Once there, all thoughts turned to Frankie. He’d written her several letters after he left Entzheim, and she could tell he hadn’t received hers explaining and apologizing. Now she’d had no word from him in days, which probably meant he was still crossing the Pacific. She wondered how much longer she’d be stuck in Marseille.
Bill had gone home on a hospital ship. Hopefully Jennie could do for him what Helen hadn’t been able to do. Peggy should have been on a ship headed for the CBI. But when the trucks showed up for the single nurses, Victoria, thinking she’d get home sooner if she got on the first truck, shoved past Peggy and took the last seat on the transport. Pugh simply changed Peggy’s orders and kept her with Helen and Naomi. Sometimes life really did work out.
“Helen!” Peggy came running up to her.
Helen groaned. No doubt Peggy had been sent to fetch her. The doctors at this hospital conspired to make her life miserable. Impossible to please, they were as whiny as babies and as crotchety as old men. She closed her eyes. “Peggy, can’t you see? I’m not here.”
“I can see you won’t be here long.”
“Oh, all right.” Helen slid off the stone wall. “You’re no fun.”
“You might have to change your tune. If you don’t want to go back to the hospital, where would you like to go?”
Helen didn’t have to think twice. “I want to go home.”
Peggy waved some papers. “You ready to stop feeling sorry for yourself?”
“If you insist.”
“Lieutenant Daley, you have twenty minutes to get your gear. You’re going to the United States of America!”
Fifteen minutes later, Helen said a tearful good-bye to Peggy and Naomi, then boarded a ship already overflowing with soldiers. As far as Helen could tell, she was the only nurse aboard. She didn’t care. This voyage would bring her another step closer to being home with Frankie.
The tanker might have made a good barge, but it was a lousy speedboat. As the days wore on, Helen missed Frank more and more. Although she tried to focus on the fact that at least one of them would be in the States now, she kept coming back to the other fact—her husband was on a different ship sailing to the end of the world. It might be two years before he could come home, and they didn’t have the money for her to visit him there. And what about mail? Would he ever receive her letters? When would she get a letter from him? Frank’s letters were what had gotten her through this war.
When the ship finally reached the United States and Boston Harbor came into view, Helen felt like a foreigner in her own country. They docked to cheers and screams and cries of celebration on deck and from below, where a band played and people shouted and waved banners of welcome and victory. Helen waited on deck, allowing everyone else to scurry down the ramp and into the arms of people who loved them.
Nobody was waiting for her.
Helen was the last passenger to leave the ship. She struggled to carry her bags as she stumbled down the wooden ramp.
“Mrs. Daley!”
Helen peered around the dock, thinking she’d misheard. But there it was again. “Mrs. Daley!” She spotted a soldier striding toward her, calling her name.
The man stopped and broke into a grin that reminded her of Frank. “Helen!” He hugged her and lifted her off her feet, then spun her in a circle before releasing her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or slap him. “Frank was right. You’re a looker! Much too good for my little brother. But we don’t have time for small talk.” He took her bags and started off with them.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” Everything she owned was in those bags.
He didn’t slow down, didn’t even turn around. “Same place you’re going. New York!”
Frank stood on deck of the Marine Panther and watched the Statue of Liberty come closer and closer. Every soldier on deck was doing the same, staring in awe and reverence at the symbol of the freedom they’d been fighting for. Some even saluted Lady Liberty. So did Frank. This was home, his country, the place where he and his wife would build their lives together. Maybe they would set up a practice in Missouri or Illinois, Florida or DC. He didn’t care, as long as Helen was there.
And that was what robbed him of the joy he heard going on around him. He could never be really happy until Helen was home too. And that might not come for months.
As soon as the ship pulled into harbor, soldiers mobbed the deck, yelling down to loved ones waiting at the dock. Frank eased to the back of the crowd, bracing himself for the greetings and embraces that wouldn’t be there for him.
By the time the ship lowered its gangplank, the sun had risen with an orange-red glow reflected in the shimmering sea. He waited as long as he could, then started down the wooden ramp, surrounded by other straggling soldiers.
“Frankie!”
It was his imagination. Of course it was. Helen’s voice, sweeter than music. He heard it in his dreams and in nearly every waking moment.
“Frankie! Here! I’m here!”
This time, he turned toward the shout. There she was. Helen. His Helen, waving from the shore.
“Move it, buster!” Someone shoved him from behind.
Then he was moving. Running. Racing toward Helen, toward home.
This was the end of the war. Not for Boots and Dotty, not yet. Maybe never for Lartz and whatever was left of his family. Not even for Anderson and the other ships sailing on.
But as he reached his wife and she threw herself into his arms, he knew that for Helen and Frank Daley, the war was finally over.
The Story behind the Story
In a way, I began this book decades ago, growing up listening to the colorful stories of my parents. My favorites were their war stories—Lt. Helen Eberhart Daley, registered nurse, and Capt. Frank R. Daley, MD, served overseas in the Army during WWII, in 1944 and 1945.
