Hideaway Home

by Hannah Alexander

  “Bertie,” he said quietly, trying to derail the freight train before she could work up any more steam, “you don’t know what all went on over there.”

  “What makes you think you’re the only one who ever went to war?” She glared up at him. Plenty of the ol’ fire left in her. “My heart traveled right along with you, into those foxholes and on every dangerous mission. My prayers followed you every step of the way. My body might’ve been safe here in America, but the rest of me was right there with you.”

  “You didn’t do the things I did. You didn’t kill—”

  “I devoted myself to you before you ever left for the war, and—”

  “Bertie, this kind of thing’s exactly why I never made any promises or asked any from—”

  “You can’t tell my heart what to do, Red!” She stood with hands on hips, face flushed. “And you can’t toss it away like so much garbage because you don’t know how to deal with it anymore. You’re going to have to learn again.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Don’t try to tell me you can’t do something.” Bertie bit her lip and looked away. Her chin wobbled very briefly, but she met his gaze again. “You’ve always been able to do anything you set your mind to, and you can do this. I know your injuries aren’t just physical. A fella can’t go through a war and come back unchanged. But I’m here to tell you, even if the old Red doesn’t ever come back, this Red right here,” she said as she reached out and smacked him none-too-gently on the shoulder, “this is the one I want. I’m taking you as you are right now.”

  She continued to stand there glaring at him for another second or two—or it could’ve been an hour. Right now, he wouldn’t’ve known the difference. Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and turned and stalked into the house.

  He felt as if he’d just had another kind of war declared on him. This was one war he suddenly wasn’t sure he could win. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Bertie still burned with shame as she sat in Ivan’s car once again, this time in the front seat at his insistence, in honor of her loss. Lilly weighted down the back on the passenger side, Red was once more in the middle of the backseat, and Edith sat behind Ivan.

  What must Red be thinking now? Of all the cockeyed things to do. A man was supposed to pursue the woman, not the other way around.

  And this wasn’t the time to be thinking about such things. Bertie Moennig, you have the worst timing!

  Edith’s dark hair was in perfect order, her dress the latest fashion, formfitting and attractive, military style with broad shoulders and slim waistline. It was one Bertie had helped her make from pieces of an old dress with a McCall’s pattern.

  Bertie’s dark gray dress had been made from the same pattern, with some adjustments by Edith, an expert seam-stress, who had sized down the pattern for Bertie’s smaller, shorter frame.

  Both men wore their military dress uniforms—Red with great reluctance, and only because Lilly and Edith had both begged him to show some pride in his country and his own service to them. He still didn’t wear any medals. It was as if he was ashamed of them.

  The drive took barely a couple of minutes. Lilly had protested that they could walk to the church faster than they could all get situated into the car, but Ivan wouldn’t hear of it. Any other time, Bertie would’ve teased him about inventing a reason to see Edith again.

  Though the funeral wasn’t scheduled until noon, a crowd had already begun to gather at the church by eleven-thirty, with folk huddling in small groups on the grass outside the building. Some strolled around in the church cemetery, visiting at the gravesides of departed loved ones.

  “Is there something else happening at the church today?” Edith asked when Ivan pulled in front of the church.

  Bertie looked back at her blankly. “No, just the funeral.”

  “You have this kind of turnout for a funeral?” Edith asked, glancing around at the crowd with interest. “We don’t even do this in Mobile. It looks like a party setting up.”

  “I told you,” Bertie said. “Things are a little different here.” She didn’t know about Mobile, but in California, where everybody was from somewhere else, very little family was present to honor their dead.

  Ivan parked at the edge of the church cemetery, where Bertie glanced toward three graves decorated with military headstones. Fresh flowers covered the gravesites, blooming in multiple colors. The families of James Eckrow, Larry Peterson and William Lewis were keeping the memories of their boys alive, though the bodies were destroyed in the Pacific Theater two years ago. The town still mourned the three young men whom Bertie had known in school.

