The Taste of Tears

“I don’t want to hear it!"

Bella jumped as her father banged the table with a closed fist. His meaty hand cracked against the polished wood. The bowls rattled as the table quaked. Bella’s mother leapt to prevent Bella’s younger brother, Benny’s, glass from slipping off the edge of the table.

 “This is madness!"

Bella’s hand trembled as she gripped her spoon. She tried not to look. She kept her eyes trained on her supper—the fried chicken and mashed potatoes her mother had prepared for them.

 Why does it feel like I can just pretend this isn’t happening and it will all go away? Bella managed to steady her hand enough to stick a spoonful of mashed potatoes in her mouth. The delicious food, a delicacy in their home, tasted bland and bitter on her tongue. It had been tainted by the fighting. Bella’s older brother, James, had ruined things by arriving late for supper. There'd been a glint in his eyes when he’d sat down to join them. A few moments into the meal, he slipped it into casual conversation that he'd been talking with his best friend, Johnny Elden, and they were both planning to join up with the Yankee Calvary come morning. James informed them, with animated motions and exuberant words, that Johnny had spoken with a man in town. The man worked as a recruiter for the Union Army. The recruiter had been more than eager to explain to Johnny exactly how he could go about joining up with a battalion, and Johnny had relayed that information to James. The two young men had been talking about enlisting since the war’s newborn days, but so did most young men of their time. Bella had never taken their scheming seriously. She’d never dreamed that their plans would become a reality.

"It's not madness.” James argued. He spoke respectfully, but firmly. “This is something I have to do, Pa. Johnny Elden is leaving tomorrow to join the Union cavalry. I’m going with him.”

“Going with him where? To fight in a war that doesn’t concern you?” Bella’s father hit the table again. Bella peeked up from her meal, peering across the table. She shuddered at the sight of her dad’s smoldering face. His eyes were bugging out, and his face was a cherry red. She’d never seen him so angry before; not even when James had been younger, and had pranked him by putting green dye in his shampoo.

“No. I’m going with him to fight for a cause that I believe in.” James said, calmly. He took a sip from his glass. “I’m sorry that upsets you, but I’ve made up my mind.”

Bella’s lower lip trembled. She gave up attempting to eat and gazed beside her at her brother. Whispers of discussions she had overheard in their small town, which was located in the heart of Kansas, echoed in her ears. Rumors about the war, it’s gory consequences, and it’s escalating violence always made Bella shiver. James, on the other hand, heard the rumors and the tales, and they enraged him. He heard the allegations leveled against Lincoln—against the Union and it’s cause—and vowed to combat them with voice and force

James was a good kid, funny, and respectful. He wasn’t violent. However, James would never back down when he believed he was right. When he believed in what he was fighting for.

“What about us, huh, boy?” Bella’s father snarled. His eyes were shiny. Like, behind all the anger, deep down in his soul, there was a horrible sorrow. “During these hard times, you expect me to take care of this family by myself? Plow the field, tend to the crops, and reap the harvest alone?"

James sipped his water once more. He grabbed a chicken wing and bit into it. Bella observed him chewing. She could tell he was thinking carefully over their father’s words.

He’ll fight for what he believes in, Bella mused, barely resisting the desire to tap her spoon against the table in a fit of anxiety. However, when it comes to Pa, he has always picked his words wisely. 

“You used to wish for me to attend college, Pa.” James pointed out. Bella’s brother was only a year her senior; however, at that moment, he sounded so certain of himself that Bella, with all her worries and doubts, couldn’t help but feel like nothing but a little child in his presence.

“I wasn’t smart enough for that kind of schooling, but if I had been, I would have left around this time anyway. There’s no difference between this and what would have happened if I’d pursued a higher education."

Bella’s dad shot to his feet. Her mother panicked, grabbing onto his arm.

“Charles!” She squeaked. “Calm down!"

Benny began to cry, the toddler not understanding what on earth had gotten into his family. Bella felt tears spring to her own eyes.

The war, the conflict between the South and the North, did more than take lives and divide states. It divided families and tore them apart too.

“You wouldn’t be fighting for your life at college!” Bella’s father shouted. “Don’t you dare compare this craziness to that of an education!”

James gazed up at him, his eyes unreadable.

“We all die sooner or later.” He murmured. “At least if I die out there, I can look the Lord in the eyes and hold my head high, knowing I died for what was right. Freedom is God’s gift to man, and no one should be denied the right to that gift. How can I stay here and live a normal life knowing that the fight being fought out there is a fight against something that is just plain wrong!”

“James-.” Bella’s mother tried. Her father cut his wife off.

“I forbid you to go.” He grunted, sitting back down like that decided the matter. “You live under my roof; I am your father, and you’ll do as I say.”

Bella let her spoon rest on a bed of potatoes. She reached under the table and placed a hand on James’s leg. Her brother stiffened. He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, there was a fire in his stare that could have set a whole forest ablaze. It was the same fire that he’d had in his eyes when he and Bella were younger, and someone would take to picking on her. It was a fire that his sense of righteousness kept burning inside him. It was a flame that he’d had inside him when he was eight, and a fire that even now, at eighteen, he’d yet to let fizzle out.

“I’m sorry, Pa... but I have to,” James said, his voice solid as stone. “I’m leaving with Johnny tomorrow morning."

Bella pleaded with her eyes for her brother to reconsider. He didn’t look at her. Bella turned her gaze on her father. He was staring down at his plate. His tanned face was worn and tired.

“Then get out now.” He choked. “I can't sit here and listen to your plans to throw your life away! Leave this house."

This isn’t happening. Bella shook her head in denial. She gazed around her; at the oak table they were all seated around, the planks of sanded wood that made up the floor under them, which she and her mother kept well swept, and the walls, made up of logs that her father had cut down himself to build the house. This was Bella’s home. Her mother, her father, Benny, and James belonged here. Without even one of them, things wouldn’t be the same.

“Okay. I will. Because I respect you.” James said. He spoke with composure. Bella’s brother dabbed at his lips with the napkin that had been resting on his lap before rising to his feet. Bella reached out a hand toward him. She longed to pull him back down. She wanted to yell out to him not to go. But she was struck speechless, and no matter how much her mouth moved, no words would come out. 

“I hope one day,” James addressed their father. He made his way around the table and across the room, towards the front door of their little home. He stopped with his hand on the door, and turned back to gaze at the back of his father’s head. Bella’s dad wouldn’t look at him.

“That you can come to respect my decision. I hope that you can understand why I have to do this. Take care, all of you."

“James!” Bella finally managed to yell out. It was too late. Her brother was already gone, the door closing behind him with a definite click. 

I might never see him again. Tears began to track down Bella’s cheeks. The realization took her breath away. 

Through her own sobbing, it took Bella a moment to hear the cries of her family. All around the table, supper forgotten, her loved ones wailed in loss. Her mother and Benny clung to each other for comfort.

Her father had his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed. nothing would ever be the same in their lives again after this fateful supper. The flavorful meal was lost to the bitter tang of salty tears. Bella had never felt more sacred and alone. Yet, she knew that she was far from the only one suffering in the grief of having a loved one drawn into the heart of bloodshed and sorrow, lost to a far off land that the meek of heart could never follow. Fathers, brothers, and sons, all across the country, were pulled away from their homes by the call of duty, and the undeniable urge to take action. 

They left their families behind, seated at the supper table, with an appetite no longer for food, but for the sweet taste of peace, and the agonizing longing for a broken family, and a broken country, to become whole once more.