Fragments of Light

by Michele Phoenix

  Sabine translated, but some of the villagers had already started to move. Women and men pushed children toward the kitchen, uttering words that sounded brave, but the glances they exchanged reflected the gravity of the circumstances.

  Several of the townsmen, Albert among them, stood to the side of the windows with their backs against the wall. Cal motioned for them to scan the fields from their vantage point. “Tell me how many there are. Yes?” he said, interpreting his words with his hands. One of the men nodded and translated for the others.

  Lise pulled away from Sabine as her sister propelled her out of the room. “Ils vont tirer sur Otto?” she asked.

  All Cal recognized in the French was “Otto.” Sabine responded in English. “They are not going to shoot Otto,” she said firmly, eyes on Cal.

  Lise was unconvinced. Taking a step toward the men guarding the windows, she launched into a barrage of French, the anguish on her face deepening as her voice got louder.

  Sabine put a hand over her sister’s mouth and said something that made her go silent. Lise’s eyes were wide and teary as she looked up at Sabine. “Tu promets?” she asked.

  Sabine nodded. “I promise you, Lise. I will do what I can to keep Otto safe.” Then Sabine grabbed one of the women leaving the room and motioned for her to take Lise to safety.

  “Non!” Lise screamed, pulling her arm away. Sabine tried to pacify her again, but Lise would not go without her sister. Sabine finally picked her up and carried her from the room.

  Cal moved to the wall by the alcove that gave onto the backyard. He glanced at Albert, who shook his head. The Germans hadn’t come any closer. They were biding their time, probably scanning the area for any sign that the liberating forces had arrived before them.

  Cal was vaguely aware of movement and turned to find a dozen women reentering the living room, Sabine in the lead. “There are too many of us,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “The children are safe, but . . . we will wait together.” Her hands were clasped in front of her, and Cal wondered if it was to control their shaking.

  “The kids?”

  “In the cellar,” Sabine said. “As many as could fit. The rest are in Aunt Sophie’s quarters. The older ones will watch the younger.”

  Cal nodded, the responsibility for so many lives a nearly physical ache. He checked the magazine on Buck’s Garand. “I need my rifle,” he said to Sabine. When she frowned, he added, “There are at least three of them. We need all the firepower we can find.”

  “No.” Sabine’s statement was sharp and unequivocal. The townspeople gathered against the rear wall of the living room looked on with heightened emotions.

  The teenager squared her shoulders and stared Cal in the face, speaking fiercely. “We cannot shoot.” She looked at the villagers huddled behind her. “There are too many innocents here.”

  “What do—?”

  She didn’t let him finish. “We must let the Germans come in,” she said, nodding as if she was coming up with the plan as she spoke. “Otto will not harm us. I know he will not! Let them come in and see who we are. Let them take what they want and leave again. There is no need for shooting.”

  She’d uttered the last sentence with so much conviction that Cal actually paused long enough to consider it. But it was a ludicrous idea at best. And at worst, suicidal.

  “Sabine . . .”

  “I know Otto,” she repeated.

  “This is not the Occupation,” Cal said, each syllable clipped. “This is war. Who you know doesn’t matter anymore.”

  She raised her chin and faced off with him. “What we begin with fire will end with fire.”

  Cal was stunned. “If we let them through those doors,” he said, pointing toward the entryway. “If we let them walk in without resistance, there’s no telling what they’ll do!”

  “Otto is not a threat,” she insisted.

  “The gun he’s carrying tells me otherwise.” When Sabine hesitated, Cal said again, “I need my weapon. Buck and I need to be armed to defend you and your people.”

  “It would put every person in this castle in danger,” she answered with so much sureness that Cal felt anger quickening his pulse.

  “They’re in greater danger if we’re defenseless!”

  She looked at the men standing near the windows, only Albert holding a single-shot rifle. “We will do what we must. Only if we must.”

  Cal took a step toward her, but she was already on the move, her eyes on Buck, whose liquor-fueled sleep hadn’t been interrupted by the commotion around him. She began to shake him by the shoulder. “Wake up!”

