by Lynn Austin
“Russ would be very jealous if he knew about Earl,” Jean continued. “But jealousy is a good quality, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.” They walked a little way in silence before Rosa said, “Can I ask you a question about church?”
“Yeah, sure.” Jean was relieved to change the subject, even though she was still unsure if she should accept Earl’s offer.
“Mr. Voorhees says I need to have Joey baptized. I’ve seen them baptizing other babies at church, and the daddy always holds him. I don’t think it’s right to do it until Dirk comes home, but when I told Mr. Voorhees that I wanted to wait, he got real upset. He says it’s important to do it now and I shouldn’t wait. Is that true?”
“Gosh, I don’t know what to tell you. Joey is your son, so it seems like it should be your decision. What does Dirk say?”
“I don’t know. I wrote and asked him, but I haven’t gotten any letters from him since the end of February.”
A chill shuddered through Jean. “February? That’s more than a month ago.”
“Yeah, I know.” Rosa’s voice shook with emotion. “They said in the news that they’ve been fighting some terrible battles on Iwo Jima and all those other islands. They said the marines are taking all the heat. And Dirk is out there with them … somewhere.”
Jean groped for words to reassure her. “He probably has so many patients to treat that he doesn’t have time to write. And it’s probably hard for the ships to get in and out of those war zones with the mail. And who knows? Maybe Dirk’s letters were on a ship that got damaged or sunk.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been telling myself the same things, but it’s so hard not to worry. I’ve never gone this long without hearing from him before. And in the meantime, Mr. Voorhees keeps nagging me about getting Joey baptized.”
“Did you explain to him how you feel?”
“He won’t listen. But if I go ahead and baptize him, it’d be like admitting that Dirk might never come home. He will come home! He promised me! And I want to wait for him, even if Joey is old enough to walk up the aisle and dump the water on himself. His daddy should be there!”
“Oh, Rosa. I’m so sorry for going on and on about my own silly worries with Russ and Earl. It’s all so stupid in comparison—”
“Hey, that’s okay. I miss everyone at work so much…. It’s been nice to hear about your life.”
“I know it doesn’t sound like much, Rosa, but I’m praying for Dirk—and for you.”
“Thanks. I wish I knew how to pray better. I’m no good at it.”
“Just talk to God the same way you’re talking to me. Pretend you have Him on the telephone or something and just talk. He knows what’s in your heart anyway—how scared you are, how worried. But it will help if you tell Him and get it off your chest.”
They stopped walking again when they reached Rosa’s house. “And Jean? I think you should go dancing with Earl on your birthday.”
Jean got a letter from her twin brother on Monday with birthday greetings. Her mother sent a card and a present, along with homemade birthday cards from Jean’s younger brothers. Jean shared the birthday cake Patty had baked with the girls at work. All week she waited for a birthday card or a letter from Russ, but when none came she decided to accept Earl’s invitation.
He arrived on Saturday night with a bouquet of flowers, then took her to a dinner dance in Kalamazoo. Earl ordered cake for dessert, then pulled a package of birthday candles out of his pocket and stuck them in the cake for Jean to blow out.
“What did you wish for?” he asked as she took her first bite.
“That my brothers would all come home safely. That the war would end.”
“We all want that. But what about something for yourself? Do you think you might start college next fall?”
“No, not until the war is over.”
“Why not? Is it a question of money?”
“Not really. I’ve been saving every cent I earn. I’d probably have enough if I worked during the summers.”
“Then why wait?”
“I don’t know,” she said, licking the icing off the candles. “It just doesn’t seem right to start yet. This isn’t how I planned it.”
“But I know how much you’ve looked forward to college,” Earl said, frowning. “Did you change your mind?”
