Fragments of Light

by Michele Phoenix

  He looked at his granddaughter almost apologetically. “I wanted to be a hero, you know.”

  “Gramps.” There were tears in her eyes too.

  Charles’s mood seemed to change in an instant. He shook off the hand she’d laid on his arm. “It’s what we came over here for, right? Bunch of American kids, rarin’ for a fight. Bring on them Nazis!”

  His voice had risen high enough that some of the other patrons in the restaurant were glancing our way. Gina gestured for him to keep it down, and I tried to sound calm as I said, “We understand, Charles. It was a horrible time. For everyone. And you were just a kid yourself.”

  “I was a man,” he said with such suppressed force that his voice shook. “I was a warrior.”

  “Of course you were,” I said softly, still trying to appease him.

  “I was old enough to be a warrior and stupid enough to think I was invincible. I figured, ‘Come at me,’ right? ‘Gimme your best shot, you sons of . . .’” His voice trailed off. “I figured we could take them. Cal and me. Right there in that room full of people.”

  He dropped his head and rubbed his eyes with the fingers of one hand. They were haunted when he looked up. “Warrior lost. Stupid won.” It was a simple statement. It seemed to cost him his soul. “So these celebrations here. They’re great. They’re fantastic. But . . . war is hell. That’s the other side of the story.”

  Clasping together his still-shaking hands, Charles glanced at his granddaughter. “I think I’ve had enough.” He looked ten years older than he had minutes before.

  “Are you feeling okay?” She seemed concerned.

  “I just want to go home.”

  I had to tamp down the impulse to beg him to stay—to tell him we’d come a long way for the story he was abbreviating. “Are you sure, Charles?” I said instead.

  “I can’t.” Tears trickled down the creases on his face. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His head was shaking now too, as if the nerves in his body had been overwhelmed by the memories he was reliving.

  Nate spoke in a soft but commanding voice. “Just tell us one more thing,” he said.

  Charles paused.

  “Just tell us if Cal was a good man. If he was a hero or a coward.”

  “His daughter is gone,” I added, tears now on my face too, “but I still need to know, Charles. For the sake of her memory.”

  Gina had pulled on her jacket and was standing behind her grandfather’s chair, torn between concern for him and her obvious compassion for us. “Can you just answer that, Gramps? And then I’ll take you home.”

  His shaking increased. His face was flushed, his shoulders slumped, but his gaze was steady. “Your boy Cal was a hero,” he said, a suppressed sob distorting his features. “You’re looking at the coward he called Buck.”

  “He knew Cal.”

  It was probably the twentieth time I’d made the statement.

  Nate and I sat at the kitchen table of our bed-and-breakfast, torn between amazement at the connection with Charles and frustration over what we still hadn’t learned.

  “They were both at the castle,” Nate said. “Charles witnessed what happened. And by the way he hightailed it out of there before he got to the end of the story, I’m guessing it was pretty grim.”

  I nodded. “Grim enough to keep a returning hero from basking in the glory of liberating Europe. Grim enough, maybe, for a soldier whose wife and wartime comrade both considered him a truly good man to abandon the woman whose picture alone seemed to have gotten him through the run-up to D-Day.”

  “All we have is conjecture based on a handful of facts,” Nate said on a sigh, making his wooden chair creak as he leaned back to stretch his legs past the corner of the table. “I hoped we’d know more by the time our trip was over.”

  “Me too,” I said, feeling the disappointment I saw in Nate’s countenance and posture.

  On a whim, I said, “I have a confession.”

  A small smile curved his lips. “You really do love Weezer?”

  “Not that big of a confession. I brought something with me from the States.”

  “Okay.”

  I went up to my bedroom and got the green canvas bag I’d carried over from home. Frustration weighed heavy as I sat across from Nate again. “I thought that maybe if we came to Normandy and learned enough about who Cal was and what he did here, maybe I’d know where to scatter these.”

  I took the small urn of Darlene’s ashes out of the bag and slid it to the middle of the table.

  Nate considered my dilemma for a moment, apparently unsurprised by the ashes I’d brought along. “We could go back to the cemetery,” he said. “Or to the beach below it.”

  I shook my head. “That feels like a place that honors fallen soldiers. Cal didn’t die over here.”

  “You could make the case that part of him did.”

  I let that sink in for a moment. “But not on those beaches. The way Charles—Buck, I guess—described it, it was at the castle that something happened.” I groaned and rubbed my eyes. “I hate not knowing.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Whatever happened there caused a lifetime of grief for Darlene.”

  “And her mother.”

  I frowned. “Not the way Darlene tells it. Not the way Justin tells it. From all accounts, Claire lived in peace. A hard life, for sure. But somehow she found a way back to happy and content after Cal walked out on her.”

  “Hard to imagine,” Nate said, his expression troubled.

  I tried not to sound caustic when I said, “She had this verse highlighted in her Bible—I mean passionately highlighted—about not holding on to anger. She must have found some way to let go and move on.”

  Nate’s eyes met mine and a delicate, almost imperceptible current bridged the gap between us. It felt like honesty.

