One must never flee from one’s calling. I learned this only when it was taken from me. I visited Washington DC with dear Miss Cianfarra, a lady I have come to cherish and adore. The guilt of lying to Robert haunts me at this hour, but the calling is worth the contrition. Today I heard the inspiring words of a fellow suffragette of color, Miss Mary Church Terrell. Her message at the National American Woman Suffrage Association pierced me, gutted me, and drove a new hope within me that all women of all skin colors could fight for this cause together. Miss Terrell won me over with her words and passion. May she win over our broken world as well. A woman’s voice. A woman’s right to vote. A woman’s value. It is much more than gender or skin hue. It is about humanity and fairness.

My life has been less than fair. As one of great wealth none would empathize with this statement of mine. But my enforced marriage has brought me nothing but grief, and I fear Robert is desperate to make me with child to tighten his grip upon me.

A woman bears the right to be heard and seen. Yet how do we achieve the fullness of this birthright when we must remain silent and hidden? I must do the hard work of preparing a place for women’s voices of the future. I must plan. I must fight. And if necessary, I must flee in the pursuit of justice and truth, no matter the sacrifice. Even at the cost of my very own lifeblood.

“Pretty corny stuff,” Oliver snorted with his usual cynicism.

“Spoken like a male chauvinist pig.”

“Hey, I’m not knocking her. I admire my great-grandma; she was a fearless woman, way ahead of her time. But her writing is kinda flowery, you gotta admit.”

“Whatever. You just don’t recognize passionate writing when you hear it.”

I sat the journal down and continued my search. Countless mysteries filled this chest, but only one concerned me. I rifled through the artifacts until I located the tiny wooden Russian nesting doll tucked into the back corner. I handed it to Oliver.

“What’s this?” he asked. He opened it. “There’s nothing in here but shit.”

“What do you mean?” I grabbed it from him, shocked to see it full of mouse droppings. “There used to be a piece of paper in this. The only link I had to Vera’s past.” The edge of the doll was chewed. “I think mice got to it.”

“What do you mean, a link to her past? I don’t understand.”

An anxious pulse swept up my spine. “There’s something I never told you about that day...”

Rolling my mind back, like a mental flip-book, I spanned days, months, years faster and faster until I stopped on the night I found newborn Vera.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Felicity

Fifteen years ago…