The Thread Collectors

An exhausted Lily boards a carriage to New Orleans. After witnessing the suffering of the war firsthand, she feels that her abolitionist work is frivolous. They stop in Brookhaven for the night; Lily’s driver warns her not to speak, lest she betray her Northern accent.

Lily arrives in New Orleans, where she books a hotel room in the Garden District near the Union headquarters. As she gets ready for bed, she misses Jacob more than ever, recalling how it felt to sleep with him in the early days of their marriage. She feels that the war has hardened her.

In the morning, Lily enters the Union headquarters and reports Jacob missing. The supervising officer sympathizes with her plight but tells her that he cannot search for specific soldiers. Lily is only one of countless women who have come through looking for their husbands.

As Lily walks back toward the hotel, feeling utterly defeated, she spots several children playing outside a building branded “The Association for the Relief of Jewish Widows and War Orphans” (277). A young Black man is tending to the building’s garden, singing a melody that Lily recognizes as “Girl of Fire.” Shocked, Lily asks him where he heard the tune.