“I’ll do it after supper. It’ll be fun.” That was most likely the biggest fib Nancy had told in her entire life and it made her mother smile. Catherine’s time was considered to be more important than Nancy’s, what with the factory and all, and no one expected her to go outside and shovel snow like the rest of the world. And Nancy certainly couldn’t imagine her mother doing it when a perfectly healthy girl of eighteen and a half lived under the same roof. Besides, Aunt Edna and Uncle Les were coming over before mass, and the last thing she wanted was for either one of them to slip and get hurt.
The two women stomped into the hallway in a swirl of icy air and snow. Nancy leaned against the wall and struggled with her galoshes while her mother simply balanced first on one foot and then the other and neatly removed her ankle-length fur-trimmed boots. If Nancy had tried that, she would have fallen on her head. There truly was no justice in the world.
Nancy sniffed the air. “I don’t smell dinner cooking.” She couldn’t keep the note of satisfaction from her voice. “I’ll bet she forgot.”
Her mother lined their boots in a neat row next to Catherine’s on the straw mat by the doorway. “Cathy’s been working very hard lately.” She aimed a sharp look at Nancy who looked away. “She probably fell asleep on the sofa.”
Dot turned and headed into the living room, no doubt to tuck a down pillow under Sleeping Beauty’s head. Nancy hated feeling jealous and ugly like that, but there were times she simply couldn’t help it. Wasn’t she the one who’d spent her whole day off helping their mother at the hospital? Everyone forgot that she had loved ones overseas, too. Tom Wilson was her father, as well as Cathy’s. She loved Mac Weaver as much as anybody on the block and prayed for his safe return when the war was over. And Gerry Sturdevant—well, what could she expect? No one believed you could fall in love through the mail, especially not if you were only eighteen and had never met the boy in question.
She started up the stairs to change into a nice cozy robe and slippers when her mother’s voice stopped her.
“Cathy! What on earth...?”
Nancy cocked an ear in the direction of the living room. She heard her mother’s voice, low and animated, and Cathy’s sleepy mumble. Curiosity got the better of her and she headed downstairs to the living room where she got the surprise of her life.
Her sister Cathy, the paragon of virtue, was curled up on the floor, holding the hand of a sleeping—and possibly naked—man. Who said there wasn’t a Santa Claus? This was the most exciting thing to happen around the Wilson house in a very long time.
“Well, big sister,” she said, unable to keep the giggle from her voice, “who’s your friend?”
The man, whose face was hidden by a large down pillow, roused for a moment and Catherine glared in her direction. “You wake him up, Nancy Wilson, and I’ll tar the hell out of you.”
“Catherine!” Their mother sounded scandalized. “Your language!”
“I mean it, Mother. If that twerp wakes Johnny up, I’ll—”
“Johnny?” Nancy stepped closer to the sleeping man. “That’s not Johnny Danza, is it?”
“Yes, it is.” She had never heard Catherine sound like that, all fierce and fiery. It made Nancy feel young and terribly backward and she didn’t quite know why.
“But how...?” She stared down at the man stretched out on the sofa. “I thought he was overseas. I thought—”
“We all thought the same things, honey.” Dot put an arm around her younger daughter’s shoulders. “Cathy doesn’t have any answers yet.” Dot quickly told Nancy how the ailing soldier had popped up on the doorstep, barely conscious and burning with fever, and how Cathy had managed to drag him inside and call Dr. Bernstein.
That still didn’t explain the soft expression on Cathy’s face or the way her hand was entwined with his in such a possessive manner, but Nancy knew better than to ask. There was one other question, however, that she simply couldn’t put aside.
“Daddy,” she said, meeting her mother’s eyes. “Is he on his way home too?”
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, for the stricken look in her mother’s eyes was something she wouldn’t soon forget.
“I don’t know, honey.” Her mother’s hand trembled as she stroked Nancy’s hair off her forehead. “We won’t know until Johnny is well enough to tell us.”
