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—EMILY DICKINSON
St. Louis, Missouri—1880.
It was a sweltering day in late July. Sweat pearled along Lauralee Johnston’s brow as she entered the veterans hospital, the humidity causing her long and flowing coppery-red hair to kink up into tight ringlets. Although she was not a registered nurse, she helped out at the hospital as often as she was needed.
Soon to turn twenty, she would be expected to leave the orphanage where she had lived since she was five to seek her own way in the world; to seek her own destiny.
But Lauralee had found some comfort and a safe haven within its walls. It had helped alleviate the pain of the past that had left deep scars caused by the Civil War.
Lauralee would never forget her mother dying so violently during the war. She would never overcome her loneliness and despair of being abandoned outside her burned-out house until a priest had come along and had taken her to his parish at the St. Louis Children’s Home.
There Father Samuel had given her shelter from the rest of the damnable Civil War, a war that had snatched everything from her.
Her mother.
Her father.
No one could bring her mother back to her. She had been dead since the bluecoat Yankees had arrived at her house. They not only looted it, they killed her mother.
The only hope that she had lived with all of these fifteen years was that her father would find her and take her into the safe cocoon of his arms.
Yet she had decided long ago that he had surely died during the war.
But even though she had been only a child when she had last seen him, his memory still lay soft and sweet in her mind.
She remembered that day he had left for the war. He stood tall, wearing boots shiny black and a handsome gray uniform, with two revolvers slung in leather holsters at his waist.
He had not yet reached the age of fifty, but still had beautiful, long gray hair. His violet eyes had been hypnotizing as he had laughed and played with her.
His laughter lingered now, like a warm dance within her heart.
But Lauralee’s ache of missing him made all of these memories hard to bear sometimes. She had only herself. She had to keep telling herself that.
And she would fend well for herself once she left the orphanage. She would become a nurse in a grand hospital. She would care for the afflicted, hoping that, in turn, might help slowly mend the hurts that she still carried around with her since the evil, blue-eyed, red-haired Yankee had .. .
She shook her head to keep the worst of her memories from surfacing. She hastened down the long, narrow corridor of the hospital, the skirt of her plain cotton dress sweeping her ankles. Each day she was anxious to come and spend time with the veterans of the Civil War, hoping that she might find someone who might have known her father.
Even now as she slowed her pace and started looking into the rooms as she passed them, she studied the faces of those who had only recently been brought there.
Of course she knew that it was foolish to believe that she might one day see his face among the ailing men. It was an impossible dream, a true fantasy, to believe that she might ever see her father again in any capacity.
She did not wish to see him ill. But if he could only be alive and slightly ill, enough to bring him to this very hospital so that she could get the opportunity to tell him that she was his daughter, that would be the same as entering the portals of heaven!
“Good morning to you, Lauralee,” a priest said as he walked past her in his long and flowing black robe. “How are you faring on this fine day?”
“It’s just a mite too hot for me,” Lauralee said across her shoulder as the priest walked on past her. The sight of a priest always saddened her now, for Father Samuel had passed away a year ago. Their bond had become tightly entwined.
And now, as before, she was alone again.
“The humidity will pass,” Father Edwards said back to her over his shoulder. “Just keep that pretty smile and pretend a soft summer rain is falling on your sweet face.”
Lauralee laughed softly, then went to a desk and leaned over the shoulder of a nurse. “Are there many new patients today, Dorothy?” Lauralee asked, trying to read the names of those Dorothy had entered into a ledger.
“A few,” Dorothy said, then closed the journal and looked up at Lauralee. “Dear, there’s a man in room fourteen. He was just brought in moments ago. I haven’t had time to check my charts yet for a name. He has pneumonia. He may not even last a week. Two, if he’s lucky. Why not go and see if you can cheer him up? I’ll be in shortly to check on him.”
“You don’t know anything about him?” Lauralee said, forking an eyebrow. “His name? Where he’s from?”
“Dear, I’ve been quite busy this morning, so, no, I haven’t taken time yet to see about the man,” Dorothy said, heaving an irritated sigh. “I can’t be expected to know everything about every patient the minute they are brought to my end of the floor. Now can I?”
