Free All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry Page B

see his patient’s face, but I see a pale body and a mess of red. I hurry on.
My wheelbarrow, empty, leans against the wall on Abe Duddy’s store porch. I wheel it away and make my way slowly back, watching and listening for signs of life. No wagons yet, it seems. Perhaps they’ll return tomorrow.
No reason for hurry now. I wend my way home, listening to the axle squeak and the wheel crunch over twigs and leaves.
I round the bend in the road and see a light in your window. I leave the wheelbarrow where it stands, lest its sound betray me, and creep toward your house. Night covers me. I hide behind an oak not far from your window.
The candle gutters on the table’s edge. Your fire is unlit. You sit at your table, your body slumped, your head down on its planks, your arms stretched out on either side.
I see no bottle.
Are your shoulders shaking?
Cold wind blows through me. Night birds call. I have stayed too long, past decency, even by my measure. But I cannot take my eyes off you.
And then I jump, for you raise your arms high in the air and bring them crashing down upon the table.
The candle falls. Its light is snuffed.
Your weeping reaches through the window and drives me away. You lost your love, and it broke your heart.
I slip away. For this, even I will give you privacy.
    XXII.
    Next morning I race the sun to bring back the wheelbarrow I left by your gate, lest you find it. I bring it home, load it full, and wheel it back into town. Today I cannot fail to collect payment or Mother will have a fit.
    I still see no sign of you. Perhaps you’ll take extra rest this morning. I hope so.
But when I return home an hour later, there you are, coming out of my house, tipping your hat to Mother. I pause in my steps. You were here and I was not?
I go inside, determined not to let my disappointment show.
“Lucas came to inquire after me, Worm,” Darrel calls out from the bed, where his foot is propped on pillows.
I look to him for more.
“Wondered if we needed anything.”
Your own hopes shattered, yet you visit Darrel. Who would want to visit Darrel? You are good. No one knows it like I do. Maria never did, bless her ebony curls, long may they twine around Leon Cartwright’s fingers.
    XXIII.
    The sojourners return, and the next day the whole village gathers at the church for an evening service for the dead. The village takes on an almost festive air, though soil on our twenty graves lies all too fresh for that.
    Mother won’t go. Tending the injured is her fair excuse. Darrel’s fever’s back, and his foot smells putrid. I spend the day doing all that can be done, which isn’t much, and finally drift off to town. I can sit in the back corner unnoticed. I want to know what’s said.
    Abijah Pratt turns to stare at me from under his heavy brows. He sucks perpetually on his lower lip.
I slide into my corner seat and hide in the shadows.
I snatch a few threads from the whispers that fill the room. “Ezra Whiting” comes from more than one direction.
The doors creak, and you come in. All the whispers stop, all eyes watch you make your way down the aisle. They aren’t smiling for their war hero. On the other side of the last pew I hear rude laughter. It’s Dougal Wills, Leon Cartwright’s pustule-faced cousin. You’re now an object of sport, having publicly lost your lady.
The doors open again, and you are forgotten: Preacher Frye walks in with a limp, new since the battle. He reaches the lectern and grasps it with long fingers. His long black coat swallows all the light in the chapel.
Eunice Robinson walks in with her mother and younger sister, blushing to be late. She sits in the pew opposite yours and gives her skirts a shake. Her friend has cast you off, so now she’s trying her luck. When you glance over at her, her eyes are riveted to Preacher Frye’s heavenly face testifying of redemption for the dead who die in Christ.
    X XIV.
    “It was a shock,” Maria’s father confides to William Salt, the miller, standing