“No, I haven’t changed my mind. It’s just that …” Jean mashed her cake crumbs with her fork as she poured out her frustration. “I had my life all figured out and planned, and then the war ruined everything. Johnny and I were going to go to college together; afterward, my boyfriend and I would probably get married. My family was poor but at least we were whole and happy. Then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and now six of my brothers are away fighting and in danger—and I feel like I’m not really living. I’m in limbo, working at the shipyard, waiting to get back to the life I planned. Johnny and I promised each other we would go to college together and study like we did in high school. We’d help each other. We’re so much alike and we’re best friends. He has his girlfriend and I have Russ—but now things just won’t be right until the four of us are all together again. Back to normal.”
Earl leaned toward her, covering her hand with his. “It’s great to have plans, Jean, but don’t forget to live your life right now. It’s a mistake to overlook today because your eyes are on tomorrow or looking back to the past. When we’re always wishing for the past or the future, we miss today. Besides, plans have a way of being changed against our wills. I had plans, too, before I got polio.”
“How old were you when you got it?”
“Sixteen.”
“Wow. I always thought of it as a childhood disease, for babies. I had no idea.”
“I loved baseball. That was my plan, to be a great baseball player. When I look back on the past I can still remember what it felt like to run the bases and slide into home plate. How it felt to swing a bat with all my might and feel it connect with the ball—whack! The jolt goes all the way up your arms, and you know you’ve hit it over the fence. Home run!” Earl leaned back and took an imaginary swing, making a knocking sound with his tongue like a bat hitting a baseball. He gazed into the distance as if watching the ball soar. Then he looked at Jean again, his eyes meeting hers. “But I don’t want to live in the past, always wishing I could have it back. I want to live today and do the best job I can with it. I want to work hard, then enjoy a fun evening with a good friend.”
“I’m sorry I talked about Russ,” Jean said. “That was unfair. I promise I won’t mention him again.” They finished their dessert and got up to dance. Jean decided to take Earl’s advice and put away her thoughts of the past or the future for one evening. She and Earl laughed and talked and waltzed around the dance floor, just the two of them, as the bandleader crooned “Happy Birthday.”
“I wonder how he knew it was my birthday,” she said, laughing.
At the end of the evening she found herself wondering once again if Earl would try to kiss her good-night. And if she should let him. But as they got out of the car and walked toward the house, she was annoyed to see that all of the porch lights were on, lighting up the yard. Earl would never try to kiss her beneath the glare, for all to see. She felt a stab of disappointment, then guilt for wishing it. What on earth was happening to her?
They walked onto the porch together, and Earl reached for the doorknob. Jean looked up and saw Patty standing in the front window as if she was spying on them. Then Patty beckoned for her to come inside. Earl opened the door, and as soon as Jean saw her sister’s reddened eyes and tear-streaked face, she knew something terrible had happened. Jean’s first thought was for Patty’s husband, Bill, fighting in Italy.
“What’s wrong? Patty, tell me!”
“Ma called.”
With those two terrible words, Jean knew it wasn’t Bill. Patty would have received a telegram if it had been her husband. Something must have happened to one of their brothers. Jean’s mind still thought logically, but he
r heart seemed to have stopped beating. She loved all of her brothers, but her greatest fear was for her twin.
“Oh no … Please don’t tell me it was Johnny,” she whispered. “Please …”
Patty nodded. “He’s gone, Jeannie.”
“NO!” Jean screamed. “Oh, God, no!” She would have collapsed, but Earl’s arms were suddenly around her, holding her tightly, supporting her weight. “It isn’t true! It can’t be true!” she cried.
“I wish it wasn’t,” Patty said softly.
“I’m sorry, Jean … I’m so sorry,” Earl soothed as she screamed and wept, pouring out her anguish. He led her to the sofa and sat down with her. She clung to him tightly.
“Ma got a telegram,” Patty said. “Johnny’s plane was shot down on a bombing run.”
“Maybe he parachuted out. Maybe he … he just got captured or something… .”
Patty shook her head. “His plane crashed, Jeannie. Everyone on board was killed.”
“No … Oh, God, no. It isn’t true!”
