me that all the folks in shantytown are real sick,” Phoebe said. “If you’re going there tonight, I’d like to go with you.”
“No. You can’t come this time, Phoebe. From the way they’ve described the symptoms, I suspect it might be typhoid fever.”
“I ain’t afraid—”
“I said no!” he yelled. “I won’t kill you, too! Stay away from there!”
Phoebe stepped back, stunned by the force of his anger. He had never yelled at her before. A moment later he caught himself. He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. Please forgive me.”
“Of course. It’s okay.” She touched his arm briefly, then bent to fetch the calomel from a lower cabinet.
His angry words seemed odd to Phoebe: “I won’t kill you, too.” She remembered his confession at Cold Harbor, how he’d admitted that he had murdered someone. And also his emotional reaction when her brother Willard lay dying: “I know how difficult it is when it’s your own family and there’s nothing you can do.” It seemed to Phoebe that Dr. McGrath was all bent over beneath a very heavy load, as if carrying a knapsack stuffed full of guilt. He was suffering, and Phoebe wanted to help him, the way she’d helped Ted when his pack was too heavy. She stood again and handed him the lump of calomel.
“Did someone you love die of typhoid?” she asked softly.
At first she didn’t think he was going to answer. When he finally looked up at her, his eyes were filled with pain.
“My wife, Ellen.”
An enormous silence filled the room. The longer it lasted, the more heavily it seemed to weigh on both of them. “How long ago?” Phoebe finally asked.
“Four years.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes again. “It was my fault,” he said hoarsely. “I killed her.”
