by Ella Carey
Slowly, he raised his head. His eyes collided with hers, and in one split moment, his expression adjusted to blank, to that you-are-in-a-hospital-and-need-to-be-treated-with-the-finest-kid-gloves look that every doctor and every nurse had worn since the moment she started to wake up.
“You came all the way here for me?” she asked. “That is way beyond what I would expect of you.”
“It’s nothing. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than by your side. And, Eva, everything is fine.”
Eva hauled herself up in her bed, wincing at the sharp pain that shot up her side at the sudden, unfamiliar move. Jack leaned forward, helping her to get into a more comfortable position. She closed her eyes, focusing, trying to draw the words out.
“Please don’t just tell me everything’s fine. It worries me. Can you give me more information? Is she out flying with Nina? Was she hurt? Please, Jack. I have to know.”
“Nurse?” Jack’s voice resonated through the room.
Eva tried to reach for his arm, but he remained focused on the nurse coming straight toward them now.
“Everything all right here, Mr. Forrest?”
Eva stared at the nurse’s uncompromising white pressed uniform, at the neat-as-a-pin badge that was stuck to her chest.
“Please.” She ground the words out. “Will someone tell me about my friend Helena.”
Jack looked up at the nurse, their eyes meeting as if in complicity.
“You need to tell me the truth. Please.”
Silence.
Jack sighed and stared back down at his hands, which were clasped between his knees again.
The nurse reached out and leaned her hand against the top of Eva’s bed. “Eva, you’re having trouble remembering details of your accident. It’s important we don’t agitate you or upset you further so that your memory starts to restore itself naturally. Until then, we want you to relax. Not worry about things. Just let the memories come back, and try not to think about it. Would you like to read a book?”
“Helena is one of my closest friends. I can’t read a book and not know that she is okay.”
Jack looked up at her, his expression clouded. “Evie—”
“Not many people call me that, Jack.” Harry does. Oh, Harry. Eva groaned and leaned back into her pillows. “Sorry,” she managed to breathe. “But is she okay?”
“Are we all right here?” The elderly doctor was by her bed. Eva stared at him, useless from where she lay. He was wearing a suit. His cool hand came down, touching her forehead. “Your temperature is good. You’re doing well, Eva.”
He pulled his hand up, but Eva clasped it, grabbing it before he could move away. “Please. Doctor. I need to know about my friend. My copilot?”
“Eva. Miss Scott.” Slowly, he sat down on the side of her bed. Jack went to stare out the window. “How much do you remember of your accident?” the doctor asked.
She shook her head. Outside, the sky stretched, gray and cold and endless. “I don’t remember anything after waking up in the bay. We were going out on a searchlight mission. Me and Helena were preparing to fly together. I was tired, and I took a nap before dinner. Then, nothing. It’s awful strange and scary for me, Doctor. But my concern is not for me. I want to know what happened to Helena. Is she okay?”
The doctor sighed. “Eva. We’ve been trying not to upset you, trying to keep you calm in order to assist your memory.”
“What?” She tried to ease herself upright.
The doctor’s grip on her hand was firm. “But if you think it will help you to know a little more, then, well. I think it would be all right to tell you a little more. But I want you to promise not to dwell on it. That won’t help restore your memory, Miss Scott.”
The nurse’s gaze flickered toward the doctor. “Doctor, I wanted to ask—”
But he held up a hand. “Thank you, Nurse. I’ll make the decisions here. Miss Scott, I’m sorry. There was nothing we could do to save your copilot. I don’t want you dwelling on it. I want you to try and accept that these things happen. You know, if you were well enough, we would have had you right back up in the sky before now.”
Tears formed, pooling behind Eva’s eyelids and falling unbidden down her cheeks. She pulled her hand out of the doctor’s clasp, bringing it up to her heart. Dear Helena. Her wonderful, beautiful friend. Gone? In a flicker of time?
“I’m sorry. There was no hope, Miss Scott.” There was nothing to be done. “I’ll leave you here with Mr. Forrest.”
Eva heard his whisper to Jack. “Don’t talk about it. Distract her. Brooding will make her condition much worse.”
“Of course, Doctor.” Jack’s voice was soft, reassuring.
Did they have no idea what it was like to lose a close and wonderful friend? Suddenly, images of Helena swam into Eva’s mind. The way she’d tried so hard to organize them all, the way she’d slowly become closer to Eva and Nina than anyone had ever been since Meg. Now she realized that they’d come to value Helena as a new and vital part of their little trio. It was unthinkable that they would not see her again.
And what she had suffered, Eva had no idea.
“Sir?” she asked, straining to try and reach out to the doctor.
“Miss Scott,” he said. “I want you to rest.”
“How much did she suffer?” Eva asked, agony tearing at her voice.
“Mr. Forrest. You know what to do.” The doctor rested his hand on Jack’s shoulder for a moment before looking at Eva. “Miss Scott, I have to go now. You should think about something else, I want you to do that for me, do you understand me? Let your copilot go. The most important thing is to forget, not remember. Otherwise, we will all go mad after the bloodshed is over. Is that clear?”
