“You loved him.” He spoke the words calmly.
I was grateful for the dark of the house, so I could spare myself a bit of shame.
“He is not James’s father. It was the other officer who forced himself on me. I know I should not have worked for them, but I had little choice. The streets or—”
“There is always a choice, Liberty!”
A stretch of silence. Footsteps on the stairs. “Brother, is all well?” Graham.
A groan from Hugh. “No. But please, go back to bed.”
The footsteps receded.
I took tentative steps in Hugh’s direction, reached for him in the dark. “Please, Hugh. I regret my choices every day. But I did not ask to be an unwed mother. I did nothing indecent. You must believe me. You never demanded the truth from me, and I have been grateful for that.”
He snapped his hand away from mine. “All you have done is lie, Liberty. How can we base a marriage on that? Every time you have a call in the middle of the night, I will remember this night—remember how you ran to another, a lobster, no less.”
I fought the urge to shush him, for it did indeed sound horrible. “I told him farewell this very night, told him I loved you.”
A derisive snort. How I much preferred his sweet words to me over this show of unbelief and hatred. “And do you, Liberty? Do you love me?”
I knew if I were to break through to him at all I would have to be honest, beginning this moment. I swallowed down the urge to tell him yes, of course I loved the man I was to wed. Instead, I forced the truth through parted lips. “I care for you very much, Hugh. I want to love you.”
“And you love him?”
I shook my head. “I feel . . . strongly for him. He was with me during that horrible time—”
“And did nothing to stop it.”
I opened my mouth to defend the lieutenant, to tell Hugh that Alexander had tried with all his might to get to me that horrid afternoon, but what use would it be? Painting Alexander in a favorable light would do nothing to soften Hugh’s heart toward me now.
He sucked in a shaking breath, the sound cutting through the dark. “I didn’t realize how young you were when I asked for your hand in marriage, Liberty. You are but a girl, not so much in age perhaps, but in your fanciful thoughts. You flit back and forth in your desires. You tell lies to gain a secure future. I thought I saw something honorable in you. I see now that I was wrong.”
The words stung me, more than I would have expected.
“And now you will be the one to leave when I truly need you?” I whispered.
“Did you not truly have need of me before this night, then? I have offered myself to you, given you many chances, rose above my own doubts. But I can no longer ignore them, Liberty. A marriage is built on trust, and I fear there is no mending that between us.”
My bottom lip trembled at the thought of my life without him. It trembled at the words, sharp as arrows, that left his lips to pierce my heart. If only they weren’t true, they would not have the power to pierce as they did.
I thought to beg but couldn’t leave my pride to do so. And flitting though I was, I knew I could run back to Alexander, that he would make a way for us and for my son if Hugh wouldn’t.
“I suppose that is all there is to say between us, then.” I crossed my arms in front of me, trying to contain the shudder that rose within.
“There is something on the table. I think it belongs to you.”
I reached my hand out, saw several small objects in the light of a flickering candle. The cool metal met the tips of my fingers.
I closed my eyes in defeat, remembered the captain’s sterling tumbling to the ground beside my basket of laundry earlier that day. Hugh would wonder how I had come by such a sum, why there was money in the midst of what had transpired between Alexander and me.
An apology itched my lips, but I did not stoop to satisfy it. Not once had I begged Hugh to court me. Not once had I pursued him. He came to me—an unwed mother. He knew I held secrets yet did not press me. Did he truly think my past was only honorable?
As much as I tried to shift the blame of our failed relationship onto him, I knew I only scratched the surface of the problem—not so much my past as what I had done this day. Tell untruths. Seek another’s arms. Dishonor the wedding vows I intended to take in a few short weeks.
I dropped the coins into my pocket and left him to go to my room, alone in the dark. A quiet sort of stifle—certainly not weeping?—chased me up the stairs.
The next morning I took James to Buckman’s Tavern to speak with Alexander about his proposition. Mrs. Buckman told me the Regular detachment had left at daybreak.
When I returned to Graham and Cora’s house, trying to accept the fact that I would likely never see Alexander again, that I was indeed the flighty woman Hugh blamed me to be, my accuser stood on the front step, his gaze intense and sad. My face burned with embarrassment as I realized Hugh had watched me steal away to the tavern again. He did not scold me or make any cutting remarks. Instead, he nodded once, picked up a threadbare pillowcase stuffed with clothes, and walked in the direction of what was to have been our new homestead.
I LEANED BACK in the patio chair and looked at Brad beside me, studying Liberty’s poem on his phone. His hat shadowed his profile, and I traced his outline with my gaze. I didn’t even try to hide the fact that I stared. Sitting here with him now, on such a perfect spring day, felt so natural. So right. I couldn’t imagine Brad not being in my life anymore. This Brad—the real one, not the imaginary Red Sox Sweatshirt hero. Yet him not being a part of my existence—that’s just what would be if the bombing hadn’t occurred. That’s just what would be if I hadn’t found his card in Lydia’s house that day.
I caught a glimpse of his finger wrapped in black electrical tape. “You cut yourself again?”
His face reddened. “Utility knife got away from me.”
