PRAISE FOR
Casting Off
“A beautiful novel of letting go, healing, and redemption. Setting her story in the west of Ireland, Nicole Dickson draws the reader deeply into the magic of a mystical land. A stunning debut.”
—New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs
“A remarkable novel about finding your true home, and of holding on and letting go. With lilting and lyrical language, Dickson immerses the reader in the lives and histories of a cluster of tightly knit families on an island off the coast of Ireland. I could hear the soft Irish voices and taste the salty spray of the ocean as Dickson works her storytelling magic, creating characters as complex and beautiful as the Irish sweaters at the heart of the story. This was a hard-to-put-down book, and I’m already anticipating the next offering from this wonderful author.”
—New York Times bestselling author Karen White
“With a pattern as intricate as the sweaters knit in the novel, Nicole Dickson weaves her words into a powerful story of redeeming love and forgiveness. Casting Off grabbed my heart on page one and didn’t let go until the last breathtaking sentence.”
—New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry
Written by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.
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“Casting Off weaves a lyrical, emotional, and sometimes ghostly tale of love and loss, and of finding love again. Determined to escape the past, Rebecca arrives on a tiny island in Ireland with her young daughter to study the lore and tradition of its renowned sweaters. There, the two are gathered into the folds of a small old-world community, where their lives intersect and entwine with the colorful locals, and with mysteries as deep as the blue sea that surrounds them. Nicole Dickson never drops a stitch as she reveals ever-deepening twists in this lovely yarn of surrender, forgiveness, and redemption.”
—Jennie Shortridge, author of Love Water Memory
“Lighthearted humor. . . . Rebecca’s tale of personal growth and letting go . . . keeps the reader interested.”
—Woman’s Day
Also by Nicole R. Dickson
Casting Off
NAL Accent
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014
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A Penguin Random House Company
First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC
First Printing, June 2014
Copyright © Nicole R. Dickson, 2014
Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Dickson, Nicole R.
Here and again / Nicole R. Dickson.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-698-13786-8
1. Nurses—Fiction. 2. Widows—Fiction. 3. Soldiers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.I328H47 2014
813'.6—dc23 2013035276
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Praise
Also by Nicole R. Dickson
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: The Covered Bridge
Chapter 2: The Jesse Tree
Chapter 3: The Drowning
Chapter 4: Sloosh
Chapter 5: Manassas
Chapter 6: Mr. Rogers
Chapter 7: Elysium
Chapter 8: Heaven and Earth
Chapter 9: Winter’s Light
Chapter 10: The Violet Hour
Chapter 11: The Calf Has Insurance
Chapter 12: Cuttin’ a Shine
Chapter 13: Moonshine
Chapter 14: Peas in a Pod
Chapter 15: Mr. Rogers to the Rescue
Chapter 16: The Good, the Bad, and the Goat
Chapter 17: Homeschooling
Chapter 18: Some Christian
Chapter 19: The Chickens Come Home to Rooster
Chapter 20: The Morning Chorus
Chapter 21: Acoustic Shadow
Chapter 22: A Place at the Table
Chapter 23: Jar of Clay
Chapter 24: The Three Musketeers
Chapter 25: Shenandoah Burning
Chapter 26: Through the Glass Darkly
Chapter 27: The Caretakers
Chapter 28: Now We See Face-to-Face
Author’s Note
About the Author
Questions for Discussion
For my grandmothers
Martha Dora Barnes Beebe
and my blue ribbon
Lola Virginia Swenson Dickson
and the magic of applesauce
Acknowledgments
A path is best if shared. It becomes a journey where discoveries are made not only by what we individually take in, but more importantly what we learned through the experiences of others—to see the world and road through another’s eyes. For this novel, I’d like to acknowledge those who walked this path with me and all the others I met along the way.
Thanks to my traveling partner, my daughter, Elspeth Rowan Dickson Bartlett, for quiet company walking through the battlefields of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. I am grateful to Mary Hanes for driving the Shenandoah with me the first time and keeping us on the road when I first arrived at Harpers Ferry. Thanks also to my family, Laurel, Andrew, Amy, Emily, and Arden Dickson, for wandering with me through Petersburg and Appomattox.
I’d like to remember Boyd and thank Barbara Lyon for sharing so much with my family and for the use of their cabin so long ago, where I met the goat and learned a mighty lesson at Steep Ravine.
Thanks to Elaine Legg, RN, for her medical knowledge and discussions about her emergency room experiences. Scott Hanes—thanking him for general farming knowledge and equipment discussions. Also, appreciation to Meredith Scales for conversations regarding farming in rural Virginia and the nature of goats. Thank you, Kathy Green, for information on herdsmanship and for your patience as I worked through the novel.
