As if that memory remained all too fresh, Lizzy touched her cheek. “My mother took to her bed, and he struck me again, and dragged me to my room, locked me in. I could not get out, could not get away. Three days and nights, my father kept me locked in my room with only bread and water. I did what I should have done before. I told him I would obey. I asked his forgiveness. I lied and lied, and I waited for my chance. I left that house and my family, my sister whom I loved, so much, in the dead of night with what I could carry. I took the train to Philadelphia. So afraid, so excited. Going to Billy. I traveled by coach. So hot. Such a hot summer. I was ill. I wrote . . . to his mother. I think. It fades. I wrote, and I came here. He was here.”

“Billy came here?” Hope asked her.

“Near. He was coming. I could hear the cannon fire, but I was so ill. He was coming. He promised. I’m waiting.”

“Eliza, I need his name. His full formal name.” Hope got to her feet. “He was William.”

“No. He was Billy, but Joseph William. He would build us a house, with his own hands. Will your Ryder build you a house?”

“He has a house. Eliza—”

“And a dog. We would have dogs. I left my dogs and my home and my family. But we would have dogs and a home and make a family. I think I was with child.”

“Oh God,” Avery murmured.

“I think . . . Women know. Is that true?” she asked Clare.

“I think it is.”

“I never told him. I only began to know when I came here. Then the heat, and the sickness. And it fades. It’s too long.” She held out a hand they could see through. “It all fades.”

“Oh, don’t—” Hope began, but Lizzy faded away like her hand.

“Pregnant and alone and sick, while the man she loved went off to war.” Avery rose to crouch by Clare’s chair, lean her cheek on Clare’s hand.

“It wasn’t like that for me. I was never alone. I had family who loved me. But yes, I can understand how frightened she must have been, and God, how determined. To leave everything with only what she could carry, to come to a strange place—and to realize she was carrying a child.”

“Then to lie in bed, sick and dying, listening to cannon fire. He fought at Antietam,” Hope said. “I’m sure of it. He was near, and he was a soldier.”

“His family was near, too,” Avery reminded her. “And we’re not looking for a William, but a Joseph William. Maybe Williams? Would they have called him Billy?”

“I don’t know, but having a potential first and middle name, or a potential first and last, is going to help.”