  Joseph Moennig was to be buried beside his wife, Martha, near the edge of a bluff that overlooked the James River at the far corner of the cemetery.

  Bertie noticed that her mother’s grave had been well-tended, with flowers growing around the headstone. Ever the practical man, Dad hadn’t been much interested in growing flowers around the house, but when it came to his wife, his practicality had often flown out the window in favor of their strong bond.

  Mom had been the one to convince him that they needed electricity and indoor plumbing long before most of the rural residents had anything but outhouses and oil lanterns. Even during the Depression, Dad had worked extra hours to make sure his wife had a few extra things—material for a new dress, even lace handkerchiefs from time to time.

  “We’ve brought in a load of chairs from City Hall,” Ivan said, drawing Bertie from her memories. “Dad had them hauled over earlier this morning.”

  Bertie nodded. It would be a packed church.

  Ivan got out, opened the back door for Edith, then rushed around to the other side to help Lilly and Bertie. Lilly, of course, had already helped herself from the car and was halfway to the front door of the church.

  “You doing okay?” Ivan asked Bertie softly, under cover of Lilly’s greeting to some friends congregating near the door.

  “I will be.”

  “Your father was a fine man,” Ivan said. “None better.”

  “Thank you.” Bertie felt the heaviness of grief settle over her again. She’d done very well yesterday, with so many friends around to comfort her and so many things to distract her. But today was different. In spite of the presence of so many, she weakened under the impact of Dad’s death. He wasn’t coming back. She was on her own.

  She glanced over her shoulder toward Red, who had climbed out of the car and limped to the cemetery fence, gazing toward the gravesites of his fellow soldiers. “I can’t help thinking of simpler times, when there wasn’t a war, when we were just wild kids with living parents and the only thing we had to worry about was whether we’d get into trouble for getting our clothes wet paddling the river.”

  “Or putting a daddy longlegs in the teacher’s desk,” Ivan said.

  “Or carving initials in the outhouse wall,” she said.

  Ivan grinned. “You were the one who did that? I thought it was Red. You know he was sweet on you all through high school.”

  Again, she glanced toward Red, and found him watching her. He looked away quickly, but not before she saw, once again, a deep sadness in his eyes.

  Her cheeks burned as she thought about her bold behavior this morning. Not just once, but twice. She’d never pushed herself on any man—never thought she ever would. Sometimes things changed that made a person change with them, and Lilly’s words had kept running through her mind.

  “He’s crazy about you, kid.” Ivan put an arm around Bertie’s shoulders and hugged her.

  She allowed herself to lean against him and accept the comfort of another one of her longtime friends. “He doesn’t want me here.”

  “That’s right, but you know why, and it isn’t because he’s suddenly stopped caring. He wants you safe, same as the rest of us do.”

  Bertie groaned. “And here I’d hoped I wouldn’t hear that tired line for the rest of the—”

&nb
sp; “You just listen to your ol’ Uncle Ivan.” He gave her shoulders another squeeze and released her. “The day we came home, I surprised Red on the train. He was reading a letter from you, concentrating so hard he didn’t even see me coming. The thing was worn to a frazzle.”

  Bertie looked up into Ivan’s dark brown eyes. “You sure it was one of my letters?”

  He nodded. “You’ve written me enough, I should know your handwriting by now.”

  “This isn’t a good time to tease me, now, Ivan Potts.”

  “I may tease about a lot of things, but not this, Bert. You know me better than that. For Red, the sun rises and sets in you. It’s always been that way for him.”

  She sighed. “He’s pushing me out of his life as sure as I’m standing here.” She’d talked a brave talk to Red in the backyard this morning, but she wasn’t nearly as sure of herself as she’d pretended to be.

  Ivan glanced toward his friend, and Bertie followed his gaze, saddened once more by the loneliness she saw in the figure that stood apart from all the rest.

