Maggie's War

by Terrie Todd

  “How far is it?” she asked.

  “It will only take us a few minutes to get to the hospital. I’m Nurse Bailey, and they sent me specifically because I’m a maternity nurse. You’ll be just fine.”

  “Did Marlajean tell you—?”

  “The lady who was with you? She gave me a list of names and addresses. We’ll do our best to locate someone from your family.”

  “But did she tell you that I’m not . . . that the baby is supposed to be—”

  Another contraction swept over Charlotte then, and suddenly nothing else mattered.

  CHAPTER 12

  Maggie had fallen fast asleep on the passenger side of Reuben’s car, a light jacket rolled into a ball under her cheek. Reuben saw a sign for Oxdrift and could use a break, but decided to drive right through so Maggie wouldn’t wake up. His gas station road map told him he could follow the route he was on as far as Fort William, and the gravel road had not been as bad as he feared. As long as it didn’t rain, they might be able to make pretty decent time.

  Please keep the car running, Lord. Help us find Charlotte.

  The girl was so young. He’d seen her only briefly the few times he’d stopped at Bert’s for coffee or lunch. He knew Maggie wasn’t easy on the girls she employed and lodged, but he had to believe her heart was soft toward them. He’d heard the panic in her voice over the telephone and seen her near tears at the train station. Why did she work so hard to not let it show? Did Charlotte have any idea how much Maggie truly cared?

  Again, his mind returned to the Maggie he had known years before. Maybe things could have turned out differently for her if only he’d had the courage to declare his feelings then. She’d have made a wonderful pastor’s wife. Back then. He tried to imagine her winning over his congregation now, with her cold demeanor and sarcastic wit. He chuckled aloud at the thought of his board confronting Maggie’s forthrightness. It would be an all-out war.

  At the sound of his laugh, Maggie stirred, and he watched her settle into sleep again. Though the years had added a hardness to her features, the beauty beneath it remained. If only that wild head of red hair could receive a little tender loving care instead of being yanked into a fierce bun all the time . . .

  Forgive me, Lord. Reuben disrupted his thought with a prayer. The woman hasn’t even been widowed a week. Help me keep my mind on the mission, to not try to pick up what I let go way back then.

  Maggie stirred again, this time stretching her arms and giving a massive yawn. “Need me to drive awhile?”

  “No, I’m okay. I’m sure I got more sleep last night than you.”

  “Well, I’m awake now.” Maggie sat up straight and began smoothing her hair.

  “Need a stop?”

  “No, not unless you do. We need to get as far as we can as fast as we can.”

  “Agreed.” Reuben glanced into his rearview mirror, then at Maggie. “I’ve been thinking. How much do you know about Charlotte’s boyfriend?”

  Maggie was pulling pins from her hair and re-twisting her bun. With her hands thus occupied, she spoke around the bobby pin between her lips. “Just his name and that he’s stationed at Petawawa. Why?”

  “Any idea how he might react if she makes it there?”

  “He’ll be shocked out of his khaki pants, that’s what. He doesn’t even know about the baby.” Maggie pushed the last pin through her hair.

  “You’re kidding.” How could such important information be withheld? It didn’t seem right.

  “Charlotte’s parents forbade her to see him. Said no boy, including that one, would ever marry her if she didn’t keep it a secret.”

  “And she hasn’t contacted him in all this time?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  Reuben shook his head. “I’m trying to put myself in that boy’s position.”

  “Well, first of all, that boy isn’t you. You wouldn’t have gotten a girl in that way in the first place. Secondly, Charlotte is twitter-pated.”

  “Twitter-pated?”

  Maggie waved one hand around in the air. “Always got her head in the clouds, imagining who knows what. She probably thinks Reginald will be waiting with arms wide open, regardless of her condition.”

  Reuben couldn’t help giving a soft chuckle. “And you don’t think he will be?”

  “I think she’s setting herself up for the biggest heartache of her twitter-pated life.” Maggie looked out her window and Reuben was sure he saw her swallow hard.

