Michaela was dead tired. She and her father had put in a hard day. Their patient load had increased ever so slightly due to wounded soldiers returned home and the doctors away, serving in the army.
She heard a carriage and hoped it wasn't company. She didn't feel up to socializing tonight. She looked out the window and saw that it was David's parents.
His mother had been crying from the look of her blotchy face and she leaned into her husband as if she couldn't walk without his support. He looked as if he were barely keeping it together himself, his steps slow but determined. And she knew.
"Oh, God, no." Maybe he had just been captured or was only very sick. He couldn't be dead. Not her David.
She beat the servants to the door. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Her own parents had come into the room.
"Don't be rude, Michaela," her mother chastised. "Let them in first."
She noticed the telegram in Mr. Lewis' hand and resisted the urge to take it from him as they walked by.
Fortunately, he didn't keep her waiting once inside. "We just received this telegram from his commanding officer. He was killed at Bull Run. They're shipping his remains to us by train."
The world seemed to stand still for a few seconds. Then it felt as if her heart shattered into a million pieces. It couldn't be. Tears began to flow freely. "Please, can I read it?"
He willingly handed it over. But she couldn't get past "I regret to inform you." She eventually handed it back.
"Come in and sit down. I'll have Martha bring some tea," Elizabeth said, her voice now full of sympathy.
"Yes, please do," Josef said.
"How very kind, but we have things to attend to," Mr. Lewis said. "We just felt Michaela should know right away."
"He really loved you," Mrs. Lewis added.
"And I him," she managed though she was dying on the inside.
As soon as they had gone out the door, she ran up the stairs towards her room. Her parents called after her, but she was too upset to heed them. In the relative safety of her room, the silent tears gave way to weeping that included noise. Her parents had obviously decided to let her grieve in private because they didn't follow her, something she was grateful for.
When the sobbing subsided to a more manageable sorrowing, she clutched her engagement ring against her chest and prayed, "Lord, if I could just see him once more to say goodbye. To tell him how much I love him and how much he meant to me." But she knew her prayer was impossible.
sss
The service would be closed casket. It would also be at the church where they would have been married had he returned home. A fact that would make the day all the more painful.
She was past the crying stage. At least she thought so, but she felt so empty inside and that was worse. She wished it was her funeral they were having today. 2 coffins, so they could have been united in death though the chance to be united in life had been stolen away be the Rebels.
"I have to go down to the church before the funeral starts. I have to see him," she announced, the words a surprise even to herself. She was ready to go, dressed from head to toe in black.
Her mother was giving the servants instructions for what to do about dinner, but her statement refocused her attention. "Really, Michaela. You can't be serious."
"I have to. I have to be sure...I know it is him with my head, but my heart doesn't want to believe. It wants to keep on hoping against hope."
"You don't want your last sight of him to be... unpleasant," she argued.
"No, if this is what she feels she needs to do to have closure, she should do it. I'll go with her." He generally gave his wife her way, but when it truly mattered, he wasn't afraid to go against her wishes. "We'll see you at the funeral in half an hour."
He kissed Elizabeth's cheek affectionately and they were gone before she had a chance to think of a response.
10 minutes later found them at the church in front of the prepared coffin. A small tintype of him in his uniform, looking so handsome, rested on top of the lid. It was just like the one he'd given her before he left.
"You don't have to do this, Mike. His commander already identified him," her father said gently as she gathered her nerve.
She hesitated. Maybe her mother was right. She'd seen dead bodies before. Cut them open even. They'd never been the man she loved though. No, she had to do this. She moved the picture out of the way and opened the lid.
His face was beyond recognition and she quickly looked away from the horror of it, pinning her gaze instead on the hand nearest her. The hand she'd held so many times, the hand she'd watched perform surgery with amazing, unrivaled skill.
But as she looked at it, completely whole unlike his face, she noticed something. Something that changed everything. It was missing a mole just under his thumb.
Hope surged within her. If this wasn't David, that meant there was a strong possibility he was alive. But he was such a faithful letter writer, why hadn't he wrote to let them know he was okay? He wasn't with his regiment. That much was certain or they wouldn't have sent back this poor man. So where was he?