“But—”
The doctor held up a hand. “I have to go. Just relax, like I am. Read a book, play a game of cards, and talk about something else. This is a war. We are all enduring our own personal trials, Miss Scott. It doesn’t do to dwell.” He walked away.
“Jack?” She turned huge eyes to him. “I can’t believe this. Please. Someone needs to tell me what happened. Did I do anything wrong? What went bad in the flight? Helena and I are . . . were . . . good pilots. We were able pilots, Jack.” She choked on the word were and brought her hand up to her mouth.
He was next to her, cradling her against his chest. She leaned into him, not caring that her side burned. All she saw were pictures of Helena, of that girl who had held their bay together and looked after them all, putting pillows in beds when she and Rita were out late, protecting them, helping them make up their beds on the very first morning, gradually winning their hearts.
“Where’s Nina?” Uncontrollable sobs racked her body. Dry, shaking sobs.
“Honey . . .”
“Where is she? Can you get her here now?”
He whispered into her hair, holding her and stroking the back of her head like her dad used to do when she was small and she’d fallen off the swing or taken a tumble from her bike.
Jack took in a deep, heaving breath. “She’s gone, gone to another base for an advanced program testing altitudes with your friend Wendy. It’s classified.”
“What?” Eva asked.
“I’m taking you home. They told me a few days ago we could get you out of here once you were more lucid. And I think it’s best we go very soon. You need to get out of this place. You need to get home.”
Eva rested her head back against his shoulder.
Silent, rough weeping shook her, and Jack held her tight.
“I’ll look after you,” he said. “I want to take care of you, Eva. I’m here.”
Three days later, Jack eased her out of the infirmary bed and into her wheelchair. Her side still burned, and her arm was wrapped in a sling. Her head ached and thumped something awful, and the cold, gray base seemed all but dead to her without Helena and Nina here. Jack pushed her toward the infirmary door. The wind howled and whistled against the windowpanes.
“Goodbye, Helena,” she whispered.
Jack started to wheel her toward the door.
“Thank you, Nurse,” he said.
Eva stared straight ahead.
Jack wheeled her out to the small dark-green bus that would take them to the station. She’d signed the discharge papers that had arrived at the infirmary from administration, with Jack sitting next to her and passing her the pen.
She had no choice. She had to leave. Helena had been taken out in a coffin; she was being rolled out in a wheelchair. Jack carried her up the bus steps. The driver stowed the wheelchair at the front of the bus. A few boys on leave watched while Jack settled next to her, handing her a couple of pills and her canteen filled with water. The bus ground into action, and Eva turned to see Camp Davis disappear in a swirl of sand.
It seemed every time she woke up during the train journey, Jack gave her pills that knocked her out again. She took them only because they dulled the terrible pain that hit her every time she woke and realized Helena was gone. The train journey was a blur. At last, they pulled into the station in LA, and through the window, she saw her parents standing on the platform waiting for the train. She stared at them through the window. Her mother clasped her handbag with both hands, and her father stood rigid, tall.
Jack wheeled her out onto the platform.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Her mother leaned down, grasping Eva’s hand, before reaching up to kiss Jack on both cheeks. “Jack, we owe you everything.”
“Evie.” Her father crouched next to her, holding her. “Welcome home.” His voice broke, and he turned away, his hand swiping at his cheeks.
They made their slow way down the platform.
“Jack’s been a marvel.” Her mother sounded anxious.
Jack pushed her through the station they’d left from with all those hopes and dreams intact.
“I don’t know what we would have done without him. I was so grateful that he stepped in.” It was as if her mom wanted her to acknowledge Jack.
“He’s been wonderful,” she said, knowing she sounded half-dead.
Military personnel crowded the platform. As if in a dream, Eva scanned the faces. What about Walter? Images flooded her hazy mind. He would be missing Nina something terrible now that she’d left the base.
Eva tried to open her mouth, but words would not form right now. Instead, the sound of Rita’s and Nina’s voices flew down the platform in her imagination, just as they had only weeks ago.
“You are so very lucky to have him. What a blessing. He dropped everything and went out to bring you home. It’s been a nightmare of worry at this end.” Eva’s mom sounded insistent. “He has been very good to you, Eva.”
But her heart was back in North Carolina; her heart and her thoughts were with Helena. She didn’t know when they would ever stop.
Back in Burbank, things seemed to move even faster. The sun beat down on Eva’s parents’ yellow house, and it was as if the dark, cold winter in North Carolina didn’t even exist now that she was back here. Camp Davis may as well have been on another planet. As soon as they were done with the rigmarole of getting Eva out of the car, her mother bustled to the kitchen to put coffee on for them all. Eva stood in the hallway, leaning heavily on Jack. Nothing had changed back at home, but everything had changed for her.
“I made your favorite coconut cake, Jack!” Eva’s mom’s voice trilled down the hallway.
Eva turned to him. “My mom knows your favorite cake?” Her voice was still weak, but she was able to feel the sense of surprise that her mom’s statement brought.