  “And you’d like to spare her if you can.”

  Maggie just pressed her lips together.

  “Why does it matter, Maggie?”

  “I took responsibility for her, didn’t I? Her parents expect me to see this through until the baby comes. I need to make good on that. That’s all.” She looked out her window again.

  “Well, I sincerely doubt your commitment included chasing across the country after a runaway.”

  “It’s a big country, Reuben. We’re not going to cross it. Remember?”

  Reuben chuckled and shook his head. The sunny day was disappearing into a light fog, and he prayed it would not slow them down.

  “Sure hope Charlotte’s train stops at every little settlement along the route.” Maggie was studying the road map. “If we can just get ahead of it, then it’s only a matter of waiting at one of the stops, and when she gets off to stretch her legs, we’ve got her.”

  “What if she refuses to come home with you?” Reuben took his eyes off the road to study Maggie’s face and saw her looking at him out of the corner of hers.

  “That’s why you’re along.”

  Reuben grinned. “You counting on my powers of persuasion, my charm, or my brute strength?”

  “All three.”

  They rode in silence for a while. Despite the serious nature of the trip, Reuben felt glad to be with someone he could relax around. It seemed these days he spent all his time with either needy or critical parishioners, or with Mrs. O’Toole and Sheila, her cat. The other two boarders were closer to his age than was his landlady. Nettie Renfrew was a schoolteacher and Robert Broadford worked for the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loan Organization, around the clock sometimes. But Reuben rarely saw either one of them.

  Reuben thought back to the previous winter, when Winnipeg had organized “If Day,” a mock Nazi invasion that educated people on what was happening in Europe, promoted the purchasing of war bonds, and raised three million dollars for the war effort. Reuben still had a copy of the Tribune from that day, February 19, 1942, tucked somewhere in his filing cabinet. The paper’s name was crossed out on the front page and Das Winnipeger Lügenblatt (The Winnipeg Lies-sheet) appeared instead.

  They had all hoped the war would be over by now.

  “Visibility’s getting bad.” Maggie’s words pulled Reuben back to the present. “Don’t suppose the fog slows the trains down any, eh?”

  “It’s doubtful. Don’t worry, Maggie. We’ll catch up with her eventually, even if we have to drive all the way to Petawawa. We know she’s not going any further, right?”

  “I suppose there’s a chance she’d try to carry on to Toronto once she realizes she can’t just waltz into a military training camp like some kind of princess and walk off with her prince. Will that gas card of yours take us that far?”

  “I think so.”

  Maggie pulled apart the drawstrings of a small pouch and counted whatever was inside. “I’m surprised she had enough money to even buy the ticket she did. With what I pay her.”

  “So you admit it.”

  “What?”

  “You’re stingy.”

  “Who said anything about stingy? My girls get room and board. That should be enough for the easy bit of work I ask of them. Their pay envelopes are just gravy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t give me that judgmental ‘uh-huh’ business. You know they’re getting a good deal.”

  “I’m pretty sure you are too.”

  “It’s a mutually beneficia
l arrangement, what can I say? Look out for that skunk!”

  But it was too late. In an explosion of black and white fur, Reuben’s Plymouth instantly ended the skunk’s life, which in turn filled the car with a powerful stench.

  “Oh no.” He drove another half mile to get away from the source, then pulled over to the side of the road. The two of them opened the doors wide and left them that way while they climbed out, still coughing. Maggie, who’d been holding a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, now waved it around as though the motion could miraculously clean the car, the air, and them. Her attempts to improve things only brought on another fit of coughing, which made Reuben snicker.

  “Sorry,” he said. “But sometimes you just have to laugh.”

  “You don’t look so sophisticated yourself. But you look a dang sight better than you smell.”

  Reuben and Maggie locked eyes, but he had no comeback. Trying to contain his laughter only made it worse.

  “Aw, go ahead. May as well laugh. It beats cryin’.”

