by Tony Wolk

Fiction/Alternative History $14.95 US

It’s 1964 and Abraham Lincoln’s daughter, Sarah, daydreams about meeting her father. Her mother, Joan, met Lincoln nine years earlier when he was transported to 1950s Evanston, Illinois, from his own time and place for a day. When Sarah’s stepfather, Will, a Lincoln scholar, doesn’t return home from an overnight trip, Sarah and her mother have no way of knowing that he has gone back in time to 1833 in the same, mysterious way Lincoln came forward in time. The two grow more and more nervous while waiting for him to come home. A stranger’s phone call and the discovery of an abandoned truck will push daughter, mother, and their old dog, Rusty, away from home in search of Sarah’s stepfather.

During this journey, Sarah leaves 1964 behind and finds not only Will, but her father, Abraham Lincoln.

“Lincoln’s Daughter is a remarkably generous book, equal parts sweetness and wisdom. The characters, both historical and fictional, are drawn with care and love; the observations about history, family, and connection are profound and thought-provoking.”

—Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

“Wolk places his fictionalized Lincoln in the historic context of Lincoln’s life in the 1830s. He gives his Lincoln a poise and language that we all hope the real Lincoln possessed.”

—Mike Burton, Chair of the Oregon Lincoln Bicentennial CommissionLincoln’s D

aughterby Tony W

olkO

oligan

Lincoln Out of Time TrilogyAbraham Lincoln: A Novel Life

Good Friday Lincoln’s Daughter

ooliganpress.pdx.edu

Lincoln’sDaughter

© 2009 by Tony Wolk

All rights reserved.

Illustrations © 2009 by Jessica Wolk-Stanley

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, elec-

tronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Ooligan Press

Department of English

Portland State University

P.O. Box 751

Portland, OR 97207-0751

www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu

ISBN: 978-1-932010-25-1

This book is set in Arno Pro.

Printed in the United States of America

LIInside, Outside

Friday, January 8, 1965

Towel in hand, Joan stepped over the lip of Matty Waddell’s old clawfoot tub.

Like a chime in the wilderness, it struck her that she knew two Abraham Lincolns.

Or, knew of—two Abraham Lincolns. Which didn’t mean that in her mind’s eye

there was one Abraham Lincoln, and then another, his twin. The two Lincolns

were one till the evening of Good Friday, 1865, when John Wilkes Booth fired

his Derringer at Ford’s Theater. There, like a fork in a path, were two stories, like

Frost’s, one chosen, the other not chosen. Except that she, like no one else, knew

both stories. Both chosen.

In the familiar tale, here in this world, Abraham Lincoln is shot through the

shoulder, a serious wound, but not fatal. Startling and dramatic. Doubly dramatic:

a theater with two actions, two stages. In the other story, the wound is mortal.

Joan was born into the world of the second story, the story of assassination.

Now she had been living, for nearly a decade, in the other, the story of tragedy

averted. Each story was perfect and self-contained.

Well, not quite.

There was a nagging question, like a loose knot, to this world’s story: Why

would the President rise from his chair and open the door to the presidential box?

Where Booth, a small man, expecting to catch the President unawares, is surprised

to find the massive figure of Lincoln looming over him, and Booth’s Derringer,

213Tony Wolk

with a will of its own, fires wildly. The President staggers, Booth slashes the arm

of young Major Rathbone, leaps from the balcony to the stage, cries “Sic semper

tyrannis,” and takes flight. The question: What drew Lincoln out of the play and

back to the world? Clara Harris, the senator’s daughter, sitting beside Mary Todd

Lincoln, said that she might have heard a noise, “like a scuffle,” but she couldn’t be

sure. John Wilkes Booth never did have the opportunity to say. So goes the story

of one Abraham Lincoln.

For Joan the second story had become transparent, like mist, rarely glimpsed,

a story dropping out of memory, like a dream, and into history. In its place was a

third story, with herself at the crux, inscribed with the memory of Booth’s knife,

her arm upraised, a blow, and blood.

Joan looked closely at her arm. No sign of a scar. As though the fabric of reality

once torn, was now mended. The only flaw was the testimony of Clara Harris.

Could there ever be two stories of Joan Matcham, one where she marries

Tom Matcham, has a daughter named Emily, and the three live happily ever after?

No plane crashing in Utah. In that story she stays home with her family on Easter

morning in 1955, fixing a late breakfast. She won’t take Rusty for a walk till later.

Or Emily will be the one to take Rusty wherever Emily will. In that story she will

not discover the tall man from a prior century, sitting on a bench overlooking Lake

Michigan.

Joan paused and stared out the window at the wintry landscape. She was like

ice thinking of this other Joan whose daughter Emily isn’t killed in a plane crash

and lives her ordinary life with her ordinary mother. How could she unwish that

story? Though choosing it deprives her of Sarah, Sarah Lincoln.