  “When you said we couldn’t get there . . .” His voice was soft and hurt as he shifted to another, equally complicated topic. “When you said we might not be able to get past what I did . . . I know the situation is completely different, Ceelie, but—I guess I want to make it clear that I’m not Cal.”

  I folded my hands on the table and looked down, unable to answer.

  “I walked away, but I came back.” He leaned forward. “And I’m not going away again. Not unless you tell me to. I may be the man who bailed on you, Cee, but I’m also the man who came back.”

  A wave of confusion made me close my eyes. I breathed. I listened to the voice of woundedness hurling accusations at the softening of my heart. Latent fear swelled inside me, fierce and forceful, threatening to snuff out a flickering hint of hope.

  Drawing courage from Nate’s honesty, I said, “I want to believe you. I do. But— What if something happens down the road that changes things . . .” Dread darkened my thinking. “Or if my cancer isn’t really cured and comes back, like Darlene’s.” It was a thought I’d tried to stifle for months, but there was no escaping its ominous, persistent whisper. “What if it’s already growing—somewhere else in my body? What will you do then, Nate? I can’t set myself up to be hurt that way again.”

  Something bruised washed over my husband’s face. “I’ll stay.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t intended to sound sarcastic.

  He didn’t look away. He held my gaze with eyes that spoke of self-inflicted affliction and remorse. The talks we’d had—the explanations he’d offered—never could have conveyed the jagged contrition I saw in that moment. It swept across the chasm between us as a nearly palpable energy, past the cremated remains of the friend who had learned too late about the fruitlessness of hate—the bristling, isolating pain of bitterness.

  As I looked across the table at the man I’d married when we were both too young to understand the toll and torment of a ’til-death commitment, something primal and powerful stirred.

  I felt my posture change.

  My determination toughen.

  My rebellion against the disease that had assailed us heighten.<
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  Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached across the table and grasped Nate’s hand, my own shaking with emotion and nervousness. After a startled moment, he covered it with his, a casual gesture he’d made a thousand times in all our years together. But on that evening in Normandy, it felt like something more. Something present, protective, purposeful, and sure.

  “I hate what happened to us,” I said, my voice rough with the ache of fear and loss.

  Nate rose without releasing his hold and I stood too. We faced each other wordlessly, something electric in the way our eyes met. In the skin-on-skin connection of our intertwined fingers. He stepped close enough that our bodies almost touched and we stayed there, eyes locked, a while longer—long enough for me to be tempted to lean in.

  The outside world receded and I saw only Nate. The need in his eyes. The remorse. The certainty and strength. “I’m sorry I gave you so many reasons to hate me,” he whispered. I breathed in his nearness, then moved just enough to rest my forehead on the pulse beating in his neck. “You had every right to despise me,” he continued. “You have every right.” His lips were near my ear, his breath gentle in my hair.

  He let me rest there, unmoving, something intimate in our barely touching closeness, and I felt my wounded spirit fluttering toward trust.

  Before fear’s cold defenses could ambush my resolve, I murmured the words I needed to say. “I’m not ready to give up.”

  Something almost imperceptible softened in Nate. He pulled away—just a few inches so he could see my face—but the distance felt to me like a destabilizing void. I tightened my grip on his hand and added, “I’m not ready to let the things that tried to break us win.”

  My husband’s half smile held a trace of regret but shone with courageous, luminous hope.

  Chapter 35

  I woke the next morning with a mental clarity I hadn’t felt in months. Something in me had flickered back to life as our conversation stretched into the night. It felt bright and buoyant. Hope-adjacent, as Darlene might have said.

  Nate seemed to be in a similar mood when he came out of his room—energized and ready to make the most of our last day in Normandy. We decided over breakfast that we’d spend it taking in as much of the history of the area as we could—driving to Juno Beach, then Pegasus Bridge, and then on to Pointe du Hoc, a strategically located clifftop defended and overtaken at unimaginable human cost.

  From there, we went on to the only logical place where Darlene would have wanted her ashes scattered.

  It was nearly seven p.m. and the construction truck we’d seen two days before was gone. Nate went to the front door anyway, just in case Jean-Marie was inside, but its combination lock was securely in place.

  We walked round the courtyard to take a few pictures of the castle for Justin. “So Cal’s already in there when Charles finds the old man and takes him inside at gunpoint,” Nate said softly, clearly trying to envision the scene. “And the house is full of people who ran here for safety.”

  “And then the Germans come back, and . . .”

  “War is hell,” Nate said, quoting Charles.

  He got the canvas bag out of the back seat of the car and we walked around the side of the castle to the huge, rugged tree I’d seen from inside when Maribeth had first brought us to the Château d’Aubry-en-Douve. I took a moment to turn slowly, taking in our surroundings, the day’s visits to other historic sites generating lifelike scenes in my mind. I tried to hear the sounds, feel the emotions, and see the faces that might have been part of Cal’s reality on D-Day.

  Then Nate and I moved to stand beneath the oak tree. Its limbs—those that remained—were gnarled and weathered, but all but one curved upward from the damaged trunk, a noble insurrection against the ravages of time.

  I trailed my hand across the bark of one of the oak’s lower branches, wondering, as I had on my previous visit, what it might have witnessed.