I shook my head. If I’d learned one thing from Brad Kilroy the last few weeks, it was that electrical tape stopped bleeding just as well as Band-Aids in emergency situations. Gross. “Next time I go shopping I’m buying you a first aid kit to keep in your van.”
“Don’t bother. I have one in there. I just can’t find it.”
I punched his arm lightly. “I could help you clean it out sometime—your van, I mean, not your cut. I get too queasy.”
“Naw, I like you too much to ask you to sacrifice yourself like that.” He leaned over, kissed me soundly on my lips, but pulled away all too soon.
I sighed, content, and sipped my iced coffee, straightening out my legs in the late-afternoon sunshine. One of the things I loved about my apartment was the small patio on the side of the garage, below my residence. With the stubborn winter holding on to New England with a frosty grip, I hadn’t had much time to enjoy it. But now the days stretched longer, the arrival of early April causing the trees to turn pink with new buds.
I gestured to Brad’s phone. “Back to business. So Liberty’s brother . . . he died on the fifth of March, right?”
Brad nodded.
“And it had something to do with her British soldier. Do you think he was the one who shot James?”
Brad looked at the phone between us and read, as we had a hundred times before.
Bitterness and betrayal won,
on that fifth of March the fight begun.
Sorrow and secrets I bore alone,
for guilt and remorse left unatoned.
The ring not mine, but yours, I know;
untold grief was mine to sow.
“Could be, but Annie, we could make up a million possible stories around this poem. Unless we find historical facts, we’re going nowhere with this.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I know, I know. But we’ve exhausted the listings for Liberty, Hugh, and Michael. Is this it, then?”
Brad took his hat off and tossed it on the ground, along with his pencil, which landed on the inside of the darkened brim. “Maybe there’s nothing more to
find. Maybe we stop here. This chase has brought us together . . . maybe that’s enough of a story.”
“You’re giving up? Just like that?”
“No, not just like that. It’s only that I don’t see any more avenues. We’ve been looking at the same documents over and over. We know there’s the ring—maybe Liberty stole it; maybe he gave it to her. And we know he died doing something for her, but what? And when? Where else is there to look?”
I unclasped the ring from my neck, let the sun catch the brilliance of the bloodstones.
Qui fortis salutem tribute.
Victory belongs to the one who is strong.
I ran my fingernail along the slight grooves of the anchor and the horn. I wondered if the previous owners of this ring had rested in God’s strength, not their own. Perhaps that was to be the lesson I learned from it. Perhaps Brad was right. Maybe it was enough that we had found the connection between the ring and Liberty. Maybe it was enough that it had brought us together, that it had pointed us to the beliefs of those who had come before us. Maybe I needed to spend more time exploring those beliefs instead of trying to unbury a story that didn’t want to be unearthed.
I slid the ring—much too big—onto my finger, then slid it off, wiggling it over my knuckles. The name Smythe flashed back and forth in my line of vision. We’d tried looking up the name at the genealogical society, had even searched in the England and Wales Birth Index. But without more information, finding the correct Smythe was like trying to find one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets.
I remembered running the marathon on Patriots’ Day two years earlier. My legs had felt as if they were on fire. My toe throbbed, and I thought perhaps my nail would fall off before the end of the race. I longed to sit and down a sports drink. Normally, I would remind myself that the pain was temporary, that reaching my goals was what mattered.
But I chose to give up. It hurt too much. I didn’t feel like thinking positive, or proving myself, or clinging to hope. What did it matter if I came in at a slow time?
I gave up.
I wasn’t going to do the same now, when the story of the ring could be right beneath our noses. I stared at the engraved surname on the ring, so obviously English. I thought of Lydia’s family’s possible move across the ocean. I hadn’t heard any update from Grace, though I hadn’t asked either, too frightened to hear the decision that had the potential to rip my sister and her family out of my life permanently.
“England.”
Brad looked up from his phone. “Come again?”
“We could try to contact someone at the National Archives in England.”
Brad shook his head slowly.
“They would have better records of the King’s Army, right? If we could find a Smythe whose regiment was in Boston on the date of the massacre and at Lexington in April 1775, we’d have some more missing pieces to Liberty’s story. Maybe we could hire a genealogist to do some legwork for us.”
Brad stared at his sneakers, nodded. “Could work. Might be expensive, though. I saw an advertisement online—it was close to a hundred dollars an hour to hire one of those guys.”
I pressed my lips together. How much was Liberty’s story worth to us? It seemed callous to put a price on it. And yet . . . I groaned. This was one thing I did not want to quit on.
“What if we put a cap on it? What would you think about each of us pitching in a hundred bucks for a couple hours of research, see what they find? If there was a Smythe in Boston and Lexington on those dates, I’d think a professional would be able to find it easy enough, right?”
“And if they don’t come up with anything?”
“We let it rest, accept that the story of Liberty’s ring was meant to die with her.”
Brad’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds reasonable to me. I’m in.”
