Blessed Assurance (15 page)

Lee flung up his hands. “You're not making sense. I love Linc.”

She drew herself up. “You're not making sense. How could I marry a man who won't even tell me his name.”

Her last words left him silent and staring angrily into her stormy eyes.

Finally Jessie said in a taut voice, “I'll bid you good night.” She pushed past Lee and left him standing alone in the deep twilight.

October 6, 1871

At first, Lee couldn't think, then he hurried inside Jessie's front door. He yanked his hat and jacket from hooks and scuttled down the front steps. Raging against women's illogical thinking and Hiram Huff's hypocrisy, Lee broke into headlong retreat.

Heedless of direction, he hurried down block after block. Finally
a church clock tolling ten stopped him. Looking around the night-shrouded street, he found he was on the South Side near railroad tracks where shabby dwellings huddled among warehouses.

He rubbed his face with one hand as though trying to clear away the turmoil in his mind.
I should go home to bed. I have a new job in the morning.
But going home and meekly to bed—in the room above Jessie's—struck him as impossible. As impossible as convincing Jessie that his past was not important to them.

He began trudging the darkened streets again.
I can't expect her to understand what it meant to live through the war as a surgeon. No one who didn't go through it could understand.

Suddenly he needed to hear someone agree with him. Mentally he went through the short list of men he had become acquainted with in the past months. He recalled Jessie mentioned Caleb had served in the Union Army, too. Caleb didn't like him.

Still, the idea appealed to Lee. He didn't want platitudes about duty or any other soothing pap. He needed a man who would be completely frank, a man who would understand the way the war had really been, not the way people were already beginning to romanticize it. Caleb would understand. Lee looked around and figured out how to reach the late Reverend's house.

In the warm summerlike night, he heard the faint clanging of a fire bell. Small brush fires on vacant lots had become commonplace after a summer-long drought. His heartbeat matched the pealing of the discordant bells. When Lee found the one-room house, no light shone in the window. Lee hesitated in the yard, thinking what to do.

“What are you doing here?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Lee whipped around. “Caleb.”

Caleb stopped in front of him, leaning forward belligerently. “I asked what are you doing here.”

“I…I just came to talk.” Lee knew it sounded lame as an explanation, but it was, after all, the truth.

“Why?”

The man's unconcealed hostility turned Lee's stomach sour. Still he went on, “I…you…I need to talk to another veteran.”

Caleb pushed past him. “All right. Come in.” Lee followed, sorry he had come. While Caleb struck a match and lit a lamp on the table in the center of the room, Lee stood by the door. He remembered too clearly the Reverend's death in this house.

The circumstances of tonight's visit already rendered him uncomfortable. And he couldn't look around the room without seeing it filled with phantom mourners and hear again the melodies they'd sung.

“Sit.”

Lee could recall hearing warmer welcomes from Southern women pointing loaded rifles at him. He eased down on a ladder-backed chair near the sputtering lamp.

Caleb swung his chair around backward and sat down astride it; his long arms draped over the chair back.

“It's difficult not to think of your father—”

“You hardly knew him—”

“I didn't have to know him long to respect him, just seeing him die…He was an exceptional man.”

“Thank you.” Caleb's tone was grudging. His face twisted. “What did you come to talk about?”

Lee shifted in his seat.
How to start?
“What was your outfit?”

“I was with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. And you?…Susan told me you were with Mrs. Wagstaff's husband?”

“Yes.”
But I wasn't Smith, the ambulance driver.
Lee didn't know how to go on. Silent seconds ticked by.

Caleb slapped a hand down on the tabletop. “Are you going to tell me why you're here or am I supposed to guess?”

The man's sarcastic tone goaded Lee. “I need someone, someone who went through the war, who will understand—”

“Understand what?” Caleb barked.

Lee grimaced. “I was with Will Wagstaff, but I'm not Lee Smith.”

“You lied to Mrs. Wagstaff?”

“I had to—”

“Who are you?”

Caleb had Lee cornered and it was all Lee's own fault. He'd wanted to rid himself of the guilt he carried by telling someone his awful secret, to be absolved, not challenged. But in a haze of half-baked emotion, he'd gone to the wrong person. The Reverend's son would, of course, side with Jessie. But Lee had come too far to turn back. He propped his elbows on his knees and buried his forehead into his hands. “Did you ever spend time in an army field hospital?”

