“Well . . .” He shifted in the wheelchair, fiddling with a frayed corner of the seat. “My daughter, I guess.”
Even with effort, I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening. “You have a daughter?” That hadn’t come up in any of the letters, unless she was one of the names he greeted at the end.
He took out a picture, not the wedding photo he’d shown me before, but a snapshot of curly-haired Christine smiling down at a squinting infant, a frilly bonnet tied under her chubby chin.
“She’s beautiful.” All babies were, wrinkles and matted hair and all. “I’m surprised you aren’t crowing about her to the rafters.”
“We didn’t mean to . . . well, we got married so sudden, to have some time together before I joined up, and . . . Emily was a bit of a surprise, let’s say. I met her once, just after she was born, when I was on leave.” His usually cheery face fell into a frown. “Wouldn’t you know, she screwed up her pretty little face and bawled her eyes out every time I tried to hold her.”
“Babies are like that.”
“So I’m told. Truth is, I don’t know squat about being a father. Or a husband either, really.” He took the envelope from me, turned it over in his hands like he was thinking of tearing it up, his eyes as distant as his more shell-shocked companions. “You’ve just got to wonder . . . what’ll it be like when I go back?”
“You’ll be there for them, Howie,” I said firmly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what. And I bet that’s all they want. Just a husband and father who’s willing to give it his all, even if you make some mistakes along the way.”
He scratched his whiskered chin thoughtfully and looked at me. “Well, I hope that’s so.”
“I know it is.”
He seemed to roll that around, not quite convinced, but not quite as scared looking as before. “And what about you?” I opened my mouth to dodge the question, before he added, “Nobody asks something like that unless they were thinking of their own situation first.”
He had me there. I decided a partial truth was all that was needed. “My . . . my brother was drafted two years ago. We don’t talk much now.”
Howie nodded to the stamps tucked under the ink blotter. “You can change that, you know.”
No, I can’t. He’s far away, maybe dying, and I never got a chance to make things right between us.
But I couldn’t say that. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Bea or Violet, the news. It would hurt too much, I reasoned, to even say the words out loud.
No. The only way to move on was by forging ahead. After wheeling Howie inside and making my rounds—I took dictation on another letter, read a chapter of a Zane Grey Western, and played two games of hearts and one of gin rummy—it was time to hoof it back to the Stratford. Even in our refurbished hotel barracks, curfew was taken seriously.
Just past the doors, Violet was stationed behind the stained-oak registration desk, in charge of quarters duty. “Two letters for you today, Dorie.” She pushed them across the desk at me as I signed back in on the register.
“A bonanza. Thanks.” Occasionally, one of the men I’d gone on a date with sent me a postcard or a letter. Who will it be today? Bert, the dashing corporal running missions up in the snow-covered Aleutian Islands? Wade, a Montana cowboy who hoped for the Pacific theater because he’d always wanted to see a real palm tree?
As soon as I was up a flight and out of sight, I took out the two envelopes . . . and frowned.
Of all the men I’d been expecting to hear from tonight—or ever again—Gordon Hooper and Lieutenant Vincent Leland were not among them.
FROM VINCENT LELAND TO DORIE ARMITAGE
To PFC Armitage,
I hope this message finds you well. I tried to call but was told you were unavailable, so I decided to hand deliver this note myself.
I’ve heard the news about your brother, and I want to tell you how sorry I am. War is terrible, and I hate every injury and lost life it causes.
My superior believes you’d be granted an early furlough if you explain the circumstances, a week or two to visit your family in this difficult time.
Now, if you’re thinking, “I can’t desert my post. What will people say?” I’ll tell you something I’ve learned the hard way: Don’t you ever let others’ expectations keep you from doing the right thing.
Which, in this case, is going home. They need you, even if you don’t think you need them, especially if Jack doesn’t pull out of this.
Think about it, that’s all I’m asking.
I’ll be leaving Fort Lawton as soon as the army finishes some negotiations I’m involved with, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know. I’m stationed temporarily near Major Hastings’s office. You might mention his name if you need some authority to back your furlough request.