Thanks to Susan Coulter for her first edit. To Christie Scott I owe gratitude for editing help and for working through specific plot points. Thank you to Merry Creed, Terrie Parrish and Denise Robinson for reading the first drafts of the book, adding co
mmentary, and helping with the conversation guide.
I’d like to acknowledge the service of the park rangers in our national parks and the volunteers there, especially those in Gettysburg, Antietam, Manassas, Petersburg, Harpers Ferry, and Appomattox. Thank you also to the visitors’ center in Lexington, Virginia, for information regarding Thomas Jackson, Washington and Lee University, and VMI.
Thank you to Claire Zion, editor, and my agent, Linda Chester of Linda Chester’s Literary Agency, for support with this book.
Finally, I’d like to personally offer my gratitude and appreciation to all those in the armed forces, in this country and abroad, now as back then, and to their families who continue to give up all or part of their own lives in service to others. For my own family, I’d like to recognize my father, William H. Dickson, my brother, Andrew A. Dickson, my uncles, Stanley Houghton and George Iaeger, and my cousins, Kathleen Iaeger Shroy, Lee Ann Iaeger, and Mike Carey. Love and thanks to all of you.
May 10, 1861
Laurel Creek
Dear Juliette,
When I awoke this morning, my body was wound tight like the string of a violin that awaits the bow. I wanted to go, yet Laurel Creek babbled softly to the birds singing in the tree outside my window. I could only think of home, spring, and the fields rising to flower. All was still in the house as I dressed. To my surprise, I found the buttons to Grandpa Samuel’s uniform sewn onto my own. The dawn glimmered on them, causing me some difficulty securing my sword.
I walked from my room as quietly as I could, but found greeting me with murmured morning voices my father, my sister, Ann, and her husband, Peter. Their eyes were swimming and I could not long look upon them nor speak—so thick was my throat. I headed for the front door. Before I reached it, Ann stopped me, making small adjustments to the placement of the coat upon my shoulders. Her hands knew this uniform for from them it was made. She kissed my cheek with a God Bless and I thought that to be the end of it, but my father followed me to the creek. He was stumbling over the slippery rocks so much so that I had to help him back to the other side. When I return, the first thing I shall do is build a bridge over that stream—a bridge with a roof. It’ll be the death of him if I do not. His final words to me were that the buttons would bring me home. They had kept his father’s father alive through the last Revolution, so they should bring me safely home through this one. He took me in his arms, after which I, once again, crossed Laurel Creek. I looked back only once to ensure he had stayed on his side of the water. He had done, thus I headed for Jeb and Zachary’s house.
I arrived in time for breakfast. Zachary was waiting at the door and when I walked in his mother shook me out of my coat like dirt off of a rug. Immediately, she tore off my brass buttons, replacing them with several mismatching ones from various coats of the late Reverend. Zachary said he could have shot me a mile off, the buttons shined so. No shiny target would I make, declared his mother. I did try to explain what my father had said, but she felt it superstitious and nonsense.
As Zachary and I ate in silence, his mother secured the orphaned buttons to my coat and I stole peeks through the window as Jeb said good-bye to his promised, Ruth. She wept as he kissed her cheek so softly. I thought of you then.
I have grieved with you, Juliette, in your loss this last year. Charles was a good and honorable man and a true friend. If I had to lose your hand, it would not have been so easily endured had it been to anyone else but him. The four years since I left Lexington have been at once hollow and painful as you did not return with me as my wife. But, also, they have been joyous and without worry for I left you with a better man than myself. Only your happiness has helped settle me in contentment these last years.
Juliette, I have walked letter by letter with you down the widow’s path. I would be nowhere else. My intention has always been to see you happy once more—to have you loved as you deserve to be loved once more. So I have received your last letter with both jubilant elation and unfathomable sadness, for in it I find words of love given to me. Oh, Juliette, I have loved and will love none but you. In the joy of receiving such a gift as your love, my heart weighs heavily. Duty calls me, Juliette, and I can only answer. War is come. I am a soldier. My duty takes me from you, and as I leave, I leave you free. I would not suppose to press my love for you until I can, with open heart and clarity of the future, ask for your hand if you would have me.
So, I shall take up the sword, and as I do, I feel your whispered breath upon my ear and your hair brush gently my neck as you rest your head upon my shoulder. So quiet and deep do I feel you, like the waters at the bottom of the river flowing over its bed.
