Safe Haven

by Anna Schmidt

  She was nervous. He took hold of her hand. “Whatever you say.”

  Her apartment was compact but cozy, and he got a real kick out of watching her in the tiny galley kitchen. She had made barley soup and corn-bread muffins and a salad. The table that obviously doubled as her desk was set for two.

  “Something’s missing,” he said when they sat down.

  She was already half out of her chair. “Salt and pepper,” she murmured.

  He caught her wrist. “I don’t need either. I was thinking that this is the first time you and I have shared a meal—except in a restaurant or at the farm—that either Hilda or Hugh or both weren’t there.”

  She laughed, and he saw her relax for the first time since she’d met him at the train. “Hugh has moved on, much to Hilda’s distress, but if you like, I can do a pretty good imitation at least of what I think she might say.”

  “Pretty sure I can muddle through without that.” He took a spoonful of the soup and then another—and another. “This is delicious.”

  “Well, you don’t have to sound so surprised. I can cook.”

  “Good to know.” He grinned and held out his bowl for seconds.

  After lunch they took his suitcase to her friend’s apartment. “Make yourself at home,” the young man said. “I’m off to the Pacific on assignment. Now that both wars are over, somebody needs to tell that story.”

  “Would you ever want to do that?” Theo asked after he had unpacked and changed into more casual clothes. They were walking toward the Smithsonian Museum—a landmark that Suzanne had insisted he needed to see. “Go to faraway places and write whatever story was happening there?”

  “It might be fun, at least for a while. But I think it would be exhausting hopping back and forth.”

  As they approached the museum, he paused and glanced toward the Capitol. “That’s where you would have been,” Suzanne said. “Where you should have been.”

  He held the door for her. “Apparently not. Apparently there are other plans for me.”

  They wandered through the exhibits, occasionally pausing to read more about the diorama before them or to peer more closely at something in a display case. Theo felt restless and anxious. He had not really come to Washington to tour museums and monuments. He had come to find out once and for all if Suzanne could see a future for them. “Let’s get out of here,” he said and knew by the startled look she gave him that he had spoken more gruffly than he thought.

  Outside they were greeted by a light, misty shower accompanied by dropping temperatures and a light wind. Theo turned up the collar of his jacket. Suzanne raised the umbrella she had brought along and handed it to him. “Where to?”

  “Can we walk to the Lincoln Memorial?”

  “Sure.”

  The mood between them had definitely shifted, and it was all his fault. “Look, Suzanne, I think we both know that we have some decisions to make. The war is over, and so is the election. Soon some sort of decision will be made regarding Ilse and the others. We have no control over that, and in many ways that is no longer a part of our lives.”

  “Not exactly. I still have the job of reporting that ending.” She sounded annoyed, and he realized that they were trudging along rather than strolling the way they had earlier.

  “And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? Your work?” He was really messing this up. Even to himself he sounded as if he were deliberately trying to pick a fight with her.

  “My work is who I am,” she shot back.

  “No. I won’t accept that. It is a part of who you are—a key part to be sure. But you are so much more than that, Suzanne. You allow your dedication to your work to overshadow the rest of you. It has become your safety net—your cocoon against having to directly face your own life.”

  “Oh, so now you are a psychiatrist? Spare me your armchair analysis, Theo.”

  He stopped at the foot of the steps leading up to the statue of Lincoln. “I love you. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Why do you love me, Theo? It seems to me that at the moment you highly disapprove of me, so how can you call that love?” She stomped up the steps and took shelter under the stone ceiling that covered Lincoln’s statue. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and sat down cross-legged on the cold marble floor looking up at the great man’s likeness.

  Theo followed her and closed the umbrella, shaking it out as he did. They had the place to themselves. He walked to one wall where the words to the Gettysburg Address had been inscribed. Behind him she continued to sit, her knees now drawn up to her chest with her chin resting on them.

  “Theo?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I do love you.”

  He wasn’t completely sure he had heard her because she spoke so softly. She could just as easily have said “I don’t love you.”

  He squatted next to her. “Again please?”

  “I do love you,” she said, and he placed his finger on her lips to stop the but that he felt coming. She gently brushed his hand aside. “So what are we going to do?”

  His relief that she was not setting conditions was so huge that he lowered himself fully to the floor so that their shoulders touched. “What do you want to do? I mean we could get married.”

  “That’s an option.” She said the words as if they were discussing where to go for dinner. “Of course, we’d have to think through some logistics—your work on the farm and my work.”

  “What if there was another option?”

  “I’m listening.”

  He told her about the AFSC program to help displaced people all over Europe. “Think about it, Suzanne. We could continue doing what we began with the folks at the fort. Europe is pretty compact, so we might even be able to find someplace to live near Beth and Josef and work from there and—”

  Now she was the one to stop him with a finger on his lips. “Slow down. What about my job at the newspaper? What about the book? What about your parents and the farm?”

