All Things New by Lynn Austin Read Free Book Online Page A

things, Mother. Nothing is the same as it used to be.”
    “Well, so help me God, I’m going to change everything back.”
    Josephine let her mother walk away this time while she remained in the front foyer alone, gazing at the empty holes again—the dusty space where the hall clock had stood, the darker patch of wood on the floor where the rug had been. And if she looked to her right into Daddy’s study, she knew she would see his empty chair.
    No, God wasn’t going to help any of them. And it would be impossible to change anything back to the way it had been.

5
    A PRIL 28, 1865
    Eugenia didn’t recognize her son at first. The stranger walking up the lane toward her house looked like a beggar, his mismatched clothing no longer resembling a Confederate uniform, his shoes something only a slave would wear. She saw him approaching and guessed him to be a refugee or a vagabond coming to beg or to steal from her. Eugenia groped in her skirt pocket for the pistol she carried everywhere, then went out to the porch to order the man off her property. But the stranger was Daniel.
    Before Eugenia could move or speak, he saw her in the doorway and ran the rest of the way up the road toward her, bounding up the front steps to pull Eugenia into his arms. Daniel! Daniel was home! She tried to say his name but couldn’t speak, her throat choked with tears. Daniel’s entire body trembled, and she realized he was sobbing. He had been barely twenty years old when he’d gone off to war, filled with swagger and bravado. “We’ll lick the Yanks in no time, and I’ll be home in time to return to college in the fall.” Instead, five years had passed.
    Daniel was Eugenia’s golden boy, blond and handsome and full of life, the jokester in the family, able to make everyone laugh. Nowjoy and sorrow overwhelmed her as she held him in her arms. He was so thin, so ragged, so timeworn. But then all of them were.
    “Oh, Daniel!” she murmured. “You’re home at last.” He couldn’t stop sobbing, a broken man. She pulled away and reached up to brush his sandy hair off his forehead. “No more tears now,” she said. “No tears. You’re home.”
    He seemed taller than before but so much thinner. He had grown a beard and mustache, and they made him look shaggy and unkempt. But the biggest difference was his eyes. Eugenia saw so much sadness there, as if they had seen things he wished he could forget. Daniel had aged much more than five years.
    “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “You fought so hard.”
    “The Yanks might have outnumbered us,” he said, drying his eyes on his sleeve, “but they didn’t outfight us.”
    “I know. I know.” Eugenia caressed her son’s shoulder as she watched him survey the yard and the fields from the porch steps. “I’m sorry everything is so run-down. We only returned home from Richmond a week ago.” Surely he could see how much had changed since he’d been away, how their lovely plantation had fallen into disrepair, how empty the cotton fields were.
    “Did all our slaves run off?” he asked. “We saw hundreds of Negroes wandering on the roads.”
    “All but three are gone, I’m afraid. We have one field hand and two house slaves left.”
    “That’s not enough to run a plantation.”
    “I know. I’m told that some Negroes are living out in the woods between here and the village, though I’m not certain if any of them are ours. Good thing you arrived in daylight. No one feels safe here after dark anymore.”
    She heard footsteps thundering down the stairs inside the house, and a moment later Mary and Josephine ran out to greet their brother. Eugenia felt a stab of sorrow as she watched her children embrace one another. Their father and older brother deserved a hero’s homecoming, too, but they would never get it.
    “Grab your bag and come inside, Daniel,” Eugenia said, leadingthe way. “What you need is a nice long rest and some good hot food to get your strength back.”