Breakdowns

Chapter 16

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By his side at the kitchen table watching his hands use his tools, observing his calm and confidence Sarah was impressed, and liked him. She’d only known farmers in her life. Loved her farmer husband Joe, competent and smart a man as could be, but in the doctor she saw something different. She was curious how he was independent of the land. He only carried a small leather roll of tools, and didn’t need three hundred acres to make a living.

His family’s home in Ohio was an underground railroad station, and as a boy he helped dig the secret cellar where the slaves hid. He told her the feeling when the knocks came in the night, and showed her the disc of oyster shell, white as the moon, given him by a young woman who stayed one night.

Told ya it was bad, said the signal man. Cut it off didn’t he?

Sarah covered Arthur with the blanket. She let her head fall on the doctor’s shoulder.

Guess it ain’t all bad, huh. When they next looked he was asleep. The shred of red fabric fell out of his hand.

I wish he wasn’t up there, said the doctor. I don’t know how to get him down, replied Sarah.

Come to my tent and we’ll have a drink of whiskey. It’s almost midnight, she said, Well then, let’s not wait.

She’d never been in an army tent with a man. She never drank whiskey. She’d only known Joe to drink coffee, and he’d told her when he was twelve he and his brother got into a gallon of their father’s homebrew and threw up for a day and if that’s what beer did to you he didn’t care for it.

This is Irish whiskey, said the doctor. She sat in the folding chair and he sat on the edge of his cot. He gave her the crystal glass from Dublin, and poured his into a wood measuring cup.

Is Irish whiskey a good thing?

Very good, he said.

Oh my, she said, grimacing at the whiskey bitter. Oh, well.

It takes getting used to.

Yes it does. She turned the glass round and round in her hands, pressing her fingers into the grooves. She admired how the glass sparkled in the lamplight.

Seems like the worst is over. It was slower today.

The confederates have gone back across the river. We all need a breather.

They both sipped from a second glass, sat quiet, and listened to the darkness outside the tent.

Both knew from then on nights would never be the same for the rest of their lives, and for the lives beyond theirs, and beyond forever. Because right then the wounded moaned through the dreamland of opium, and the war was rending the fabric of America into pieces that would never go back together. They knew it and they didn’t know it, because the old world was inside out, and what was next was anybody’s guess.

You can call me Frank, said the doctor, I should have said that before.

Frank, she said, I’ve never been drunk but I think that’s what I am now. And there’s a lonely owl.

No, that’s my loneliness you’re hearing, Sarah.

Oh, she said, I’m sorry to intrude.

You didn’t intrude.

You are a long way from home.

Everybody is.

Well I’m not. Or am I? With Joe and the boys gone.

What was that? They both heard the dull thump from the barn. But there was no way to know it was the signal man hitting the barn floor. They didn’t go then, to see, and it wouldn’t have mattered if they did.

A gasp escaped Frank’s throat. He dropped the wood cup, and pitched his head into his hands. The force in his shuddering shoulders startled her, and at first she pulled back, but then came close with an arm across his back.

I’m sorry, he said, I never imagined this Sarah. I’m sorry about your family.

And you Frank, have been cutting men into pieces for three days.

She took his long sure fingers between her hands. That’s one way to put it, he said.

I’ve been watching your hands at work, she said. They keep my mind off the rest of it. And now I know for sure I am drunk.

She handed him her glass and fell back on the cot.

Frank finished Sarah’s whiskey, pulled the blankets over her, and lay down on the ground.

Nell went back and forth between Swane and Alice through the evening. Her body touching Alice soothed the wounded woman, who seemed to be healing. Something of a miracle.

Swane, on the other hand, was feverish, his shoulder red and on fire.

I don’t like Antietam in the hands of the men, Nell. They’re dirty, and who knows.

Who knows what?

What might happen.

She is good medicine for them. They’re good to her.

This is no place for a young one Nell. You know that.

Well just where is a place for her in this stupid war Jimmy Swane, huh?

This was your idea Nell.

Don’t tell me this fucking war was my idea Swane. It’s you men have turned the world upside down again.

Nell.

And don’t fucking Nell me either.

She picked up the child in the basket and went into Alice’s room and closed the door.

Are you awake?

I just took some pills.

Come on Alice, one is enough.

Not for me it isn’t. My boy’s gone. How could a boy survive that?

It hasn’t been that long. You can’t give up.

I killed a man in that cornfield Nell. I shot him, and then his friend ran his bayonet into me.

Do you think I should take Antietam away from here, Alice?

But Alice was asleep. The house was asleep. Almost. Someone moved through the kitchen. Stephen, the night watchman? Nell crushed an opium pill, licked her little finger and pressed it into the powder. Slipped her pinkie inside Antietam’s lips. It was the best way she knew to get a night’s sleep.

In the morning there was a letter on the table addressed to Sarah. The return address was A. Lincoln.