When Dad was diagnosed with carcinoma in 1996, I got him to tape his stories on a dozen cassettes. I flew back to Missouri each time Mom had to rush him to the hospital. The last trip there, he waited until we were alone in his hospital room. Then he said, “Dandi, I want you to drive back to Hamilton (their home, which was mine, too, growing up—an hour away from the hospital) now, while your mother isn’t there. Go up into the attic and find an Army trunk. Put it in your car, but don’t open it.” I did as he asked. But when I returned to the hospital, I begged him to tell me what was in that trunk. “Letters,” he said. My parents had written two to three letters every day they were apart during those war years. They’d saved each letter, tying stacks with Army boot laces. “I want you to have them because your mother will burn them after I die. She wouldn’t want anyone reading about our love and mushy melodramas. So don’t read those letters until we’re both gone.”
That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I admit I found wiggle room and peeked into the trunk to discover over 600 letters untouched since 1945. But there were other treasures, too—Christmas and Easter cards in French, English, and German; medals; Bibles signed by FDR with a note to all servicemen encouraging prayer and the reading of Scripture. I began reading about the war, but I didn’t open a letter.
My mother lived on until 2010 and came to live in Ohio with my family for her final five years on earth. She changed, becoming more sentimental and reflective, never melancholy, but full of the Spirit. She began telling me war stories I’d never heard before. She came from a family of thirteen that sent five sons and one daughter overseas in WWII. I wanted to pump her for every detail, and she remembered each hospital, patient, and rendezvous with Dad, including one in Marseille in a hideout beneath the barn of a Resistance family. We never mentioned the trunk—in my attic now—but she had to know I’d taken it since she helped my sister and me clean out her home for sale. Then came the day when I was trying to nail down a certain date in their war history. Mom grew frustrated with my persistence and finally said, “Oh, Dandi, just check the dates on the letters!” We were both silent, suddenly acknowledging the treasure I posse
ssed. Then she said sweetly, “Anything else?” We never mentioned the letters again, but I began reading.
When Mom went to be with the Lord (and Dad), I set to work in earnest. It was not an easy task in the beginning because I missed my parents. But gradually, they became young Helen and Frank, and I got to know them in a different way, to appreciate their sacrifice and their love. I arranged the letters chronologically and took copious notes in the early years, coordinating their personal insights with what history reported. Through the Internet, I tracked down Bill Chitwood, a ward boy from Mom’s unit who became a friend. His memory proved fantastic, especially about the inner workings of wartime hospitals.
This novel is a work of fiction, based on the stories and letters of Helen and Frank. I’ve written a good deal of fiction over the past three decades, and most of my books contain kernels of reality. But I’d never attempted to shape a real story into a work of fiction. The process led me to a number of false starts and delays. Even though I had letters and stories, it was tricky imagining thoughts and emotions, adding the conflict and opposition that a novel needs, building character arcs. But I kept writing, wrestling over which letters to include, how to turn stories I knew by heart into a narrative that would touch a reader’s heart.
Helen’s brothers all made it home safely from the war and lived to give me a bunch of cousins. Since my uncles were such good soldiers and sailors, I had to invent Eugene. But even though I never had an Uncle Eugene, his character is based on soldier patients my mom described, calling them “her boys.” Bill Chitwood married his Jennie. Thankfully, he was not blinded, as was the fictional Bill. He joined Jennie in heaven before THE BOOK, as he always referred to the novel, was published. I’m so glad I got to meet him, and I hope a piece of Bill lives on in this novel. Lartz and Anderson, Frank’s war buddies, had faded away by the time I was born, though they existed in a plethora of war stories. I invented Major Bradford. But the Nazi Cardinal fan (“Daley’s Nazi”) and “Fritz” were very real.
Frank’s brother, Jack, did spy in the war as a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a wartime intelligence agency, which was the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Uncle Jack eventually settled in California, where he married and raised a daughter.
Dotty—Dorothea Daley Engel—was just like Dotty in the novel. With a life like that, she didn’t need to be fictionalized. Aunt Dot never saw her husband again. For over twenty years, she refused to believe that Boots was dead. She waited for him while working as Frank’s nurse in private practice. Then one day a man came to her door and said he had been with Boots on the Bataan Death March and in prison afterward until very near the end of the war. Their Japanese captors put the prisoners on a clearly marked Japanese war vessel and put themselves on a clearly marked Red Cross vessel. The Allies bombed the war boat, and survivors had to swim to safety. Dotty’s visitor made it, but Boots did not. The movie So Proudly We Hail! with Claudette Colbert and Veronica Lake tells Aunt Dot’s story, but with a happier ending.
Dr. and Mrs. F. R. Daley ended up practicing in Hamilton, Missouri, where they raised two daughters, Maureen and Dandi. Helen and Frank were very happily married for fifty-one years.
Discussion Questions
A pivotal experience in her childhood made Helen resolve she’d grow up to be a nurse, while Frank followed his father’s footsteps into medicine. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? What experiences or family influences shaped your vocation?
When do you think Frank actually fell in love with Helen? When did Helen admit that she’d fallen in love with Frank? Faced with the prospect of being separated by the war, Frank and Helen made a swift decision to marry. Would you have been among the friends who cheered them on or those who asked if they’d lost their minds? Why?
