The Last April Read online

  Alina clapped her hands together. “It was magical! We put it on our mantle. Does it look nice?” She gestured at the fireplace opposite the stove.

  “Your mantle?” Gretchen said. “How dare you—”

  “How do you mean, magical?” Tante Klegg said, interrupting Gretchen. “I have never been. I would like to know everything.” She walked over to the mantle and studied the photo.

  Karl followed. They had taken one photo and framed it in gold gilt. They had not paid for any sort of coloring. It was a tintype on reflective metal, the cheapest option. Werner sat on a plush, high-backed chair. Alina stood beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder and hiding his missing arm behind her skirts. He looked stern, she looked shy. It was a perfect composition.

  “This is fine work,” Karl said.

  “No one asked you,” Werner said.

  Gretchen plopped into the remaining open chair at the table. Adelaide glowered at her.

  Alina described how the photographer put Werner in the chair out of respect for a war veteran. How she stood beside him, in such a way so her skirts would mask his…delicacy.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Werner said. “No amount of skirts is going to hide my lost arm.”

  “Werner, my child, your wife says these things to be kind to you,” Adelaide said.

  “Who asked her to be kind to me?” Werner said. “I don’t need kindness, I need my arm.”

  “I’m your wife,” Alina whispered. She stared into her lap. “Are you not happy that we married?”

  Werner closed his eyes. “Of course I—look, I wrote that when I was a child, before all this happened. It’s not that I don’t want to be your husband, but I never thought it would be like this.”

  Gretchen frowned. “How old was that letter, Alina?”

  Alina blanched.

  Gretchen stood and placed her palms on the table as she leaned closer. “How old was that letter?”

  Alina cleared her throat. “Three years?”

  Tante Klegg choked on her coffee. Adelaide’s saucer crashed to the floor. It took every ounce of willpower for Gretchen to resist throwing herself across the table at Alina’s jaw. Karl grabbed her elbow, dragging her from the table.

  “And how much of that letter was real?” Gretchen demanded. “Did Werner write that he wanted a double wedding or not?”

  Werner glared at Alina, but she would not look up from her lap. “Linnie,” he said, his tone patronizing. “Did you falsify my letter?”

  Alina shook her head. “I added to it.”

  Werner’s mouth gaped open.

  “My cousin’s wife is a gifted artist, isn’t she, Tante Miller?” Gretchen cast a sarcastic look at Adelaide. “She can mimic handwriting, it seems, so no one can tell the difference. Such a trustworthy girl to bring into this saint-like family of ours.” Gretchen laughed. “Never fear, Alina. You belong.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Alina said. “Hiding a Confederate in this house! Letting me think you were going to marry him!”

  “Who said anything about him being a Confederate?” Gretchen said.

  “I am not the fool you take me for,” Alina screamed. “Do you think I cannot hear his accent?”

  “Who said anything about Gretchen marrying anyone?” Werner said.

  “You did, in your stupid letter,” Gretchen breathed. Her corset was fighting her again. “You wanted to have a silly double wedding.”

  “I wrote no such thing,” Werner said.

  Thirty

  Saturday, 29 April 1865 / Columbus, Ohio

  “I never meant to marry Karl,” Gretchen said. She had to say this. She had to protect Karl. She knew that look on Werner’s face. Someone had to pay for making him feel this way and Karl was just too convenient. “I wanted to help him. I had hoped some southerner would do the same for my brother.”

  Gretchen wiped her hand down her face. “But I guess it was all for nothing. Werner isn’t my brother. Look at him—he doesn’t want my help or anyone else’s; he’s all-fired mad about his arm. And Karl, here! He went along with Alina’s dumb idea to make him my verlobter.”

  “Explains why she’s so mad,” Karl said. “Caught in her own lies. Can’t feel too good.”

  Werner stared at Alina as if he did not know her. Alina stared back, defiant.

  “I was the one who said Karl should be your verlobter,” Tante Klegg corrected. “Alina’s letter was… convenient to hide Karl’s identity.”

  “My name’s Elias, not Karl,” he said.