  “What are you doing?” Cal asked, torn between incredulity at Sabine’s naivety and confusion at her focus on Buck.

  “Wake up!” she said more forcefully when Buck merely groaned and shrugged off her hand. There was urgency in her voice now. Something more frantic than Cal had heard before. She pulled his legs off the couch and yanked him by the arm into a semi-sitting position.

  “What the—” He warbled an expletive and squinted at Sabine. Then he reached out and grabbed her by the neck of her shirt, pulling her down so swiftly that she lost her footing and fell awkwardly across him. “If you touch me one more time,” he sneered, his face mere inches from hers.

  “Buck,” Cal spat. When his friend didn’t respond, he strode across the room and grabbed him by the hair, exerting enough force for Buck to let go of Sabine and look up at Cal, enraged and confused. What he saw on Cal’s face brought him up short. A glance around the room seemed to sober him up in an instant. “How close are they?” he asked, reaching for the weapon he’d kept at his side since the moment he’d arrived. “Where’s my gun?” he demanded.

  Sabine shook her head, determination on her face. “You cannot fight. You must leave the room,” she said. “You are in uniform. If Otto—” She stopped and started again. “If the Germans see you, they will shoot before they ask questions. The women. The children . . . You cannot be seen.” She pointed toward the door. “Go. Go hide upstairs.”

  “If you think—”

  “Do as she says,” Cal interrupted, surprising even himself. Everything in him was coiled for battle, the pain in his leg eclipsed by the urgency of the situation. He’d already run a dozen scenarios in his mind, every single one of them involving his and Buck’s weapons. The thought of letting German soldiers enter the castle unchallenged still felt reckless. Possibly deadly. But something in Sabine’s stance and conviction had gotten through to him, overriding his military training. The frightened teenage girl who should have been hiding in the cellar with the rest of the town’s children was defying him—defying logic—with too much certainty to ignore. She knew Otto. He’d lived in the castle for months along with her family. And if she thought they could resolve this without harming civilians . . .

  Cal leaned in close to Buck’s face. “If we fight, we’ll be risking every one of their lives.”

  “This is what we came for, pal!”

  “You must be gone when they enter,” Sabine said to Buck, her chin jutting out, her eyes blazing. “You must go upstairs now.”

  “Hide away like a sissy while the Krauts are attacking?” Buck exclaimed, incredulity on his face.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Cal saw Albert step away from the window he’d been guarding, his eyes on the GI defying Sabine’s orders. There was a threat in his stance.

  Cal hesitated only a beat, conscious that the Germans outside could make their move at any moment.

  “Go!” Cal said, giving his friend a rough shove toward the door.

  “Are you out of your bloody mind?”

  Now that Cal had made his decision, he was in no mood to equivocate. He handed Buck his Garand and pointed out the door. “Go upstairs. Lay low. And if things down here get out of hand . . .” He jutted his chin toward the weapon.

  There had been rebellion and disbelief on Buck’s face. It suddenly turned into disdain. He spat at Cal’s feet. “You’re a coward!” he said. “We train
ed for this! We trained for this!” he repeated with venom. “To kill the stinkin’ Nazis. Period. And you choose these peasants over—”

  Cal grabbed Buck by the back of his neck and yanked him forward. “We will kill anyone who tries to lay a hand on these people,” he snarled. “But we’ll do everything we can to avoid a bloodbath first. Understood?”

  Buck stared at Cal for a moment. “Why aren’t you hiding too?” he finally asked, squinting at his friend through unfocused eyes.

  “Because I’m in civilian clothes, and . . . these people aren’t soldiers. Someone needs to stay with them in case this gets out of hand.”

  “Let me!”

  “You’re drunk, Buck. And you’re in uniform.”

  “Ils sont dans le jardin,” Albert mumbled from the window, his expression tight. The villagers murmured and huddled closer, reaching for each other as danger drew nearer.

  “They’re in the garden,” Sabine translated for Cal.