“I carried a few comrades to them.” Caleb's voice sounded wary.

“Did any of them live?”

“One did.”

“What did he lose?” Lee asked grimly.

“An eye.”

“A fortunate man.” Lee exhaled and sat up. “I have nightmares of those awful days and nights. The screams and moans still have the power to wake me. The stench of the blood and sweat…You've been there. You know what I'm talking about.”

In the low lamplight, Caleb nodded reluctantly. “I know Mrs. Wagstaff's husband served in the Union army with the Sanitary Corp. It sounds like you were, too. What did you lie about?”

Lee took a deep breath. “I'm not
Lee
Smith. He was an ambulance driver who served with us till he died in sixty-four. My name is Leland Granger Smith.”

“So?”

“Will was my best friend. I'm
Dr.
Smith.”

“Doctor? You're a doctor. You mean you stood by when my father died and you did nothing!” His fists clenched, Caleb reared up like a fighter coming into the ring.

Lee flung his hands up. “No medicine can give an old man a new heart. I did what I could for your father!”

Caleb halted, breathing hard. For long moments his eyes fixed on Lee's face. Then he settled down again on his chair and ran his big hands over his forehead. “I guess you're right about that.”

Lee lowered his own arms. “All I could do was make him more comfortable…”

“And pronounce him dead.”

Lee gave a dry, bitter laugh. “I had plenty of practice at that. I could do it in my sleep. I often did.”

“I still don't get what your problem is. Just tell Mrs. Wagstaff. She'll understand. You've been good to her son.”

“I want to marry her.”

“So?”

Lee resented the question, but he had started this and he must finish it. “How can I tell her I'm a doctor when she has been looking for one all summer?”

“Just tell her the truth and offer your services.”

“Well, now that's the rub,” Lee said, his pulse speeding. “I can't ever practice medicine again.”

“Why not?”

Lee's face twisted into a mockery of a smile. “Practice peacetime medicine? I wouldn't know how. I came straight out of medical school into the army. For four years, all I did was dig out bullets, cut off shattered or gangrenous limbs, and stitch up sword and bayonet slashes. I'm no physician. I'm a butcher. Give me a slab of meat—not a human.”

Caleb didn't speak at first. “You could start over, learn.”

“I can't. Can't you see? Just the thought of doctoring again makes me literally sick to my stomach. My hands shake just thinking of holding a scalpel. You were there. I can't explain it to Jess. She couldn't know what it was like.”

“She's a good woman. You'd just have to take time—”

“No. I can't face it. I can't even talk to her about it. In the last two years of the war, Will, my best friend, and alcohol were the only things that kept me going. And after Will died, that left only whiskey.”

“Susan told me you quit being a bartender, but she didn't tell me you drank.”

“I don't drink anymore. But I wasn't sober from the night Will died until early this year.” In spite of the stuffiness of the room, Lee shivered sharply. He couldn't stop now. “It's more than that. My
family hushed it up, but the army sent me home under restraint. I was out of my mind with drink, with…” He fought the images of that last hellish night of surgery when he'd begun screaming and couldn't stop. Even when he was too hoarse to make a sound, he'd gone on. A cold sweat broke over Lee, shaking.

“What brought you to Chicago, then? If you didn't want to face this, why come to Will's family?”

Lee clamped his legs together and clutched the sides of the chair. The trembling lessened. He cleared his thickened throat. “I promised Will I'd take care of Jessie and his son.”

“I see.” Caleb bent his elbow to the chairback and rested his chin on his fist. “You lied to Mrs. Wagstaff, so she wouldn't have to know you were a doctor. Now you need to tell her the truth because you want to marry her.” He looked up. “Why not just keep on lying?”

Distant fire bells started up again, sending their message of danger. They suited Lee's mood. Alarms within. Alarms without. “She read some of Will's letters and found out Lee Smith was dead. She's known since a few days after your father's death.”

“That long? That's not like Mrs. Wagstaff. She doesn't stand for things for a minute. There's your answer. Susan was right.”