And listen, those questions I asked you last week: I’m sorry for pushing you. If I’d known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have, especially asking about whether you pray for your brother. That didn’t cause what happened to Jack, so don’t let yourself think it for a moment.
Lieutenant Vincent Leland
FROM GORDON TO DORIE
January 14, 1945
Dear Dorie,
It’s been over three years since I last wrote you, and I don’t know if you want to hear from me now. But since they won’t let me visit Jack at the hospital—I begged our district ranger twice already, but “the CPS has rules”—I had to tell you how sorry I am.
I’m sorry Jack was hurt so badly. Sorry he was so far away from your family when it happened. Sorry I wasn’t there to help him.
It doesn’t feel like nearly enough.
They won’t tell us much about how he’s doing, or even where they’re treating him, but we know he hasn’t woken up yet and that he might not. I can’t imagine how awful it must be for you.
I know you didn’t want Jack to join the CPS with me, but you should know that he was brave, selfless, and everything a good soldier should be. Even to the last. Our district ranger, Earl Morrissey, thinks he rushed to the fire as soon as he saw it, trying to put it out himself without any equipment. Always looking after others. Still, I wish he would have called it in like he was supposed to. It’s awful, isn’t it? The one time in his life Jack broke the rules, and this is what happened.
If you were here, maybe Morrissey would tell us where they’re keeping him, being family and all. It’s enough to make a fellow worried, the way they won’t tell us much of anything. But I know it may just be the stress of it all wearing on me. On all of us.
Another reason I wanted to write was that I found the enclosed page in Jack’s things, along with your address. It’s part of a radio drama he was working on, written the night before he left for lookout duty.
I don’t want to meddle, and I’m sorry if it brings up unwanted memories, but I felt like I had to send it to you for any comfort it might give. I’m sure you and your parents are taking this hard. I pray for all of you often in this difficult time. Maybe God can find us in the fog. He has to be there, just out of reach. Doesn’t he?
Gordon Hooper
FROM JACK ARMITAGE’S NOTEBOOK
Raymond Steele, Private Eye
Act One, Scene One
[SFX: feet on creaking boards, office door shutting]
JACKSON: Mr. Steele?
STEELE: That’s my name—don’t wear it out.
JACKSON: Say . . . I-I’ve got something I could use your help with.
STEELE: Doesn’t everyone? It’s about a dame, isn’t it?
JACKSON: Jiminy! How’d you know?
STEELE: It’s always about a dame. Did she, what, run off with your best friend? Walk away with all your dough? Drop out of your life?
JACKSON: That one.
STEELE: Shoulda guessed that first. Listen, pal, I’m a private eye, not chairman of the local Lonely Hearts Club. Now scram.
JACKSON: It’s not like you think. She . . . she’s my sister.
STEELE: Go on.
&n
bsp; JACKSON: I can’t find any trace of her, no matter how hard I look. It’s like . . . she disappeared.
STEELE: Just the facts, now. I’m on a tight schedule.
JACKSON: Nora and I haven’t talked in over a year, but we recently came into some inheritance money, and the family lawyer asked me to reconnect. After she didn’t return my calls, I tracked down the dump where she’d been living. Her landlord told me she stiffed him on the rent and ran off with some citified card shark.
STEELE: Think she’d do that?
JACKSON: I dunno. Guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought. But it didn’t sit well, you know? Like something bad had happened to her. Maybe even . . . foul play.
[SFX: dramatic chord]
STEELE: Listen, pal, there’s not a day that goes by without some upstanding girl getting dragged down into the muck of the wrong part of town. Not organized crime—the disorganized sort. Broken promises and empty stomachs, doing what you got to do to make it. Just how it goes.
JACKSON: Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not gonna give up on her. Not that easy. Not until I make sure she’s all right. We’ve got to find my sister. Whatever it takes.
STEELE: Whatever it takes is letting me do my job, buddy. I’m the gumshoe here. You’re just a pair of old work boots slowing me down.
