“Thank you.” Lily entered the room first to find four other people already seated around a table.

“We’ve got a newcomer,” Drew said as he took his place and opened his Bible. “Y’all might remember her as Lily Miller. Now she’s Lily Anderson, and she’s moved back into the old Miller house south of town where she was raised.” He introduced the other four people by name. They must’ve moved to Comfort in the last few years, because she didn’t recognize any of them.

She made a concerted effort to put names with faces, though, as Drew began to talk about the responsibilities of being a good Christian. According to him, it went beyond showing up in church on Sunday morning and in knowing the Bible upside down and backward. It had to do with what was in the heart.

Lily’s mind drifted off as she wondered what was hiding down deep in her soul. She was still thinking about that when the time was up and they all filed out of the room to go to the sanctuary for church. Moving back, sleeping in the old house, cooking with her mother’s skillets—memories flooded her mind that morning as Drew preached on kindness. If she hadn’t had two teenage children sitting between her and Mack, she would have thought she’d taken a couple of giant leaps back in time. Nothing had changed. Not the house where she grew up. Not the church with its two rows of pews and a center aisle—the same one that she’d walked down on her daddy’s arm when she married Wyatt. Thinking of that, she remembered the journal. What would she write in one? Would someone read it in a hundred and fifty years and see themselves in the sorrows and joys, like she had when she read Ophelia’s first paragraph?

Holly had spent part of the afternoon on the phone with a couple of girls she’d met in Sunday school that morning. She’d rolled her eyes every time anyone walked through the kitchen, where she sat on the floor with the corded phone on her shoulder as she did her fingernails. From the little Lily had heard when she went to get a glass of tea, those two girls didn’t have cell phones, either.

Braden and Mack had gone outside after Sunday-dinner dishes were done to play catch. Braden didn’t even seem to mind that his sister gave him another one of her looks that branded him as a traitor. He’d stuck his tongue out at her and then run out the door before she could retaliate.

Lily wandered through the house—memories continuing to wash over her like floodwaters in every room, from her father’s office, to the living room, to the dining room and the big country kitchen. There were pictures of her and her sister everywhere. The first one she removed from the piano in the living room was her wedding picture.

“Why is this even still in here?” she muttered as she took it out of the frame and tossed it in the trash. She could almost hear her mother’s voice saying that when she had passed away, Lily and Wyatt had still been married. Well, they damn sure weren’t anymore, and she didn’t need reminders of the pain that she had endured.

She found five more pictures of herself and Wyatt and put them into the trash can before she slowly climbed the staircase and looked at photos of her life from birth to graduation from college on the two walls. When she reached the landing, she peeked in Holly’s open door, but her daughter didn’t even look up from the book she was reading.

That reminded Lily of the journal, so she went to her room, got it out, and crawled into her bed with it. The pages had crumbled at the edges, so she turned the first one slowly and respectfully. The second entry was dated November 1862:

I’m numb with shock, disappointment, and even more with worry. Henry ran away from home two weeks ago and joined the Union army. He’s only fifteen. I feel like he has betrayed his father by doing this, and it’s hard for me to hold my head up in town as well as in church. People look at me like I have leprosy, and sometimes I feel like maybe I do. How did I fail my son so much that he’d betray what we believe? What great sin have I committed that I have to bear this burden? I believe Henry did it because of Malachi, who is a son to one of our slaves. Malachi’s mother was Henry’s wet nurse, and he bonded with her and with her son who is just days older than my Henry. They’ve played together like brothers their whole lives. He took Malachi with him, and left a note for me, saying they were both joining the Union troops that had marched through here. He’s always said that when the war is over he’ll be old enough to take over the plantation, and he will free all our slaves. Such an optimist, he is, and so foolish. Who’s going to work the cotton fields? Who will take care of his everyday needs, like cooking and laundry? He’s just a child with big dreams. So now it’s just me and Matilda in this huge house. There was no cotton crop this year. The Yankees burned what we had. I wonder how much longer we’ll be able to hold out. I may have to walk away from everything William and I have built and go live with my brother in Georgia. Matilda will throw a fit if that happens.

Lily thought of the tantrum Holly had thrown about leaving Austin, too. Lily was about to turn another page when Holly rapped on the edge of her open door.

“Mama, can I invite Rose and Ivy over tomorrow? You met them after church, remember? They’re the twins. Their mama said they could come after dinner and stay until suppertime if it was all right with you. They’re in my grade at school, and I’d like to know someone when I go there on Wednesday.” Holly was using her I’ll-be-nice-to-get-what-I-want voice.

“Sure.” Lily nodded. “Do we need to go get them, or is their mother bringing them to the house? And what are you planning to do all afternoon?”

“Their mama is bringing them, and we’re going to do pedicures and see what hairstyles look best on us. I’ll go call Rose back and tell her it’s okay,” Holly said.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Lily called out. “Why didn’t you ask me sooner? Did you cheat and get your cell phone out of the bag?”

“Nope, and I didn’t ask you sooner because you were busy throwing pictures of you and Daddy in the trash. You looked madder than you did in the bathroom at the library,” she answered. “I didn’t want you to say no, so I waited until you were in a better mood.”

“That may be the smartest thing you’ve done in days,” Lily said. “I’m glad you’re making friends.”

Holly just nodded and raced down the stairs to the kitchen to make the call.

“Maybe next time she’ll remember to say thank you,” Lily said out loud.

“Thanks, Mama,” Holly yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

Lily hugged herself. Just those two words made her day. She went back to the journal and read on:

Times have already changed so much since this damnable war has begun that I dread to see what it will be like when it is over. No matter what side wins, both the north and the south will come out with dead bodies to bury. I shudder to think about how this fighting will tear apart families. I cry myself to sleep at night, but all the tears don’t bring peace. I still worry, and I’m still an outsider in a world where I used to be respected.

A tear left a shiny trail down Lily’s cheek. Reading what Ophelia had written was like long fingers reaching deep into Lily’s soul. How could she feel such overwhelming empathy for a woman she’d never even known existed until she’d opened the journal?