Christmas at Carnton (Carnton 0.5)(7)
“Thank you for your time, sir.”
They were nearly to the front door of the bank when Andrew tugged hard and attempted to turn back. But Aletta was having none of it, her grip viselike.
“Andrew, I told you—”
“There’s Mrs. Goodall’s friend.” Andrew pointed.
Sure enough, Aletta turned and spotted the man she’d seen at MaryNell’s house last week. He was seated behind a large desk in an office near the center of the bank. Her gaze went to the shingle hanging above the door, and the truth expelled the breath from her lungs.
Herbert Cornwall, President, Franklin Bank.
The man happened to look up, and their eyes met. His gaze deepened in recognition, and Aletta felt the heat of indignation rush through her. She still hoped her suspicions were mistaken. However thin that hope was. So much about this world was wrong, and unjust, and didn’t seem at all to be moving in the right direction. What kind of world would her son—her children—grow up in? She didn’t know. She only wished they could have had their father alongside them as they did.
She turned and strode from the bank, Andrew in tow.
“You want one?” he said after a minute. “I’ll share.”
She looked down to see him extending his hand, two peppermint candies nestled in his sticky palm.
“Mr. Tanner sneaked ’em to me as we left,” he said quickly. “I promise.”
Reading honesty in his eyes, she took one of the candies and popped it into her mouth, the cool rush of sweetness nearly overwhelming her taste buds.
“It’s good. Huh, Mama?”
She nodded, seeing Warren in his expression, and cherishing both of them.
“News from the War Department!” a newspaper boy called out from the corner.
Unwilling to part with another precious coin given her circumstances, she still wanted to read that list. Some would call her foolish, she realized. But she’d heard of a woman who had received notification of her husband’s death only to read his name sometime later in the War Department’s updates—where he was listed as having been wounded in battle and was still very much alive.
She spotted three women huddled close around a newspaper and waited, understanding their heartache, as, gradually, relief smoothed a measure of the worry from each of their expressions. One of the women happened to look up and meet her gaze. A wordless exchange passed between them, and she held out the paper to Aletta.
“Thank you,” Aletta whispered. “I’ll look quickly.”
“You can keep it,” the young woman responded, unmistakable relief softening her voice.
With Andrew beside her, Aletta turned the pages, then scanned the list of names under the heading “Tennessee—Killed, Wounded, and Missing,” all while telling herself she wasn’t nurturing foolish hope.
She was simply still hoping.
CHAPTER 3
Aletta kept an eye on Andrew as she read through to the end of the list. No Warren Wesley Prescott. Under any category. No Richard Goodall either, although she did recognize two of the other names on the deceased list. Poor Virginia Cates and Margaret Kirby. Did the women even know the fates of their dear husbands yet?
She whispered a prayer for them, and a chilling wind swept it upward.
On the way home, she recalled a similar afternoon months earlier when she and Andrew had passed a contingent of Federal soldiers. As she’d looked into the eyes of the blue-clad enemy, she’d known she was looking into the eyes of some woman’s husband, father, brother, or son. And as she’d contemplated many times before, she firmly believed that—given the chance—she could sit across the table from those women and together they could somehow chart a course to peace.
Peace that utterly eluded Generals Grant and Lee.
Why were men so drawn to war? It probably revealed far too much about her, but she couldn’t think of anyone or any political issue for which she would willingly sacrifice the lives of her children. Her own life? Perhaps. But those of her children? She couldn’t fathom.
Later that night, after a dinner of leftover beans and corn bread, she tucked Andrew into bed on the straw mattress next to hers, then donned her shawl to fetch more wood for the fire. The night air was crisp, but at least the wind had subsided.
She stared up into the night sky pricked with stars, the quarter moon shining especially bright, and she wondered how much longer the war would continue. She smoothed a hand over her belly, not too surprised when the child within gave a tiny kick. “Patience, my love,” she whispered. “Not quite yet.”
A moment passed and she looked down, realizing she was doing it again—twirling the wedding band that was no longer there. She stared in the moonlight at the empty place on the ring finger of her left hand, knowing she’d made the right choice. She and Andrew had to eat, after all. It had been almost a year since she’d sold it to the jeweler in town, but still she felt naked without it.
Discovering how little wood was left in the bin, she retrieved the ax, situated a log atop the old oak stump, and brought the ax down with practiced force—something she wouldn’t be able to do much longer. The log split clean down the middle. Since her parents had never had a son, she’d been forced to learn unusual skills for a woman. Skills that had proven helpful over the past two years since Warren had left. Not to say she hadn’t missed Warren. She had, terribly. But she hadn’t been quite so lost in certain ways as some of her friends had been.