by Sarah Sundin
The Carlisles came over, kissed their daughter, exchanged bags of gifts, and returned to the living room.
Helen stared at them and then at Dorothy. That was all they had to say to each other on Christmas Day? What was wrong with this family?
“Bye, Helen.”
“Wait. I want to talk to you.” Helen closed the door behind her and led Dorothy under the bare sticks of the nectarine tree in front of the kitchen window. Despite the chilled air, heat rose in her chest as she looked into her friend’s puzzled face. “Did he beat you too?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your father beats your mother. Did he beat you too?”
Dorothy crossed her arms and looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The heat prickled up the back of her neck. “Oh yes, you do. It’s why you have so little to do with them.”
Dorothy’s brown eyes flashed as if Helen had done the beating. “I thought it was normal. I thought that was how men were supposed to treat women.”
“Did he beat you? Tell me. Did he?”
“No.” Her shoulders hunched up, and her voice shrank. “That was Jim’s job.”
“Jim?” So he’d practiced on his little sister. What kind of family allowed such a thing? That meant . . . that meant . . . “You knew. You knew what he was like. Why didn’t you warn me? Why did you let me marry him?”
Dorothy stepped back. “I—I—”
“Why? Why? You could have stopped me. Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I thought it was normal.”
“Normal? If it’s normal, why do they hide it?”
“I didn’t—I thought—”
“Did you think I deserved it? For being a cripple? For not being as fun as Betty?”
“Helen!” Dorothy’s eyes brimmed over.
Helen pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t cry as well, and she crossed her arms over her roiling stomach. “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t do that.”
Dorothy placed a hand over her crumpled face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how wrong it was until I married Art and went to live with the Waynes. Now I see why Mom and I had to hide it, what Dad and Jim did, because it wasn’t normal, because it was wrong.”
“It took you that long to figure it out?”
Dorothy’s chest convulsed in a sob. “Oh goodness. It was more than that. More. I’m so sorry. You’ll never forgive me. I wanted him out. I wanted him gone. That’s why I didn’t stop you. So—so selfish. I only thought of myself. I didn’t think of you at all.”
Helen stared at her weeping friend, her emotions in a jumble. How could Dorothy do that to her? But her anger sizzled out under the water of truth—she’d also wanted to get rid of Jim. How could she blame Dorothy for doing the same thing she’d done?
“Dorothy?” she said in the low tone they’d used as children to convey secrets. “I wanted him gone too. I did. I encouraged him to enlist. I wanted him to die.”
Her hand lowered from her splotchy face. “I—I understand.”
“Do you blame me? Do you blame me for his death?”
“No. I blame the Japanese, I blame him. But not you. Never you.” She reached out tentative hands. “Oh, Helen. Can you . . . can you ever forgive me?”
Helen tried to nod, but her swollen throat wouldn’t bend. She wrapped her arms around Dorothy, and the women wept on each other’s shoulders.
Somehow the tears released another burden from Helen’s back. Another person knew, another person understood, another person hated it. Ray knew, but he’d never understand like someone who lived with it.
“I’ve never,” Dorothy said. “I’ve never talked about this with anyone, not even Art.”
“Tell him. Even in a letter.”
“When he gets home.”
Helen nodded on Dorothy’s shoulder. It would be nicer to tell secrets like that in the arms of a gentle man who loved you. “I’m glad you got out.”
Dorothy pulled back. “I should have said something when you moved in. But Dad won’t hit you, and he’ll treat Mom better with you around.”
“Maybe, but I’m getting out as soon as I can.” Her smile wobbled.
“I wish the Waynes had an extra room.”
“It’s all right.” The war had created a serious housing shortage in California, and no one had extra rooms. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so quick to turn down Vic’s marriage proposals—at least she’d be out. But the thought brought up a strange moist giggle. She’d have to be desperate to take the name of Helen Llewellyn. And Vic had stopped proposing anyway.
