“I’m okay.”
“This is all you have?”
Sarah went to take the cardboard suitcase from her, but Libby stepped back. “It’s okay. I’ve got it.”
“I have a room made up for you in the apartment. You stay with me, yes, long as you want.”
“Thanks. I’d like that. But let’s walk for a while first.”
Sarah looked at the cane in Libby’s right hand.
“I lose my balance sometimes. Mostly I’m okay. I just want to take a look at New York for a while.”
Much of Battery Park was closed for the new tunnel, so they walked into the wind along the promenade. Libby found a bench and sat down, looked up at the sky, her eyes closed. “So good to be back,” she said.
“When they told me the wound you had, I cannot tell you what I was thinking.”
“The bullet was bouncing around inside the OR like a pinball, knocked me off my feet, and put a dent in my head as it went past. Didn’t even break bone. The surgeon on the ship told me I was lucky. I said to him, if I was that lucky, it would have missed me completely.”
“But you are okay?”
“I have some blurred vision and ringing in the ears. That’s why they sent me home. I have to have another medical exam next month.”
“Good luck with that. You won’t pass it, not in a hundred years.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Not after I break both your legs with a baseball bat. Never going back to this stupid war.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
A sailor walked past, arm in arm with a brunette. She saw Libby follow them with her eyes. She guessed what she was thinking.
“I hear Jack is doing okay,” Sarah said. “He wants you to go see him. He’s home now. His father has hired a nurse, every day he practices his walking.”
“I hope the nurse isn’t too pretty.”
“Pretty is not the word I would think of. What I think when I see her is, this girl will punch your lights out if you mess with her.”
“Just the kind of girl he needs, then.”
“I am sorry, Libby.”
Libby didn’t answer her right away. She looked up at the sky, like she was thinking about something else. “When we got to Africa,” she said, “we landed at a place called Oran. That first night we had to triage the wounded in the battalion aid station. We had no proper light, just flashlights. And suddenly, there was Jack, lying on a stretcher, this huge hole in his back. And I said to the corpsman, take him first, and he said, but there’s this other infantryman, I think he has a lung shot, and I still said, take this one. It was the wrong thing, I knew it was the wrong thing, but I did it anyway. I guess you know that feeling.”
“What happened to the other soldier?”
“He lived, but no thanks to me.”
Libby took Sarah’s hand, squeezed it, and put it in her lap under hers. They sat for a long time in companionable silence.
So, is this how my forgiveness comes, Sarah thought, not with floods of tears and rending of clothes, but a simple shrug of the shoulders, a rueful smile?
In the distance, Sarah could make out the Liberty goddess. She looked so small under the lowering sky. She had heard so many immigrant songs over the years. Now, she thought, we are playing the final notes to just one more.
“I think we’re done here,” Liberty said. “Let’s go home.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My heartfelt thanks once again to Jodi Warshaw at Lake Union. I’m lucky to have you as my editor. Also to David Downing for once again bringing your prestigious talents to bear on this one, and to the wonderful Nicole Pomeroy and Elisabeth Rinaldi, for checking and double-checking absolutely everything. And last, but not least, to Lisa: for all the late nights and red eyes and insight. Can never thank you enough.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Hervey. Toward the Flame: A Memoir of World War I. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
Birmingham, Stephen. The Rest of Us: The Rise of America’s Eastern European Jews. New York: Little, Brown, 1984.
Bonk, David. Château Thierry & Belleau Wood 1918: America’s Baptism of Fire on the Marne. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007.
Brown, Jay M. “From the Shtetl to the Tenement: The East European Jews and America, a Social History 1850–1925.” Yale–New Haven Teachers Institute, February 2, 1979. www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.02.x.html.
Coan, Peter Morton. Toward a Better Life: America’s New Immigrants in Their Own Words, from Ellis Island to the Present. New York: Prometheus Books, 2011.
Cunningham, Laura Shaine. “Ghosts of El Morocco.” New York Times, September 5, 2004.
Ewen, Elizabeth. Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890–1925. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985.
Fessler, Diane Burke. No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses in World War II. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1996.
Friedman, Harold, and Louis Borgenicht. The Happiest Man: The Life of Louis Borgenicht as Told to Harold Friedman. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1942.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash 1929. London: Penguin Books, 1975.
Gordon, George Vincent. Leathernecks and Doughboys. Pike, NH: Brass Hat Publishing, 1996.
Kazin, Alfred. A Walker in the City. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951.
Klein, Maury. Rainbow’s End: The Crash of 1929. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Mendelsohn, Adam. The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire. New York: NYU Press, 2014.
Miller, Greg. “During Prohibition, Harlem Night Clubs Kept the Party Going.” National Geographic Magazine, April 2017.
Monahan, Evelyn, and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee. And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II. New York: Anchor Book, 2004.
Munger, Sean. “Throwback Thursday: A Night Out in Manhattan . . . in 1930.” SeanMunger.com, May 7, 2015. https://seanmunger.com/2015/05/07/throwback-thursday-a-night-out-in-manhattan-in-1930.
“New York City—Café Society or Up from the Speakeasies.” YODELOUT! New York City. Accessed August 31, 2018. http://new-york-city.yodelout.com/new-york-city-cafe-society-or-up-from-the-speakeasies.
Rosenberg, Jennifer. “Flappers in the Roaring Twenties.” Thoughtco, updated March 21, 2018. https://www.thoughtco.com/flappers-in-the-roaring-twenties-1779240.
Salkin, Allen. “Fading Into History.” New York Times, October 22, 2002.
Schanberg, Sydney H. “Dinty Moore’s Reflects Opulence of a Bygone Era,” New York Times, June 4, 1964.
Stanton, Jeffrey. “Nickel Empire” Westland.net, 1997. https://www.westland.net/coneyisland/articles/nickelempire.htm.
Sterner, Doris. In and Out of Harm’s Way: A History of the Navy Nurse Corps. Newport, RI: Navy Nurse Corps Association, 1996.
Theeboom, Sarah. “A Brief History of Orchard Street’s Oldest Stores.” DNAInfo, April 14, 2015. https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150414/lower-east-side/brief-history-of-orchard-streets-oldest-stores.
Thomas, Gordon, and Max Morgan-Witts. The Day the Bubble Burst: The Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. New York: Doubleday, 1979.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 by Lisa Davies
Colin Falconer has written over twenty novels, mainly historical fiction and crime. His work is enjoyed by a wide audience and has so far been translated into twenty-three languages. Though his roots are in his native London, he now lives in Australia.
When he was nine, his primary school teacher said he was a dreamer who was always making up stories and he would never amount to anything. He still thinks that was a bit harsh.
If you think so too, you can follow Colin on BookBub to receive notices about his new releases and sales. You can also visit his website at www.colinfalconer.org or connect with him at his Falconer author page on Facebook for news, advanced reading copies, and contests.
br />
Colin Falconer, Loving Liberty Levine
Loving Liberty Levine Page 36