  “Go!” he ordered Buck.

  “If they come anywhere near me . . . ,” his friend said through clenched teeth.

  Cal looked over his shoulder at the terrified villagers. “If things take a turn, we’ll be counting on you,” he said. “Now get out of sight. And, Buck . . .” He paused, then repeated the words his friend had used before. “We trained for this.”

  The two men stared at each other for a moment, then Buck, still a bit unsteady, turned and stormed out of the room.

  Cal was so focused on Buck that he was barely aware of Sabine marching to one of the windows that faced the fields. Before he could do anything to stop her, she threw it open.

  “What are you—?” Cal reached her in two strides and pulled her out of sight against the wall.

  But she wasn’t listening. Before he could finish his sentence and without the slightest hesitation, she turned her head toward the window and yelled, “Otto, it’s Sabine. There are only villagers here!” in a voice as clear and calm as he’d ever heard.

  Every person in the room froze.

  Chapter 17

  “See that porch light over there by the water tower?” Brenda asked as we gingerly took the stairs down from the McElway porch. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  The water tower was barely visible, silhouetted against the remains of an early-spring sunset. But the porch light shone boldly in the deepening night.

  “Why don’t you drive your car around and I’ll meet you there. I’ve been jumping the crick for years, but I can tell by your footwear that you’re not the hopping type.”

  “I like her,” Darlene said as we returned to the car.

  “I’ll like her better when my blood pressure goes back to normal,” I muttered.

  “Might need to get into my luggage for a clean pair of undies,” Darlene agreed, smiling. “What are the odds of running into the neighbors when the next house over is a quarter mile away?”

  The sign above the front door read Welcome to Foggy Acres. Brenda stood underneath it as we drove up to the farmhouse, and Darlene said, “How the heck did she get here before us?”

  We’d talked in the car for a minute before I started it, but it didn’t seem long enough for Brenda to have beat us to the front door.

  “Get a lot of fog around here?” Darlene asked as we climbed the steps.

  “Nope. Foggy’s our last name.”

  “Really?”

  “I told my husband he’d have to change it if I was going to marry him, but . . . fifty-one years, three kids, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandsons later, I guess I’ve gotten used to the darn thing. Tea or coffee?” she asked as she opened the front door for us. “And you might as well get your things out of the car now, if you’re going to spend the night.”

  That took both of us by surprise. “Oh, we saw a Days Inn outside Bolivar and thought we’d head back there for the night,” I said.

  Brenda propped a fist on her hip. “Well, that would be mighty silly when I’ve got two empty bedrooms upstairs with clean sheets on the beds.”

  Darlene and I exchanged glances. Nobody knew where we were. These were perfect strangers. And although Brenda seemed friendly, we’d both lived in the city suburbs long enough to distrust an act of kindness.

  “I’ll throw in a homemade breakfast,” Brenda said. “Tom makes a mean omelet.” She smiled as if we couldn’t possibly resist.

  It was Darlene who finally said, “It’ll sure beat the motel’s prefab fare.”

  Tom seemed not in the least surprised to learn that two strangers would be spending the night. As soft and rumpled as the recliner he sat in, he greeted us with a handshake, then put his earphones on again and turned back to the TV hanging above the family room’s mantel.

  “He’ll resurface in a couple hours,” Brenda said. “The NFL draft’s on and with those things on his ears, he might as well be in Las Vegas with Roger Goodell. Let’s us ladies retire to the drawing room,” she said with an affected posh accent.

  Minutes later we were sipping herbal tea in an all-season sunroom off the kitchen. Darlene and I sat on a plastic-covered couch. She’d abstained from broaching the topic of Cal McElway until that point but clearly couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Did you know my father?” she blurted halfway through Brenda’s description of recent weather and the impact it would have on crops.

  “Darlene has some questions,” I interjected wryly, hoping our host wouldn’t be offended by her bluntness. I shouldn’t have worried.

