Widow of Gettysburg Read Free Page B

Union, even though it meant taking a break from his studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg to do it.
I want to fight while I have the chance
, he had told her.
The war will be over before you know it, Libbie, and I have to do my part.
They married first, right after she had come out of mourning for Aunt Helen. It had seemed like perfect timing, and a dream come true for the orphan girl. A family of her own. A new beginning.
    But I barely knew him.
She was seventeen when they married, a mere child. They knew nothing, absolutely nothing. They believed he would be fine, would come back and finish his schooling and take over the Holloway Farm, and they’d have the rest of their lives to discover exactly what it was they loved about each other. The thought of his possible death was only fleeting. The idea that he may be wounded—woundedbeyond recognition and yet still alive—never occurred to either one of them. Her mind reeled back to the day she learned the news.
    She had not responded well.
    Struggling to bridle her memories so they would not run away with her again, Libbie sat on the edge of her bed and absentmindedly traced with her finger the pattern of the colorful patchwork quilt that covered it. Her first. She smiled wistfully as the last two years flashed through her mind. When other girls her age were having fun together and being courted by their beaus, Liberty Holloway was home, forced into the social isolation of widowhood, learning to quilt and preserve the harvest she grew with her hired hand.
    Not that it was that different from before
… As an orphan living with a spinster in a community of large families, Libbie had always been an oddity, a curiosity, but never really a friend. Levi’s death had merely changed the reason for her solitude. She went from being Libbie the Orphan to Libbie the Widowed Bride.
    But that was two years ago.
There’s so much more to life than death.
Levi would have agreed. He had told her, in his one passing moment of gravity, that if he died, he would be happy knowing he had died in the service of his country. That he wanted her to find a way to be happy, too.
    Maybe it was time, at long last, to try.
    Kneeling on the rag rug at the end of her bed, Libbie pried up a loose floorboard, dug out the key she placed there nearly two years ago, and unlocked the cedar chest in front of her. The smell of a sunbaked forest greeted her as she lifted the lid, and she inhaled deeply. Slowly at first, and then like a child on Christmas morning, she lifted out dress after dress that she hadn’t seen since those first bewildering months of the war. They were simple, practical, made by her own hand. But they weren’t black, and some of them were even pretty.
    Liberty’s eyes misted over, and suddenly, she couldn’t get her black crepe off fast enough. After unfastening the fabric-covered buttons she could reach, she cast her mourning into a rusty black puddle on the floor and stepped into the blue muslin, perfect for a summer day.

    “What are you doing?”
    Libbie jumped at the sound of Bella’s voice from the hallway. Nervous laughter trickled from her lips at the sight of her standing there with two horses in tow, smelling of damp earth and hay. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. I was on my way to get you. The danger has passed, we’re alone again.”
    Bella’s velvety brown eyes widened as she looked at the discarded mourning dress and back to Liberty. “Those mourning clothes were your protection, Miss Liberty. No man, no matter how roguish, would try to take advantage of a woman in mourning.”
    Liberty set her lips in a thin line. For hired help, Bella certainly could be outspoken. “Am I not free to make my own decision?” She shook the ring off her finger and into the jewelry box on her bureau. “It’s been long enough. Now fasten me up, please.”
    Bella’s brow creased, but she obeyed. “I don’t think your mama would approve.” It was barely a