Haven Point

by Virginia Hume

  When Dr. Demarest finished his examination, Maren concentrated on her work, not daring to look up even as she heard him approach.

  “Hello, Nurse…”

  Maren raised her eyes to see him looking at her fixedly. She quickly finished bandaging and stood up.

  “Larsen. My name is Nurse Larsen.” Her heart raced in a manner foreign to her—not a pleasant sensation, a cousin to anxiety.

  “Hello, Nurse Larsen,” he said. He held her gaze a second longer than necessary, then picked up the chart at the end of the bed. “Can you tell me about Private Gregory?”

  “He was injured at Ardennes, Doctor. His leg was amputated below the knee. His wound is clear of infection.”

  Dr. Demarest peeked under the bandages and appeared satisfied. He caught Maren’s eye again, gave her a slight smile, then moved on. He left the ward soon thereafter.

  They were so busy cleaning wounds, changing bandages, and dispensing medications for the rest of the afternoon, Maren had little time to consider the queer effect Dr. Demarest had on her. But when her shift ended and she left the ward, she saw him talking to Dorothy at the end of the hall. He walked away before Maren approached, headed down one of the corridors, somewhere into the building’s byzantine depths. Fortunately, she did not have to wait long before Dorothy satisfied her burning curiosity.

  “Oliver Demarest went to boarding school with my brother. That’s why I called him ‘Oliver.’ I wasn’t thinking. Such a faux pas,” Dorothy said, though she didn’t sound particularly troubled. “He invited us to go to the pictures tonight at the Greenhouse Theater. I told him I thought we could. Please do come with!”

  “I’d love to, Dorothy, but perhaps you’d like to catch up, just the two of you?”

  “Oh no you don’t, silly. I’m pretty sure he cooked up the whole outing as a way of seeing you again. He specifically asked if you might be available.” She raised one eyebrow and gave Maren a gentle nudge. “I knew someone was going to catch on to you!”

  “Oh really, Doro! He just met me for a moment,” Maren said. But as they headed down the hall and out the door toward the nurses’ residence, she felt a twinge of excitement. She thought he had noticed her, but she hadn’t been sure. She had no experience reading the signals of an East Coast man who appeared to be at least ten years her senior.

  The truth was, she had thought little about men of any age during her first months at Walter Reed. The work was overwhelming, the stream of boys arriving every day with their grievous, life-changing injuries. She had tried to see some of the city beyond the campus, but there had been little time even for that.

  She and Dorothy had come to Walter Reed through the Cadet Nurse Corps, a program cooked up in Washington to address the shortage of home-front nurses. High school graduates were fast-tracked through nursing school, with the government picking up the tab for tuition, books, and uniforms.

  Like many senior cadets, Maren and Dorothy were spending their final months training in a military hospital. Though some of her classmates grumbled about staying on American soil, Maren had no such misgivings. The detritus of the war that passed before her eyes told her all she needed to know about the mayhem and misery that lay beyond American shores. This was no time to see the world.

  “Oh, will you feel that air.” Dorothy sighed, throwing her arms out wide.

  Leaving the ward after a long shift always felt like a rebirth, but particularly so today. They had emerged into an exquisite autumn afternoon, the air cool and dry. Tree branches moved in the light breeze and tossed their leaves along the path like offerings.

  Though signs of illness and injury were everywhere—doctors and nurses in uniform and patients wheeled between buildings—in many ways, Walter Reed resembled a university more than a hospital, with its brick buildings and landscaped grounds. The nurses’ dorm, Delano Hall, was a rambling structure with grand white pillars, high ceilings, sun porches, music rooms, and large parlors. It even had a ballroom where the nurses hosted dances.

  It would be nice lodgings at any time, but it was positively luxurious for 1944 Washington, D.C. The city was stretched to the seams even before thousands of “government girls” moved to town to fill wartime administrative jobs. In some apartments, girls lived three to a room, sleeping in shifts. Maren and Dorothy’s suite in Delano was quite comfortable—a bedroom with twin beds and a nightstand, and a small sitting room.