Both before and after their wedding, Helen and Frank had moments of doubt about their marriage, especially about how well they truly knew each other. What things would you list as essential to know about another person before marrying? What kinds of things can be learned over time?
Having only letters to connect them for weeks and even months left Helen and Frank vulnerable to misunderstandings. Once, as she endured long days with no word from Frank, Helen filled in her own assumptions about what he was thinking and feeling, only to learn that he hadn’t received her letters at all. In Helen’s place, would you have jumped to the same conclusions? Can you think of a time when you constructed your own story about another person during a gap in communication? How much of what you believed was the truth?
Frank showed his jealousy a couple of times, most notably over Colonel Pugh and the trip to Paris. Helen also admitted her jealousy over Nurse Becky and Marie, the young French patient in Marseille. How did they handle moments of jealousy? Have you ever been jealous—of a spouse, a friend, a family member? How did you handle it?
What characteristics would you say are necessary for an enduring marriage? Which of these did you see Frank and Helen exhibiting, or learning, throughout the story? Where did they still need to grow?
Faced with the prospects of battles and bombings, Frank wondered, “What was it that made one man buck up, another act heroically, and another give in to terror?” How would you answer his question? Frank came to find comfort and courage from a verse of Psalm 23: “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” How do you respond to fear?
Frank was quick to tell others that Dotty and Jack were the heroes in his family—not him. Why do you think he was reluctant to take on a “hero” label? How would you define a hero, and who has been one in your life?
For much of the story, Helen lived by the motto “God helps those who help themselves.” But when she’s forced to acknowledge how much is out of her control, Naomi advises her that a better motto might be “God helps most when you admit you can’t do it on your own.” Which motto do you believe and live by?
This novel is fiction, but based on the experiences and letters of the real-life Frank and Helen Daley. How much do you know about your parents’ or grandparents’ histories? Can you think of any family stories that would make good fiction? If you were to write those stories, where might you have to use your imagination to fill in gaps or flesh out the details?
In her note to readers, the author makes a distinction between some true and invented pieces of this story—for example, Dotty’s story adheres to the facts, but in real life, Bill Chitwood wasn’t blinded, and Major Bradford didn’t exist. As a reader, did it matter to you to learn that some of the characters were invented or their stories changed? Why or why not?
During World War II, Japanese and German citizens living in the US fell under cruel suspicion, and overseas, Helen faces some of the same prejudice because of her ability to speak to wounded German soldiers. In her place, how would you have responded to such suspicion? Would you have had difficulty caring for enemy soldiers?
Helen and Frank were part of what’s been called “the Greatest Generation.” What qualities have earned them this title? What names have you heard for your generation? Do you think the perception of your generation is justified?
Helen and Frank wrote to each other as many as three times a day, but slow and waylaid mail often meant long gaps in communication. Censorship made it hard to freely say all they might have wanted to. How different might their story have been if they’d had access to today’s instant communication? What difficulties due to their separation would have remained the same? With our new technology and the ability to stay in touch virtually all over the globe, do you think we’ve lost anything?
Acknowledgments
More than a decade ago, I sat across the table from Karen Watson, now associate publisher of Tyndale House. I’d given her the first chapter of this book and shared a few of the war stories. After that, whenever I ran into Karen, she’d ask me how that book was coming along. My father-in-law asked the same question, and I saw him more often than I did Karen. (Thanks for caring so much. I love
you, Pap.) When Stephanie Rische, senior editor at Tyndale and a born encourager, paid me a visit, she read the dozen or so chapters I’d been working on, and she joined the voices urging me to finish.
I started working on the book in every spare minute until I had a draft of the whole thing—849 pages! Karen, who believed in this book when I only dared to dream about it, read every page and suggested there was a skinnier book inside this one and I needed to cut, cut, cut to find it. I got the novel down to 567 pages, and, most fortunately, I acquired the insight and wisdom of acquisition editor Jan Stob. Editor Sarah Rische skillfully and gently applied her sweet blessed tyranny to help me see past my parents to discover young Helen and Frank as characters in a novel based on my parents. Thanks, everybody, for all your help.
I’m so grateful to have been part of the Tyndale House family for over three decades. When I thought about placing my parents and their story into the arms of publishing, I knew they’d be safe in Tyndale hands. Ron Beers, thank you for believing in me (and in my books). Besides the talented Tyndale editors I’ve already mentioned, I have so many to thank for bringing this story to life: Shaina Turner (acquisitions editor), Danika King and Caleb Sjogren (copy editors), Midge Choate (product manager), Dean Renninger (designer), Jen Rockwell (marketer), Alyssa Anderson (publicist), and the entire sales team.
As always, my wonderful husband, Joe, a fantastic writer mainly of nonfiction narrative, helped me immensely all along the way. Thanks, honey! I’m grateful to our kids, Jen, Katy, and Dan, who listen to our stories over and over again but ignore the old adage: Stop me if you’ve heard this one. And finally, thank you to my generous big sis, Maureen Pento, who was and is my cheerleader from start to finish. I just want our mom and dad to be honored here, in our book.
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