  “Details,” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe Lincoln was smiling down at them. “Let’s make it work.”

  Suzanne had never felt so completely happy and at peace with her life. Every minute she spent with Theo only confirmed her belief that this was a man she could trust—a man who would love her unconditionally and whose love did not ask any more of her than that she give him her unconditional love in return. And oh, how easy he made that.

  The rest of their time together in Washington flew by. They walked and talked and planned their life together. He would return to the farm to manage things while his parents went to England to see Beth and her family over Thanksgiving. She would stay in Washington, awaiting whatever decision would finally be made regarding the residents at the fort. They would spend the holidays together no matter what.

  Early in December, her mother called and insisted on coming to Washington. “We have to go shopping, Suze. A wedding requires a trousseau.”

  “Mom, come for a visit, but Theo and I aren’t even engaged, and even if we were, we plan on keeping things simple.”

  “Nonsense. The war is over. Enough with rationing and deprivation. We have to choose a venue—is there a Friends group in Washington?”

  “Yes, but we’ll probably be married with the Friends in Wisconsin.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Isn’t it terribly cold there, dear?”

  Suzanne smiled. Since her remarriage, her mother had made her new home in Arizona. “We probably won’t plan an outdoor wedding, Mom.”

  “But I’ll need a winter coat and gloves and a warm scarf and—”

  It had always been pointless to argue with her mother. “Okay, Mom. Come to Washington, and we’ll go shopping.”

  She hung up. How long had it been since she and her mother had had such an ordinary mother–daughter conversation? After Natalie’s death, her mom’s focus had been on grief and the deterioration of her marriage. After Suzanne’s dad died, her mom had seemed
more the child to her adult, and they had gradually drifted apart. Then after her mom remarried, their relationship had become that of friends who stayed in touch but really did not do the usual family things. Her mom and stepfather traveled extensively, and Suzanne buried herself in work. Now everything was changing for her, and she felt such peace as if finally her life was coming together.

  The phone rang again almost as soon as she hung up. Suzanne laughed as she picked it up. It would be so like her mother to call back with something she had forgotten she wanted to say. “Mom, just—”

  “Excuse me?” A male voice that she did not recognize interrupted.

  “Oh, hello, I apologize. I thought you were my mother and … who are you?”

  “This is Jackson Anderson with the New York Times calling for Miss Suzanne Randolph.”

  “Speaking,” she managed while her mind whirled with ideas for why anyone from the New York Times would be calling her.

  “Our editorial staff recently became aware of your work with the refugees in Oswego. I was wondering if you might be available to have lunch with me today. I know this is very short notice, but I am only in Washington for the day. Are you familiar with the restaurant the Simpson Bistro?” He named a fancy restaurant in the heart of DuPont Circle and Embassy Row. Even for lunch the place was pricey.

  “Well, uh …”

  “You would of course be my guest, Miss Randolph. Shall we say one o’clock? Would that match your schedule?”

  “Sure. I mean yes, that would work just fine.”

  “Excellent. I’ll reserve a table. Thank you, Miss Randolph.”

  “No, thank you.”

  The call ended and Suzanne groaned. She must have sounded like such a twit. “No, thank you,” she said in a high falsetto, mimicking herself. But then reality hit her. She had a meeting with someone from the largest newspaper in America. The man had called her. Someone from the editorial staff of the New York Times wanted to take her to lunch … in just under two hours.

  She glanced in the mirror. She had taken the day off to catch up on laundry and bills and the other mundane trivia of life that so often got put off in favor of her work. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and jeans, and her hair was a rat’s nest of tangles. She ran to her closet and started pulling clothes out and depositing the rejects on her bed.

  She had nothing to wear. She needed a shower. She wasn’t sure she had a pair of stockings that didn’t have a run in them, and she now had less than ninety minutes to make herself presentable and get to the restaurant.

  The shower took less than two minutes, another fifteen to do something with her hair, then ten more for lipstick—smeared the first go-round—and a little rouge and powder followed by a precious half hour to choose something to wear and dress, change her pocketbook to match, grab her coat, and get out the door to hail a passing cab. She arrived at the restaurant breathless and fifteen minutes late, and she couldn’t help but be surprised and flattered that Mr. Anderson had waited for her.

  Not only had he waited, but as he stood and held her chair for her, he was the one apologizing for the short notice he’d given her for their meeting.

  “Let’s order, and then we can talk,” he suggested.

  Later that night she literally sat by the telephone willing it to ring. Theo’s parents had decided to extend their stay in England to the middle of December, leaving Theo with the farm to manage. She was happy for them having the extra time with their daughter, especially since Beth and her husband had still not been able to convince the authorities to allow them to travel to America. But she had huge news, and she could not wait to share it with Theo.

  Theo had news of his own to share. To pass the time while his parents were gone, he had written to Joseph Smart and learned that his former boss and mentor was well aware of the Quaker relief program just starting up in war-torn Europe. “They’d be lucky to have you on board, Theo. How about I make a few calls?”