Dorothy gave her a limp smile. “I should go. Thanks for . . . I’m sorry I . . . Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you too, and I’m sorry too, and Merry Christmas to you too.” Helen waved good-bye and headed back to the house. She’d tell Ray in a letter tonight. Surely this was progress. She also wanted to thank him for the picture book he’d given Jay-Jay and the journal he’d given her—in case there was anything she couldn’t tell him, he’d said. As if she hadn’t poured out her entire heart to him—except her love for him, of course.
As soon as she opened the door, Jay-Jay screamed, and an empty box flew through the air and hit Mrs. Carlisle.
“Jay-Jay!”
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Carlisle said. “He doesn’t have any more presents to open.”
Shakes traveled through Helen’s body. No, she wouldn’t allow this to happen to her son. She wouldn’t.
She strode over crumpled tissue paper and grabbed him around the waist. “No. Don’t ever, ever treat someone like that.”
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Carlisle said. “I understand why he’s upset.”
“That doesn’t give him any right.” She clutched her flailing son and headed for the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re taking him?” Mr. Carlisle said.
“To his room.”
“Oh no,” his grandmother cried. “But it’s Christmas.”
“I don’t care.” Helen mounted the stairs, careful with her step since her son writhed and her limbs shook. “He needs to learn he can’t treat people like that. Ever. I won’t let him.”
Footsteps thumped behind her. Mr. Carlisle grabbed her elbow and swung her around.
Helen cried out, dropped to her bottom, and clipped her tailbone on a step. Clutching Jay-Jay, she raised an elbow for protection.
No blow landed.
Jay-Jay whimpered, and Helen’s breath came fast and hard. In the background on the radio, Judy Garland crooned “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
“Are you all right, son?” Mr. Carlisle extracted Jay-Jay from Helen’s grasp. “Your mother should be careful on the stairs. So clumsy. You could have been hurt.”
Jay-Jay’s face twisted, and he blinked at Helen.
Her heart slammed against her backbone. Mr. Carlisle blamed her for his actions, and he was teaching Jay-Jay to do likewise.
“Come on, my boy. Let’s play with your new toys.” Mr. Carlisle took him downstairs, away—away from Helen.
She moaned. Her son. Her little son.
Helen collapsed over her knees, racked by silent sobs. She couldn’t let James Carlisle III end up like his predecessors.
27
Bury St. Edmunds Airfield
Monday, January 15, 1945
“A vital target.” Jack tapped the pointer at the screen in the briefing room, which made the image shimmer as if underwater. “Lechfeld is a base for Messerschmitt 262 jet fighters and is also a training and research facility, which increases its importance.”
Ray studied the slide of a gray field with runways and hangars, bordered on the east by broad black stripes of forest around a silver ribbon. Since H2X radar best showed the contrast between water and land, rivers served as excellent landmarks. The Lech River ran north from the Alps, skirted Lechfeld, flowed through Augsburg, and joined the Danube.
“All right, men.” Jack propped his pointer on his shoulder like a rif
le. “You couldn’t ask for better flying weather. Go knock out some jets.”
A low rumble of voices built in the room as the men stood to leave. Despite Jack’s assertion of the target’s importance, Third Division was only sending 297 B-17s. Within the Third Division, Ascalon would lead the fourteen planes of the 94th Bomb Group.
Ray lifted a hand to his brother in farewell. Jack wiggled his fingers as if playing a piano, and Ray grinned and nodded. Tonight they’d share songs, coffee, and conversation in the Officers’ Club.
Ray followed the crowd outside. His breath caught at the sight of the moonlight sparkling on the snow. Straight ahead, Draco’s tail curled around the Little Dipper as if hoarding a jeweled goblet.
“Watch out, Draco,” Ray whispered. “Here comes Ascalon.”
“Radio to pilot. I heard from division lead. Head for the secondary.”
“Thank you . . . Fitzgerald. Okay, men. Plot the new course.” Ray frowned. He’d had his new crew for two weeks. The names should have flowed off his tongue.
Soon Casey, the navigator, gave a new set of coordinates, and Ray adjusted his heading toward the railroad marshalling yards at Augsburg.
A thousand feet above, P-51 Mustangs flew a zigzag pattern, ready to jump to the rescue if the Luftwaffe came up to fight.
