To Love Again

For thirteen years Rachel Payne searched the past, seeking answers that would suffice to comfort and persuade her into concluding that the war years and those that followed had not all been in vain. One thing had led to another. Just three years ago the train rumbled out of the depot of the Bluff City, Memphis, and for three days of insufferable jerking and jolting, three evenings of watching the moon wax and wane and the sun rise over much more of the South than Rachel had ever seen, she found herself in another world. With face pressed against the window, she watched as ghost-like frescoes moved mysteriously upon the mists while the train dipped and glided northeastward toward its destination and thundered on the trestle over the Hudson River into full view of the Gilded City. She drew a deep breath. In those moments she had no way of knowing that life would once again take on splendid meaning and unfold someplace other than the Old South. The memories were haunting, beautiful. How and why such glorious contrasts? She had asked the question a thousand times, wondering if she could ever hope to bring back those days. She longed to bring them back, remembering how a gentle touch and a loving spirit reaching for her hand had taken her breath away. Her six-month assignment as a postwar journalist was almost over when on September 18, 1873, the financials crashed and New York City took the hard blow like a piece of hot iron against a naked anvil takes the blow of the artisan’s hammer, sending the United States and Europe temporarily into blunt force trauma. Oscar Alexander, loathing every memory of that day, hurriedly made arrangements for Rachel to leave before the railroads shut down and the cars were no longer making the long journeys out of the City. What he did was unselfish and Rachel knew it. He could have waited an hour or two and she would have been left without a choice. But he was too much of a man to even think of such. It had to be right or not at all. They expressed their feelings on that day, an experience born out of uncanny circumstance. Rachel never gave a thought that such might happen the day she left Sarepta for New York City, having known the love and protection of Thomas Payne. She was skilled at making the most of life, of suffering need and want, of living with and without. Oscar was born in London in pageantry and wealth, came to America as a young man only to add to his affluence as owner and editor of a successful New York newspaper. Six enchanting months with Oscar and The Press had given Rachel increased faith and a new perspective. She reached into the pocket of her apron and touched the wrinkled envelope, slowly took the letter out and read it again. There had been many letters from Oscar over the last three years. But this one was different. The urgency, the need, the love. She felt it as never before. Rachel methodically folded the silky paper and returned it to the envelope. She pulled the corner of her cotton dress to her ankles and took the steps off the porch and into the warmth. Standing in the rays for a brief moment, she looked to the east, then to the west, and started to run toward the brilliance of the sun. “Oh, Oscar! Love is not supposed to be so complicated.” The words burst from her lips and resounded across the hills. Up to the big oak tree and without stopping at Ben’s grave, Rachel topped the ridge, dropping a moment to catch her breath before reaching her destination. The tears were streaming now. How long would she be torn between her first love, who was gone from her forever, and the love of a man who had invaded her life three years ago, the man she could not forget and who had never forgotten her? She lay on the ground for a moment reminiscent of the war years when she so often came to this place, this time thinking of a more current state of affairs. Six months she had spent in New York City, learning another culture, willing to make changes to her life in a proper sense, though she would never consider adjusting her ideology. She would never think of abandoning her belief in a God who loved her with an everlasting love. She would never think of turning her back on her southern heritage. But Oscar had never suggested nor required such. To the contrary, he was far more steeped in her ideology than he was that of the North. Just because he had never been in the South didn’t mean he would not love it just as she loved it. But on the other hand, she thought, he may never wish to leave the North for any reason. Rachel stood to her feet, brushed the red-clay dust from her dress, and ran the rest of the way up the ridge to The Secret Place. She had not been there in years. It had belonged to her and Thomas, this place where they came to meet with God, to share the cares of life, to beg for His intervention on every consideration of raising their boys. It was where Rachel ran when the war raged, entreating God to protect, to comfort, and even to feed and clothe Thomas and Albert Henry and Jonathan and later Isaac. It was where she came to release Thomas and Albert Henry to a loving God when their bodies lay cold in the bloody trough of Gettysburg, and to thank Him that she still had Jonathan and Isaac at the close of the war and that the war had ended, relieving her of the fear that it would go on for years, taking her younger sons, Joab and Samuel.