Freedom's Ring

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  THE BOSTON BOMBING sentencing trial began the day after Patriots’ Day. I tried to ignore the news and went about my workday as best I could. My legs were tight from the race. Grace and I had planned an easy run for that evening.

  I pulled up to Lydia’s house already clad in workout pants. The maple beside her colonial waved new leaves at me as I climbed the steps and knocked on the door.

  Lydia opened it.

  “Hey.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “Grace and I planned a run. . . .”

  My sister opened the door wider. “Come in, Annie. Grace just called. She’s running a few minutes behind. Said she needed to stay after for some help in calculus.”

  I entered the house, and Lydia closed the door. Strained awkwardness filled the rooms. An intense well of hatred for it erupted in my middle.

  “Do you want some coffee?” Lydia walked toward the kitchen.

  I really didn’t want coffee before a run, but I didn’t want to turn down the precious offer, either. “I’d love some.”

  Lydia started up the Keurig and I sat at the island, on the same stool I’d occupied the day I’d come with the potted lily not two months earlier. I thought of Grace’s kind reception, of finding Brad’s card, of my sister’s cold greeting. How long ago it seemed.

  “You two ran well yesterday.” Lydia pulled down two mugs. The hum of the Keurig echoed through the kitchen.

  “Your daughter’s the one who pushed me. She’s amazing.” I clamped my mouth shut but couldn’t keep it closed. If I did, we might go on like this forever. Cordial, bandying niceties, and skirting the wall that was still erected between us. “Lydia, I know you might not want to talk to me, but I can’t go on like this . . . with this thing between us we both seem bent on ignoring.”

  “What thing?” She said it so flippantly, I wondered for half a second whether the wall between us was my imagination only. But no, behind those innocent-sounding words her defenses had risen. I could see it in the way she dumped too much sugar in the coffee cups, the way her back looked abnormally straight.

  I wanted to demand she stop pretending, demand she yell at me, curse at me, do what she had to in order to get everything out in the open.

  “I found Brad’s card that first day I came to visit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop. It fell out of your Bible and I went to put it back. But I recognized the logo from the ring, so I kept it.”

  The words flew out of my mouth, and even as I said them I wanted to take them back. Kick myself. Why, oh why did I think starting our heart-to-heart with Brad’s business card was a good idea? I hadn’t an inkling. Though certainly it would serve to get a rise out of her. She couldn’t be so nonchalant if I brought it up.

  She scooped up a mug of coffee before it was finished bubbling and hissing. The remnants dribbled into the black plastic base, settling at the rim.

  I sucked in a breath. “I know I should have told you. But I just kept wondering why you didn’t tell me about him. I mean, you knew I’d been looking for him. . . .”

  She spun on me, and I knew that I’d finally cracked her open. “You are unbelievable.”

  We stared at each other and I waited for her to have her say, to vent out all her negative thoughts about me. I prayed I could stand up beneath them.

  “You have the audacity to question a stupid business card I forgot about during the worst time of my life—the worst time in my family’s life? I mean, it’s all about you, isn’t it, Annie? Things get too hard, maybe seeing your niece in a wheelchair makes you uncomfortable, so you leave, right? Well, you know what? Love doesn’t work that way.” She was yelling now, her hand braced on the quartz countertop, her knuckles white. “And then to waltz back into our lives now that the worst is over . . .”

  Her words condemned me, reminded me of all my failings, of the very thoughts that imprisoned me these past several months. My stomach soured as she took a breath to continue.

  “I shoved that card in my Bible and forgot about it until well after you’d made your decision not to be a part of our lives. Maybe you’d asked me about your Red Sox hero now and then those first few weeks after, but do you think I heard any of that? Do you think I cared? For heaven’s sake, my daughter was crippled, Annie. Crippled. How many times did I wish I’d been standing where she was? How many nights did I rail at God for the unfairness of it all? And where were you? Where were you, Annie, when we needed you?”