  He let loose then, and Maggie joined in. It felt good to laugh hard, but it felt even better to see Maggie surrender to it, her face lit up with laughter. When the mirth finally diminished, Reuben produced the bag of Mrs. O’Toole’s sandwiches from the trunk. “If these aren’t completely ruined, we might as well eat them now.”

  Thankfully, the food had been tightly wrapped and secured inside Mrs. O’Toole’s metal Beekist honey pail with a snug lid. They sat on a car blanket on the side of the road and relished the sandwiches, chuckling again every once in a while. When the picnic was over, there was nothing to do but climb back inside the smelly car and carry on down the road.

  “We’ll stop at the next town and see what we can do about the stink,” Reuben said. “I could use something to drink anyway.”

  They didn’t have far to go. But when they pulled into the little gas station in Dryden, it seemed their odor had arrived before they did.

  “Hoo-ee! Smells like somebody tangled with a nasty one,” the attendant said. “There’s a hose around back if you want to spray her down.”

  “My car or my traveling companion?” Reuben said, loud enough for only Maggie to hear. She gave him a look that would shrivel a green apple and climbed out of the car.

  “If your wife would like to use a nicer facility, she can go on over to the house next door,” the attendant said, pointing. “The boss owns it, and his wife insists the ladies shouldn’t have to use our station toilet.”

  “Oh, thank you, but she’s not—” Reuben looked up in time to see that Maggie had caught the man’s words and was already headed over to the house. “Never mind.”

  He hosed down the car after the tank was filled.

  At the local grocery store, Maggie stayed in the car while Reuben endured more looks of disdain as his scent greeted the people inside before he could even open his mouth.

  “Can I get a couple of Cokes?” Reuben asked at the counter. “I’ll take two apples, too.”

  The cashier wasted no time in putting the order together and taking Reuben’s money. When he returned to the car, Maggie was in the driver’s seat.

  “Figured you could use a rest,” she said. “You couldn’t have slept much last night either.”

  Reuben didn’t argue. They drank their Cokes in silence, and before they’d gone twenty miles, he was fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  Maggie hadn’t driven a car in years, and she was one of the few women she knew who had learned at all. When she was still going out with Douglas, he had proudly taught her to drive his 1920 Hudson. He still had the car when they married, but didn’t keep it for long. He told Maggie he’d sold it, but she never saw any evidence of the proceeds. When one of his poker buddies drove by in it the very next week, her suspicions were confirmed. Douglas had lost it in a game.

  Maggie’s brother had also taken her for a few rides in his car before he went off to war, and he’d let her have a turn at the wheel now and then. She missed Bert Junior. He was a musician and had spent most of his adult life before the war on the road. In his last letter, he’d written that he was hoping for a transfer to the entertainment unit called the Tin Hats. Their father’s dying wish had been that Bert Junior would take an interest in the restaurant like Maggie had, and that he would one day be a partner. But her brother had made it perfectly clear he had no such inclination.

  Thoughts of the restaurant reminded Maggie of Earl and his insistence that he was now her partner. It would have broken her father’s heart to see his beloved restaurant fall into the hands of a man like Earl Marshall. It was just as well he’d never know.

  Maggie supposed there was one good thing about getting sidetracked by this road trip. At least she hadn’t had time to worry about her problems with her brother-in-law. At least, not until now. With Reuben asleep and nothing but the road stretching out before her, she found herself wondering what would transpire when she returned to Winnipeg. There had to be a way to keep Earl out of her business.

  She hit a bump in the road and Reuben startled awake.

  “What was that?” He looked around.

  “Just a bump. What’s the matter? Don’t trust a woman driver?”

  “Would I have let you drive if I didn’t?”

  Maggie grinned. “I’ll try to be more careful. You can go back to sleep.”

  But Reuben’s eyes stayed open, though he kept his head resting on the seat. After they’d sat in silence for a while, he said, “Next town, I think we should find the train station and see if we can learn where Charlotte’s train is now. Don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  Some time passed before he spoke again. “I’ve been wondering something.”

  Maggie waited until her patience gave out. “That’s it? You’ve been wondering something?”