Though I promised with this pen and paper to write home as often as I could, I think I shall write mostly to you. I shall send, also, one of my grandfather’s buttons with each letter—a token of my family’s past to one who, with hope, shall hold my future. Thus, when I return, you shall have and know all of me that you have missed and we can then speak only of you, whom I have missed, filling my mind and heart with you, having emptied both on the road of war. To return from war with a clear conscience is my most longed-for wish.
I must go now. Captain Tiffany calls a muster. Four years has it been since I have strayed from home and upon my return from university at Virginia Military Institute, I swore I should never leave again. But now, I can only say my heart is forever home with you—whether upon Laurel Creek or any other water beyond which I may find thee.
Your devoted,
Samuel E. Annanais
Chapter 1
The Covered Bridge
The afternoon was cold and as the school bus drove away the dark cloud of its exhaust drifted heavily behind Ginger Martin, following her up the lane. The snow on the top of her shoes had gradually changed from loose and powdery as she walked to the bus stop to dense and icy now on the return home. It had started to drizzle. Her feet were heavier, as was her mind, for this was a day unlike any other in the last year.
A long whine brought her attention from her feet to the road ahead, where her youngest, Oliver, was sinking into the ditch on the Creeds’ side of the lane. He had slipped off the asphalt as he ran home and was being pulled from the hip-deep snow by his older brother, Henry. Hip deep to Oliver anyway, for he was the smallest in his kindergarten class. Now he was wet and the whine climbed an octave as he gazed down the road and found his mother’s eyes on him. Quickly Henry silenced him and, with a backward glance at Ginger, dragged Oliver whimpering toward the house.
Usually on her days off she’d drive them to and from school. Now, with finances the way they were, the family had had to choose between spending money on gas driving on these special days or keeping the satellite dish for the television. After very little debate, Ginger’s three children agreed that they would keep the television—not a surprise. So this morning, just as they were now doing this evening, they had walked to the bus stop. Earlier, they had woken up, eaten breakfast, and headed out the door as if it was any other day of the week that she wasn’t there. Like Grandma Osbee, whom they lived with, she could have stayed in the house and watched them make their way down the long road to where the school bus picked them up. But somehow that seemed unfair. It was cold; they were cold as they walked to the bus. In commiseration, she slipped into her husband Jesse’s work coat and her rubber boots and made the trek with them.
At first, there had been a bit of whining in the morning from Oliver because the winter snow was at his knees in places on the road. But no whining had also been part of the agreement. Thus Henry, ten years old and her eldest, picked Oliver up along the way, just as he was doing now on the way home, where the drifts became a little too deep.
The true grace for Oliver this winter had been John Mitchell. The aging farmer came down the road with his tractor every few days, especially after the heaviest snowfall, to clear the asphalt. Ginger was incredibly thankful. Because Mr. Mitchell plowed, she could maneuver he
r truck down the drive every day without shoveling. Her children could walk to and from the bus without sinking into the fallen snow. There had not been one cold or flu in her house all winter, knock on wood. She shuffled to the right and actually did—she stopped and knocked on the Schaafs’ white wooden fence to her right. Then she returned to the slushy road and continued home, trying to count how many dozens of ginger cookies she, Osbee, and the kids had made for Mr. Mitchell this winter.
He always came when the family was home, and every time she found his tractor slowly making its way up the road she’d turn the TV off and have her two sons comb their hair in the tidy, respectful fashion taught to them by their father. Her daughter, Bea, would, without a word, head upstairs and return with a blue ribbon. She’d hand it to Grandma Osbee, who quickly braided the little girl’s dark brown hair and secured the bottom with the ribbon. Then the entire family would don their coats and meet the old man at the top of their drive with a plate of cookies and a cup of hot coffee.
As always, Mr. Mitchell ate almost every one. The rest he tucked away in his various pockets, remarking how fluffy and chewy they were—just as he liked them to be. Most of the time, he sipped his coffee, pondering why Jesse had pulled up the asphalt on their drive and paved it with gravel. No one really had an answer and the fact that there was likely to be no answer just made the kids fidget. Ginger usually smiled, shrugging away the comment the way she’d shrug off an unwanted arm wrapping around her shoulders in condolence.
After finishing his snack, Mr. Mitchell returned to his tractor and backed down the gravel drive. Only when he reached the asphalt road would Ginger release her children and they’d bolt back inside, strip off their coats, and land in a pile in front of the TV. At that point, right on cue, Oliver would whine that there were no more cookies, as John Mitchell had taken every last one. They truly were the old farmer’s favorites. But Oliver didn’t care nor did he realize that his bottom was dry when he boarded the bus because of the grace of Mr. Mitchell. His only concern was the lack of cookies.
Here and Again Page 1