  “We’re talking about a man who’s trying to come to terms with too many awful memories,” Ivan said.

  “I knew it was hard on him,” she said. “He didn’t write about it often, but when he did, I could tell it was tearing him up, but it tears everyone up.”

  “You can’t know what it was like unless you’ve been there,” Ivan said. “Red’s doing what he can to see to it you don’t have that same experience here. He’s behaving the way a man would behave if he was in love with a woman and wanted her safe.”

  She glanced at Red again. “He’s acting like a man who’s only half alive.”

  “That’s what war does to a man, especially someone like Red.” Ivan pressed his hand against her back and urged her to walk toward the church, where Lilly stood chatting with Mrs. Cooper and Edith.

  “But he’s so different,” Bertie said. “It’s like he’s another person completely.”

  “I think that’s one of the things that’s keeping him at arm’s length from you,” Ivan said. “He knows he’s changed, and he doesn’t want you to accept him back home as if it were your duty.”

  “I don’t believe Red’s changed for good,” Bertie said, glancing in Red’s direction. “It’ll take a while, but the shock of things he’s seen will fade over time. Someday he’ll even find where he put his sense of humor.”

  Ivan followed her gaze. “Give him time.”

  Bertie nodded. Time was exactly what he deserved. Time and patience.

  “Mom has the meal planned,” Ivan said. “We heard the minister who’s doing the service is long-winded.”

  “Folks’ll get hungry, sure enough,” Bertie said.

  “And they’ll want to stick around and visit afterwards, since you’ve been gone so long.”

  “And they’ll want to visit with you and Red,” Bertie said.

  Lilly turned back to them, as if just now realizing they weren’t right behind her. “Ivan, I’ve got a big batch of ham and beans cooking on the stove that we’ll need to collect after the funeral.”

  Ivan looked disappointed. “No chicken and dumplings?”

  “For the whole town?” Lilly laughed. “I may not be hurtin’ too bad, but I can’t afford that. Don’t you worry, though, you’ll get more before you have to leave again.” She winked at him. “I did make some cornbread and some gooseberry cobbler.”

  Ivan grinned and kissed Red’s mother on the cheek. “Lilly Meyer, will you marry me?”

  As the two continued to tease in their old, familiar way, Bertie caught sight of Ivan’s parents, Gerald and Arielle, directing the setup of tables in the shady yard at the side of the church.

  Arielle, tall and slender with graceful movements, wore a stylish black suit. Her pale blond hair was drawn back in a chignon, with a black hat and black netting over her face.

  In contrast, Lilly wore no hat, and though her navy dress was only a few years old, it stretched tightly across her ample hips and shoulders. Lilly typically dressed more comfortably in roomy house dresses and flats, cooking a feast for her guests. Edith had spent some time beautifying her this morning, and now her golden red hair was neatly gathered in a bun on the back of her head.

  Arielle most likely had cooked something far different from Lilly’s pot of beans and cornbread. In all these years living in Hideaway, Arielle hadn’t grasped the mindset of the typical Hideaway farmer.

  Bertie loved Arielle’s tartlets and finger sandwiches, but most folks hadn’t quite caught on. They wanted something that would fill their stomachs, even if it was ham and beans. Too many still struggled with the aftershock of the Depression.

  There had always been a sharp contrast between Arielle Potts and Lilly Meyer, and there’d been times after Mom died that Bertie had felt a little like a rope in a tug-of-war between the two women. Both had been worried about their sons fighting overseas, and their need to mother someone was strong. Bertie had become the object of affection of both women.

  Though Bertie had been a grown woman of twenty when Mom died, Lilly and Arielle had paid visits to her at home and at work ever since, until Bertie left for California. Arielle had shared her favorite books with Bertie, while Lilly always seemed to be cooking up a “little too much” for her guests, and needing someone to help her eat the generous leftovers.

