by Diaz, Debra
Catherine tried to speak and couldn’t. She took the man’s hand and squeezed it, causing him to blush violently above his shaggy beard. The captain said good night again, and he and his prisoner left the house. She stood beside the door for a moment and leaned her head on it.
“Clayton,” she whispered. “Oh, Clayton.”
Her legs went suddenly weak and she dropped down, half sitting, her head still against the door. She said aloud, “Thank you, God. Oh, please let him be alive, please—” She stopped.
I’ve been begging and demanding that God spare Clayton for years now, instead of just trusting Him, Catherine thought. And Clayton, more a man of prayer than she had known, had never stopped trusting Him.
Her mind traveled back to Delia’s wedding, when she had so blithely told her friend, “Bad things happen. We just have to believe God can bring good out of the bad.” Those words had been only words then, stemming from some sermon she’d heard, or perhaps from a conversation with Ephraim.
Now she knew from her very heart and soul what they meant, and she was every bit as afraid and uncertain as Delia had been. In fact, she was paralyzed by fear. She had even stopped nursing at the hospital because she was terrified of finding Clayton there—mutilated…or dead.
She knew what she had to do. Everything she had learned in the last few years—from life, from Ephraim, from Clayton—came back to five little words: trust God, no matter what. And to do that, an inner voice told her, she had to try to forgive the Yankees for the loss of practically everything she held dear—perhaps, even, for the loss of her husband.
She must go on praying for Clayton every day, but without demands, without that determination that her will be done. She would— she must—have hope, and yet she must prepare herself for the worst.
The long dark night, which had begun when Clayton left for Fredericksburg, was finally over—the first glimmering of dawn had appeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next day Ephraim went to the jail with a basket containing a jar of chicken and dumplings and a plate of cornbread for Colonel Holcomb. At first Catherine was just going to send her portion, but when Mrs. Pierce heard the news, she insisted on sending all they had. They would eat cheese and biscuits for a day or two, until they could afford to buy another chicken, and soon there would be plenty of vegetables from Ephraim’s garden.
She would send food to the colonel as long as he was in Atlanta, but she would not go herself. She found Captain Marshall’s obvious interest in her rather disconcerting. She believed Clayton was alive, and if not, it would be a long time, if ever, that she would welcome the attentions of another man—let alone a Yankee with a Boston accent, no
matter how nice he seemed. Perhaps she could forgive them, but that didn’t mean she had to marry one of them.
Jessie came for a short visit with bad news.
The night Richmond fell had been like something out of a nightmare, with people surging madly through the streets, fires spreading out of control, exploding ammunition rocking the city, women screaming, men shouting. “I thought it was Judgment Day for sure,” Jessie said, her eyes huge with remembered horror.
Catherine’s uncle had collapsed and died early the next morning, just about the same time the Confederate flag came down and the United States flag went up over Capitol Square. The Henderson’s’ house had been immediately occupied by a Yankee colonel and his staff, who had permitted the young widow and her servants to stay. A few days before Jessie left for Atlanta, Sallie had married the colonel.
And barely two months since Martin’s death! Catherine couldn’t believe it.
Maybe Sallie really had been a fellow conspirator of Bart’s. Well, they’d never know and it didn’t matter, anyway. That was all part of the world that had ended.
***
Early one morning in late June Catherine sat in the front parlor with Mrs. Pierce, bent over a piece of sewing. The soldier to whom it belonged would be calling for it later in the day and she wasn’t nearly finished with it.
The sunlight had just begun to invade the room; soon it would be blinding and they would have to draw the shades halfway down. She pricked her finger for the second time. She put down the garment and rubbed her eyes.
She had been vaguely aware of the sound of a buggy stopping somewhere outside. When Catherine looked up, she saw that Mrs. Pierce had also dropped her work and was staring at the door. Someone crossed the porch, and the sound of it was strange, as though the person limped heavily.
A shadow fell across them from the window and then the front door opened. Someone came into the hall and stood in the doorway, looking at them.
Catherine got to her feet, her hand on her heart.
Thinner, dressed in civilian clothes and braced on a single crutch, he stood framed in a ray of white light from the transom above the front door. She felt as though she were seeing a vision.
Mrs. Pierce had risen to stand behind Catherine. The old woman’s eyes went worriedly to his leg. After a moment he broke the stunned silence.
“It took a long time to heal. I’ve been walking on it some but it’s still weak.”
“You’re here,” Catherine whispered.
He said, smiling, the old sparkle in his eyes, “What kind of welcome is this? Don’t tell me you got tired of waiting and married someone else.”
“Oh,” she breathed, “you really are a rascal.”
She went into his arms; the crutch dropped to the floor. He was definitely flesh and blood…he was home…he was hers.
After a moment he said, against her hair, “I’m here to stay, my darling wife. I’ll never leave you again.”
The End
About the Author
Debra Diaz has worked as a columnist and feature writer for a local newspaper, and between other jobs she has owned and operated a writing service. She has won two regional awards in short-story writing. Born and raised in Memphis, she now resides with her husband and two children near Oxford, Mississippi.
Discover UPCOMING RELEASES by this author at http://www.debradiaz.com/