It couldn’t be true. Jean had hugged Johnny good-bye before he’d left for England, and he’d been so strong and happy, so alive. He was too young to die. Today was his twentieth birthday. He couldn’t be gone. It was a mistake. Someone would tell her that they’d made a terrible mistake. Or else she would wake up and see that it had all been a horrible nightmare.
Jean knew that this was one of those moments when her life changed forever. She would never be the same. Johnny was gone, and Jean felt as though her own life had been cut short, as well. She didn’t know how to start all over. She didn’t want to. She had always believed that Johnny would be in her future. And now he wouldn’t be.
Everything in her life seemed meaningless as she grappled to accept the truth.
Johnny—her twin, her best friend—was dead. She didn’t know how she would ever stop crying.
CHAPTER 34
* Virginia *
Ginny learned the terrible news from Jean’s sister. When she hung up the phone, Ginny sank down at the kitchen table with her face in her hands and cried. It would be hard enough for anyone to lose a brother that way, but Johnny was Jean’s twin. Ginny knew from the way Jean had talked about him that the two of them were very close. What a terrible loss. At last Ginny dried her eyes and telephoned Helen and Rosa and Thelma, as she’d promised. The news shocked all of them.
Grief-stricken, Jean didn’t come to work for several days, and things at the shipyard didn’t seem the same without her. Helen pulled away from everyone, becoming aloof again the way she’d been when Ginny had known her at Lincoln School. Ginny had forgotten the old Helen, but this fresh grief brought her back. Ginny, Helen, and Thelma worked hard to fill in for Jean but couldn’t meet their quotas without her.
“How’s Jean doing? Have you seen her?” Ginny asked Earl when he came to the harness shop where they were working. “I brought a casserole over last night and asked if I could do anything, but Jean stayed upstairs in her room and wouldn’t come down. Patty says she isn’t eating.”
“She wouldn’t come down when I went over there, either,” Earl said. “She learned a few more details about the crash, and I’m not sure if it made matters better or worse. Her brother’s B-26 was flying a late-afternoon mission over Dunkerque in France when it was hit by enemy fire. The pilot lost control before anyone could escape, and it collided with another American plane in the same formation. Both planes went down in the English Channel.”
Ginny got such a huge knot in her throat that she couldn’t speak. She heard Thelma murmur, “God rest all their souls… .”
Earl’s voice was very soft. “I guess Jean has lost all hope that the news was a mistake or that Johnny might have bailed out and lived. There won’t be a burial, of course, but Jean’s family is planning a memorial service for him this weekend.”
“That’s a good idea,” Helen said. She had stood apart from the others with her back turned, so it surprised Ginny that she had spoken. “Otherwise, without a service, it’s hard to grasp that he really is gone,” Helen continued. “Everyone will keep expecting him to walk into the room and—” She stopped. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, turning away again.
“I offered to drive Jean and Patty to Indiana for the service,” Earl said. “I could use some more ration stamps if any of you ladies have extras.”
“I’ll ask my husband if we can spare a few,” Ginny said.
“I’ll give you mine.” Helen turned and joined them at last. “The weather is warm enough for me to ride my bicycle, and if it rains, it won’t kill me to ride the bus.”
“I’d like to go to the service with you if there’s room in your car,” Ginny said. “I’d like to give Jean and Patty my support.”
“Thanks. I know they’ll appreciate it. And there’s room for you, too, Helen. It would make it easier to explain why I have your ration book.”
Helen didn’t reply. She wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze as her fingers idly traced the wires laid out on the board. Ginny knew how much it would cost Helen emotionally to go to the funeral. She would be reliving the deaths of her own siblings. But at last she nodded, agreeing to come.
At the supper table that night, Ginny asked Harold if she could drive his car to Rosa’s house. “I promised to keep Rosa up-to-date on how Jean is doing, and I need to tell her about the memorial service. It seems too impersonal to do it over the phone.”
“You’re taking this death awfully hard, aren’t you?” Harold asked. “You didn’t even know this boy.”