  “You do realize this is private property.”

  The voice came from behind us. It was soft, feminine, and had a distinctive accent.

  I turned to find a familiar woman standing a few feet from us. She’d just come around the corner, dressed as impeccably as she’d been the day before at the small ceremony in the American Cemetery. Her raised eyebrows indicated that she didn’t approve of our intrusion.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling guilty and puzzled by her appearance on the castle’s grounds.

  Nate’s fingers clasped mine. I didn’t pull away. “You were at the cemetery yesterday, right? The Veteran Relations . . .”

  “Coordinator, yes,” she confirmed. “Also the owner of this estate. And you’re . . . ?”

  I felt Nate’s grip tighten as he said, “We’re Nate and Cecelia Donovan. We were at Colleville yesterday for the ceremony and—well, now we’re here.” I heard the smile in his voice when he added, “Clearly trespassing and caught red-handed.”

  The tall, sophisticated woman took a few steps toward us, hiking her purse higher on her shoulder. As she came closer, I realized she was older than I’d thought when we’d seen her the day before—probably in her late seventies or early eighties. She smiled back at Nate, laugh lines enhancing the classic beauty of her face, but there was still suspicion in her eyes. “And you’re trespassing because . . . ?”

  Nate looked at me. I stepped forward, dropping his hand and immediately feeling the loss. “Someone we know was here during the war. He . . .” I stopped myself. “Do you know Maribeth Coupey?”

  “I do.”

  I seized on the connection, hoping it would earn us some grace. “She brought us for a visit a couple days ago and—well—we wanted to come back to honor our friend one last time before we leave for home.”

  “You say someone you know was here during the war.” She squinted a bit as she considered our story. “Someone who lived here, or . . . ?”

  Nate stepped beside me. He casually draped his arm across my shoulder. I could feel protectiveness in the gesture. “It’s a long story,” he said.

  The castle’s owner tipped her head and seemed to be considering whether we were telling the truth. “Long stories require coffee,” she finally said. “I happen to know the combination for the front door, and Jean-Marie has a Keurig in that sparkling new kitchen.”

  When we had our coffee and were seated in the newly remodeled kitchen, I took the letters from my purse. “Maribeth told me these were found here when the renovation began.” I handed them to her. “They’re addressed to a Cal McElway. We know he jumped over Normandy on D-Day, and we know he spent time under this roof. We’re just hoping to learn more about what happened when he was here. He was never the same after he was sent home.”

  She took the letters from me as if they were a fragile treasure. Then she seemed to shake off the shock that had stunned her for a moment and smiled at us with a mixture of awe and nostalgia.

  “My older sister and I were in this castle on June 6, 1944—it was our family home.” She pointed to the oak outside the kitchen window. “And we found Cal McElway hanging in that tree.”

  Chapter 36

  Nate sucked in air next to me. I felt a swirling in my mind and waited for it to right itself. For an interminable couple of minutes, the woman who’d now told us her name was Lise looked closely at the letters we’d brought.

  “This one—it isn’t addressed to Cal.”

  “He actually wrote it to his mom. We found it in his old house in Missouri,” I said. “One of the many wild goose chases we’ve been on to find out what happened to him.”

  She put down the envelopes and folded her hands in her lap, considering us again. There was something gentle on her face now. And also something suspicious—I’d seen it flashing in her eyes a couple times as I’d told our story. “You said you knew him . . .”

  I felt myself blushing but couldn’t help it. “Actually . . .”

  Nate jumped in. “We were talking fast to keep you from calling the cops on us,” he explained, raisi
ng a hand in apology. “It felt expedient to say we knew him personally, but—”

  “But it’s actually just his daughter we knew,” I said. “She was born while he was over here and . . .” I blinked at the tears blurring my vision. “She passed away a few weeks ago.”

  I began to tell Lise about the miraculous collection of events and serendipity that had led us to Aubry-en-Douve, but paused when I noticed how pale she had gone. She swallowed convulsively, a disbelieving expression on her face. “I’m sorry . . . a daughter?” It was nearly a whisper. “I was so caught off guard that it didn’t register until just now.” She shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “Cal had a daughter?”

  I nodded. “Her name was Darlene.”

  After a moment, Lise pushed away from the table and went to stand near the window, a hand at her throat.

  There was something in the tension of that moment that I didn’t understand.

  “Cal was only here for forty-eight hours or so during the war,” she finally said. “He was wounded—surrounded by the enemy and unsure of survival . . .”

  She turned to look at Nate, then me. “It’s my late sister, Sabine, who found him. His canopy got caught on one of the high branches of that tree.” She motioned toward the oak. “And it was I who cut it down after we’d gotten him inside. I was a child,” she said, “and he was kind to me.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head in confusion. “That he had a daughter . . .” She looked out again, her eyebrows drawn together.

  After a brief hesitation, I said, “Lise, why is his having a daughter so hard for you to hear?”

  She smiled sadly but remained silent. Nate and I did too, letting whatever ghosts hovered between us find their voice. Lise finally blew out a pent-up breath, as if she was releasing her control over Cal’s tale.

  “Because he came back,” she said. “Because Cal came back.”