“Paul, don’t say that!” I insisted. “Don’t even think a thing like that. You know how slow the mails are now. His letter could be lost, or he could be traveling. There are a million things that could have happened.”
“Yes,” Paul said, nodding, “a million things could have happened, but I don’t think they did. Sometimes, when you are very, very close to someone, you can sense their presence, even across an ocean, and once they are gone there is a hole. You can’t explain it exactly, but you feel it, inside. A hole.” Paul pressed his hand to his chest and left it lying there, still as a man taking an oath. “You understand what I mean?”
I nodded.
“I have this hole here for Nils. For some weeks. I’ve tried to explain it away, wish it away, but there it is.” Slowly, his hand dropped down to his side, as though he was suddenly overcome by weakness. “There is just me now.”
A million things could have happened to Nils, but Paul believed his brother was dead, and while he might have been wrong, believing it was just as painful as knowing for sure. As long as I had known Paul, I had never seen him less than certain of every word, gesture, and of God’s ultimate justice. But now, looking at his face, creased with despair, I knew that he was as human as I, vulnerable and struggling with seeds of doubt. A tenderness I hadn’t known I felt for him pooled inside me and left me feeling confused and inept. I weighed and measured words that might bring him some relief, but the phrases all sounded trite in my mind.
His eyes focused a long way off, as though the guests were all gone and it was just him, sitting alone on a chair under a tree, spilling his worst fears on a deaf wind. I could see the crowd, the bride, the members of the Naomi Circle standing with heads together, occasionally glancing disapprovingly toward our corner, wondering why the pastor and the cripple of tarnished reputation stayed squirreled away together for so long. To hell with them all, I thought.
Hiding my hand behind my skirt, I dropped it down to meet his and pressed it in my own, hoping to bring him some measure of warmth and comfort in a solitary place, but he drew back from my touch, and I knew, no matter what Paul said, we were not friends anymore, we couldn’t be. We had passed the point where such common definitions would suffice. Paul refused to make it easier for me by pretending.
The sun was near setting when I got back from the wedding. The house was silent. Mama was napping in her rocker, and Ruby was nowhere to be seen, probably in bed out in the caboose nursing her cold. Someone had left a brown cardboard box addressed to me sitting on the kitchen table. I opened it right away but didn’t have to tear back the wrappings to know what I’d find inside. My quilt, the story I’d stitched for Slim, lay new and untouched under three layers of white tissue. That was all. There was no return address.
The next day I started a fire in the trash-burning barrel out near the chicken yard. I opened each of the manilla envelopes I’d collected over the years and, one by one, fed Slim’s clippings into the flames, then stepped back and watched the ash rise on a cloud of warm air and disappear into the four winds.
Chapter 20
Morgan got his pilot’s license on December 3rd, 1941. The country went to war within the week, and without asking my opinion, Morgan joined the Marines. He was among the first to be shipped out. Since he was already a pilot, the U.S. Armed Forces were especially happy to welcome him into their ranks. When he wired me the news, I was angry. “He might have at least asked me,” I fumed to Ruby.
“He might have,” she replied, “but if he had, he wouldn’t be Morgan. Besides, he’d never have thought for a moment you’d want him to hesitate in doing the right thing. All the boys are joining up. Did you raise Morgan to be less courageous than they are?”
“Of course not, it’s just that ... What if something happens to him?” I whispered. “I couldn’t bear it.”
Ruby’s voice softened. “I know, but we can’t show our feelings. It won’t help anything if we let him see we’re worried.” When I saw my friend wipe a tear on the corner of her apron, I wondered if she would be able to heed her own advice. Then she took a deep breath, smiled, and we both laughed through our tears.
“All right, now.” Ruby said. “Enough of that. He’s going to be fine. Let’s forget all this foolishness and get back to work.”
Morgan stayed at school long enough to finish his exams, no point in losing a whole semester’s work, and came home flying his own plane just three days before he had to report to boot camp.