“Jean has become a good friend. All of the women have. I won’t be long.”
Rosa’s baby felt warm and wiggly as Ginny cuddled him, plump and overflowing with life. Holding him made her realize how badly she’d needed the comfort of a child in her arms.
“Look how fat and happy he is!” she told Rosa. “See? Didn’t I tell you you’d be a wonderful mother? A baby is God’s way of saying He wants the world to continue.”
“Joey’s good as gold, too. He hardly ever cries.”
“How are things with Dirk’s father?” Ginny asked. “Jean told us he was giving you a hard time about baptizing the baby. Has he changed his mind?”
Rosa shook her head as she reached to caress her baby’s foot. “No. He makes it sound like Joey is going straight to hell and it will be all my fault.”
“I can’t believe God would do that. You stick to your guns, Rosa. What does Dirk say?”
Rosa bit her lip. “Still no letters from him. It’s been two months.”
The news worried Ginny, especially after what had happened to Jean’s brother. She tried not to let Rosa see her fears. She had enough as it was. “If you ever need to get away from here for a time, you’re welcome to come over to my house,” Ginny said.
“Are you sure your husband wouldn’t mind? How are things with … you know … with the flowers he bought?”
“I was trying to figure out a way to ask him about that receipt when I heard about Jean’s brother. Now I need to wait until I get my emotions under control again. I’m going to a memorial service for Johnny on Saturday—Earl’s driving us to Indiana.”
“I’d like to come, too. Would there be room for me and Joey?”
“Sure. We’ll squeeze you in somehow. We can hold Patty’s kids on our laps if we have to.”
On the Friday before the memorial service, Jean returned to work. She walked around in a daze of grief, and her tears came often. Whenever they did, Ginny held her in her arms and let her cry. She knew that no words could possibly console her. At the lunch break, Ginny, Helen, and Thelma sat outside on one of the picnic tables that the shipyard provided, but Jean didn’t join them. The sun felt warm, the fresh air welcome after spending the morning inside the hull of a ship. The women had the table all to themselves—as they always did whenever Thelma ate with them.
“At least this tragedy seems to have halted the flow of nasty letters,” Helen said.
“You’re right,” Ginny said. “I h
adn’t noticed until now. Although it’s hard to believe that racists would respect someone’s grief.”
“It worries me that Jean has stopped eating,” Thelma said. “I can see she’s losing weight.”
“Grief is a merciless tormentor,” Helen replied.
Ginny hated to leave the sunshine when it was time to return to work, but she followed the other women inside and back to the ship they were building.
“Now, where could my tools have run off to?” Thelma asked, gazing all around their work area. “I thought I left them right here with yours,” she told Ginny.
“I’ll help you look for them.” Ginny searched the tool locker and the entire area where they had been working before the break, with no luck. Then, as she stood on the ship’s deck, gazing around, Ginny saw a tool belt hanging from a light fixture above the factory floor. A stepladder still stood in place below it as if to taunt Thelma. Whoever had played this trick on her would be watching, waiting to laugh at her as she climbed to retrieve her tools.
The prank made Ginny furious. She scrambled down from the deck and strode across the factory floor to the ladder. She wasn’t fond of heights, but Thelma was her friend and she didn’t deserve this treatment.
Ginny could feel the ladder wobbling as she began to climb—or maybe her knees were shaking. She wondered if she was tall enough to reach the tool belt dangling above her once she reached the top. She might have to stand on the very top step with nothing to hang on to. The idea scared her but she kept climbing.
She was nearly to the top of the ladder, trying hard not to look down, when her foot slipped on one of the rungs. Ginny grabbed the sides of the ladder to catch herself, but they felt slippery, too. She felt herself falling, felt her face smash painfully against the rungs, but she couldn’t seem to hang on.
“Help!” she cried out as she lost her balance. But her weight shifted as the ladder tilted sideways, and she felt herself falling helplessly toward the ground. The hard cement floor raced toward her.
Then everything went black.