Freedom's Ring Page 2

  I found my voice. “You look great.”

  She smiled at me, revealing white, straight teeth. No braces anymore. “Thanks, so do you.”

  I knew she was being nice. While I’d been severely battered by the bombing, I’d also been fit and trim. Not so much anymore. I hadn’t pulled on a pair of running sneakers since the morning of the marathon. I likely never would again. I could live with these fifteen extra pounds for the rest of my life if I had to. Kind of even liked them—a buffer zone of sorts.

  “Do you want some coffee?”

  I raised my eyebrows, shook my head, and sighed. “I can’t get over how grown-up you are. Sorry, yes. I’d love some coffee.”

  She opened one of the perfectly distressed white cabinet doors and pulled down two mugs. I sat on a barstool and drew a greeting card from my purse. I slid the card along the counter.

  “Happy belated. Sorry it’s late.”

  It was an improvement from last year, anyway, when I sent nothing.

  Her green eyes brightened. “Hey, thanks.” She ripped open the card, moving aside the fifty-dollar bill as she read the greeting. Nothing fancy or personal. I didn’t want her to think I was trying to flatter my way back into her life.

  “Thanks, Auntie.” She placed the card on the counter and came around the island to envelop me in a brief, awkward hug. I was relieved when she went back to the kitchen.

  “How many sugars?” Grace opened one of the Pfaltzgraff containers and spooned a teaspoonful of sugar into one mug.

  “Two please.” I put a hand on my stomach. “Though I’m trying to work down to one and a half. It stays on so much easier these days.”

  Grace smiled and in it I saw she didn’t harbor anything against me. I loved her all the more.

  “So seventeen, huh? Driving yet?”

  “Got my license a few months ago. We’ve been looking for a car. Mom’s freaking.”

  I laughed. “I’ll bet.” I scurried for more meaningless small talk. “How’s school? Any boyfriends?”

  She shook her head. “No on the boyfriends. Good on school. Except for pre-calc. Struggling with that.”

  “I could help you sometime if you want. With calculus, I mean.” I could have knocked my head against my sister’s quartz countertop. Who did I think I was, waltzing into my niece’s life after nearly destroying it, offering to help her with math?

  But nothing seemed to faze Grace. She kept smiling at me, like she was actually glad I came, glad I sat in her kitchen. “I’d like that.”

  The coffee dribbled into the mug, releasing a French-roast scent into the kitchen.

  “So how about you?” Grace switched out the mugs in the Keurig, grabbed cream from the fridge. “Like, what have you been up to? Any boyfriends?” She gave me a sly smile as she placed a cream-colored mug in front of me. I recognized it as one I gave Lydia on her thirtieth birthday. It said Sisters on it in large cursive writing. Around the word in a circular pattern was a collection of words about sisters. I didn’t want to turn the cup and study it with Grace beside me, but I did glimpse one sentence. As friends we have pulled together.

  I was surprised Lydia hadn’t tossed the cup sometime over the last two years.

  “Auntie?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. No—no boyfriends.” Not serious ones, that is. “I relocated, actually. For work. Still with the bank. I’m renting an apartment above a garage in Lexington now. Not too far from here—on Belfry Terrace.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah, I like it. Peaceful, you know?”

  “Try going to high school. There’s nothing peaceful about it.”

  “Thought you said school was good?” I let the heat of the mug seep through to my skin, then sipped the coffee. It slid down my throat, warm and comforting. This felt . . . normal. I hadn’t expected such an easy transition.

  Grace waved a hand through the air. “Oh, it’s fine. Just the usual, I guess. Immature boys; gossiping, shallow girls. I don’t fit in, you know?”

  If someone had told me the day before that Grace would confide in me that she didn’t fit in anywhere, I would have instantly blamed it on the terror attack, on her leg. But sitting here with her now, I knew that’s not what she meant.

  “The bombing made you grow up faster than them.” I stated the sentence with confidence. It wasn’t a question; I saw the evidence before my eyes, in the way Grace handled herself, in the way she received me with such poise and mercy after all these months of silence.