Cathy scrambled to her knees and placed her ear against the soldier’s lips. “He’s hungry,” she said, smiling up at them as if FDR had just announced that the war was over. She met Nancy’s eyes. “Would you sit with him while I make some scrambled eggs?”
Nancy felt cold all over. She had just spent an entire day doing volunteer work at the hospital, but nothing she had seen there came close to the reality of Johnny Danza there in the living room. “I... I guess so.” The men and boys in the hospital were strangers. She’d never seen them drink beer or laugh at Bob Hope’s jokes or dance to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” They were patients in a hospital, meek and mild and doing their best to get well so they could go back and serve their country.
Johnny was different. She had seen him do all of those things. She had even danced with him once herself. She could still remember the way the black taffeta skirt had swirled about her knees and thighs as he swung her about. Her sister, she knew, had sent him letters and scarves, and not once had it ever occurred to Nancy that anything could possibly happen to him.
“Come on,” Cathy said as she rose to her feet. “I don’t want to leave him alone even for a minute.”
Nancy took her sister’s place on the floor beside Johnny. He shifted position slightly and a low moan issued from deep in his throat. “What does that mean? Is he in pain? Should I do something?”
“I’ll bring him his medicine with dinner,” Cathy said, straightening out the tails of the big white shirt she was wearing. “Just sit with him. Hold his hand. That’s all.”
It was clear from Cathy’s tone of voice that she didn’t think Nancy was up to the task. Truth to tell, Nancy wasn’t entirely sure she was, either. Her mother and Catherine left the room, whispering together as if they had secrets too important for a girl like Nancy to hear.
On the couch Johnny grew fitful. She tried to hold his hand the way her sister had, but he pulled away. “Cathy...” His voice was weak but insistent. “Cathy...”
She patted his hand. She wasn’t even a good substitute. “Cathy’ll be back in a minute, Johnny. I promise.”
He fell back asleep. She watched his chest rise and fall beneath the blankets and a sadness so deep it took her breath away rose inside her chest. “Welcome home, Johnny,” she whispered.
* * *
Catherine worked as if possessed. Her mother had scarcely had time to fill the teakettle with water from the tap before Catherine had the eggs cracked and the skillet heating atop the stove. “Toast!” She lit the oven, then pulled a cookie tin from the cabinet beneath the sink. “Do we have any bread?”
Her mother’s low chuckle floated across the kitchen. “In the bread box, honey.”
Catherine sliced two thick slabs of homemade bread and set them in the oven to brown. Then as she cooked the eggs her mother set up a tray complete with a pot of warm cocoa, clean linen and silverware.
“Now comes the hard part,” said Dot, leading the way into the living room with the piping hot supper. “Getting him to eat.”
“That won’t be hard at all,” said Catherine, shooing her little sister away from the ailing soldier’s side. “I’m sure he’ll do whatever I say.”
“Sick men are as stubborn as little babies,” said her mother. “Especially men as under the weather as Johnny. You have your work cut out for you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Catherine confidently. “You’ll see.”
A few minutes later she was ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat. Not only would Johnny not take a single morsel of food from her, he persisted in dozing off with his head against her shoulder. Nancy was outside shoveling
snow off the steps. The scrape of metal against brick sounded loud against the Christmas Eve silence. Thank God, because her sister’s teasing would have driven her insane.
“I give up,” Catherine said at last. “This is harder than feeding a two-month-old child!”
Dot laughed and placed a shiny red ornament on the tree. “Why don’t you take over Christmas-tree duty and let an old expert have a try?”
“I know when I’m licked.” Catherine rose to her feet and exchanged a plate of scrambled eggs for a garland of popcorn. “He must eat something, Mother. It’s very important.”
* * *
Dot did her best to hide her smile as she took her daughter’s spot on the floor next to Johnny. How many nights had she spent nursing a sick child, trying to tempt a finicky eater into taking some nourishment? How quickly children forget the days when they were as helpless as this young soldier.
