Freedom's Ring

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  She stood, propped a pair of pink glasses on her nose, and guided us to the computer near our things. “We have several websites, including our own library catalog, that can assist you in your search. How far back can you trace your family?”

  “We’re guessing around the Civil War.”

  “Great. I would start with Fold3—it’s a website that specializes in the American military. If you know what town they were from, add that into the search. We also have many published genealogies here. Search your family’s name in our catalog and see what comes up.” She looked at two people standing by her desk. “Let me know if I can help. Good luck.”

  We thanked her and pulled two chairs up to the computer. Brad dug out a thumb drive and jabbed it in the USB. “Let’s get searching. From what Granddad told me, the firstborn of the last five generations were all males. Though if Liberty Gregory owned the ring, maybe it was passed down to daughters as well. Cross your fingers.”

  Brad clicked on the Civil War icon and typed in Kilroy, Lexington. Several results popped up, but nothing that clearly stated a name on our index card, or even the Civil War. Mostly city directories and federal censuses. A couple of women with the last name Kilroy, but no match. We finally clicked on an 1876 Boston city directory that listed about twenty Kilroys, their first names, occupations, and addresses.

  None of them matched the names on our list.

  All hope that this was going to be easy evaporated.

  As the sun made its arc over the building, the room grew darker. We typed in different searches, different first and last names. We even found Brad’s granddad’s WWII registration card. Several times we’d find a name that matched Brad’s list, but it wouldn’t line up with the correct time period or location. I wondered how sharp the tack was that Brad compared his grandfather to, but I’d sooner look through five hundred more results than voice the question aloud.

  Brad stretched his fingers, which had rested on the mouse for the last few hours. He navigated to a different website on the society’s home page and clicked on an 1860 census, entering the name of his granddad’s great-grandfather, the last name on our list, Allen Kilroy. He scrolled down the page.

  We saw it at the same time. The 1855 Massachusetts State Census listed an Allen Kilroy of Lexington.

  “That must be him, right?” Brad clicked on it.

  The census stated that Allen’s birth year was 1835. We clicked on the picture, and a black-and-white handwritten census list came up before us. Brad zoomed in on Allen Kilroy’s family, three members including Allen—age twenty, occupation clerk; wife, Madelyn—age twenty; and son, Jonathan—age one.

  Brad pointed to Jonathan’s name. “Granddad’s grandfather.” We shared a smile at the small breakthrough. “Too bad it’s not new information.”

  “But it is. Now we know Allen’s exact birth year, and we can look for an older census—one where he’s listed as a child with an age that matches his birth year—to find out who his father was.”

  He gave me a wink and downloaded the picture of the census. “I knew I brought you along for a reason.”

  I rolled my eyes and took out a notebook to sketch a continuation of Brad’s family tree. “Maybe try an 1840 census. Allen should have been about five.”

  Brad arrowed back and clicked on the 1840 census. Though the federal census seemed to be set up a bit different from the state census, we did find an entry for a Thomas Kilroy of Concord.

  “No Lexington entries,” I said.

  We clicked on the census that contained Thomas’s name. It stated that the household of Thomas Kilroy contained one free white male between the ages of twenty-six and forty-five, one free white female between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, one free white male under the age of ten, and two free white females under the age of ten.

  “No names. Bummer.” Brad clicked the download button.

  “But the son who’s under ten does match the age range for Allen.” I wrote down the information on the tree with a question mark next to it.

  “And now we’re past what we know about the ring. Did it come from Thomas’s family—if he is Allen’s father—or did it come from his wife’s side?”

  I tapped my pencil on the notebook page. “We need to search for her name. Her maiden name. That might tell us which way to go.”

  We searched the society’s library catalog. The published genealogies of several different families appeared, but none with the heading of Kilroy. “Let’s just take a look at the first couple.” Brad wrote down the call numbers, and we went off to search for the books in the many rows of the seventh floor.