  She shrugged, blinked fast. “I guess so.”

  I reached for her hand, the awkwardness from our previous physical contact now gone. I may have come for myself, but in this moment I could only think of comforting the young woman before me. “I’m so sorry I haven’t called, Grace. I got your letter. It was just—I have no excuses. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not, like, holding any hard feelings—but maybe sometime we could talk about what happened. I mean, you were there through my surgeries, skin grafts, therapy sessions. Then not long after I moved to rehab, you just stopped coming.”

  Like I said, I had no excuses. Still, I opened my mouth to explain myself, but not before Grace squeezed my hand.

  “Not today, Auntie, okay? Today let’s just be happy together.”

  Tension eased from my body. Tears pricked my eyelids at the simple act of grace. “Thank you.” I wiped my trembling lips with a napkin. I couldn’t hold it together much longer in front of her. “Is it okay if I use your bathroom real quick?”

  “Of course. I’ll see if I can scrounge us up some comfort food.”

  I laughed around my tight emotions and started down the hall. Once in the bathroom, I opened the window and allowed the cool air to calm my nerves, as frayed as an overused toothbrush. I wiped the corners of my eyes with a tissue.

  Let’s just be happy together.

  How simple and sweet. I could do this. I could be happy again, couldn’t I?

  If only Lydia would be content with the same.

  I opened the bathroom door and a whoosh of air from the still-open window swept across the threshold and into the living room, across the hall. The pages of a book on top of an end table fluttered and a small card flapped to the ground, swirling like a feather near my feet.

  I turned to close the window before picking up the business card. When I did, my stomach clenched.

  It wasn’t the name on the card. Or even the business, a construction company of some sort. It was the emblem on the card that made my skin grow hot, then cold with goose bumps. My lungs constricted around my thrashing heart.

  I didn’t need to fish the ring from beneath my sweater to know the same crest adorned the signet ring I’d been given almost two years earlier. The anchor, the horn symbol, even the Latin I’d memorized at the top.

  I glanced at the name. Bradford Kilroy.

  “Auntie?”

  “Be right there,” I called.

  I lifted the cover of the Bible the card had fallen from and moved it toward the feather-light pages of the book of Psalms. Just before the sharp edges touched the binding, I drew it back. If I released the card to the clutches of the solid book, I might never see it again. It belonged to me. I knew it. And yet how could that be? Lydia knew I had looked for the man who’d helped me that day. Surely she would have said something in the weeks after the bombing.

  I stared at the emblem, an exact replica of the engraving on the ring. Somehow this card was connected to Red Sox Sweatshirt; I was sure of it. Somehow my sister had played a part in keeping it from me.

  I tucked the card in the back pocket of my jeans and stood in Lydia’s dust-free living room, reluctant to go back into the kitchen so shaken up. I tugged on the chain at my neck, freeing the ring from beneath my sweater. I clutched it in my fist and wound the chain around my pinkie finger.

  I’d read somewhere that ancient Egyptians would adorn themselves in jewelry—particularly gold—believing it imbued them with special powers. Like the Egyptians, I’d often
looked for spiritual influence in the ring—a magical amulet of sorts left by my mysterious savior. And while a part of me felt silly for putting so much stock in an inanimate object, another part panicked at the thought of not having anything solid I could turn to. At least the ring offered me a tangible connection to the supernatural—something to believe in.

  I opened my eyes and slipped the ring back beneath my sweater. I started toward the kitchen, vowing not to let the card’s discovery tarnish my time with Grace. She stood at the counter, shaking popcorn out of a bag and into two bowls.

  I sat at the bar, suddenly desperate for conversation. “So the UK, huh?”

  Her face registered nothing, the bag of popcorn frozen in her hands.

  I fumbled for words. “I talked to your grandmother. . . . She mentioned your dad taking a job. . . .”

  Grace shook her head and placed the popcorn on the counter. “I—I hadn’t heard. I thought—”

  I reached for her hand again, a heaviness in my chest traveling downward. “I’m so sorry. You know your gram. She gets ahead of herself sometimes. She probably—”

  The kitchen door opened. On the threshold stood Lydia, a brown Stop & Shop bag in her hand, her expression one of stone.