“What's my answer?”

“Mrs. Wagstaff cares about you. She's not a woman to hide from the truth. She must have feelings for you or she would have had it out with you right then and there.” Caleb sounded sincere.

“You think so?” Lee wanted to believe him.

“She'll be upset when you tell her, but she can't make you practice medicine—on whites or blacks—if you don't want to.”

“I'm afraid I'll lose her and Linc.” Saying the words made Lee sick with dread.

“She'll be angry. She has a right to be. I don't like people lying to me—”

Lee's pulse raced. “Jessie and Linc mean everything to me!”
Without them, I don't have a life.
He couldn't say this out loud.

“She'll forgive you,” Caleb said it almost kindly. “You have to trust her.”

“I'm afraid I'll lose her.”

“If you don't tell her, you
will
lose her.” Caleb's words, though spoken quietly, hit and echoed through Lee like a hammerblow.

 

Jessie and her mother stood looking at Field & Leiter's Department Store. Esther gave her a nervous smile. “It's a very imposing, isn't it?”

“You don't have to do this, Mother.”

“No, Ruby is right. I must help myself.”

“Very well.” Entering, Jessie escorted her mother to the store office, where a gentleman asked Esther to his desk for an interview. Jessie squeezed her mother's hand. “I'll go browse, but I'll be back. I'll meet you here.”

Esther nodded timorously, then went with the gentleman.

Jessie wandered through the aisles. With money so dear, she rarely let herself enter a store. Today would be a rare treat. In the millinery department, a hat on a mannequin head brought her to a complete stop. It was fashioned like a wing, reddish brown like oak leaves. It sported a pheasant tail feather over the crown and in front a delicate veil to draw across the face. Her fingers itched to lift it from the form and set it on own her head.

“May I help?” A young, modish saleswoman approached.

“No, I—I was merely browsing.” Jessie felt like she'd been caught stealing and had the urge to run out of the store.

“Certainly, but wouldn't you like to try that on?” The woman nodded toward the striking hat.

“N-No, I really shouldn't,” Jessie stammered.

The woman scanned the nearly empty department. She smiled and said conspiratorially, “Why not try it on—just for fun? I'm not busy. Come sit down.”

Jessie objected feebly but soon found herself sitting in front of an ornate vanity with trifold mirrors. The young woman removed Jessie's worn bonnet and arranged the new hat on her crown, securing it with hat pins.

The transformation in Jessie's appearance was so startling for a few seconds, she couldn't speak.

“An excellent choice,” the saleslady murmured. “It brings out the warmth in your hair and eyes.”

Jessie, unaccustomed to compliments, blushed. She half rose. The woman gently urged her back into her chair. “The effect isn't complete yet. Allow me.” The woman reached into a drawer of the vanity and lifted out a large silk scarf of the same rich autumn hue, which she draped over Jessie's shoulders.

Her reflection as a staid widow vanished from the mirror. Looking back at her was the image of a comely, young woman with russet-tinged brown hair. She gasped, “It doesn't look like me.”

“I've seen this happen before. When a woman has been in mourning for a year or more, she forgets how she looked in colors. Have you been in mourning for more than a year?”

Jessie nodded.
Six years.

“Out of respect for the loved one, it's difficult to leave off mourning clothes, but your loved one would want you to go on living. You are young and attractive. It's time you let it show again.”

The words sank into Jessie's mind and heart like misty rain on a dry garden. Inside, a tight clasp—which had trapped her spirit—swung open. A thrill of pleasure shimmered through her. “How much is this?”

“Only one dollar and seventy-five cents. A bargain.”

“Oh.” Jessie's voice fell. “I don't have that much with me.”

“We have an easy time-payment plan. Merely put down fifty percent and then you can make a few weekly payments and it's yours.”

Jessie's conscience balked, but one glance at the reflection in the mirror silenced it. “I'll take it.”

As she watched the saleslady wrap the hat delicately in tissue paper and tie it up in a charming mauve hatbox striped with gold, she felt free, airy. In her whole adult life, this was her first extravagance. And Lee came to mind. “Where is Gentlemen's Finer Attire?” she asked.