It was a strange visit, all joy and apprehension and silver tinsel; Morgan was filled with excitement and fear and feigned bravado; Mama and Ruby and I were trying to pretend it was a normal holiday, but knowing it was much more precious than that. Ruby must have given him a dozen pairs of socks. “I hear it gets cold in Germany,” she said.
Mama gave him a pair of leather gloves and Papa’s gold watch, the one she’d been saving for him until he graduated college. We were all in a hurry to show him how we felt. It seemed urgent not to hold back anything in those days. I gave him the quilt I had carried to Des Moines. “I don’t know if they’ll let you keep it on your bed in the army,” I said, “but maybe you can hide it under your regular blanket, and it’ll remind you of home a little. Be careful with it, now. If you take care, it should last a lifetime.”
“It’s beautiful, Mama. Look, there’s you and me, standing next to the house.” He smiled at the tiny figures. “But who is flying the plane?”
“Well, that’s you, too,” I lied. “It’s a dream quilt, the boy you were and the man you’ve become.”
“Mama, you are some kind of artist.” He leaned down and gave me a smacking kiss on the forehead. He was now grown so tall that kissing me on the cheek required a deep bend at the waist. “Don’t you worry, Mama. I’ll bring it back all in one piece, I promise.”
We took special pains with Christmas dinner, but the food tasted like chaff in my mouth. Before I could blink it was time for Morgan to leave.
I drove him out to the airfield the next day to say good-bye to the plane before he had to rush off and catch the southbound train. Whitey had agreed to keep an eye on it for him until he got back.
Morgan walked around and around the plane, kicking the tires affectionately, checking the struts, and stroking the wings. “She sure is a beauty.” He sighed, patting the fuselage lovingly. “Thank you, Mama, for getting her for me. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to take you up in her. As soon as I get back, we’ll go for a ride. I want you to know your money wasn’t wasted.”
“It’s a date,” I answered as cheerfully as I could manage. “I’m saving all my dances for you.”
“How about just one,” he said seriously. “It’d be all right with me if you had somebody besides me to dance with. You deserve to have someone around who appreciates you, Mama. Know what I mean?”
“I know.” I nodded my understanding. “Maybe someday.” I felt how the scales between us were changing a bit and knew the weight of worry was no longer tipped all on my side.
Morgan sighed deeply, took a last look around, and slapped his hand hard against his thigh with cheery finality. “Well, I guess we’d better be going if I’m going to make my train. Don’t want to be late and catch hell from the drill sergeant the very first day.” He made sounds of leaving, but still he waited. “Funny, all my life I wanted to get away from Dillon and go out into the world, but just now I’d give anything to stay.” I didn’t have to tell him I felt the same way.
It was cold, standing on the platform waiting for the train. So cold. I couldn’t even feel my feet. Couldn’t feel anything. As the train pulled slowly out of the station, Morgan leaned out a window and shouted above the whoosh of steam and squeaking metal, “Don’t forget, Mama! As soon as I get back we’re going flying. Wait till you see Dillon from the air. It’s beautiful!”
“I know! I love you!” I shouted back. I tried to run alongside the car to keep him in sight a moment longer, but my cane slowed me down and the platform ran out much too soo
n. There was no way to keep up with him.
Chapter 21
April 1943
“That’ll be a dollar forty with the oil, Miz Eva.”
I dug the coins out of my purse while Mr. Cheevers, his lips pursed with distaste, tried vainly to wipe his hands clean on a red flannel oil rag. With most of the men gone to war, Mr. Cheevers had to pump gas himself instead of hiring boys to do it, and though he’d owned the filling station for as long as I could remember, it was plain he still hated the smell of gasoline on his hands. Not that he’d ever complain. Everybody had to do their part. When we thought of our sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, so far from home, maybe in danger, maybe even ...
Well, in those days that was a sentence we never allowed ourselves to finish, not even in our minds. Let’s just say that Mr. Cheevers would have pumped gas twenty-four hours a day for the rest of his life if it could have brought the war to an end even one hour sooner. That’s why I’d planted more wheat and corn than ever that year. Ruby and I and a few high school boys too young for the draft were working the fields by ourselves.