Of course, she voiced none of this aloud. Her darling and serious older daughter was standing by the Christmas tree watching her as if she had never so much as warmed a baby’s bottle in her life. Gently Dot put her arm behind Johnny’s shoulders and cradled him in a sitting position. His eyes opened and he gave her a dazed glassy stare that she remembered well from the girls’ bouts with fever. A rush of maternal emotion flooded through her, and she had to blink rapidly to clear her vision.
Sentimental old fool, she thought as she coaxed him to open his mouth. Just because it’s been ages since you’ve had someone you can really mother...
“I’ll be darned,” muttered Catherine as she arranged the popcorn garland along the boughs of the tree. “He’s eating.”
“Of course he is, honey.” Dot swallowed around a huge and painful lump in her throat. “He knows I won’t budge until he’s swallowed every single bite.”
It was a long and tedious process, getting the meal into Johnny, but Dorothy persevered. When he fell asleep again, it was on a full stomach. Nancy came in after shoveling the walk, grumbling loudly that her parents could at least have had the foresight to make certain they had a son, as well as two daughters. Both Catherine and Dot laughed, and to Dot’s amazement, Nancy did, too. There were times she felt as if she was living in an armed camp, with the two sisters on opposite sides, but for once there was nothing barbed in Nancy’s comment and nothing angry in Catherine’s laughter.
Nancy disappeared into the kitchen, then returned a few minutes later with three mugs of hot cocoa. “Wonderful,” said Dot, smiling up at her younger child. “I’ve been envying Johnny his supper.”
Catherine finished placing the popcorn garland on the tree, then brushed her hands against the legs of her dungarees. The tree looked wonderful with the glass and wooden ornaments and popcorn garland; with the lights on, you’d scarcely notice the missing tinsel. “Why don’t I go into the kitchen and rustle something up for us?”
“I don’t mind doing it,” said Nancy. “How about tomato soup?”
“Sounds wonderful,” said Dot, her heart soaring at these signs of amity between her children. She looked at Catherine and mentally crossed her fingers for luck.
“I could make some egg-salad sandwiches to go with it,” Catherine volunteered after a moment. She hesitated. “That is, if you don’t mind company in the kitchen, Nance.”
“Just don’t tell me how to cook, okay?”
Catherine laughed and ruffled Nancy’s red bangs. “That’s a promise.”
“Well, well, Johnny Danza,” Dot said as the two girls left the room. “You’ve brought me quite a wonderful Christmas present tonight.”
She couldn’t remember the last time such a feeling of harmony had existed in the Wilson household—and it had taken the arrival of this young man to make it happen. Her eyes misted once again and this time she did nothing to stop the flow of tears. There was nothing wrong with crying, after all. These were tears of joy, not sorrow, joy that Johnny had sought them out, that Catherine had opened their door and her heart to the desperately ill young soldier.
The war made you feel so powerless. Reports about cities with names that lay strange upon your tongue were made by voices on the radio that had become as familiar as that of your local butcher. It took something like this, the simple act of caring for another human being, to remind you that there was still goodness in a world gone mad.
“Where’s my Tom?” she whispered to the sleeping soldier. “Is he all right?” She was thankful for Johnny’s safety, but she longed to know that the man she loved was alive and well somewhere across the ocean.
“Here we are,” said Nancy as she entered the room with a tray of soup and sandwiches. “It isn’t fancy but it tastes swell.”
Catherine, hands clutching silverware and napkins, brought up the rear. She looked happier than Dot had seen her since Douglas went into the service. “I have to hand it to my baby sister,” Catherine said. “She heats up a mean bowl of Campbell’s soup.” She set the items on the end table near Dot.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” said Nancy, putting the tray down on top of the coffee table. “No wisecracks allowed.” She glanced at Catherine, who was throwing a few more logs on the fire. “At least I know how to cook.”
Catherine sat down on the floor near the sofa. The look she gave Johnny made Dot’s chest feel tight with remembered emotion.
“I may not be Fanny Farmer,” said her older daughter, ‘but I know my way around the kitchen.”
