Helen wondered where Billy would have been sent, what battleground she would have received letters from, which dangerous skies he would have risen into. She hadn’t followed the course of his unit’s deployment. Lloyd might know. He kept close track of war news, but in their weekly exchange of letters, the details of war were a rare topic.
When the bus from Washington pulled up, Helen went out to the curb. Rosie was the third passenger off. She was in uniform, her hair pulled neatly into a tight bun below her cap, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. When she saw Helen, she dropped the bag on the sidewalk and gave her a hearty hug.
“I’m starving!” she declared.
“How about Millie’s?”
“Sister, that’s music to my ears.”
It was a bit of a hike from the bus station to the café, but Rosie was tired of sitting, and the day was lovely, cool yet sunny, with some of the trees along West Main beginning to turn color. In truth, they wouldn’t have noticed if the walk had been twice as long, they were so glad to be together.
“Remember I told you I got small arms training right before my leave in May?” Rosie said after they’d caught up on family news.
“How could I forget? You were so excited.”
“Well, they took it back.”
“Took it back?”
“They’re not training any more WACs to use pistols, and the War Department’s not letting the ones who were trained carry them.”
“But you don’t need a gun now.”
“Even if I was near the front lines, they wouldn’t let me carry one. We’re not even allowed to wear the badges that show we got the training.”
“Why?”
“That’s a question you don’t ask in the Army.”
Rosie shifted her bag from one shoulder to the other.
“My guess is everybody’s still spooked about girls being soldiers,” she went on. “You know, like the smart alecks who say WAVES stands for Women Are Very Essential Sometimes. But a pilot on a strafing run doesn’t turn the other way when he sees a skirt, and a bomb doesn’t see anything at all. And just ’cause you’re working in a cartography tent or a mail hut, or you’re some officer’s driver doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
“You’re right to be angry,” Helen said.
Rosie shook her head slowly.
“I shouldn’t kick,” she said, softening her tone. “I had my turn in a combat zone, like I wanted. The girls in the Navy and the Army Air Force and the Coast Guard and Marines have all been stuck stateside or in quiet spots like Hawaii and Alaska and the Caribbean. Anyway, me getting what I want isn’t important.”
There was the trace of a frown on Rosie’s brow, despite her moderating words.
“It’s only not important for now,” Helen suggested.
Rosie flashed her friend a grin.
“I know,” she said.
When they reached Millie’s, they chose a table near the wide front window, as they used to do in high school. Rosie ordered a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy and a chocolate malt, Helen an egg salad sandwich and a Coke.
“How about you?” Rosie asked. “How’s your secret war work going?”
Helen picked up her napkin and smoothed it on her lap.
“Uh-oh,” said Rosie. “Too hush-hush? I was just asking in a general way—like if it’s interesting.”
“Actually, I’ve quit.”
“Quit! What happened? And don’t give me that look—I know something happened, because you’re no quitter.”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
Rosie shook out her napkin with a snap. She gave the impression that if there’d been a blameworthy neck handy, she would have used the napkin to strangle it. Helen smiled at this display of unquestioning loyalty.
“Okay, so it’s a loose lips thing,” Rosie said, “but you can tell me how you’re doing. Are you sorry? Glad to be out of it? Did you just get fed up? The Army can do that to you. Don’t I know it!”
“Oh, Rosie, I’m feeling lots of things, so many things I don’t know where one ends and another starts, or what goes with what.”
“Well, look, your head’s on your shoulders, and you know how to use it. You’ll figure it out.”
The waitress came with their food and drinks, causing them to suspend conversation. After she’d left, they remained quiet a few moments, shifting utensils, using the salt and pepper, beginning to eat.
“It’s more a matter of my heart figuring it out than my head,” Helen finally said, annoyed at the catch in her voice.
Rosie put down her knife and fork and looked straight into Helen’s eyes.
“You’re an ace in that department, too,” she replied warmly. Then she took a long swallow of her malt. “Also which: who says everything always has to be figured out all the time? Is there some new law I don’t know about? Because if there is, a lot of us are gonna be in a lot of trouble.”
Helen laughed. How good it felt to be with Rosie. Her mind was like a new pair of scissors, clean and candid. Rosie was right. Life didn’t have to be, couldn’t be, tidy. Some mystery, even about oneself, was part of the package. Hadn’t Helen said much the same thing to Major Levy?
“What’s the latest on Arnie?” Helen asked.
“Still in Italy. Mostly, he writes about what he wants to do when he finally gets home—little things, like wear a silk shirt or eat a good steak. And he tells me about his buddies that I know.” Rosie paused. “He hardly ever mentions the fighting, but I’ve seen for myself what they’re up against.”
“That must make it harder for you.”
Rosie shrugged unconvincingly.
“Arnie wouldn’t want me to stew. Anyway, I swear the guy was born under a lucky star. Two years in combat, and all’s he’s gotten is athlete’s foot, and a broken wrist from jumping out of a moving jeep.”
“Any other plans for home besides shirts and steaks?”
Rosie’s freckled cheeks pinked up. She concentrated on poking her fork gingerly into a ball of bread stuffing as if it were an unknown object. Helen had never seen her blush before.