  Smart’s calls had ended up with Theo being offered a position as a team leader for agricultural support and relief in England. “They want you over there after the first of the year. They’ll mail you some forms and then bring you out here to meet with the rest of the group.”

  “You mean I’m hired?”

  “Sounds like that’s the plan if you want the job. Congratulations.”

  Okay, but what about Suzanne? How would she handle the news? He thought about how best to present the idea to her as he did the evening chores. He thought about the book she had written. Thousands of stories in England alone just waited to be told. He figured out a budget for how they would live over there—it would be tight, but between his savings and the small stipend he would get from the Friends, she would not have to work. She could spend her time doing what she loved with no one setting restrictions.

  Certain that he had worked out the details, he paced through the rooms of the farmhouse until it was time for their nightly call. She answered on the first ring and together they both said, “Wait until you hear—”

  He laughed. “You first.”

  “No, I always go first. You start.”

  “Okay, how would you feel about living in England for a year or two?” Her lack of response unnerved him, so he hurried to add, “I was thinking that you could take the time to start writing a new book or do a series for the newspaper or—”

  “What’s happened, Theo?”

  He told her about his conversation with Joseph Smart and the strings the former shelter director had pulled to get him a position with the AFSC’s relief project. He talked very fast as if by rushing through the explanation he could make her see this as a real opportunity for them both. “What do you think?”

  “The New York Times offered me a job in their Washington bureau today,” she said. “They want me to write a series of essays similar to the ones I did about the residents at Fort Ontario, only these would be about the Americans of Japanese descent who were held in camps on the West Coast during the war.” By contrast to his rush of words, she was speaking very slowly as if giving weight to the news she had.

  “The New York Times … that’s incredible, honey.” This changed everything.

  “Yeah. Two incredible opportunities half a world apart. So what are we going to do?”

  “We’ll figure it out. I mean if we took a year and I went to England and you did this assignment out west …”

  “A year apart?” She sounded like she might start to cry at any moment. “Oh, why do things have to be so complicated? We’ve just really come together and now …”

  She wasn’t even hinting that he turn down the relief position, and he would never ask her to turn down an opportunity to write for the Times. “We’ve handled things from long distance for some time now,” he reminded her.

  She groaned. “When are you supposed to start with the relief project?”

  “They want me after the first of the year. How about you?”

  “I said I wanted to complete the story of Fort Ontario and they agreed. I really want to see that through. I just feel like we’re so close. …”

  There was a crackle on the line, and suddenly the operator interrupted the call. “Mr. Theo Bridgewater?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a Mr. Paul Bridgewater on the line calling from England. Will you accept the call?”

  Theo’s heart pounded. “Suzanne, are you there?”

  “Yes. Take the call and then call me back,” she instructed and hung up.

  “Son?” His father was shouting as if he needed to raise his voice to be heard from an ocean away.

  “What’s happened?”

  “They got their visas. We’re coming home, Son. We’re all coming home.”

  Theo had never heard his father cry before, and he was not surprised to hear his own voice break with emotion. “That’s great, Dad.”

  “This is costing a fortune. Your mom will write, but Beth wants to go to Oswego first to see Ilse and Liesl.”

  “I’l
l meet you there—just let me know when. Bye, Dad. Give my love—”

  The line went dead.

  Immediately he redialed Suzanne’s number and told her the good news. “I’m going to meet them in Oswego,” he said.

  “I want to come, too. Is that all right?”

  “That is more than all right. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear the plans from Mom.”

  “Oh Theo, I just have this feeling that it is all going to turn out for the best—whatever best is for us. West Coast or England or both, we will find our way.”

  “Hey, Suzanne?”

  “What?”

  “Will you marry me—no matter what happens—when the time is right?”

  She let out a long sigh. “Oh Theo, I thought you’d never ask.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “That’s a yes, and you can take that to the bank. Good night, my love.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The ship bringing Ellie and Paul as well as Beth, Josef, and their children to America docked in New York on December 20, 1945. Theo and Suzanne were there to meet them, and Suzanne had never felt more a part of Theo’s life and his family than she did when she first met his sister.

  “Suzanne, thank you so much for coming,” Beth said, her accent more European than that of her parents and brother. “I feel as if I know you already, and Josef and I are so very grateful for the support you have shown to Ilse and Liesl.”

  “They cannot wait to see you—especially Liesl. I don’t think she’s slept more than a few hours ever since she heard you were coming to the fort.”

  Josef stepped forward. “I understand that you spent time with my father. Was he well?”

  “Yes. He is a very strong man—far younger than his years.”

  Josef glanced at Theo and then back to her. “Has there been any word? Have they recaptured him?”

  “No one has seen him since he escaped,” Theo said. “Our friend Gisele—”

  “Gisele?” Josef and Beth said the word at the same moment and broke into smiles.

  “Gisele St. Germaine?” Beth asked.