  Gretchen snorted. “No one here is who they said they were.”

  Karl crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. “I’m the only one in this room who hasn’t lied to you. Don’t take your anger out on me.”

  “All right then,” Gretchen said, “Elias.”

  “Must you have to ruin this day?” Adelaide said. “This day on which we celebrate my son’s wedding?”

  “You thought today was going to be about Werner, on the day when the president’s body came to town?” Gretchen countered, glaring at her. “You thought you could celebrate on a day of statewide mourning? Tante Klegg was right. I’m nothing like you. And I’m glad.”

  Adelaide turned away.

  “This never would have happened if you’d gotten married,” Alina said. “You’d be out of this house and out of our hair. Damn your little Confederate for ruining everything!”

  “Hey now,” Karl, that is, Elias, said. He made sure to look everyone in the eye before continuing. “Can we get one thing clear here? Y’all didn’t need my help ruining things. You’d have gotten there one way or another. Now, I marched with the Confederate army to help take photos of the war, but they captured me while on leave.”

  Werner stared at Elias, his entire body trembling. His eyes about popped out of their sockets, he was so mad that Elias dared speak to him.

  “But I ain’t a Confederate because I can’t be,” Elias continued. He turned to Gretchen now, seeking her full attention. “To get released from Camp Chase, I had to take an oath of allegiance to the Union. Like it or not, I may have been on the wrong side once, but I’m one of you now so stop your fussing.”

  There was a long, glorious moment of stunned silence.

  Gretchen burst into laughter. Everyone stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

  “All this time,” she wheezed, “we thought… I thought we had Mr. Lincoln’s murderer in our house. We thought we had a Confederate in our house. Two weeks of running around afraid the Union army would descend on our farm. And none of it was true!”

  Adelaide straightened her shoulders. “You can say whatever you want in your pretty little accent to my niece,” she said to Elias. “We are not stupid. To take those photographs, you had to pledge allegiance to someone. It was not Mr. Lincoln, and it was not the stars and stripes.”

  Elias’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious? I remember who I am. Why don’t you believe me? I’m a United States citizen now!”

  Adelaide’s chin lifted. She lifted the fork from the table and stirred Werner’s potatoes to warm them a little. Werner smirked.

  “My name’s Elias Jones. I was a photographer’s assistant and colorist, and yes, I worked for a man loyal to the Confederacy. But what was the Confederacy to me? Second son of a poor farmer who wasn’t going to benefit anyway.” Elias scratched the bandage covering his temple. “Can’t go back home. They’ll kill me.” He turned to Gretchen. “What do you think they were trying to do when they handed me off to those soldiers?”

  “But you still have all your limbs, don’t you?” Werner said. He wiggled the stump that was his right arm.

  His mother whimpered and looked away. Alina’s hand with the fork wavered, then kept stirring.

  “I want to know why,” Gretchen said to Alina between gasps. “Why add to Werner’s letter?”

  “Shut up, Gretchen,” Werner said, aiming the revolver at Elias.

  Gretchen ground her teeth together when Elias’s hand made her stay put. Not
that she fancied facing the mean end of a revolver, but she hated seeing it dance in Elias’s face like that.

  “You want to know why?” Alina said. “Because you are willful.”

  Tante Klegg inhaled.

  “Mama warned me. She said I could not marry into a family with a girl who could not be corrected. It would bring our family down. I have younger sisters. There aren’t many men anymore, Gretchen! I can’t do that to my sisters. And I love Werner so much! More than you ever did. I had to stop you, make you settle down and marry.”

  Gretchen stared at Alina, seeing her for the first time. Her simpering smile hid hard, calculating eyes that studied Gretchen’s every move.

  “I guess I should give you more credit,” Gretchen said. “I never thought the pastor’s daughter could be so manipulative.”

  “Get out,” Werner whispered. He raised his voice. “Get out of my house.” He aimed at Elias. “Get out of my sight!”

  Gretchen knew there were a great many stupid ideas that she had had in her short life. Still, she figured stepping in front of her cousin’s revolver to protect a Confederate had to be the most stupid. Not that it stopped her. She held her arms out and planted her feet wider than hips-width apart.