“Well?”
Rosie put down her fork and looked up from her plate.
“Well … we do have an understanding, Arnie and me.”
“Which is … ?”
“Which is … that when the war’s over and he comes home …”
Rosie leaned forward over the table. Lowering her voice, she spoke rapidly, as if she feared someone might try to stop her.
“I keep thinking, Helen, that if I tell anyone, I’ll jinx it—or, worse, jinx him—but I’m busting with it, and I guess I can tell you. I’m waiting for him, Helen. I’m waiting for him, and when he gets back, we’re gonna get married and have a nice little place somewhere, and babies even—I can hardly believe it’s me saying I want babies, but he does, so I do, too—and we’re gonna forget the explosions and the mud and the fires and all of it. Arnie’s not gonna have to be afraid to go to sleep, or to wake up, because he’ll be safe. We’ll be safe.”
Rosie sat back, and Helen saw that her eyes were filling up with tears. Just then the waitress arrived to ask if they wanted dessert. Helen ordered two pieces of lemon meringue pie and two coffees.
“It won’t get jinxed,” she said when the waitress had left. “It’ll happen just like you said.”
Rosie looked hopefully at her. “Is that one of your … you know … one of your future-telling things?”
Helen shook her head. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“Oh. Then you were just being nice.”
“Yes and no. I don’t … see things … anymore, or get messages. But I feel in my gut that Arnie’s luck is going to hold.”
Rosie nodded. “Yeah, I feel it, too, most days. Even on the days when the worrying won’t let go, I never really believe I could lose him.”
“There, you see? We can’t both be wrong.”
The pie and coffee arrived. Helen added cream to her coffee, stir
red in a cube of sugar. Rosie watched her thoughtfully.
“Did you ever think Billy wouldn’t make it?”
“No,” Helen said, smiling wanly. “But I was able to put off thinking about that because he wasn’t in harm’s way yet.”
“Do you mind my asking?”
“Not at all. People usually avoid mentioning him to me—I guess they think they’re being considerate—but it only plays up his absence. If that makes any sense.”
“Sure.”
“It’s nice to hear his name every once in a while. It can make me sad, but it’s nice anyway.”
The girls paid their check and left the café. They walked at a more leisurely pace than they had earlier.
“Helen,” Rosie said cautiously, “did you ever get to … did you ever see Billy, like you wanted?”
“No, I never did.”
“Does that bother you like it used to?”
Helen shook her head. “He doesn’t have to come buck me up.”
“So you’re not fussing anymore that his not coming means he’s mad at you or jealous or something?”
“I doubt any of that matters where he is. Besides, he knows what he meant to me. What he means.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’s something I used to feel in trance sometimes. I’d get a sort of flash—not specifically about Billy, but about everything—that everything and all of us are connected. More than connected. Nonstop. That it’s all one piece—you, me, what we see around us—and that there’s no past, no future. Not really. Everything that happens was already happening before we noticed it and keeps on happening even when it looks like it’s over and gone. Even individual lives.”
“Whew,” Rosie said, whistling. “You’ve lost me.”
“Sorry,” Helen said. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, but this is the first time I’ve tried to talk about it.”
“It seems to me that things happen and people do things, period. People can make plans, and we remember things and read history books, so how can you say there’s no future or past?”
“That’s the common sense viewpoint. It fits into mine, except that it’s a very small part of it. It only seems like it’s big and complete because we use it so much to get through day-to-day living. But it doesn’t explain everything. It doesn’t explain what I’ve seen and heard in my trances.”
“Didn’t you say you weren’t doing trances anymore?”
Helen, who had been invigorated by this conversation, felt her mood punctured.
“That’s right.”
They’d reached the River Bend Savings and Loan, at the corner where they’d parted ways so many times over the years. Helen hadn’t the mental energy to continue the discussion about what was real and what was not, but she wasn’t ready for Rosie to leave, either. Rosie must have felt the same, because instead of saying good-bye, she sat down on the low brick wall in front of the bank. Helen sat down beside her.
“And what about Lloyd?” Rosie said.
“What about him?” Helen replied, caught off-guard.
“Well, I could say how’s he doing—and I do want to know that—but what I mean more is, what about him and you, and what about him bringing up Billy—is he one of those people that won’t talk about him—and what about you and Billy and Lloyd?”
“Whoa there,” Helen said, putting up her hand like a crossing guard.
Rosie laughed. “Too much too fast, huh? Maybe my dad’s right that being in the Army has made me brassy.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“So there is something to tell. More than a report on how he’s getting along in his program?”
“Lloyd and I don’t have an understanding, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Helen said.
“But you keep in touch?”
“Yes. And we do talk about Billy sometimes—that is, neither of us is afraid to mention him or memories of him.”
“Do the memories ever get in the way?”
“Get in the way of what?”
“If you have to ask, I guess not,” Rosie said, sounding nettled.
“I’m not trying to put you off, Rosie. I do … feel something … for Lloyd. But he doesn’t know it. So there’s really nothing for memories to get in the way of.”
“Feeling something isn’t ‘nothing.’”
“I suppose.”
“It isn’t.”
