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Part One
Chapter One
Autumn 1868
Ifound my mind wandering to Adam as it usually did when I was forced to plaster on some false presentation of ladyhood and society. After all, I had a mission to meet a young man with which to marry and bring some sort of life back into our house—a house which, to me, felt so devoid of love.
My mother’s eyes filled with complete joy, the carriage rocked us back and forth over the uneven road. We were on our way to celebrate the newest holiday with the rest of nearby high society. Holidays and social gatherings always brought some sort of twinkle to her eyes, but it had been some time since I had seen it so bright.
She bounced merrily in her seat while the sun dove behind the slumbering, bare trees beyond the glass which fogged ever so slightly with my breath. My father, as usual, was empty. His facade was well placed though, and unless you were to take the time to study him closely, you would not know he desired to be by himself in his room of quiet desolation.
I was trying hard to match my mother’s energy, and still the niggling feeling of emptiness tugged in the recesses of my heart. I managed a weak smile in her direction, her thin fingers lacing themselves over mine.
“My darling, I have a good feeling about tonight,” she said.
Did I? Did I feel anything tonight other than the heavy sense of duty which hung over me, a pendulum swinging lower and lower with every stroke?
It had been five years since we received the letter about my brother, Adam. Such was the cataclysmic moment which changed our lives in ways I could not yet fathom. The letter arrived in the middle of July, 1863—though it seems the searing pain is burned into my memory, ageless.
We had planned no summer ball that year, for Mother was too worried about Adam and how his troops were faring. I realized rather quickly there was little reprieve for her. He was stationed some twenty-three miles away from Gettysburg and wrote to us often about his position and the difficulties the band of warrior-boys had encountered.
Just the week before news arrived of his passing, he had written asking us for prayer; something he had never bothered with before. It put Mother in a dreadful state of stress and tears the entire time she awaited an update. Father, with some of the other soldier’s fathers, gathered every day in the parlor to smoke, drink, and discuss the war. My studies were canceled until we heard news of the outcome at Gettysburg.
Every day we waited anxiously while a thick cloud of despair hung over us. That same cloud haunted us for many years after, failing to really ever dissipate. Mother was in the library, sewing Adam a new pair of socks as she promised for his upcoming birthday. She looked about every few minutes, worrying her lip as she had done since we received his last letter, almost willing another into being. I tried to absorb the thick novel in my hands, but my mind continued to wander, how many more boys would be lost? How much longer would the war rage? How long could they put off my studies?
I looked up to take in the great space of our library, an astounding room; deep mahogany shelves filled with dusty novels and trinkets passed down in my father’s family for generations. The floors were draped in thick green rugs, the furniture in rich reds and soft velvets. It was clear my father’s family had spared no expense for their wives’ ostentatious pleasures.
Almost simultaneously as the clock struck noon, Father burst into the library, his gray eyes bloodshot, tears stained down his cheeks.
Mother jumped up, muffling her cries with her hands as she fell to her knees. Disbelief seized me, I closed the novel and set it on the red settee, slowly coming beside my mother to wrap my arms around her shaking frame. She seemed so fragile then, and I wished to hold her together for fear she may fall to pieces.
“Is he dead, Father?” I asked, squeezing Mother’s trembling body to me. Father, not quite all there for the first time, slowly walked toward the chair where he plopped himself.
Mother's cries ricocheted off of the walls in the library, clawing against my brain. I wanted her to stop, I wanted to be able to absorb the fact that my brother had been killed, but she continued to shriek. Father began to sob, small sounds that were drowned out from Mother's wailing.
He stood suddenly, spine straight, throwing his chair back in anger. He tossed the letter into the inferno of the fireplace, storming from the room and slamming the door loudly behind him. Working quickly, I extracted the paper from the flames before it could catch any more, waving the edges out.
It is my deepest regret to inform you of Adam Abbott’s death. He was mortally wounded on the battlefield at Gettysburg and passed nobly on July the 1st.
My heart stuttered with each word; I clasped my hand over my throat to stop the wordless cry which had built. Veins running cold, no matter how much I tried to draw in air, none would enter my lungs. The formal scrawl teemed with deep condolences as it mentioned his body had been buried on the spot.
We would not even be able to bury him at home.
Mother's skirts swished behind me, her thin hand shaking, beckoning for the letter. I handed it reluctantly to her and quickly left the room, unable to handle another episode of her screams.
Adam's death brought with it an extreme change in my young life. I never noticed before how he kept the balance, brought both laughter and love to the household. He was a good son who did as he was told, assisting Father in the orchard, graduating from Harvard University as the men before him in our family had. However, he knew how to woo a woman and did so often, his reputation among the young men of Boston was not always the most pleasant.
Nonetheless, with his frequent teasing and easy playfulness, Adam was my first friend. It was a shock to my heart at so tender an age to have him in one moment, and in another to lose him. He was gone, so quickly and easily it didn’t quite seem real. It was difficult to let go of his cheerful smiles and dancing eyes. We all knew he would not want us to linger in our sorrows, but it took many years for the three of us to adjust to his absence.
A year after, I managed to bring my mother back to life, take her depression and lighten it with the aspect of a son-in-law and grandchildren.
Although, on some level I would rather lay in our orchard to escape into oblivion.
Our society pushed marriage for the continuation of a legacy, and I was now destined to be that continuation, especially as the only remaining child to a high-status family. Mother wanted the family to live on with me, she wanted to dote on small children from one of her own, she wanted one of her children to be well secured and live happily to bitter old age.
I resigned myself to putting on a show for her. Only for her.
Father was much harder to resurface, if one could call what little progress he had made ‘resurfacing.’ It was not until the third year after Adam's death that Father began to act with any sort of semblance of himself, and those moments seemed infrequent as it were.