  Bertie felt more comfortable with Lilly’s down-home ways and blunt honesty, but there were times when it was nice to have a little of Arielle’s sophistication and social grace.

  Edith stepped up beside Bertie and looped an arm through hers. “It looks as if the whole town’s coming.”

  “You wait and see,” Lilly said. “That church will be packed in a few minutes, and there’ll be folks sitting out in the vestibule and out by the windows. Folks around these parts loved Bertie’s pa, and they’ll turn out for his farewell.”

  Bertie glanced at Red, who continued to stand at the edge of the cemetery, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist—or maybe he only wished it didn’t.

  She stared down at his hands, clasped on the hook of the cane. Tightly. It was as if Red Meyer held everything inside as tightly as his hands gripped the wood.

  She thought about the words he had written to her from Italy. He’d thought he might die before he saw her again.

  How right those words had turned out to be.

  Bertie believed in the resurrection of Jesus. What she had to ask herself was if she believed that very same Jesus was strong enough to resurrect Red Meyer, because he seemed so dead to her that she barely recognized him.

  Chapter Thirty

  Red studied the graves of the men who’d died in the Pacific—friends he’d hunted and fished with and shared farm chores with. He’d visited the parents of all three on Tuesday, not knowing what to say, though it didn’t seem to matter. His presence seemed to bring them comfort.

  He could’ve ended up in the cemetery with his friends. What would that’ve done to Ma? To Bertie? He thought about what Ivan had told him on the train Monday—about bein’ better off dead. But what would that have done to Gerald and Arielle?

  He heard his mother’s strong voice carry across the yard, and glanced around to find her and Bertie looking toward him. He turned away quickly.

  What were they talking about? Why had they suddenly gotten quiet? He’d not been able to stop thinking about Bertie, nor keep his gaze from straying her way ever since her declarations this morning.

  All through breakfast, while Edith helped Ma serve folks, Bertie had sat at the far end of the table, as far from Red as she could get. Every time he’d looked at her, she’d been watching him, and once she’d nodded at him, as if to assure him she meant what she’d said about staying.

  He knew his behavior was hurting her—had hurt her for weeks. She couldn’t understand why he was drawing away. If he’d had any doubts about her feelings for him, he sure didn’t now. She’d never been one to hide what was in her heart.

  “Hello there, sold
ier,” came the familiar voice of Gerald Potts, and Red turned to greet Ivan’s father.

  Gerald pounded him on the back and shook his hand until it nearly tore off at the wrist—even though they’d seen each other yesterday. Ivan took after his father; both men were built like draft horses and were as friendly as hound pups.

  Gerald’s thick, graying hair was slicked back, his gray suit jacket too tight across his shoulders.

  “Will Bertie and her friend be at the guesthouse for the duration of their stay?”

  Red wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t feel like announcing to the world that Bertie wasn’t going back to California. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s safe for them at the farmhouse just now. They’d both be welcome with us for as long as they want to stay.”

  “They’re welcome with us, they know that. But if Bertie takes a notion to move back into her own homeplace, there’s not much I can do to stop her.”

  Gerald chuckled. “You know our Bertie. She can be strong-willed. I may have a talk with her, or have Arielle ask her and Miss Frost to lunch in a day or two.”

  “That’s Mrs. Frost,” Red said. “Her husband was killed at Pearl Harbor.” He stepped in a hole, and grimaced when pain shot up his bad leg.

  Gerald grabbed his arm. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “You’re still tracking the mystery of Joseph’s death?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Found anything yet?”

  “Maybe a few things, footprints and such. You know about the swastika somebody left on our stable, but did you notice those switches on Joseph’s front porch?”

  “Yes, I saw them,” Gerald said. “I didn’t pay much attention. We’d had a decent storm the night before, and you know how things can blow up.”

  “There were also the same kind of switches on the Krueger porch. All hickory, all about the same length. They’d been placed there, Gerald. They were laid on the porch in the shape of a swastika.”