“Where you off to today, Miz Eva?”
“Ellen Carson’s house,” I said. “Thought I’d drop off a gelatin and see if there is anything I can do. Maybe help with the children.”
“Oh.” The old man clucked his tongue sympathetically. “I heard about that. Too bad for her with all those little ones.”
“Mr. Cheevers”—I smiled sweetly—“I don’t suppose you could sell me an extra gallon next time? I wouldn’t ask, but it’s my mama’s birthday in three weeks; she’ll be seventy. I’ve been saving up sugar coupons for a month to make her a cake, and I want to drive up to the lake for a picnic.”
Cheevers twisted up his nose and rubbed it with the back of his hand, whether in thought or annoyance I couldn’t say for sure. “Now, Miz Eva. That wouldn’t be right. You got an “A” sticker, and that entitles you to four gallons of gas. Wouldn’t be right for me to sell you more and not do the same for everybody.” He frowned as though scolding a child caught hoarding cookies instead of passing the plate. “No, I couldn’t sell you an extra gallon. But”—he smiled—“I’ll be happy to give you one out of my own ration.”
“Oh no, Mr. Cheevers. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t. I’m volunteering. Shoot, I don’t need it anyways. I live right up the road, and the only place me and the missus ever goes is to our daughter Louella’s on Sunday for dinner, and we walk there. After one of Louella’s Sunday dinners I need the exercise anyways.” I blushed and continued protesting, embarrassed by his generosity, but Mr. Cheevers paid no attention.
“Here,” he said, “you might as well take it now. I’ll put it in a can for you. Tell your mama it was from me and the missus and we hope she has a happy birthday. Maybe you’d better take two. Wouldn’t do to have you running out on the way home.”
I assured him that one gallon would do just fine, but he wouldn’t hear of me not taking a second, so I thanked him and said I’d save him a piece of the cake.
“Don’t mention it. Say, how’s Morgan doing? I saw in the paper where he’d made lieutenant.” I nodded and grinned with pride. “Well, that’s fine.” He beamed at me. “How’s he like it over there in the Pacific? Lots of pretty girls, I’ll bet.”
“Probably, but he never writes me about them,” I said knowingly. “Some things you don’t share with your mother. Mostly he says it’s hot and sticky. He puts on a clean shirt in the morning and it’s a wet rag by lunchtime. Funny, we never figured on him getting sent to there. When I think about Ruby and Mama and me, sending him off with all those pairs of wool socks and then him going to the tropics, it makes me laugh. He must have thought we’d lost our minds, trying to bundle him up like a three-year-old going out in a blizzard.”
The old man laughed, showing a mouthful of straight white teeth—which made me realize he wasn’t old at all. Only a decade older than me. I’d forgotten how young he’d seemed only a year ago, before the news had come that his only son had been blown apart by a hand grenade at El Alamein. Just one year before, he’d been young, with an optimistic bounce in his step and fingernails that were always trimmed and clean. Now his feet dragged and his nails looked ragged and stained.
“My missus did the same thing with Wally,” Mr. Cheevers said, nodding sagely, “and then off they shipped him to Africa. Warm clothes was the last thing he needed. Of course, seems like no matter where you are or what you’re doing, a fellow can find a way to complain about the weather. Wally was the same. Always complaining about the heat.” We both smiled indulgently at the dissatisfac-tions of youth. “He didn’t mention a thing about girls. You know, I was in Paris during the first war, and I remember how beautiful those French girls were. Pretty, pretty girls,” he mused. “I hope Wally met up with a girl like that before he died. He didn’t get much time, but I hope he took advantage of what he had. He deserved at least one nice memory.”
“I’m sure he did,” I said. “He was such a good-looking boy.”