  “I was waiting for you to bring it up. Didn’t want to seem too forward. This isn’t coincidence, you realize,” she said, wiggling her finger at the two of us. “This is a divine appointment. I’ve had this gut feeling all my life that something surprising would come from the ruins of the McElway place.” She leaned forward and smiled at Darlene. “Now, you tell me what you know and then I’ll tell you what I know.”

  For the next few minutes, Darlene gave Brenda an overview of what had led us to Missouri, leaving out the contentious relationship she’d had with her dad’s memory and her recent diagnosis.

  “Wait,” Brenda interrupted at one point. “You’re telling me that Cal stayed with you and your mom for just a couple months after he came back before leaving again?”

  “No explanation given. Just up and disappeared.” Darlene shrugged, but the gesture was far from casual. “Just one of the many reasons I’m wanting to know more,” she said.

  Our host shook her head. “That doesn’t jibe with what I know of Cal McElway . . .”

  “Or with my late mother’s recollection of the man,” Darlene said. “I’ve been putting off hunting for him for nearly three years, but something told me now was the time.” She glanced in my direction and I smiled my encouragement. “I need to know if by some miracle he’s still alive. We haven’t been able to uncover anything that tells us he died. No obituary. No death certificate. I was wondering—almost hoping—if someone here knows where he went, where he is now.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Brenda seemed genuinely contrite. “I wish I could tell you that he’s living in a retirement home down the road, getting three squares a day and telling war stories, but . . .” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “All I know about Cal is a few memories from childhood and the legend my mother built around the man.”

  I patted Darlene’s knee and told Brenda, “Whatever you can tell us will be more than we already know.”

  “Well . . .” She frowned, then she smiled at Darlene. “I just don’t know where to begin. I grew up hearing about him, so he’s just always been a part of my life. When we were little, my brother and I used his old barn as a jungle gym. ‘Callum McElway would not appreciate your trespassing,’ Mother would yell at us from the other side of the creek. And sometimes at bedtime she’d spin tall tales about the hometown hero who’d gone off to join the army and stormed the beaches of Normandy. She’s the one who wrote him when his poor momma died.”

  “Rhoda Bishop?” I felt a small thrill as our stories
intersected.

  Brenda was taken aback. “Well, yes. Yes, that was her name.”

  I hurried to the entryway, where I’d left my purse, and came back with the brown envelope. I’d found the letter Brenda’s mother had sent to Claire for Cal when he was in England. Brenda covered her heart when she saw the handwriting. “Where did you find this?” Her voice was hushed with emotions.

  “Your mom sent it to my mother’s address in Geneva, Illinois,” Darlene said, the glint of excitement in her eyes. “And then my mother sent it on to Cal. It was found with five other letters in some kind of mansion in France.”

  “This here is a piece of history,” Brenda said. We waited in silence as she unfolded the yellowed piece of paper. “‘We found her in her bed,’” she read. “‘The Good Lord took her peacefully while she slept, probably dreaming of her heroic boy.’” Brenda blinked back tears and smiled at us. “Mother was always a bit of a poet.”

  Darlene leaned forward on the couch next to me, making the plastic squeak. “I’m thinking my father might have come back here after he left us.”

  “He sure did,” Brenda said. Darlene took in a quick breath but let Brenda go on. “I would have been five or six at the time, but it was big news. Huge news. Watching over the farm after Mrs. McElway passed became sort of a family thing. I was too young to remember most of the details today, but I know my parents took in their livestock and harvested their crops. There was nobody else to do it.

  “The way my mom told it, Cal came wandering back completely unannounced one day. August or September, I think. She saw light coming through the windows and went over to check on the house. Found him living there like it was the most natural thing in the world. Looked like he was going to put down roots too . . .”

  I glanced at Darlene as Brenda paused in her retelling. There was something tight in my friend’s expression. I tried to imagine what could be going through her mind. Cal hadn’t just “wandered” back to his old life in Kinley, as Brenda had so casually put it. He’d walked out on a wife and a daughter in Illinois without explanation, leaving them to question his departure for the remainder of their lives.