  Her posture slumped. “By the time I remembered the card, you were long gone. You think I was going to go out of my way to call you after all those months of silence? After watching Grace’s face light up every time the phone rang, then seeing her disappointment when she realized it wasn’t you?” Her voice ended on a quiver and I thought I saw wetness at the corners of my rock-hard sister’s eyes.

  As much as I thought I’d been ready for this moment, I wasn’t prepared. I hadn’t realized the depth of Lydia’s hurt, the depth of her bitterness. And who could blame her? She was right: the fault was entirely with me. Her words pinned me with fresh guilt and I wavered beneath them. I had no excuses.

  I stood, but going to her was out of the question. Instead I clung to the beveled corner of the island. “Lydia, I am so, so sorry. Every day I wish I had made better choices. I—I felt so guilty about what happened to Grace. Every moment of every day I would relive that race, push myself harder, be the stronger runner I wasn’t that day. I gave up during that race. And the fact remains, if I hadn’t given up, if I had gone faster, we would have been out of there by the time that bomb went off.”

  “But we weren’t, Annie. It happened. Life happens . . . bad things happen. And you don’t just run away when they do happen.” She raised her hand and slapped it on the counter with each word. “That’s not what family does, Annie. That’s not what family does!” Her hands slid off the counter, her shoulders drooped farther, and sobs trembled through her body.

  As much as it hurt to hear her words, they needed to be said. They needed to be out in the open. As much as it felt like an old wound had been torn open and salt poured upon it, I felt something between us fall. As if a giant wall of bricks stood in the middle of us and after many hours of pounding my bloodied fists against the wall, one tiny, old block on the bottom crumbled.

  I walked over to my sister’s quaking form. I swallowed down a lump in my throat. “Lydia, I wish I could do it over. I wish I had a second chance to do the right thing.” I reached out an arm but it was quickly rebuffed.

  “What if Mom didn’t tell you we were considering moving abroad? How long would it have taken you to come back to us? Would Grace have graduated, been off to college, gotten married?”

  A warm tear slid down my own cheek. I didn’t have answers to her questions, and nothing I said would make the hurt disappear. “I am so sorry, Lydia. Please, please forgive me.”

  “Go, Annie. Just go. I can’t do this anymore.”

  I stood frozen. Did she really mean it? And did she mean leave for today, or leave forever? And if I did go, where would that leave us? No doubt with a bigger wall erected because we never worked through the pain.

  I closed my eyes, remembered the strength that God had miraculously bestowed upon me the morning before. Help me . . .

  I didn’t get any clear answers then, but I did know one thing. If I walked out that door again, Lydia and I could never mend what was broken between us. The time was now.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Lydia. Yes . . . this hurts, and yes, it’s hard. For both of us. But like you said, we’re family. We don’t just leave. I never should have in the first place.”

  She looked at me through watering eyes. “You’re expecting me to say it’s okay, that we can go back to the way it was. And I just—I can’t.”

  “I’m not expecting anything. Please believe me. I just want to be with you . . . to be with your family. I don’t want this fakeness between us. If we’re not okay—which we’re not—then so be it, but let’s not act like we’re okay. I know I hurt y
ou and Grace, your family. But I want to try and make it better. I want us to heal together.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stood looking frail and wounded, the counter holding her up.

  I tried again, turned so I leaned against the counter. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know how Grace has forgiven me so easily. The way she talks . . . the peace she has . . . you’ve sure raised a great girl.”

  Lydia let out a small, humorless laugh. “Now that is entirely a work of God’s grace.” Silence enveloped the kitchen, punctuated only by the soft ticking of the grandfather clock. I inhaled the scent of hazelnut coffee, searched myself for something to say, something to open up the conversation. When nothing came, I waited.

  “Grace . . . she—we—did some real searching after the bombing. Visited some churches, started praying together.” Lydia licked her lips.

  I didn’t speak, fearful to interrupt the crack of another block in the wall.