She was done toweling herself dry, the water gurgling its last breath down the

drain. Upstairs Sarah was asleep. There was no choice, no one holding a gun to her

forehead saying Choose.

She slipped into her robe. Where, she wondered, was Will? Between stories?

Maybe that would explain her strange frame of mind, like a reader, coming to the

bottom of a page, reluctant to go on.

214 Lincoln's Daughter

She opened the bathroom door and headed for her room.

“Joan,” Matty said from the hallway, “I don’t see Rusty. Did you let her out?”

“No,” said Joan. “Rusty,” she called. Again. “Did you check outside?”

“I checked,” said Matty. “One of us must’ve done it. Does she wander off?”

“She’s a homebody, hasn’t been willful since her days as a puppy.”

“Could Sarah have left her out?”

“I doubt it,” said Joan, heading for the stairs. “I’ll check. It’s time Sarah was

awake anyhow.”

From the top of the stairs, Joan took in the loft. A good-sized room. No dog.

“Sarah, honey—” No answer. Joan climbed the last few steps. Sarah’s bed was

empty. “Sarah,” she called softly. Futility. “She’s not here,” she called downstairs.

“They’re not here. They must have gone outside.”

“I’ve been up since eight,” said Matty. “It’s half past nine.”

Joan’s eyes darted about the room. Sarah’s pajamas were in a heap on a rocking

chair, her overnight bag at the foot of the bed.

Matty was at the foot of the stairs.

“The woman who came with Will—” Joan began.

“Ada,” said Matty.

“Yes, Ada. You told the police that come morning she was gone, left her back-

pack behind, yet the door was still latched.”

“Yes,” said Matty.

“The latch,” Joan said. “Was the door latched when you checked for Rusty?”

Matty looked up. She exhaled sharply. “Joan, I wasn’t paying much mind to the

latch, with you here. I figured you had let her out, but I think . . . yes . . . I think . . . I

don’t know what I think. Get dressed. I’ll be outside. They must be outside.”

LIIHome

Saturday, January 5, 1833

The girl and the dog sat by the fire, staring at the flames, orange, now green, now

blue.

“Miss Ada should be by soon,” he said. “She’s over at the store putting things to

rights and helping with the inventory. She’ll have some idea what to do for you and

Rusty. Now will you tell me that story one more time? Sorry. I mean, ‘Please tell me

that story.’ Me and my manners. As though I grew up motherless. I’ll listen real care-

ful; I won’t interrupt with chatter about ‘Haven’t I seen you somewheres before,’ and

worrying about those wet shoes, none of that.”

“All right,” said Sarah with a nod, smiling warm enough to get your engine going

no matter what. “What if I told a different story, one that begins, ‘One Easter Sunday

my mother took Rusty for a walk along the lake?’ I call that one ‘Rusty and the Man.’ ”

Lincoln sighed. This child would be a handful for a barrel of monkeys. “I won’t

say what story you should tell,” he said. “I know better than that. Though if ‘Rusty and

the Man’ has to do with you and Rusty walking in out of nowheres and asking if you

two might warm up by the fire, I’d appreciate hearing that. Though it don’t seem likely

that’s the story you had in mind.”

“Doesn’t,” said young Sarah. Then her eyes got as big as the moon, like she’d swal-

lowed a goat. “I apologize for that,” she said. “It just slipped out. It’s the sort of thing

my mother does to me.”

216 Lincoln's Daughter

Lincoln didn’t say a word. For once in his life at a loss for words.

“I know my mom means well,” Sarah went on. “She likes to explain to me all

about language and where the words come from, like ‘know’ with the silent K long

ago being said k-now. Or why there’s a G-H-T in ‘night,’ how it was said nicht—I’m

not good at the gurgle part, am I?”

“Good enough,” said Lincoln. “It is a wonder, the strange ways we spell our

words—there must be a reason behind it if you know where to look. Though the

grammar books don’t do more than tell the shoulds.”

A smile worked its way onto this Sarah’s sweet face. “I did play a trick on my

teacher one day, reading about how a ‘k-nicht was clim-bing off his horse.’ ”

“And what did your teacher say to that?”

“She didn’t exactly say anything. It was Miss Rose. Anybody else and I

wouldn’t have done it. Then she asked about how I spell my name.”

“So why is there an H on the end of ‘Sarah’?”

Sarah stopped to think. “I guess I don’t know.”

“I reckon I don’t know either, though it was my sister’s name and then my

stepmother’s name. The name ‘Hannah’ has the same construction, and I’ve won-

dered if it might not have something to do with the Hebrew language. Maybe

someday we’ll be lucky and find the answer.”

Sarah was back to looking at the fire. Wait it out, said a voice inside Lincoln’s

head. There was a strangeness about the child. Best to let it unfold of its own. He

had the odd feeling that, fresh as she was to his sight, he had known her as long as

he could remember. It felt like his life was a puzzle and she was the missing piece.