  We did find a handful of Kilroys in each book, but none that we could tell matched with Brad’s family of Lexington. After a half hour of searching, Brad rubbed the back of his neck and pressed a button on his phone. “We should go. They close in ten minutes.”

  I fanned through one of the genealogies. Black-and-white pictures and the histories of individuals filled the pages. My eye caught the name Kilroy, and I looked, not expecting to find much. “Hey, wait.”

  I pointed to an Allen Kilroy. He was off to the left of the family tree, and the genealogy didn’t show a wife or children. Instead, it focused on his sister, Ava, and her children. Brad scooted his chair closer to me and ran his finger up to the parents of Ava and Allen. Father was listed as Thomas Kilroy, born in 1809, and his wife, Amelia Gregory, born in 1815.

  I nearly bounced up and down in my seat. “That’s it! That’s him. And look at her last name.”

  “I—I can’t believe it. But is this the actual Thomas and Allen we’re looking for? They were fairly common names . . . maybe even Kilroy is a common surname. Look how many we found in all these books.”

  My hopes deflated when I looked at Allen’s birth year. I pointed to it, feeling like the sharp pin poking a happily floating balloon. “Eighteen thirty-seven. The birth year doesn’t match the census that links him to Jonathan.”

  Brad groaned. “Dead end.” He scooped up his hat, tapped it on his knee. “Unless the genealogy is wrong. It’s someone else’s research—they could have screwed up.”

  “Or maybe we have two different Allen Kilroys.”

  Brad donned his hat, wiggled it so it fit snug, then stuck his pencil in the side. “Still pretty cool to actually find a Gregory that might be related to me. Hard work, but way cool.”

  I agreed.

  We gathered up our things, put the genealogies away, thanked the woman who had helped us initially, and went down in the elevator.

  “So,” Brad began, “it’s my family—of course I think it’s neat. Is it boring you?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m invested now. There’s a story behind the ring in that poem, and I really hope it’s yours.”

  “Ours.” He caught my gaze with his own, greener than fresh-cut grass on an early June afternoon. The elevator slowed and brought us back to the ground level. My stomach flipped. “Whether or not the ring I gave you is Liberty Gregory’s, we’re both part of this story now.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it, unable to think of an appropriate response to his words. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like the sound of them.

  We exited the elevator and then the building, zipping our jackets against the cool wind as we turned right on Newbury Street. When we got to Clarendon, he paused instead of turning right, back to Commonwealth.

  “Still some light left. Up for a walk?”

  Something like a shield went up around my heart. The way he’d paused when we were supposed to turn right, the way his eyes almost pleaded with me. “Where?”

  He stepped closer to me, and for the first time since we met, I wanted to move away from him instead of toward him. “Do you think you could make it to the finish line with me?”

  There was so much I wanted to read in that one question, filled with something akin to desire but laced with hesitancy. I hadn’t thought about ever going back to the finish line. I never wanted to get close to the place of that horr
id day, to risk reliving the memories I ran from every night.

  “I can’t, Brad.”

  “You can. You won’t.”

  I ground my teeth, turned my back to him, and started walking toward Commonwealth. A woman with a stroller walked by and I got a crazy feeling that I needed to protect her—protect her child—from Brad. From the man who wanted to bring me back. I ignored the preposterous feeling and moved on. Maybe I needed to go back to see my shrink.

  I felt Brad beside me, keeping up with my fast pace. “You ran this morning, Annie. You didn’t think you could do that. Going back to the finish line might be good for you.”

  I whirled on him. “Would going back to Iraq be good for you? Would reliving whatever made you jump a mile when that car backfired be beneficial for your emotional health?”

  He blinked, mouth open slightly. I had caught him off guard, and my words had come out harsher than I intended, but I wouldn’t take them back.

  Something flashed across his face. Acceptance? Defeat? He held his hands up. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Listen, I appreciate you helping me—you have helped me. But I’m not some run-down house that needs fixing. You can’t just demolish me and then put me back together.” I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jacket, looked at the retreating back of the woman with the stroller. “You’re just pushing too much right now. We still don’t know each other that well, and healing . . . well, it takes time.”