“Well, to answer your question, then—no, my memories don’t get in the way of my feelings for Lloyd.” There was that annoying catch in her throat again. “But it’s crazy, Rosie, because I still love Billy, too.”
Rosie took her by the shoulders, as if Helen were a drunk or an hysteric she was trying to steer back toward reason.
“You know what, Helen? Someone else might say ‘crazy’ is the most important word in all that, but I say the most important word is ‘too.’”
Rosie let go of Helen’s shoulders. A car paused at the corner before making a left turn. Helen looked away from her friend to follow the car’s progress down the street. Rosie stooped to pick up her bag.
“One other thing before I go, Miss,” she said lightly.
Helen hauled a matching lightness into her voice. “What’s that, Corporal?”
“Lloyd Mackey?” Rosie had dropped her bantering tone. “He knows, all right. I’d bet my last dollar on it.”
CHAPTER 47
DECEMBER 1944
The black sky was clean of clouds. The snow-laden hills and trees surrounding the frozen lake glowed in the light of a full moon. Holding Lloyd’s elbow, Helen was ice skating with him, cold air brushing her face. She didn’t mind a chilled nose and cheeks. Her exertions were keeping the rest of her warm. After the long train ride to Connecticut, it felt wonderful to be outdoors with her body pumping and her blood singing. There were other pairs of skaters on the lake, and many single men standing around a roaring bonfire on shore. The skating party was the first of the season at Old Farms, and few soldiers wanted to miss it, whether they had a girl to bring or not.
Everyone was skating in the same direction, following the shoreline some distance, then curving out to form a wide oval route. The large bonfire, tended by two sighted staff members, cast a flickering ocher radiance over one section of ice. When skaters passed through that area, individual features were discernible; otherwise, they were silhouettes in a Currier and Ives print.
“Which way to the center of the lake?” Lloyd asked Helen after they’d gone several times around the oval. “They say it’s solid clear across.”
Helen steered Lloyd out of the stream of skaters and faced him away from the shoreline. They stopped, and she let go of his arm. After standing very still for a moment, he crouched like a sprinter and shouted, “Let’s go!”
He set off at a brisk pace away from the party. He’d taken only two or three strides before Helen followed. As soon as she was beside him again, he began skating even faster.
Going in a straight line allowed for a greater build-up of speed than going around an oval. Helen was skating at the limit of her strength to keep up with Lloyd, but there was a sense of partnership in their headlong flight. She never felt that she was chasing him, or that he was on the verge of breaking away from her.
It was quieter away from the bonfire and the other people. Soon, the only sounds were the rhythmic scrape of their skates and their hard breathing.
Helen was watching, as best she could, for treacherous lumps in their path. This was no groomed rink, and a rough patch could appear anywhere. It was difficult to see very far ahead, even with the bright moon. Her heart was pounding as much from trepidation as from the labor of her legs. She cast a quick glance at Lloyd. His knit cap had blown off, and his dark hair whipped back from his forehead. His artificial eye glinted. His mouth was open in a wide grin. A grinning man skating full tilt into total darkness! She wished he’d slow down, but she didn’t want to ask it. It seemed important to let him go until the urge
to stop came to him spontaneously.
Finally, Lloyd started coasting. He stretched his arms wide, as if to embrace the night. They were still moving fast.
“Oo-ee!” he shouted.
His glee was infectious. Helen laughed.
When their momentum had slowed considerably, Lloyd spun to a stop. He sat down abruptly on the ice.
“That wasn’t a fall, by the way,” he said, panting.
“What would it matter if it was?” Helen replied.
She sat down, too, carefully tucking her long coat under her so that the cold wouldn’t seep through her wool pants to her skin.
“Some people,” Lloyd said, “take one gander at a guy with a cane and dark glasses and think they know everything about him. When the bunch of us came here, we changed trains in Philadelphia, and I’ll tell you, conversations in the station waiting room stopped dead when we got close. Picked up again in whispers at our backs. One lady’s whisper wasn’t soft enough, though, and I heard her tell somebody that she’d rather her son didn’t come home at all than to have him come home ‘like that.’”
Helen put her hand on Lloyd’s coat sleeve and shook his arm gently.
“I’m not ‘some people,’” she said.
“I know. I’ve gotta get better at remembering I don’t have to prove myself to everybody all the time.”
Helen studied Lloyd’s profile in the moonlight. Sitting there, a lock of his windblown hair falling over his brow in the same endearing way his brother’s used to, Lloyd appeared completely whole and normal. It was only when he started to move that you noticed a difference. Even then, it was subtle. At Old Farms, they trained the men to avoid the stereotypical bent posture and shambling gait of the blind. Most of the soldiers Helen had seen on campus didn’t even use canes.
Looking at the defiant lift of Lloyd’s chin, Helen wondered how difficult it was going to be for him and other disabled veterans to fit back into their former lives and how difficult it was going to be on the rest of the population to let them fit in—where, on both sides, misunderstandings and unexamined assumptions and just plain inexperience would place extra obstacles. There were also hundreds of thousands of men and women who’d been permanently disabled by accidents in ammunition factories and defense plants.
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