“Smart, too,” his father agreed. He looked around at the peeling paint on the station front and the pile of old tires that nobody had time to haul away or even stack straight and added, “Wally would have made something of this place. I was going to retire and give it all to him when he got back. Don’t know who I’m saving it for now.” He shrugged. “Who’d buy it? Takes a young fella to keep up with a business. ’Nother year of this war and there won’t be no young fellas left.” Without thinking, he blew his nose on the smelly oil rag and then looked stricken as the odor reminded him it wasn’t a handkerchief—at about the same moment he realized what he’d just said to a woman with a son away at war.
“I’m sorry, Miz Eva. Don’t listen to me. I just ... Well, I just miss Wally still. Makes me forgetful. Seems like I can’t get away from it. No matter how I try to keep it in. I’m sorry. I just want this damned war to be over before we lose any more of our boys.”
“So do I, Mr. Cheevers. I’m just sorry it wasn’t over soon enough for Wally,” I said sincerely.
Cheevers sniffed and nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I do. Does me good just to hear somebody say his name sometimes. Seems like nobody will ever talk about him straight out anymore. Like he never existed. I know they’re trying to spare my feelings, but it’s too late for that, ain’t it.”
I shook my head in agreement, and Cheevers forced a brave smile back to his face.
“Anyways, you give your mama our regards. Hope she has a happy birthday.”
“Thank you again for the gas, Mr. Cheevers.”
The dust boiled up behind the car as I drove toward town. In the rearview mirror I could see Wally’s father standing next to the gas pump, unconsciously rubbing his hands together, staring upward as though what he was looking for might be coming straight at him out of the shimmering heat of a summer sky.
Despite the heat, a shiver ran up my spine, and I drove a little faster.
The aspic salad I’d made for Ellen Carson was beginning to melt by the time I reached her front door. I was annoyed at myself for not taking the heat into account when I’d decided what to bring, but it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t imagine she’d feel like eating anything.
Word had spread quickly about Ellen’s husband, Jim, being captured and sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. The rumors that circulated about how the Japanese treated captured Americans were pretty grim. Ellen would no doubt be imagining the worst, and who was to say her fears weren’t well founded? I wasn’t sure what I’d say when I saw her, but maybe knowing people cared enough to stop by would be comforting. At least the children, who were too young to understand what was going on, would enjoy the way the gelatin jiggled on their spoons.
I turned the bell twice. No one answered. Maybe no one was home. I thought for a moment of leaving the salad on the front porch with a note, but if I did that, Ellen might come home to a bowl of peaches and cherries puddling in pool of
globby liquid. Just as I was turning to leave, the door opened to reveal Paul, wearing an apron over his shirt and clerical collar and balancing two-year-old Alice Carson on his left hip. I blushed in embarrassment and surprise at seeing him after so long, but it was impossible not to smile at the picture he made.
“Am I speaking to the lady of the house?” I asked seriously, and he smiled self-consciously. I was so glad to see him.
“You’ve caught me out of uniform, I’m afraid,” he said, sheepishly holding out the embroidered edge of the clearly feminine apron. “Ellen was feeling tired with so many visitors stopping by. I told her to take a nap and I’d watch the children. The older ones are playing in the backyard, but as long as I was here I thought Alice and I could do the washing up.”
“That was thoughtful of you. Not many men would have thought of it.”
“Entirely selfish, I assure you. I long to be of some real use, but I fear that most of the time I’m just in the way. When you think of it, at times like these waking up to clean dishes is probably more consoling than listening to all the sermons I could preach. Anyway, it’s something.”
It was awkward with just the two of us. We had seen each other at church, of course, but that was all. A few of months after our conversation at the wedding, he had gotten word that his brother had been arrested and shot as a member of the Dutch Resistance. Nils was the last family member Paul had in the world; it broke my heart to think how alone he must have felt. I wrote him a sincere letter of sympathy, hoping to console him and break the ice that had formed between us, but the stilted, formal note of thanks he’d sent back let me know that my overtures were unwelcome. Once or twice he stopped by the house to bring mama a precious bag of coffee or some flowers, but he always came when he knew I would be gone and left before I returned. I couldn’t blame him. Why would he want to see me? I’d been so cruel.
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