Feeling as if she were peering into the window of a woman’s soul, Lily couldn’t force her eyes away from that first entry. She read it several times and thought of Braden. Evidently, there had been single mothers trying to raise children on their own for a century and a half. She carefully closed the journal, put it back in the secretary, and lifted the flap back into place. She wanted to read more, but just reading that much made her feel guilty about peeking at someone’s intimate thoughts. Besides, tomorrow was Sunday, and that meant going to church, so she couldn’t stay up reading about Ophelia’s life half the night. She got dressed for bed, turned off the light, and slipped beneath the covers.

She closed her eyes, but the words from the journal still ran through her mind. Had Ophelia and William slept in a four-poster bed like this one? Had she soaked her pillow with tears for him every night that he was gone to the war, or did she have so much to do, trying to keep her children fed and clothed, that she had no time for tears?

Lily seldom ever dreamed, and when she did, she usually woke up with every detail still fresh in her mind. The next morning, she sat up in bed, and for a split second, she was Ophelia, and Braden and Holly were Matilda and Henry. She rubbed her eyes and looked around at the room. Then she remembered who and where she was. She turned the alarm off two minutes before it was set to ring and threw back the covers.

“That was one crazy dream.” She longed to read more of the journal that morning. She felt like a moth drawn to a flame, as if she should read it from the first to the last. Maybe by the time she’d read the rest of Ophelia’s story, she’d figure out who the woman was and why Lily’s mother had the journal. Maybe Ophelia just needed someone to sympathize with her even though more than 150 years had passed. But Lily had breakfast to cook, and then it would be time to get ready for church. The kids had been used to sleeping in on Sunday, so there was no doubt that there would be groaning and moaning.

She dressed in jeans and a baggy T-shirt, pulled on a pair of socks, and padded down the staircase. When she made it to the foyer, she could smell coffee, and she saw that the light was on in the kitchen.

“Good mornin’,” she said as she entered the room and headed for the coffeepot. “Are you an early riser, too?”