  Reuben sighed. “If Charlotte decided to get off somewhere along the way, how would we know?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Reuben didn’t answer, and his silence unnerved Maggie. “Huh, Reuben? Why would she get off early? You know something I don’t?”

  Still, the man was slow to answer. And vague, once he did. “I . . . might.”

  “You might? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I can’t be sure.”

  “Listen, mister, if you have more information, you better speak up.” How infuriating.

  Reuben appeared to be chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Okay. This might sound kind of crazy to you, Maggie, but . . . well, do you believe God speaks to people? Through dreams and such?”

  So that’s it, Maggie thought. I’m traveling with a kook. I should have known he was too good to be true. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to God much lately, and he’s never talked to me that I know of. What are you saying? Did he talk to you?”

  “While I was sleeping before. How long was I out, anyway?”

  “I dunno. An hour or so, I guess.” What on earth did he think God said? “Did God tell you Charlotte got off the train?”

  Reuben hesitated. “It’s not so much what he told me.” Another infuriating pause. “It’s more like—an impression. No, more than that.”

  “A vision?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s happened to me before.”

  Maggie wanted to believe him. “Has it ever been wrong before?”

  Reuben grew strangely quiet while Maggie waited.

  “No,” he said finally. “Not even once.”

  “Well, that would come in kind of handy, wouldn’t it? Can you just ask him stuff, like—say, what the stock market’s going to do or who’s going to win the playoffs?”

  Reuben shook his head and looked out his window. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  As soon as she saw Reuben’s lips clamp shut, Maggie regretted her teasing. “No, come on. I was only joking. I take you seriously. I do. You’re a man of the cloth, for heaven’s sake. Get it? For ‘heaven’s’ sake?”

  Maggi
e laughed, but Reuben only looked out the window. Chagrined, she decided to try a more serious tone. “So what was this ‘impression’?”

  Another sigh. “Let’s just say I feel strongly that we won’t need to drive any farther than Fort William.”

  “Well, that’s pretty specific. You think she got off there?”

  “I don’t know. I just—maybe I’ll know more when we get there.”

  Maggie let that sink in before she spoke. “How much farther to Fort William?”

  Reuben studied the map. “We should be able to get there late tonight if the roads don’t get any worse and the car keeps running.”

  Maggie tapped the steering wheel. “C’mon, car. Nice car.”

  When Reuben said nothing more, she decided to press him. “So, tell me about these dreams of yours. How often do they happen?”

  “Very seldom, actually. Only a handful of times before. They’re . . . not like regular dreams. But they’re not like being awake either.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Do you have regular dreams too?”

  “Oh, sure. All the time. That’s how I know these are different.”

  “What other things has God shown you, if you don’t mind my askin’?” Maggie swerved to miss a hole in the road and hit some loose gravel. The Plymouth shimmied a little, then straightened out.

  “If I tell you, it’ll be the first time I’ve told anyone.”

  “Ever?”

  Reuben nodded, but said no more. Maggie decided not to press. He would tell her in his own good time.

  And if he didn’t, it didn’t matter.

  The truth was, Reuben’s dream had shaken him. Fifteen years had passed since his last one, and he’d thought those days were behind him. He figured they were an anomaly of his youth. Now that he had been to Bible college and was a fully ordained minister of the gospel, surely God expected him to search out truth for himself, from God’s word. And he had. He spent long hours hunched over his Bible, reading and rereading, pulling out spiritual nuggets for his congregation and, sometimes, for himself. He memorized long passages of Scripture. He double-checked each verse against the original Greek or Hebrew to help him fully understand the text. He prayed before he wrote every sermon and prayed again before he delivered them. He asked God to cause him to forget anything he was supposed to leave out and to inspire him with anything he was supposed to add in. That way, when he sat down to lunch on Sunday afternoon, there would be no kicking himself over anything he’d forgotten. He took God at face value and trusted that what he had asked for, God had granted—and would continue to grant as long as Reuben prepared well.