  “Don’t you dare shoot my prisoner,” Gretchen said.

  Thirty-One

  Saturday, 29 April 1865 / Columbus, Ohio

  Elias cleared his throat to grab Gretchen’s attention. He tilted his head, glaring at her. This was not the time to fly off the handle. She did not have a revolver to make Werner see reason.

  “You’re nothing but a dirty Copperhead,” Werner said. “You’re not my sister, and I don’t want you as my cousin. I want you out of my house. You will not spend another night under the same roof as my wife.”

  Gretchen fell back. Her face stung as if he had slapped her with all his might. She was not a Copperhead. She was against the Confederacy and all it stood for. She hated the Confederates for breaking up the Union. She hated the Confederates for breaking up her family. She hated the Confederates for breaking her cousin.

  Gretchen looked at Elias, who nodded at her. Tante Klegg grunted and stepped back. Gretchen did not think too hard about it. She launched herself at Werner. Elias was close behind. The screams of his wife and mother almost drowned out the explosion of the revolver firing. The lead ball went through the slatted ceiling as Werner landed on the puncheon floor with a hard thud.

  Werner grunted when Gretchen shifted her weight so most of it was on him. This was difficult because her hoop skirt had popped up when she threw herself to the ground. She managed to keep Werner still so Elias could wrestle the revolver from him.

  “Will you shut up?” Gretchen shouted at Adelaide and Alina.

  Alina complied, whimpering and wringing her hands together. Adelaide stopped screaming, but the words she said instead would have made a hardened soldier blush.

  Tante Klegg considered the dramatic scene. She held Werner’s bedroom door open and waved inside.

  “You help them?” Adelaide said.

  “Your son did not abide by his promise,” Tante Klegg replied. “He said we had until Monday. Yet he waves a weapon in our face on Saturday when we should all be reflecting on the state of our nation.”

  “Is this the son you’ve pined for, Mama Miller?” Gretchen said, sitting on a wriggling Werner. “A son who left the war because he grew tired of it? A son who threatens unarmed women because of a temper tantrum?”

  Adelaide glared at her.

  Gretchen punched Werner hard in his side. He groaned and tried to curl into a fetal position, but could not because Gretchen still sat on him. Elias pointed the revolver at his head.

  “How do you think life will be like with this person?” Gretchen asked Adelaide. “Do you think his return is worth all those years of being cruel to me?”

  “He is my son,” she said. “You cannot understand.”

  Tante Klegg reached into the bedroom to retrieve the rope that once held the door shut at night. With Elias maintaining a lock on Werner, Tante Klegg helped Gretchen tie Werner’s hand to his ankles.

  “You would hogtie your own cousin?” Alina whimpered.

  “Oh, stop it, Alina,” Gretchen said. “How can you be so naïve to marry a man without waiting to see how the war changed him?”

  Alina scowled. “You think you are so smart,” she said. “I am a wife now. I am important to society. You are a nuisance.” She lifted her skirts and joined Adelaide by Werner’s bedroom door.

  Elias tucked the revolver in the back of his pants to help Gretchen and Tante Klegg haul Werner off the floor. It was not difficult to do with Werner’s malnourished weight. Gretchen and Tante Klegg shouldered Werner. Elias trained the revolver on Alina and Adelaide.

  “If you please,” Elias said in his nicest voice, gesturing in the direction of Werner’s bedroom with a little bow.

  Alina and Adelaide sat on Werner’s bed and watched Gretchen and Tante Klegg dump Werner on the floor in front of them. They said nothing as Gretchen and Tante Klegg backed out of the room, Elias guarding them the entire way.

  Tante Klegg shut the door. They heard a loud shuffling noise followed by a startling thump against the door.

  “He’s trying to kick his way through,” Gretchen said.

  The door began to shudder. Werner was making progress, and he screamed his fury. Gretchen could only imagine what it was like on the other side—Alina and Adelaide cowering on the bed, her hogtied cousin kicking his way to insanity.

  The hinges began to rattle. Elias leapt to hold the door in place. Tante Klegg ran from the room.

