The Face of Heaven (51 page)

Lyndel sat with the women that Good Friday, the twins quiet in her lap, and thought how the Amish hymns that dwelt on suffering and persecution suited Good Friday with their slow and darkly winding words. Many times she sang and many times she closed her eyes and listened to the others talk to God in the shadow of the Cross. When they walked home from her parents’ house, the home where she had grown up, one part of the sky was completely black while the other flashed with stars.

She had found it difficult to sleep the first nights back: Corinth and Lincoln insisted on lying on either side of her and they kicked and squirmed from dusk to dawn…a bed felt strange to her as did everything about the house and the Amish farming community…the shock and carnage of battle followed her into the night and into the corners of her room. But after the slowly moving river of singing on Friday she slept with the children as if blessed while Nathaniel lay on the narrow strip of bed and quilt that was left to him.

The knocking at the door of their house made her open her eyes. The children did not stir but Nathaniel was no longer at her side. She could see light beyond the shade of the window and wondered what time it was. Certainly past six or seven. She wished Nathaniel would stop letting her sleep in. It was time to get back into the daily routine of an Amish wife and mother, and that meant getting up at five or five thirty.

She heard her husband’s voice thanking someone at the door. A horse cantered out of their yard and out along the road. The floorboards creaked as Nathaniel took a few steps and stopped. There was a rustle of paper. Silence.

He opened the bedroom door. There was a telegram in his hand. She thought he seemed pale and decided it was the dimness of the room. But his face was like stone.

“What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“We have a cable from Hiram.”

“Hiram? Is Davey all right? Is it about the wedding?” She sat up. “They’re still going ahead with it, aren’t they? Next week? I fear the twins will have to travel with us, they won’t be parted from me again.”

“The president’s been shot.”

Cold pierced through Lyndel’s head and chest. “What? Shot? How could he be shot?” It felt as if a knife had gone into her throat. “They must get the surgeons. Stop the bleeding. Where was he hit? In the leg? In the arm? Someone must apply a tourniquet—”

“He was shot in the back of the head last night.” Nathaniel’s eyes were large and dark. “His heart stopped beating an hour ago, Lyndel. He’s dead.”

32

L
yndel stepped from the train and stood on the platform at Elizabethtown. People brushed past her to greet family and friends. A boy was selling newspapers and hollering at the top of his lungs.

“The Sunday edition for April 23rd, 1865! Lincoln’s funeral train arrives in Harrisburg on Saturday! Moves on to Philadelphia! Lincoln placed in the east wing of Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed! Double line of mourners three miles long! Get your copy! This is history, folks!”

A lineup formed in front of him. Men and women had their coins ready. Lyndel stepped off the platform and looked toward the roadway. The sun was bright and she felt the warmth in her black dress.

“Lyndy!”

She turned. Nathaniel smiled and put his arm around her and hugged her tightly.

“How I missed you—even three days is too long! How we all missed you!”

She touched his face. “And I all of you. How are the children? How are you, my darling?”

“I’m well. Lincoln and Corinth have baked you a surprise cake with the help of half the Amish in Lancaster County. And, of course, their cousin, Levi’s boy.”

Lyndel laughed. “Nathaniel, all three are only a year old. What could they possibly do in the baking of a cake?”

“You can ask them—if you are able to understand their mix of
words and half-words you are better off than I am. However, the twins have an even bigger surprise than a cake.”

“Oh, what could my sweet babes do that would be an even bigger surprise than a cake they baked?”

“Come home and you’ll see.”

She leaned against him. “Yes, please, take me home.”

Good Boy pulled the carriage along the dirt road to the Amish farms. Lyndel rested her head against Nathaniel’s right shoulder where the armless sleeve of his black coat had been pinned up. She closed her eyes a few minutes and listened to the hooves and wheels and the creak of the carriage. Finally she sat up.

“I want to tell you about the funeral procession,” she said.

“I should like to hear about that.”

“Not everything. Just what I think would have affected you the most.”

“All right.”

“The day was sunny—like today. African troops were at the front. After that came the funeral car and a horse without a rider. Those of us who wished marched behind.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. And the most amazing thing happened. Soldiers poured out of the Washington hospitals and joined the procession. Nathaniel, they were all around me—still with bandages, some getting along as best they could on their crutches—several wore the black hats and uniforms of the Iron Brigade.”