  “So, what shall we wear?” Dorothy asked as she threw open the closet door and gestured at the contents. Dorothy used her long arms to great effect, with grand, balletic gestures.

  “I don’t know, Dorothy. What do you think?”

  “Ugh, I loathe all these rules,” Dorothy said as she flipped through the items in her closet. “I miss all my gewgaws.” Wartime garment restrictions meant dresses with fewer pleats and trimmings. Buttons were for utility, never ornamentation. Limitations on dyes meant muted tones. Even so, Dorothy’s wardrobe still generated a wealth of options.

  “How about this for you?” Dorothy held up a bottle green jacket with padded square shoulders.

  If they had selected roommates based on ability to share clothing, they could not have done better than putting tall and slender Maren and Dorothy together, though Maren hadn’t much to offer in the bargain. Dorothy was adamant that Maren wear anything in her wardrobe. “We’re in uniform so much, my things are barely used,” she insisted, as if her clothes required airing and exercise.

  “I love that jacket, Doro. Are you sure?” The matching skirt was knee-length, flared with a single pleat.

  “Of course.” Dorothy reached to the top of the closet and grabbed a small green hat. She perched it on Maren’s head and held it there, squinting critically.

  “Perfect,” she said with a decisive nod. “Oliver won’t know what hit him.”

  After Maren put on the outfit and a pair of pumps, she looked in the mirror and smiled. Back home, she’d been considered pretty. Anyone would have called her that. But a healthy blonde with blue eyes and high coloring was hardly an exceptional sight in Ada, Minnesota, and she had never been particularly conscious of her looks. Since arriving at Walter Reed, Maren had discovered her appearance was not as commonplace outside the upper Midwest. She could not help but notice the appreciative stares she seemed to attract around the campus.

  Dorothy had not only been generous with her wardrobe. Maren had also turned a keen ear toward her speech. Though not ashamed of her accent, she had a “When in Rome” view of matters. Though she missed her family, she did not expect to return to Minnesota. If she was to stay in the east, she might as well sound the part. Maren and Dorothy had spent many late nights in their suite, amid riotous laughter, with Dorothy acting as Henry Higgins to Maren’s Eliza Doolittle, helping smooth out her long Os and sing-songy tones.

  “You all look like you have big plans.” At the sound of the shrill voice, Maren looked up to see Caroline Sturgeon in the doorway. Dorothy, who came from a prominent New York family, was a minor celebrity in Delano Hall. Caroline fancied herself a Philadelphia version of similar breeding and was forever trying to find out what Dorothy was up to.

  Maren focused on selecting a pair of earrings from the ceramic dish on the dresser. Maren’s birth was too low to be of interest to Caroline, who paid little attention to her. Maren generally returned the favor.

  “Hello, Caroline. What are your plans tonight?” Dorothy asked evenly. Maren smiled inwardly at Dorothy’s tactic. Caroline would not dare confess she was without anything to do.

  “Some of the girls are talking about going to the Trans-Lux Theater down Fourteenth Street.” She tossed her hair, which hung in a neat pageboy.

  “That sounds wonderful,” Dorothy said encouragingly, reaching into the closet and pulling out a brown dress with a rounded collar. “They have Above Suspicion playing, that film with Joan Crawford.”

  Caroline took the bait.

  “You’re welcome to come along!” she said. “You, too, Maren,” she added after
a beat, flattening her tone to ensure Maren knew she was an afterthought.

  “Oh, we’ve already seen that film, but thank you. Have a wonderful time!” Dorothy said, faking regret.

  Now on the record with specific plans, Caroline would not wish to sound nosy or pathetic by continuing the interrogation. She soon slithered away in defeat.

  “Ugh. Caroline Sturgeon’s voice could cut metal,” Dorothy said. “She’s the last thing we need hanging around. Not that she’s any competition, but you can bet if she got her claws into Oliver Demarest, she wouldn’t let go.”

  “Why do you say that?” Maren asked.

  “Oliver’s from a positively ancient family. He’s related to all those old Bostonians who came over on the Mayflower—the Coffins, the Peabodys. That’s the sort of thing Caroline cares about.”