  She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Grace changed, a lot. She became less fearful; she blossomed. I didn’t get it right away. But over time . . .”

  “You got religion?”

  My sister’s eyes brightened, and in that split second of a moment I could see she forgot about the past, about all my sins before me.

  “It’s not religion—that’s the whole thing, Annie. That’s what I got.”

  I wanted to know what my sister understood that made her eyes suddenly shine like this, what my sister got that Grace also seemed to possess. Perhaps it was the same thing those early Christians hiding in the catacombs understood. Perhaps it was the same thing that Brad was trying to show me when he encouraged me to trust in God. Perhaps it was the same assurance I glimpsed yesterday morning. “Got what?”

  “Grace. The work God’s already done for us.” She stared at me and her eyes dimmed. Her jaw dropped open.

  I scrambled for words, sensing that in this moment the wall would be erected stronger than ever, or fall completely. I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth, tried to come up with some sort of reassurance, but nothing came forth.

  Lydia buried her head in her hand. “Dear Lord, help me.” Her whispered words flew to me over the chirping of birds outside the window, the sound of a neighbor’s car turning onto the street, radio blaring.

  “What is it—what’s the matter?” I reached out a hand, touched her elbow, then snatched it back.

  She rubbed her eyes, let her hands fall from her face. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to you about all God has done to forgive me, and . . . well, you know.”

  She hadn’t yet forgiven me. Boy, did I know. “So . . . where does that leave us?”

  Lydia stared at the floor. “It leaves me a hypocrite.”

  “Wow, don’t be so harsh on yourself.”

  We laughed. It served to lighten the mood a smidge.

  “If I refuse to forgive you, then I guess I’m kind of spurning God’s grace.”

  “Ouch.” It made sense, though. Lydia made sense. “But, you know, I don’t think forgiving is saying what I did is okay. It’s not okay. I abandoned you guys when you needed me most. I think forgiving is like . . . starting over. Starting new.”

  I let the idea roll between us. Like the start of a small snowball, I hoped it gained visibility and appeal the longer it sank in.

  My hands shook and I stuffed them inside the sleeves of my sweater. My heart pounded hard, pumping blood to my ears. I opened my mouth to speak, grasped for words that wouldn’t fail, words that I had thought through. But only one question seemed appropriate. And it was risky. I might as well cut my heart out and serve it to her on a platter.

  I swallowed. “Do you think we might be able to start new, Lydia? Please?”

  She didn’t answer, continued staring at the floor. Then, finally, “Remember when you cut one of the pigtails off my Myra Hope Cabbage Patch doll?”

  I smiled. “I was playing hairdresser and I swear, the scissors just slipped. You were mad at me for months.”

  “I was. But do you remember the moment I decided to let it all go?”

  I shook my head.

  “We were on the bus and one of the older boys was picking on you. I think he had a crush on you or something, but he was being borderline cruel.”

  I remembered. “Brandon Kent. Biggest bully on bus number three.” I sobered. “He made me cry one day, and you marched up to him like it was nothing, like he wasn’t four inches taller than you.” Lydia had told him off that day, and Brandon Kent never bothered me again.

  “As mad as I was at you, when I saw Brandon picking on you, none of it mattered. You were my sister, and you were hurting. I forgot about Myra Hope.”

  I swallowed, voiced what she must be thinking. “But Grace is a lot more precious than Myra Hope.”

  “Yeah, she is. But God has used this mess and grown her through it. Now, maybe it’s my turn.” She sighed, dropped her hands. “I don’t want to be mad at you forever, Annie. You’re my sister. I love you. Of course I’m not saying what you did is okay. But I don’t want to keep holding this thing between us. I want us to heal. I do want us to start new.”

  An immense burden lifted from my chest. And as I hugged her, rejoicing in the crumbling wall, I felt I truly understood mercy for the first time.

  I didn’t deserve it at all. In fact, I deserved the opposite. Punishment, chastisement, a life banished from my sister’s family. And yet Lydia wasn’t giving me what I deserved. She was giving me what I didn’t.