  Her gaze took in my presence, saw my hand connected with Grace’s. The bag dipped in her arms. She recovered quickly and placed it on the counter.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy.” She shut the door, tossed her keys in the small basket on the counter.

  I snatched my hand from Grace’s and stood. “Hi, Lydia.”

  “Nice of you to drop by.” She didn’t sound like she thought it was nice. She sounded as if she’d rather have a visit from an angry skunk.

  “I—um, I should have called.”

  Grace stood beside me. “No, Auntie. It’s good you came. Right, Mom?”

  If smoke could have poured from my sister’s ears, the fire alarms would have been going off at the neighbor’s house.

  “No, Grace. Your aunt is right. It would have been better if she’d called.”

  BOSTON

  MARCH 1770

  Just when I thought the mercy of morning might never ascend, faint ribbons of pink light shone through the second-story window of the officers’ house. With it, a burst of something familiar in the core of my being. ’Twas a feeling of long ago. An emotion I no longer deserved or expected.

  I swiped the canopy curtains aside and slid from the warmth of my bed, musing why this foreign sensation of promise should come to me this day. Perhaps it was the longer days, or perhaps something more. A premonition of sorts? My heart thrummed beneath the thin covering of my shift.

  Perhaps today would be the day I finally found James.

  With soundless movements, I washed my face, then threw the water out the window into the gutter. I stood on the rag rug beside the bed and donned my petticoat and gown. I laced my boots with deft fingers, pinned my mobcap to my head, and attempted to blow away the cloud of gray fog that often took up residence in my spirit at day’s dawn.

  I hadn’t a choice. Starve and freeze on the streets while I waited for my younger brother’s ship to come in, or accept the position in the officers’ house. Yes, many labeled me a traitor—many presumed I did more for the captain and the lieutenant than keep a tidy house, and yet what did they know of being seventeen years of age and alone? What did they know of being cold and hungry?

  I left my room and walked first past the lieutenant’s chambers and then the captain’s. My footsteps fell soft on the stairs, and once in the keeping room, I lit the candles. They gave off a cheery light in their copper holders. I fetched fresh wood from the box and laid kindling down on the glowing embers from the night before. Soon small flames licked the wood, sending light to the bunches of dried herbs in the shadows of the rafters overhead. I stood and stretched.

  First order, tea.

  The thought of the “baneful weed,” as the Liberty Boys called it, set my mind to spinning like a child’s toy top. The so-called Americans in the town refused to drink the beverage. Indeed, a boy named Seider had died just days earlier as the result of a fracas in the North End over the matter of importation. I tried not to think much on the herb, to serve it without question. But my conscience forbade me to imbibe any myself.

  Booted footfalls echoed down the stairs, and my traitorous heart quickened as Lieutenant Smythe appeared, his red wool coat and crimson sash over his arm, his hair tied neatly back in a queue. Unlike the captain, who slept until the sun shone brightly over the harbor, the lieutenant fancied his early starts.

  I would not flatter myself by assuming he fancied my company as well.

  The lieutenant nodded to me and hung his attire on one of the straight-backed cherry chairs. “How do you do, Miss Liberty?”

  I placed a bowl of preserves and biscuits on the table, conscious of his gaze upon me. “Well, thank you.”

  He sat, but I did not miss his grimace, the way he held his hand to his cheek.

  “Mayhap simply some tea this morning, sir?”

  He removed his hand from his face. “Yes, that would do me well, thank you.”

  I did not wish to pry, and yet seeing a person in pain stirred up an irrepressible urge in me to heal. One of many ways I took after our grandmother, James had always said.

  “I could journey to the apothecary today, sir. I am low on herbs, but I think a powder of cloves may help your tooth.”

  The corners of his mouth pulled into a smile, and I noted the indent on his left cheek, a charming addition to his well-formed face. “I did not mean to be so obvious.”