He held his hand out for me to shake, but when I did he pulled me in for a kiss. A car door shut, and then the sound of little feet on pavement scurried close. Brad and I parted to see Emilia staring at us, her thin legs clad in leopard leggings and her face wearing a smile that said, I saw what you two were doing.
“Hey, Emilia.” Brad stood and gave her a grand bow. She giggled. “You up for a game of wall ball?”
“Yes!” She jumped up and down. “I just love having a tent!”
We giggled and I pulled her pigtail. “Tenant, honey.”
She continued bouncing. “Okay, I love having a tenant! Annie, do you want to play?”
I waved to my landlord, Cara, carrying a bag of groceries into the house. “I’d love to, sweetie, but I was just about to head in and make some lunch. I’m running a few miles tomorrow with my niece, and I need to store up my energy.”
“When’s your race?” Emilia kicked at the grass, flattening the green blades beneath her cowgirl boots.
“A few more weeks.”
“Are you going, Brad?”
“You betcha. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Brad . . .” My warning tone couldn’t have been clearer, but apparently Emilia missed it entirely.
“Can you take me, Brad? I want to see Annie run too.”
“If your mom says it’s okay.”
I panicked beneath Emilia’s brightening face. “No. I’m sorry, Emilia. But that won’t work.”
“Why not?”
Brad turned to me, his hands stuffed in his pockets, thumbs sticking out. “Yeah. Why not?”
“I don’t want anyone watching me, okay?” I sipped the dregs of my iced coffee, sugar sliding up the straw. “No biggie. We’ll plan something next Saturday. A picnic, maybe, and kite-flying.”
“But I want to see the race—”
“And I’m cheering for you whether you like it or not.” Brad stood his ground. “She says she went last year. I don’t see—”
“She’s not coming to the race.” I didn’t recognize the force in my voice, the slight waver of my words. They were quickly followed by wetness at the corners of my eyes. I knelt beside Emilia. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but this is something that’s really important to me. Can you understand that, you think?”
She stuck her bottom lip out. “I guess so.”
“Thank you.” I chucked her chin. “Now give Brad a good game for me, will ya?”
Her expression didn’t cheer as much as I’d wished. “Sure. I’ll go change into my sneaks.”
She headed back to the main house and went inside, her cowgirl boots dragging along the sprouts of new grass.
Brad and I looked after her. I turned and climbed up to my apartment, heaving deep breaths as I took the stairs. I shouldn’t be angry at Brad. He was trying to support me. But I’d already told him I didn’t want him at the race, and I certainly didn’t want Emilia coming. Couldn’t he respect that?
I heard footsteps behind me. I left the door ajar, opened the fridge, and pulled out a loaf of bread.
The storm door shut softly in its frame. I felt his gaze heavy upon me. I ground my teeth, tried to control the unrestrained fury that boiled in my chest.
“You can’t keep living in fear.”
“Well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black . . .” I wasn’t in the mood for nice. He had no right to judge me.
“What’s that suppose to mean?”
I threw the bread tie on the counter, turned to face him, ready for a fight. “I notice, you know. When a dump truck unloads and its back end slams. A closing door. Crackling fire. That time near the Public Garden when that car backfired. You cover it well. But I can see it still sets you off. You’re ready to jump into action. So don’t tell me I need to stop living in fear, because, Brad, I don’t think you’ve stopped living in it either.”
I watched his jaw clench, the muscles in his face tighten. He squeezed his fists by his sides. I cared for this man. Why did I insist on goading him?
The temporary pleasure I felt while putting him in his place quickly fled. I grabbed some turkey and cheese from the deli drawer.
“I’m going to play ball with Emilia.” He left the kitchen without waiting for a reply.
For the next twenty minutes, the echo of the tennis ball against the side of the garage and Brad and Emilia’s laughter played through the open window. My chest ached with a longing I couldn’t pin down.
When Brad came in, he asked if we could wrap up the sandwiches to go.
Once in Brad’s Accord we headed east. Traffic ran light, and he eased us into the parking lot of Revere Beach. The waves dove beneath the foamy surface, breaking into a million droplets of chaos that flowed up onto the sand and then ebbed back into the constant, beautiful turmoil.
I was about to ask if he wanted to get out and walk when he finally pulled the key from the ignition. The bright sun beat through the windows, warming the seats and the interior of the Accord.
He tossed the keys in the center console, leaned back in his seat, sighed long and heavy.
“The rules of engagement in Iraq were . . . sketchy. I was under a command whose unspoken view on ROE was to go with your gut. Expect an attack from insurgents. Expect them to use women, even children to get to you. Fire first, ask questions later.”
I held my breath, suddenly uncertain if I was ready to hear this part of Brad’s story.
“We were still reeling from September 11. Still on fire for what was done to our country. I thought taking up the fight was a good thing. A noble thing. But it messed me up royally. You know soldiers, they can become immune to killing. But not death. Not the fear of their own death. That’s what propelled us. Defend ourselves. At the lowest of times, that’s what it boiled down to. Kill or be killed. In those moments, I wasn’t thinking about what was best for my country, or best for Iraq. I was saving my buddies. Saving my own backside. I was lower than a street rat.”
Freedom's Ring Page 19