  A new beginning. Forgiveness. Love. Grace.

  OCTOBER 1795

  While our family survived both influenza and smallpox epidemics raging through Boston over the years, it was yellow fever that finally knocked on the door of the homestead Hugh had built for us.

  I refused to send Hugh to a pest house. I sent word to Cora to keep her many, generally welcomed grandchildren away from our homestead. I also sent word to James not to visit for some time, as his father had fallen sick. The headache, backache, and fever left my husband bedridden. Not until the third day, when the yellow pallor of his skin took up residence against his normally joyful face, were my fears realized. I knew that in three days’ time, I would have either a recovering husband or a dead one.

  From his sweat-filled sheets, Hugh crumpled in pain, blood from his nose stanched by a small cloth. He begged me to leave him, to spare myself—to spare our unborn child.

  I brewed teas of every herb known to me, reached over my bulging stomach to lift my husband’s head and force the medicine down. He sputtered and spat most of it back up.

  When all else failed, I ignored the midwife in me who wanted to cure all and only tried to make him more comfortable. Changing his sheets and bedpan, washing him with a cool cloth, praying with him through his delirium.

  On the fifth day of his sickness, I added a log to the fire, sat down in the well-worn wood chair he’d built for us all those years ago, laid my head in my hands, and cried.

  “What will I do without you? Lord, please, have mercy. Spare my husband.”

  A gurgling noise sounded from Hugh’s throat. “I . . . love you, my . . . wife.”

  I ran my hand over his thinning hair, searched his red-veined eyes for evidence of the healthy man I’d fallen in love with. Mercy upon mercies, I glimpsed him. Aware, and focused on me.

  “Hugh.” I kissed his lips, hard, willing my love to be sufficient to spur him to life. “My joy,” I whispered my nickname for him, mutual after all these years. How many times had we lain in this bed, wrapped in a physical love for one another? How many meals had we shared, just in the other room? How many prayers had we said on calloused knees on this very floor for James, for Cora and her children, for a sweet babe of our own? How many hours had we toiled in the fields just beyond this window, side by side, building a future?

  He lifted a yellow hand, gestured to the stand where he kept his Bible. “In the back . . . forgive me.”

  I wondered if it was delirium that
spoke for him, but I slid open the drawer, grabbed up the black leather Bible, the edges of the pages as yellow as my husband’s skin.

  I flipped to the back, found a worn envelope beside a poem I had given him on our wedding day. “This?”

  He nodded. “Read.”

  I took a paper folded in three from the envelope and straightened it, the handwriting somehow familiar. I skimmed the signature, comprehending and not comprehending all at once, and truly not wanting to read. What did I care for that part of my life that had been long laid to rest? Why should I think on it when my husband lay on his deathbed?

  “I don’t see why this matters now.”

  Hugh shifted slightly, his head shaking back and forth, agitated. “Read.”

  I bit my lip, forced my eyes to the paper that held a date of more than twelve years earlier, and read.

  When I finished, a tear fell past the mound of my babe onto the letter. I shook my head, grabbing for my husband’s hand, letting the letter fall on the floor. “There is naught to forgive, my love. Do you think if I had known Alexander was alive, it would have changed anything for us?”

  His gaze showed doubt, and it grieved my heart. “I gave you all of me on the day we married. Please, stay with me. I can’t bear to be without you.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Liberty.”

  I swiped at my tears, sniffled.

  “After I pass . . . after you grieve a time . . . after you bear a healthy child, I wish . . . wish for you to go to him.”

  Him.

  I shook my head, fiercely. “You will live, Hugh. You talk nonsense; it is the fever.”

  His reddened eyes looked sad. “Promise me you will find him. Promise me . . . you will allow him to take care of you . . . and our child.”

  My jaw trembled. How could I make such an oath? How could I think beyond this day, this hour? Again, I shook my head, anger stewing in my chest. “You would send me to another in the space of a heartbeat, then?”