  I dipped my head. “I would like to think I am simply perceptive to one’s pain.”

  He laughed, a soft sound in the still-quiet house. “That sounds agreeable to me.”

  I shaved the tea brick into the lieutenant’s tin cup, the heat from the stove warming my back. I scooped a teaspoonful of sugar and covered the herbs with hot water from the pewter pot before bringing it to the table.

  When I placed the cup before the lieutenant, he took it, and my fingers brushed against the warm metal of the signet ring he wore, its bonny brilliance of gold and bloodstone playing with the light of the candles.

  I snatched my hand away, tried to censor my reaction to the subtle scent of cedar and soap that belonged to him. It reminded me of my first night in Boston, when I met the lieutenant. How he shielded me with his cape after those horrid boys had tried to take my innocence in a dark alley. How he had threatened to have them hanged on the Common. And how, when he learned I had no home or family to be found, he’d taken me to the officers’ house, offered me my own bed. The next morning he rescinded his employment advertisement at the Royal Coffeehouse and offered me the position of housekeeper.

  I was a foolish girl to allow myself to fall in love with one of the king’s men. James would disown me if he ever found out.

  He wouldn’t, of course. I would see to that.

  “Thank you.” The lieutenant raised the cup to his lips, took a sip of his tea, then placed it upon the wood-plank table.

  I turned to tend the fire.

  He cleared his throat. “Miss Liberty, I was wondering if you enjoy poetry?”

  “I—poetry, sir?”

  “Yes. My little sister was quite taken with it back in England. . . .”

  I attempted to push flustered words forth. None came. No matter how I tried to see this red-coated man as a monster, as my brother’s letters claimed all Regular soldiers to be, I could not manage it here, beside the lieutenant, as he revealed fresh bits and pieces of himself to me with each new rising sun. Part of me wished to know nothing of him and his life back in England. Another, more rebellious part wished to know every nuance and detail of the man—far from a monster—before me.

  “I have not had opportunity to read much poetry, sir.” Did I imagine it, or did his face register disappointment? I wished nothing more than to fix it. “Yet I think I should like to.”

  His face brightened, and
he stood, drawing a small book from the red coat behind him. “I thought of you when I saw this at Henry Knox’s bookshop.” He shook his head, seemed to fumble for words, then held the book out to me. “It is yours, if you’d like.”

  I took the book, my fingers hesitant. I had never received such a valuable gift. The cover read, Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions by Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of Winchilsea.

  “I hope it is not too presumptuous of me, but I noticed you’ve taken a liking to the Chronicle, and if it is not too bold of me to say, I saw your interest in The Odyssey on my nightstand as well.”

  I fought the blush creeping up my neck. I thought I’d been discreet when polishing the furniture in his room. “My father taught me to read when I was a girl.” I whispered the words, the book of poems still held in midair.

  The lieutenant pressed the book into my hands and then released it. “He must have thought much of you.”

  He had. I ached for my brother all over again at the thought of my doting father, dead beneath the smallpox flag more than a decade ago.

  “It is my hope that you enjoy it. And if you wish, The Odyssey is yours to borrow as you please.”

  I gathered myself, hugged the book to my chest. “Thank you, Lieutenant. It is indeed a thoughtful gift.”

  He gave a slight nod before returning to his tea.

  At the sound of the captain’s boots on the stairs, I slipped the book into the pocket of my dress and continued shaving herbs from the block. The captain greeted the lieutenant, then pushed himself behind me to get to his seat. I felt the scratchy red wool of his coat against my sleeve.

  “Good morning.” He leaned over, his nose touching my mobcap, the cloying scent of pipe smoke nearly smothering my breath. And then, as quick as he’d pressed against me, he was gone.

  More and more often, he’d made a habit of familiarity with me. I hadn’t much experience with the stronger sex and wondered if I perhaps thought too much of his seemingly friendly manner. Still, I fought the remnant of a chill pulsating through my body at his closeness.

  When I turned, the lieutenant’s jaw was clenched. I bade myself remember the cloves for his tooth as I went about my day.