  “Now Gretchen,” Elias grunted, “I know I’ve only known you a little while. But it’s been a busy two weeks. And I know that you think this is your home, but it’s becoming mighty clear that it’s not.”

  Gretchen rolled her eyes. She braced the door to help him. “Now what makes you think that?”

  Elias cleared his throat and raised his voice over Werner’s shouts and kicks. “I don’t know what you think, but we get along all right.”

  Gretchen’s eyes narrowed.

  “Uh… it wouldn’t be so bad to do as your aunt—your ma—” Elias stumbled to correct himself under Gretchen’s suspicious glare. “Anyway, maybe you’d consider marrying me.”

  “What?” Werner shrieked through the door.

  “Maybe we’d drive each other nuts. Maybe we’d be good companions. Don’t know for sure either way,” Elias rushed.

  Tante Klegg walked between them with a hammer and pounded at a hinge, mangling it. She acted as if Elias and Gretchen were not staring each other down.

  “Could we talk about this some other time?” Gretchen said through gritted teeth.

  Tante Klegg bent, hammering and mangling another hinge.

  “All you got is your ma and me. And I ain’t got nobody but you two. So it’s up to you. Not going to make you make up your mind now—”

  “Generous of you,” Gretchen said.

  “But I wanted to put it out there that I’m not opposed to marrying if you’re not.”

  Gretchen closed her eyes and waited for Tante Klegg to finish the third hinge. When the room fell quiet, she said, “You think this is the best time to be talking like this? We locked my family—wekidnapped my family—in a bedroom and you decide now’s the time to propose?”

  Tante Klegg snickered, took one look at Gretchen, and walked back outside to the barn. “I will get the wagon ready,” she called over her shoulder.

  Elias shrugged. “Didn’t seem any other time to do it.”

  Gretchen crossed her arms over her chest.

  “We do it now or we’re spending our days with your ma—yes, your ma, Gretchen. She’ll be chaperoning us as if we’re courting when we’re on the run and that… seems odd. To me.”

  Gretchen’s nostrils flared, and her eyes flashed.

  “You have to admit it don’t ever seem to be a good time for anything, so I figured I might as well just ask.”


  “Unbelievable,” was her reply. Gretchen stomped up the stairs to her attic bedroom with Elias staring after her.

  Werner began kicking against the door again with more fervor. Elias watched the door shake.

  Gretchen stumbled down the stairs, having thrown everything she owned in a carpetbag. “Come on,” she said. “You got one thing right. We’re not staying here anymore.”

  Thirty-Two

  Saturday, 29 April 1865 / Columbus, Ohio

  Gretchen threw supplies at Elias, and he threw them into the wagon amidst Werner’s screams. Gretchen avoided looking at him, so Elias had to duck under a flying bag of flour and dive to catch a packet of bacon. He stumbled under the force of Gretchen’s carpetbag shoved into his arms. “Hey now.”

  She ran to the barn and back, dodging Tante Klegg guiding the horse as she carried Elias’s haversack. She tossed it atop the carpetbag, which he had placed in the wagon. “Your things.”

  Elias pulled the drawstring open with shaking hands. So much had happened since last opening the haversack. He had assumed she had burned it with his ratty prison clothes.

  It was hard to believe he had left Camp Chase only a couple of weeks ago. Fresh water filled the canteen; Gretchen must have filled it. The jar of pickled onions remained unopened. He rubbed the haversack’s canvas fabric between his fingers and felt a sharp edge. He turned it inside out to find a small metal daguerreotype of a man, woman, and two boys. He ran his thumb over the face most like his.

  He would never know who had saved him from the prison. He would never know why that person had decided to be his godsend. Elias looked up from the knapsack to find Gretchen watching him.

  “You know,” Elias mused, “before the war, people said, ‘The United States are.’ ”

  Gretchen crossed her arms.

  Tante Klegg harnessed the horse to the wagon. She clucked, shaking her head at the shaking house. “The time for speaking is over. We must leave now.” She climbed onto the wagon and tied her bonnet strings.