forcing him back, but steadying herself. She looked like a woman tired of the fight, but a woman not quite ready to concede, if she thought she had an ally.
“I believe I can,” she said. “If you insist.”
“I do, but this will be the last time I insist you do anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a job waiting for you in the commissary storehouse. It will be up to you to decide if you wish to take it, after spending an afternoon with Private Benedict.”
Joe knew he had not convinced her, but he could tell he was close. “Does Private Benedict know I am coming?” she asked.
“I told him you might. By the way, his first name is Anthony. Are you up to it?”
She flashed him a look of irritation, which pleased him, because it was not a bland look of someone on the point of surrender. “I told you I would! Don’t you listen?”
The parade ground was deserted because it was too cold for outdoor activities. They walked slowly, Susanna looking straight ahead, her sights fixed on the commissary storehouse. She closed her eyes once, so Joe stopped until she had command of herself again.
It wasn’t a big parade ground, as parade grounds go, but he knew it taxed her. He was on the verge of turning around with her, except that her straightforward gaze never wavered. She stopped again, and he knew she was exhausted.
“I suppose you’ve heard my story from Captain Reese,” he said. “Since there was no real reason to cashier me, George Crook used his influence to have me removed from the Army of the Potomac and sent to Florida. I’ve never been so humiliated. General George Thomas rescued me. I owe him a debt I cannot repay, because he is dead now. I’m paying that debt today. We’re almost there.”
The commissary storehouse was warm and there was no mistaking Susanna’s sigh of relief. Joe helped her off with her coat, steadied her again and walked with her to the last bay in the long storehouse, their destination. A sideways glance at the woman who walked beside him showed her lips set tight in a firm line and her eyes looking into that distance he knew very well from warfare. She amazed him.
Private Benedict offered her a chair, which she sank into immediately. He looked at his students. “We have just become extraordinarily lucky,” he said. “Mrs. Hopkins is thinking about joining me here to teach. Let’s be on good behavior so she will agree. Major Randolph, thank you for escorting her. We’ll take over from here.”
Joe had never been so adroitly dismissed by a private, and he thought about it as he nerved himself to leave Susanna there: tired, weak, discouraged and not entirely certain she wanted to stay. He decided the private was right. Joe nodded to Benedict and touched Susanna’s shoulder lightly.
“I’ll be back for you at recall from fatigue, Mrs. Hopkins.” Please look at me, he thought. Let me know I’m not a fool.
To his immense gratification, she did. The resolution he saw put the heart back in his body.
Chapter Twelve
It would have taken a much sterner teacher than Susanna Hopkins not to be charmed by Private Benedict’s students. She sat there too tired to move, and grateful for a warm place. By the time an hour had passed, she was involved. By the end of two hours, she had gathered the smaller pupils around her, ready to teach them.
She had no idea what Major Randolph had told him, but Private Benedict acted as though worn-out women came into his classroom every day. He handed her a McGuffey’s Reader, helped her to another seat farther away from the blackboard, where he was teaching multiplication tables, and channeled the little ones in her direction. She started to read to her students, transferred so seamlessly from him to her that she didn’t even realize it until she heard recall from fatigue.
She looked up then and smiled at Anthony Benedict, who was watching her with a smile of his own. After he dismissed the class, her pupils brought her their coats, mufflers and hats for help, as though she had been their teacher since the first day of the term. When they left, she sat there barely allowing herself to feel what she felt.
“What do you think, Mrs. Hopkins?” the private asked, sitting beside her.
“I can do this, if you’ll have me.”
The look he gave her didn’t need words—it was a combination of relief