She put him in mind of the children back on the Little Pigeon, especially when it

was just being settled. You had to think twice whether a child was male or female.

Her saying her name, Sarah, settled it. Certainly she was on the tall side. That she

wore pants and not a dress spoke of a make-do way of life, borrowing her brother’s

clothes, especially in wintertime.

He did like her looks—her dark hair cut short like a boy’s, her fair eyes,

gray perhaps. You’d have to search for the blue, and “whippersnapper bright” was

217Tony Wolk

written all over her face. He wondered about her new-fangled coat, cut narrow in

the waist, with leather loops for its buttons. Maybe that was the style back east, in

Philadelphia or Boston. Thankfully Rusty was dressed like any old dog: black coat,

hint of a white diamond on the chest, muzzle going to gray, doe-like eyes.

Sarah turned his way, with the look in her eyes of someone who’s thinking

of half a dozen things to say and can’t choose just one. “I’m really sorry,” she said

finally, hesitating over what to call him.

“You can call me Abe—that’s what they call me here.”

Slight nod, then a gathering of her forces. “You asked me how I come to be

here.”

“Yes,” he said, “where you come from, where you live.”

Her face had softened. “How we got here,” she said, “I honestly can’t say. One

moment I wasn’t here. Then I was at your door. Home? Well, home is where I’ll

go home to.” Certain self-satisfaction upon her play with words. “Where I come

from—” Hesitation. “Up north.”

From up north? Another Will Studebaker on his hands. “That’s all right,” said

Lincoln. “You can save your story for later. I had it figured that home wasn’t here-

abouts. I do wonder who you’re traveling with, especially this time of year. Besides

Rusty. Think you’d like a piece of sugar candy?”

She approached the counter. “I like your glass jar,” she said.

“It’s pretty special, I agree to that. Got it in trade for some cloth from Jacob

Bale.”

“This looks like Turkish Delight.”

“It could be that,” he said. “I call it sugar candy. One piece. Good.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

She ate the candy in small bites, chewing it thoughtfully. Then her face had

darkened, tears starting. “It’s just me and Rusty.”

He stepped forward, wrapped her in his arms, patting her back. “There, there.”

He heard sniffles, listened to her catch her breath. “Home can’t be far off, can it?”

218 Lincoln's Daughter

“It can,” she said. “I woke up, grabbed my clothes, got dressed. Rusty led the

way. I knew I’d find you, I knew it.”

“Me? You were looking for me? Why me? Who am I?”

“You’re Abraham Lincoln.”

“I know that,” he said. “And you know that. We introduced ourselves. And

Rusty too.”

“I knew it before,” she said. “I’ve known you all my life.”

“All your life. How old are you, Sarah, about nine?”

“Almost,” she said. “In two more days. Except—”

“Except what?”

“Except if I never find my way home, I’ll never turn nine.”

Abraham Lincoln inclined his head sideways, looked at her. “Never?”

“Never,” she said. “Never.” She said it with finality. She sounded like King Lear

and his chain of “nevers” at the end of the play. She was steely-eyed, this child with

cheeks still wet from tears.

“My birthday’s not so far off either,” he said. “On the twelfth of February I’ll be

twenty-four. Subtract nine and you’ve known me since I was fifteen, in the state of

Indiana. Are you from Indiana, Sarah?”

She shook her head. “No. From Illinois.”

“Illinois, where in Illinois? Doesn’t Rusty know the way home?”

“Rusty knows the way.”

They both looked Rusty’s way. Rusty had never taken her eyes from one or the

other, and now she was looking at Sarah, steadfast, her dark eyes filled with sorrow.

Lincoln stepped over to Rusty, knelt and patted her side. “What is it, Rusty?”

Sarah was on the other side, her cheek against Rusty’s, and now she was crying

in earnest. “I love you, Rusty. I love you.”

Rusty turned her head and licked Sarah’s cheek, slowly, deliberately. Then

Rusty stood and straightened her shoulders. Sarah got to her feet and took Lin-

coln’s hand. He stood and reached into a barrel for a cracker and gave it to Sarah,

who passed it on to Rusty.

219Tony Wolk

“Sarah, he said, his hand on the latch, “I’m pretty good at riddles.” And then he

saw his next question: “Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Lincoln, would it?”

Sarah looked up, cheeks tear-stained, and nodded. “Sarah Lincoln,” she said.

It was the truth. He knew that. He didn’t know what to say. He thought of his

sister as he had last seen her—damn that Aaron Grigsby, letting her go on suffer-

ing like that, not going for help till it was too late. Stupid, helpless man. His sister,

Sarah Lincoln, only Grigsby at the last.

“Don’t you cry too,” she said.

“It’s all right. Tears never hurt a person. Let’s get that coat of yours and find

what Miss Ada’s up to.”