JACKSON: Does that mean you’ll take the case?
STEELE: Against my better judgment, sure. The Mystery of the Missing Sister. It’s got a ring to it. Time to hit the streets. No case is so cold that Raymond Steele can’t be hot on its trail.
FROM GORDON’S MOTHER, JANE MCCARDELL, TO GORDON
January 15, 1945
Dear Son,
I got your second letter in as many days. I’m so sorry to hear about Jack’s injury. Your letter made it sound quite serious. He’ll be all right, won’t he? It’s dreadful for a mother to think about things like that. Are you sure you can’t transfer to another branch of the CPS? I hear several are working at homes for the elderly or asylums, which can’t be so bad as fighting fires.
My routine remains unchanged and unremarkable. Probably why I seemed to be low in spirits. There’s something just so . . . daily about days here. It’s been a long time. And I miss you, son.
I did read Walden, but I’m sorry to admit that I didn’t care for it. It’s hard to appreciate Thoreau’s musings about the beauty of lakes and the feeling of grass under one’s feet and seizing destiny in my current circumstances.
Also, you shouldn’t be cruel to your aunt. You know your uncle is losing his hearing and probably doesn’t respond with nearly as much sympathy as she would like.
I look forward to the time when this awful war is over again and you can visit me. I hope and pray that day will come soon.
Your mother
FROM DORIE TO HER PARENTS
January 17, 1945
Dear Mother and Daddy,
Well, wouldn’t you know, after a year and a half in the motorpool here, I’ve been reassigned. For the next two weeks, I’ll be the aide for a special mission. Can’t say more about it than that, other than that it’s still in the Pacific Northwest. (Nothing dangerous, Mama. Don’t fret.)
So don’t write to me at Fort Lawton anymore, as it would waste a stamp. I can’t give you a new address at the moment, but I’ll do my best to call once or twice to hear if you have updates on Jack.
He’ll recover, I’m sure of it. We just have to keep our chins up. And you’ll be glad to know I’m even doing some praying. (It’s been a while. I’m not convinced God is listening, but it can’t hurt to try.)
I love you both. And miss you.
Your daughter,
Dorie
FROM DORIE TO VINCENT LELAND
January 18, 1945
Lieutenant Leland,
Well, I’d say you’ve got a record better than Joe Lewis in the ring. You were right. My very first thought was that the WACs couldn’t carry on without me for two whole weeks, and what a disappointment I’d be if I took a break.
My second thought was how deliciously just it would be to stick Sergeant Bloom with my absence after she’d punished me with a week of KP duty for being out after curfew.
But my third thought was that you might be right after all, and that, at least, is more noble.
So I marched down to Petmencky’s office first thing this morning to plead my case, which involved dropping names and working up some crocodile tears. Now the paperwork’s all signed. I’m out on the 5 PM train for twelve days of furlough.
I hadn’t thought to worry about whether my lack of piety was to blame for Jack’s injury until you brought it up. I hadn’t thought much about Jack at all, actually. You can crowd out even the worst of news if you fill your days with other noises, I’ve learned. But still, I appreciate you trying to reassure me.
It’s ironic, isn’t it? Here at the fort, I’m surrounded by men—coworkers at the garage, dates to the movies anytime I want them, pen pals stationed overseas—but Jack is the one man who’s always been there for me. Even when I wasn’t there for him.
Maybe I can be now.
Since I’m in a hurry, chances are good I might not see you before I go. If that’s the case, thanks for everything. I mean it. Like you said, my family needs me, and I intend to be as helpful to them as I possibly can be, no matter what it takes.
Sincerely,
PFC Doris Armitage
Dorie
CHAPTER 10
Gordon Hooper
January 19, 1945
“All right, boys,” Mrs. Edith said, straining to plop down two gunnysacks of potatoes between us on the dish-room counter. “How about hobo packets for dinner tonight?”
“Why, Mrs. E,” Shorty said sweetly, batting his eyelashes at her, “I’d just lick the plate for anything you made.”