  In many ways, the war had acted like an ice cutter, driving through people’s prejudices. Caroline, however, still considered her family name a trump card and clung to it tenaciously.

  Maren had never questioned her status growing up. Her father ran a successful farm. He was educated and well respected in their town. Other farmers and town leaders sought his opinions. She had been raised in comfort, taught to consider herself privileged.

  For the first time, Maren wondered how someone like Oliver Demarest would see her. She was encouraged by Dorothy, who cared little about pedigree and thought nothing of their divergent backgrounds. She appreciated Maren for her energy and sense of fun, and her desire to learn and be useful, qualities Dorothy also held in abundance.

  Dorothy’s mother, who thought the cadet program was unseemly, had urged her to volunteer for the USO or the Red Cross like other respectable young women in New York. Dorothy, however, whose brother was an Army Air Corps pilot somewhere in the Pacific, wanted to do her part and to do it soon. She needed no subsidy for her education, but the expedited nursing school program appealed to her. Her father, a Manhattan financier, was proud of his daughter’s commitment and overruled her mother. After studying nursing at St. Luke’s in Manhattan, she arrived at Walter Reed, just weeks before Maren.

  Dorothy’s face was narrow and her smile a little toothy, but she had fetching eyes and a cap of chestnut hair, cut in fashionable curls. Something in her carriage suggested dance lessons, perhaps finishing school. She also had an air, a breezy confidence Maren suspected came from one thing: money. Unlike Caroline, however, Dorothy was in no hurry to settle down.

  “My mother has quite exalted ambitions for my marriage,” Dorothy had laughed the first night they met. “I’ll take my time, if only to annoy her.”

  A half hour later, Maren and Dorothy were downstairs in the reception room, waiting for Dr. Demarest. They stood by the open door to the screened porch, while Dorothy blew cigarette smoke into the cool air outside.

  When he walked in, accompanied by a friend, Maren once again experienced a lurching sensation. He looked even more striking in his elegant dark suit than in the white coat he’d worn earlier. She propelled herself forward with Dorothy to meet the gentlemen in the middle of the room.

  “Hello, Dorothy. Nurse Larsen. May I introduce Dr. Arnold?” They shook hands all around and walked outside into the crisp autumn air, rich with a homey smell of fallen leaves and chimney smoke.

  Dorothy quickly struck up a conversation with Dr. Arnold, who insisted they call him Michael. Maren managed to learn only that Michael was from New Jersey and also studying orthopedics before Dorothy maneuvered him ahead.

  “Dr. Demarest, thank you for taking us to the picture this evening. This is my first time to the Greenhouse Theater,” Maren managed.

  “I’m pleased you could come. I wish you would call me Oliver,” he replied.

  “Thank you. I will, if you’ll call me Maren.”

  “All right, then.” Oliver smiled. A pleasant smile, but one that fell short of engaging his entire face.

  The subdued smile of a wartime surgeon, Maren thought.

  “Have you liked your time at Walter Reed, Maren?” Oliver asked.

  “Very much. It is hard, of course, all these boys and their terrible injuries. Dorothy and I are on the amputee ward most of the time. But I’m learning so much. How did you come to be here?”

  “I was in medical school, and enlisted when we entered the war. Most of the other doctors ended up overseas. It was a great relief to my parents that I went on active duty as a surgeon here. My older brother is fighting in Europe.”

  “Oh dear. What do you hear from him?” Maren asked.

  “Very little. We believe he is in France somewhere.” Oliver spoke with a reserve that didn’t invite further discussion, so Maren changed the subject, asking him about Walter Reed’s eminent head of orthopedics.

  “It is a rather spectacular education. In fact, on his recommendation, I plan to continue with orthopedics after the war. I’m ashamed to admit I’m benefiting from this dreadful mess, but I indisputably am,” he said as they arrived at the theater.

  The Greenhouse Theater was a wonderful example of wartime ingenuity. The post engineer had disassembled an old greenhouse, salvaging enough wood and glass to build a theater, then pressed the Army Motion Picture Service for a screen and equipment. The result was not fancy, but it provided a nice diversion for the sixty doctors and nurses it accommodated.