They kept up a stream of easygoing banter during supper, broken only when Catherine jumped up to get a damp cloth to mop Johnny’s brow. Dot watched as she pressed her lips to the soldier’s forehead. “His fever’s broken,” she said, a wide smile on her lovely face. “Dr. Bernstein said that would be a good sign.”
Oh, honey, thought Dot as Catherine sat back down and reached for her soup, do you know what’s happening to you? It was the oldest story in the world. Was there a woman alive whose heart didn’t beat faster at the sight of a helpless man? All those deeply female instincts Catherine had had to bank when Douglas died were coming to life again as she tended to the wounded soldier. An old story but a good one; Dot only wished she could play God and ensure a happy ending.
The clock struck ten. Dot rose and moved to peer out the front window at the snow-blanketed street. St. Mary’s Church was only eight blocks away, but considering the storm it might as well have been eight miles. She looked forward to midnight mass all year long. There was something ineffably beautiful about the ritual: candles twinkling on the altar amidst masses of poinsettias and holly; the priest’s deep voice intoning those ancient and wondrous Latin phrases of hope and joy and salvation; the choirboys, in their white robes with bright red bows tied at the neck, whose voices seemed to bring the angels right down here to earth.
She leaned her cheek against the cool pane and let her mind drift back to Christmas two years ago. Tom had made the decision to enter the service, pulling every string there was to pull in order to have the rules bent just enough to allow him to serve. They had fought bitterly for weeks about his decision. Her heart had ached, because the man she loved, the father of her children, could care so little about them that he would put his life in danger.
Tom, however, had other ideas about how best to care for his family. How like a man to see the bigger picture, to focus in on Hitler and Hirohito and Mussolini, and completely overlook the day-to-day needs of the wife and daughters who loved him so.
That last Christmas Eve together they had walked to St. Mary’s without speaking. The girls had walked ahead of them with Edna and Les Weaver, laughing and singing carols. Tom and Dot had maintained a silence as brittle as the icicles hanging from the eaves on the buildings they passed, a silence they’d maintained for the previous two days. But with the first soaring notes of “O! Holy Night,” Tom’s hand had found hers and they’d looked at each other. “I love you,” he’d mouthed silently, as those glorious voices filled the church. She’d squeezed his hand tightly and made her peace with his decision.
“Mom.”
She turned at the sound of Cathy’s voice to see both of her girls looking at her with concern. “Just daydreaming,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “I guess I’m getting old...”
Cathy pointed to the pile of clothing stacked on the wing chair. “His uniform and things. Do I wash them myself or take them to the Chinese laundry? Maybe the dry cleaner on Continental?”
“Depends.” She held out her hands. “Let me see them.”
Cathy scooped up the stack of drab clothing. “Oh, darn!” She bent down to retrieve his wrinkled shirt. “What on earth is this?” She reached into the breast pocket and withdrew a thin white envelope with no address, then a thick pale blue envelope with a name scrawled across the front. “Oh, my God.” Hand trembling she pressed the letter into Dot’s hand, “It’s for you, Mom.” A pause, then, “It’s from Daddy.”
Dot didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The letter seemed to have a life of its own; it fairly burned the skin of her palm. Catherine put her hand on Nancy’s shoulder. “Why don’t we take these dishes into the kitchen and straighten up?” she suggested to her younger sister. Nancy’s eyes were wide with fright, but she got to her feet and dutifully did Catherine’s bidding.
Dot ripped open the envelope and unfolded the thin sheets of letter paper. Her eyes misted over at the sight of his beloved handwriting. She didn’t know what to expect, but a refrain sounded over and over inside her head: Please... please... please...
Chapter Seven
Catherine placed the soup plates in the sink and rubbed a sponge across a bar of brown soap. “Bring me the cups, Nance,” she said, keeping her voice level and unconcerned. “May as well wash everything while the water is nice and hot.”
Nancy stared at her from the doorway. “How can you even think about washing dishes at a time like this?”
Catherine glanced over her shoulder at her sister. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
Sentimental Journey (Home Front - Book #1) Page 10