Her eyes lit with amusement at his blatant flattery, and I started to laugh, then remembered again.
Jack hadn’t woken up yet.
That’s how it was these days. Moments when life was almost back to normal . . . and then I’d remember my daily trek to Morrissey’s office. Today’s answer was the same as the past six: Jack was still alive, with no change to his condition. The doctors were worried. We should all pray . . . and wait.
“Why do you call them hobo packets?” I asked, taking the potatoes over to the sink to scrub them and trying to force my mind out of that rut.
“Hmm? Oh, one of the CCC men used to call them that. It must be a decade ago now.” Mrs. Edith shook her head, smiling. “Roy Someone or other. He was a roguish fellow—might’ve been a drifter himself once. Charming, though. Sarah Ruth thought so, anyway.”
“Oho,” Shorty crowed, the dishcloth he’d been about to whip against me as I passed by going limp as he focused on Mrs. Edith instead. “Is that so? Paulette Bunyan had a sweetheart?”
Mrs. Edith chuckled at Shorty’s now-familiar nickname. His fictional tall tales of Sarah Ruth’s heroic exploits in the wilderness were bonfire-night favorites. “Yes, it’s true.”
I tried to picture tough, independent Sarah Ruth as she was in the mid-’30s—sixteen, maybe?—sighing wistfully after one of the Civilian Conservation Corps workers assigned to the forest for the summer, the object of her girlish crush . . . and failed.
“Whatever happened to him?” I couldn’t help asking.
Mrs. Edith shrugged. “Why, he left after the job was done, I suppose. They did good work—many of our buildings and trails are thanks to them. But we never heard from Roy after that summer.”
“Good,” Shorty declared. “Might give another fellow a chance, eh, Gordon?”
My face flushed at the implication in Shorty’s voice. This was Sarah Ruth’s mother he was joking with, for pity’s sake.
Mrs. Edith waggled a knife in Shorty’s direction before handing it to him properly, handle first. “Now get to work, you two. I don’t want you spending all your time jawing.”
As I peeled, I tried to imagine the final product: a tinfoil m
ass of salt, pepper, bits of leftover bacon, and creamy goodness. There was something romantic about Roy-the-CCC-man’s name for them if you imagined them cooked over a fire by a train hopper wearing fingerless gloves rather than cooked in an oven by a beaming woman who sang an off-key version of “Oh My Darling Clementine” as she worked.
“The trouble with potatoes is,” Shorty philosophized, once Mrs. Edith had gone inside the kitchen, leaving us to the dish room, “they just aren’t easy enough.” He held up his latest tuber, where he had carved a frowning face, with a rotten spot as a nose. Then his own face sobered. “Say, are we . . . do you think we should have a bonfire tonight?”
Oh. It was Friday.
“Why are you asking me?” I tossed a potato in the pot Mrs. Edith had set out.
“You just . . . Jack always . . . and you’re his best friend.” He toed the floor awkwardly and nodded out the window toward the fire pit. “I thought you and me could help set things up.”
It might be good to have a little normalcy. Have something to do besides mope and wait. “Sure, why not? We’d just need to get a stack of old newspapers from Morrissey for tinder.”
Wait. Newspapers.
My knife clattered against the counter. “I’ll be back,” I said to a confused-looking Shorty, running out the back door toward the bunkhouse. Hopefully he’d think I had an emergency urge to use the latrine.
Right before Jack’s week at the lookout, he’d gotten another newspaper article, but I hadn’t seen any of them in his things when I searched. Maybe he threw them away.
But no. That didn’t seem like Jack. He’d always said, “Even if we don’t agree with the war, that doesn’t mean we should pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Inside the bunkhouse, I searched under his bed and mattress and pushed the nightstand away from the wall to see if something was trapped behind it, finding lint and a gum wrapper but nothing more.
I flopped down on Jack’s bunk, springs groaning, closing my eyes. Had I ever seen him tuck the anonymous letters away somewhere other than his pocket? No memory surfaced. I sighed and opened my eyes.
The Lines Between Us Page 9