  They found four seats, and Dorothy contrived to ensure Oliver and Maren were next to each other. They were showing Stage Door Canteen, which was fortunately a thinly plotted film, since Maren was too distracted by Oliver’s presence to follow along closely. When the movie ended and they left the theater, Maren thrilled at the feeling of Oliver’s hand on her back, gently steering her through the crowd.

  On the way back to Delano Hall, the foursome took a detour to the formal garden in the southeast corner of the campus, where Dorothy quickly guided Michael in another direction.

  “How did you learn of the Cadet Corps, Maren?” Oliver asked as they walked along a garden path.

  “I would have had to try hard not to know about it,” Maren said, trying her best to relax in his presence. She had always conversed comfortably, but she found herself choosing words with unusual care, conscious of what she was saying, how she must sound. “The posters were all over my hometown, Ada, Minnesota. And they were so enticing! My best friend took the first one they put up in our town hall, hid it under her sweater, and brought it to straight to my house.”

  She smiled at the memory of Helene’s act of treachery, how she had burst into Maren’s room, eyes gleaming, and unrolled the poster. It featured a beautiful blonde, walking with great purpose. She wore the smart gray cadet uniform, with scarlet trim, epaulets, and a Maltese cross on the sleeve. Her shoulder-length hair glistened under the dashing gray Montgomery-style beret.

  Be a Cadet Nurse! The Girls with a Future!

  The instant she saw it, Maren’s eyes were as alive as Helene’s. It was so obviously The Answer. Not for Helene, who would marry Nels and live on the land her father had promised them, but for Maren.

  “It sounds as if she thought this was a matter of great urgency,” Oliver said with a smile.

  “I should confess. My friends and family were despairing a bit about my future,” Maren replied.

  “Oh?”

  “My father is a farmer. He and my mother always hoped I would eventually take an interest in the farm. They finally realized my problem was not just lack of interest in agriculture, but lack of instinct for it.”

  “What finally convinced them?”

  “A lot of things. There was my brother Anders, who is terribly earnest about farming. And my cousin Margit. She’s my age and was practically queen of the local 4-H Club.”

  Something in Oliver’s manner had begun to encourage her. He was reserved but not cold, and gave off an air of calm acceptance. Maren had the impression there was little she could say that would surprise or disappoint him.

  “Though I suspect it was the Junior Goat Show that finally did it,” she added in a bre
ezy tone.

  “It’s always the Junior Goat Show, isn’t it?” Oliver played along, shaking his head. “What happened?”

  “It’s a very painful memory, but if you must hear it…”

  “I must.”

  Maren sighed. “Well, all right, then. How much do you know about goat showmanship?” She looked up at him innocently, pretending they didn’t both know the answer.

  “I’m afraid goat showmanship is a lamentable hole in my education,” Oliver said with mock gravity.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Maren replied. “It’s very involved, you see. The goat must be healthy and well groomed, of course, but he also has to behave, which means working with him at least an hour a day so he grows accustomed to being handled. And really, who has time for that?”

  “Your cousin Margit?”

  “Whose side are you on?” Maren asked indignantly. “Anyway, I trimmed his coat nicely, and he was clean as a whistle. I actually felt pretty confident when I arrived at the fair and led him into the show ring. The judges examine the animal from different angles, though, so you have to move the goat, pick up his hooves. Not being used to this, my goat resisted. I dropped his lead somehow, and he was off like a shot. Next thing I knew, he was by the fence, chewing on some girl’s ponytail.”

  “Oh my.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the fuss. I really thought they overreacted. It wasn’t as if he chewed her ponytail off.”

  Oliver laughed out loud, and Maren wondered if she had ever heard such a beautiful sound.

  He led her to a bench under the pergola, between two Doric columns. At his prodding, she told him about her mother’s determination that Maren continue her education, and how the Cadet Corps program had helped overcome her father’s initial resistance.

  “College is an unusual choice for women in my community, but in the Cadet Corps, I’d not only be helping our country, but my parents’ Norwegian homeland in the process. I studied at University of Minnesota before I came here. I hope to continue with nursing after this war finally ends, God willing. So, you see, you’re not the only one benefiting from this terrible mess.”