Page 73 of Under the Tulip Tree
A group of passengers made their way to a steamship not far from where I stood. Most of the passengers were white, but I noticed a dark-skinned woman near the back. She held the hand of a small girl, and they each were carrying a bundle. I watched their careful progress up the gangplank, unable to look away. Just before they disappeared into the belly of the ship, the little girl turned, smiled, and waved to me, as though she knew I was watching.
I lifted my hand.
The child nodded, and then she was gone.
Tears formed and slid down my cheeks as the ship pulled away from the dock and started north. To a new beginning, I hoped. For the girl and her mother.
What about me? Didn’t I deserve a new beginning too?
Sam wouldn’t want me to end my life. Not when his life had been spared. Not when we had such hope and dreams for freedom, we could almost taste it. I’d been offered marriage by a good man when the war was over. And despite the horrors I’d witnessed in the hospitals, a small flame flickered somewhere inside me at the thought of becoming one of the first black nurses. If I walked into the river and let it carry me to my death, I would allow fear and hatred to win.
I looked upstream just as the steamer rounded a bend and disappeared, carrying the little girl into her future. I lifted my hand again, but it was to the scared six-year-old who’d existed inside me all these years that I bid farewell.
It was time for me to live. To love. To forgive.
When I arrived at the prison hospital later that morning, the place was in an uproar. Federal soldiers swarmed the hallways, dragging patients from their beds to be loaded into wagons outside.
I hurried upstairs and found Cait in the hallway outside the ward. “What’s happening?”
“They’re removing prisoners they deem well enough to travel. The men will be marched north to prison.”
Although we’d known it would happen eventually, the news was disheartening. Most of the men in our ward werenot well enough for the long journey to Camp Chase in faraway Ohio.
I looked into the room to where Burton Hall waited with the others. He stared straight ahead, and I wondered if he was scared.
Two Federal soldiers stood in the aisle between the rows of beds, conversing in low tones. Finally the senior officer stepped forward.
“You, you, you, and you.” He pointed to four men, including Burton. “Gather your belongings and prepare for immediate departure.” They exited the room, brushing past me.
I wanted to run after them and protest. To remind them Burton had lost an arm and still required help with the most basic needs. How could he manage a long march north in the bitter weather?
Cait hurried into the ward and set to work packing one of the soldiers’ meager belongings. I made my way to Burton. He was trying to button his coat.
“Let me help you,” I said.
Surprise registered on his pale face. “Frankie.”
I gently moved his hand away and fastened the rows of brass buttons on his dirty gray coat. There were so many things I wanted to say, but now that our time was cut short, only one mattered.
“I was wrong last night to say I wouldn’t forgive you.” Tears sprang to my eyes unbidden. “I do, Burton. I forgive you. You were just a child, like me. You couldn’t have stopped what your mama and pappy done.”
His throat convulsed, as though he too fought emotions.
A Federal soldier filled the doorway. “Move out.”
Fear, raw and full, came to Burton’s eyes, and I knew I couldn’t let him go without hope. I grasped his coat by the lapels. “You listen to me, Burton Hall. You’re gonna make it. Don’t let that missing arm rob you of the life God has for you. When this war is over, you come on home. You hear me?”
Unshed tears glistened as he nodded.
I let go, and he reached for his haversack. He joined the other men, but before he walked through the doorway, he stopped and faced me.
“Charlotte will be mighty glad to know you’re doing so well, Frankie. She never forgot you.”
And then he was gone.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
My sister and her children moved in with us while I was at work the following day. Boxes, suitcases, and toys littered the foyer and spilled into the living room when I opened the door. If I’d been told it was happening, I couldn’t remember. It was a shock to come home from interviewing an elderly gentleman who lived down the street from Frankie to find the house in bedlam.