  His lips drew straight and I redirected my gaze to his work boots, standing on a crack in the concrete. Wordlessly, I started back toward the Common. Brad followed, silence widening the gap between us.

  When we crossed to the Public Garden, he said, “Please, Annie. Don’t be mad. I said I’m sorry.”

  “Forget about it.” And deep inside, I knew I should take my own advice. A part of me even thought to apologize for being such a whack job, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was who I was, apparently, and if Brad couldn’t understand that much, then maybe we didn’t need to be pursuing whatever this was between us.

  NOVEMBER 1770

  The babe lay solid in my arms, nursing at my breast with tiny gulps. I looked down upon him, at his sweet face scrunched from the birth canal, his little nose pressed against my skin. Mere moments before, Midwife Louisa had rubbed the first breath from my newborn babe. It came out strong and gasping, ending in a hearty, bonny cry.

  Midwife Louisa scurried around my bedroom, cleaning up the mess of labor. “’Tis not hard to love your son after all, is it?”

  How utterly absurd to cast the father’s sin upon the babe’s shoulders. The child could not be more innocent or unaware of the events surrounding his conception. And to think I had almost chosen to end his life. . . .

  A tear dribbled down my cheek. Midwife Louisa came beside me, put a hand on my arm. “He is a healthy eater, I’d say.”

  I looked up at her. “Thank you.” She knew what my gratitude was for—the delivery, yes, I would always be thankful for that. But more, I thanked her for this child’s life.

  She waved her hand as if to swat a fly. “You are most welcome, my dear. Though I am the one who has been blessed these past months. Now, what will his name be?”

  “James. After my brother.” Though my son had a British officer’s blood coursing through him, he would never know it, for he bore the name of a Patriot.

  “Very well, then.” She nodded once, as if to solidify the choosing of the name. To her credit, she didn’t ask if I would keep the babe. She seemed to know.

  Though keeping him would not be easy. While I was not well known in the town, people knew of me—mostly by way of my brother. I’d hidden myself away from everyone these past months, declining the Mortons’ more recent dinner invitations. In keeping the babe, I would risk doing the very thing I feared most: disgracing my brother’s honored name.

  The bell above the door of the shop rang out, familiar to my ears by now. While I had attended Boston’s cases of worms and common distempers, salved their burns, and even lanced abscesses in the early days of my pregnancy, I found myself in the shop more often than not the past six months. I stood from writing notes in the ledger to greet the person at the door.

  “Mr. Gregory. Good day, sir.”

  “Good day, Miss Liberty.”

  “Out of tea already?” It seemed Mr. Gregory’s sister was fonder of her tea than all of Boston.

  Mr. Gregory smiled. It was not an unpleasant smile, only a bit worn around the edges. Its familiarity had brought comfort over the last several months. “I’m afraid I’m here for me this time. I have a toothache I’m hoping you can help me with.”

  “Certainly.” I turned to Midwife Louisa’s well-stocked shelves, searching for the cloves and catnip. Unbidden, my mind recalled the lieutenant as he sat at the breakfast table many months ago, his face pinched in pain. I thought of him often. Too often. Every night I sought to go back in my dreams and redo the moment when I took his ring. Again and again I pondered throwing it in the harbor to rid myself of the guilt. I pondered selling it at the public vendue, but never followed through, knowing if I did either of these I would never be able to return it. If that were ever possible. Not a redcoat was in sight in Boston’s streets. I might never see the lieutenant again.

  The thought should not sadden me so.

  “I’m glad to see you are better, though you look to have lost some weight with your bout of sickness.”

  “Um . . . yes.” I took up our customary fiction—one which Mr. Gregory had initiated when it became increasingly clear to him that my state of health would not be a proper topic of conversation. “Midwife Louisa took good care of me. I am feeling quite well now.” I gathered his purchase, directed him in how to use it. When he leaned over the counter, the smell of leather and wood surrounded me. He handed me a few coins, but not before a tiny piercing cry lit the air.