He dropped a kiss on top of her head. “Your mom and I got to know each other while you were away. I was missing you.” He leaned forward, absently, stroking a tendril of hair away from her forehead. “Your mom and I have become good friends.”
Eva felt something ill stir in her stomach.
“Jack?” her mother called. “Coffee?”
“You go rest.” Jack led her to her room, helping her down onto her bed. The sounds of his footsteps were loud and unfamiliar in the hallway, a six-foot man striding through their tiny house.
Out of place. He didn’t fit in here with her family.
Her father came into her room, holding her kit bag against his chest. “Dear,” he said. “Where would you like me to put this?”
The sounds of Jack and her mother’s laughter rang through the house.
Eva’s and her dad’s eyes caught. “Please put it on the floor,” she said. “Dad—”
“Best let them deal with things until you get better. They just get on well, is all.” Her dad’s voice was quiet. His eyes searched her face. “Evie?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Dearest, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the terrible loss.”
Eva leaned back on her pillows. Remembering the time she and Nina had sat here, poring over the Life magazine. “I want to see Nina,” she said. “I so want to see her.”
“I know, dear,” her father said. He hovered, seeming awkward. “I’d best let you get some rest.”
“It’s good to see you, Dad.”
“It is a relief to see you back home. I just don’t know what we would have done.” He turned, leaning with his hand on her desk for a moment, lingering there before shaking his head and leaving her room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE COMMITTEE: You would need to prove that you received a military discharge and were in some way recognized during the war. We presume you do not have the discharge in your possession thirty years later, and even if you did, the document would have to be verified.
EVA FORREST: I brought all my personal WASP records with me. My letter of discharge is in the hotel here in Washington.
THE COMMITTEE: You still have a full military discharge from Camp Davis in your possession?
EVA FORREST: But of course, sir, I do. I would never have thrown it away. Not even in the state I was in on my return home, sir.
Eva sat out on the back lawn of her mom and dad’s house a few weeks after she’d arrived home, in one of a pair of striped deck chairs that Jack had bought. Her dad was clipping the hedge, and the sun shone on a perfect, mild early-spring day. Blossoms drifted from the neighbor’s tree that overhung the fence.
Her mother came out the back door. “Popping over to the neighbor’s house for a moment.” She bustled out the side gate.
Her father stopped working briefly and came to crouch down by Eva’s side.
“How are you feeling today, my love?”
She turned to him, things still seemed to swim a little. “I put all my WASP things in a little box,” she said. “My silver graduation wings, my discharge certificate, my letters of acceptance, and my graduation certificate. I’m not going back to fly for them, Dad, ever, am I?”
Her dad sighed for a moment. “No, dear. No. You’re not. In time, your memory should heal, but you need to rest for now.”
Eva forced herself to focus on the garden. The doctor had told her to look at what was around and not think too much. “I wish Harry was here. I wish I had one old friend around. You know I love being with you and Mom, it’s not that, it’s just that things feel so different without Nina and Harry.”
Her dad brought a hand up and rested it on her arm. “Harry will take good care of himself, Evie.”
Eva drew the knitted patchwork blanket that covered her knees closer.
Her dad was quiet for a moment.
“You honestly okay?” he asked.
“I wonder if I did the wrong thing. Going off like that, thinking I could do something toward the war.”
“Evie, don’t—”
“But I thought I could do anything. I thought I
was strong and invincible, and look what happened. I feel as useless as Dylan now. I miss him too. I guess war makes either fools or heroes of us all.”
“Eva, I want you to listen to me. And I want you to stop that talk.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “Tragedy is the price of war. The irony of fighting for our own country is that it makes us all human, it shows us how powerless and vulnerable we can be, no matter what side we are on. Believe me, I lived through the last one. This one is yours. No family will come out of it unaffected. But please, Evie, I have something I want to say.”
“Yes, Dad?” She leaned in.
“Whatever they tell you, you did the right thing going to fly for the war. Don’t ever forget that. Promise me.”
“They?” She tried to sit up, only to be wrenched back down by her sore side. She sighed and slumped into the deck seat.
“Eva, you were and still are a wonderful pilot. And a brave person. You should be proud of what you achieved. Never let anyone tell you anything else.”
“But I’m washed out.”
“Folks have been discharged for lesser injuries. You were doing the job that the air force wanted you to do, and an awful accident occurred. That is it.”
She traced patterns on the blanket with her fingers. “I don’t know anything about the accident.”
“Eva, best to move on from that. I have something else I want to say.”
She looked up at him. His face was framed by the blossoming tree, and the sun beamed through the pink flowers all around him.
“I’d hate to see you lose that spark that we all love. That Harry in particular loves.” The last word lingered between them, spoken.
“Harry’s marrying Lucille, Dad.” A breeze picked up in the yard.
“I don’t think that will ever change what you share with him. You know about things that run deeper than most, Eva. Just remember, some folks don’t realize what’s important in this life. Harry does, and you see that in each other. Just wait. It’s the most important thing that can run between two people. If it’s meant to be, it will happen.”
Eva brought her good hand up to rest on the bandage that still encased her arm. “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know anymore.”