“No.”

She smiled. “You would have been proud of them. How tall they looked. How brave.”

A certain light came into his green eyes as she told him this. It was a light she didn’t see often. Leaning forward she patted his knee.

“You knew the Iron Brigade was the honor guard.”

His face lit up. “I didn’t know that.”

“And something else.”

“What?”

“As I walked, hundreds—oh, no, thousands—of citizens, black
citizens, formed just ahead of me. They were in lines of forty from curb to curb—one hundred lines! They wore suits and tall black-silk hats and white gloves. They were holding hands as they marched.”

“Thanks be to God.”

“They laid him in the rotunda of the Capitol. I waited in line and paid my respects—our respects. I prayed.”

“
Gut
.”

“I saw General Grant. And Lincoln’s son Robert.”

“How was…how was Lincoln’s face?”

Lyndel brushed at her eyes. “Ah. He almost could have sat up and asked me how our family was. The same weariness. The same sadness. Very hard to see.”

“But you’re still glad you went.”

“Yes, of course. And I believe his face is brighter now, Nathaniel. That he knows the joy that eluded him here.”

“Amen to that.”

They rounded a bend and the farms were suddenly very close. She could see people milling about in front of their house.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A homecoming.”

“A homecoming? Nathaniel, I was only away three days.”

“But it’s also your birthday.”

“Not until later in the week.”

He shrugged and grinned. “Two birds with one stone.”

She put her hand on the one arm left to him. “Slow down.”

“What?”

“You must slow down so you can read something before we reach the house.”

“Surely it can wait.”

“No.”

His left hand tightened on the reins. “Whoa then, Boy, whoa up, take it easy.” Once the horse had slowed he looked at Lyndel. “So what is this thing that is so important I must read it immediately?”

She handed him an envelope she had already opened. It was addressed to them. He frowned as he looked down at it, examining it
intently. “So this…this looks the same as the handwriting on the pass you took to Antietam.”

“There is a reason for that.”

He glanced at her then drew the letter from the envelope.

“That is...a great honor,” said Nathaniel huskily, returning letter and envelope to Lyndel. “That goes in the family Bible.”

“Thank you. I also think that is where we must place it.”

“God bless the man.”

She bowed her head a moment and nodded. “It was never mailed because of his death. Grant was asked to deliver the letter since he knew me from Petersburg.”

“He gave it to you before the funeral?”

“
Ja
. Just hours before.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He thanked me again for my nursing work at Petersburg. He also said the day of Lincoln’s funeral was the saddest of his life.”

Nathaniel thought for a few moments. “
Ja,
” he finally said.

Then he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “So. And now are you ready for your birthday party, old woman?”

She laughed. “Charge ahead. I am anxious to see what little Corinth and Lincoln have in store. You have piqued my curiosity, Nathaniel King.”

“You won’t have long to wait. Hey-yup, Boy, hey-yo!”

Good Boy surged ahead and brought them to the house and a yard overflowing with people in plain dresses and suits. There stood her
father and mother and Nathaniel’s as well. There was her brother Levi with his wife, Mary Yoder—now Mary Keim—Levi moving so vigorously when he tussled with his son, Nip, that no one could believe he had a wooden leg. Beside him was Ham, baptized into the Amish faith as Jacob, married to Lydia Fischer, and sporting a full beard that providentially masked the battle scars from Seminary Ridge on his jaw and throat. Joshua was close by with his crutches and the shining black Zook boots that came up to his knees. He pointed to a large white cake that took up most of a long table. Corinth and Lincoln shrieked and turned toward her.

Lyndel gasped. “They’re on their feet!”

Both had been in their grandmothers’ arms when Lyndel had left, both still crawling on the floor of the house and the grass in the yard. Now they stumbled and toddled toward their mother. Lyndel put her hands to her mouth.

“Oh, my heavens, Corinth King! Lincoln King! What a wonderful birthday present for your mother!”

“Lincoln started the day after you left,” said Nathaniel. “Corinth walked the day after she did.”

Lyndel jumped from the carriage, let her son and daughter fall down, one after the other, get up, and finally fall into her arms.

“Ma,” said Corinth happily.