  James, waking from his nap.

  Mr. Gregory mercifully pretended not to hear, though it was all my mother’s heart could do not to run up the stairs and soothe my son. “Farewell, Mr. Gregory.”

  He looked up the stairs, then at me.

  To his credit, as usual, he spoke not a word. “Farewell, Miss Liberty.”

  “You can’t hide him away forever, child. You must make a decision.” Midwife Louisa’s eyes pierced me as we sat beside the fireplace, its heat warming the chill from the December night.

  I stared at the orange flames. “I’m not giving him away.” I patted James’s cloth bottom as he squirmed in his sleep.

  “Liberty, I do not expect you to. But will you hide him in this house until he’s grown?” She paused from her work of grinding purple coneflower in her bowl. Its sweet, honeyed scent belied the bitterness of the herb.

  “I fear I will have to leave come spring.”

  “Child.”

  I wiped the corner of my eye on my free arm. “I do not wish to. Midwife Louisa, you are the closest to family I have. But I will be scorned, shamed. And so will my son. I would be a fool to stay and suffer it.”

  Midwife Louisa cleared her throat. She stared at the floor at my feet.

  “Speak your mind. Please.”

  She continued her rocking. The flames of the fire played off the pockmarks of her face. “I have spoken to Mr. Gregory of your circumstances.”

  The words sunk in slowly, thickening my thoughts to molasses. I must have heard incorrectly. “Pardon?”

  “Do not be angry with me. His brother is married to a midwife from Lexington. Last he spoke of them, the woman sought help. I thought it may be an answer to your prayers.”

  I stood, James tight in the crook of my arm. “I trusted you. You told him . . . everything?” I had given many of my secrets to Midwife Louisa. I could not fathom her betrayal.

  “He asked me, child. Told me he suspected you needed help, and he would not judge but be happy to oblige in any manner.” The older woman smacked her dry lips, cracked with age and the heat of the ever-present fire. “I be
lieve he’s smitten with you, Liberty.”

  “And so I should cast myself upon the mercy of a stranger? Trust him, as I wrongly did you?”

  “Forgive me, child. I only wished to help. I did not tell him all, only that you were mistreated by someone.”

  I paced the tattered rug before the fireplace, breaths heaving. Mr. Gregory could assume nearly anything from what Midwife Louisa had said. “You told him nothing more?”

  “Nothing.”

  I lowered myself into the rocking chair, let James’s weight—no heavier than a lump of cheese hung to strain in a cloth—relax against me. I would do anything for this child. Anything. Move far away, tell many a lie—perhaps even kill—for my son.

  “Mr. Gregory is willing to take you to his brother’s family. They have a large house out in the country. No one will recognize you there. No one will look for you, and yet you will not be so far away that you cannot visit every now and then. He believes the roads are still passable. As keenly as I will feel your loss, a fresh start would be just the thing for both you and James.”

  “What will he tell his brother’s family?” I whispered.

  “Whatever you wish. But I think the closer to the truth, the better.”

  I might as well stay in Boston if I was to raise James beneath the ugly truth.

  “Mr. Gregory is to pay us a visit tomorrow. I will speak to him if you are not interested. If you are . . . then I think it best you discuss the matter yourself.”

  I closed my eyes, the sound of a horse’s hooves on cobblestones echoing outside. I needed a fresh beginning. Perhaps God was speaking after months of silence. Perhaps this was His way of opening a door for me.

  “I will speak to him. Thank you, Midwife Louisa.”

  I ADJUSTED MY ear-warmer over my head and increased my stride to keep up with Grace’s fast walking pace. The brisk wind nipped at my skin, which was unaccustomed to the still-cold outside temperatures. I tried to discreetly look at her prosthesis out of the corner of my eye.

  Caught. She stopped walking, balanced on one foot to lift it up. “Pretty cool, right? I only use it for running. It’s called a blade.” It was metal, and she didn’t wear a sneaker with it. Instead, the metal curved, meeting the ground with what seemed to be little resistance.