If only someone had jumped to Helen’s rescue.
Ray sighed and adjusted the four throttles. Helen’s most recent letters poured out her guilt over wishing Jim dead. Ray couldn’t blame her—the man had tortured her. Good thing Jim Carlisle was already dead, because Ray felt capable of violence for the first time since first grade, when he’d punched out Bill Ferguson for taunting the Portuguese children.
“We’re at the IP,” the radar operator said.
“Thanks, Kenton.” Ray zoomed his mind back into focus. The Initial Point signaled the beginning of the bomb run.
“Bomb bay doors opening,” said Lieutenant Rogers, the bombardier.
“Firing two yellow flares,” Fitzgerald called from the radio room. The flares and the open doors signaled the IP to the rest of the group.
Over the next ten minutes, Ray concentrated on altitude and airspeed while the navigator, bombardier, and radar operator called back and forth on the interphone, locating Augsburg, which straddled the junction of the Wertach and Lech rivers.
Ahead of Ascalon, black blotches stained the sky—moderate flak, but a single well-placed shell could fell a plane.
Ray raised half a smile, which tilted his oxygen mask. Thirty-three missions today, and while he’d never be as cool under fire as Jack, he rested in the Lord’s loving and sovereign hands, where fear had no place and courage wrapped like a cloak about him.
Lieutenant Donatelli, the copilot, cursed the flak.
Ray gave him a pat on the back. “A few minutes and we’ll hightail it out of here.”
“Not soon enough.”
“There, I’ve got it,” Kenton called from the waist section where the H2X resided. “What a sweet, sweet target. Let ’em fly, Rogers.”
“Bombs away.”
“Two red flares fired.”
“Okay, fellows,” Ray said. “Enough sightseeing. Let’s go home.”
An explosion at two o’clock high, shuddering, earsplitting. A black belch of smoke. A tongue of red flame. Shrapnel pummeled the plane, rocks on a tin roof.
Ray cringed down. Shrapnel dinged off his flak helmet, his arm.
He wheeled around and gasped. Fist-sized holes perforated the right side and roof of the cockpit, baring fangs of aluminum and Plexiglas.
Donatelli slumped in his seat, his hand clutched to the right side of his neck. Then his hand fell limp to his lap. His red hand. His red lap.
“Donatelli!” Ray cried against the heaviness of knowing his copilot would never speak again.
Ray gripped the wheel, scanned the gauges. He still had four engines. “Damage report. Bombardier? Navigator?”
No response.
The interphone. He’d lost the interphone.
Ray put the Fort into a left-hand turn. He had to follow the rest of the division and lead his group home. “Shreve,” he yelled to the flight engineer behind him. “Interphone’s out. Go down to the nose, tell the navigator to come up here a minute.”
He glanced out the side windows to keep an eye on the formation, since he could no longer get reports from his crewmen in the back.
“Shreve.” Ray flung his right arm behind him to get the gunner’s attention—and hit air.
Shreve lay crumpled over the platform for his turret.
“Oh no.” Ray’s stomach lurched at the rusty smell of blood. The flak burst took off the Plexiglas dome for the top turret—and most of Shreve’s head.
He whipped back to the wheel, light-headed, but he had to keep his wits. The rest of his crew and his group depended on him. “Lord, help me.”
Ray blew out a breath and loosened his grip on the wheel. The controls and engines were in fine shape. All he had to do was follow the division home.
But flak buffeted the plane and Ray’s heart.
His eyes stung, and the acrid smell of hot metal hit his nose. White smoke seeped from seams in the right side of the control panel.
A chill raced up Ray’s spine. The fire extinguisher hung out of reach on the bulkhead behind the copilot’s seat.
After he leveled off from the turn, he flipped on the autopilot switches and adjusted the rudder, aileron, and elevator centering knobs. “Pilot to crew. Can you hear me? I need help in the cockpit. Now.”
Ray unplugged the interphone cord and oxygen, and scrambled behind the copilot’s seat.
After he hooked up a portable oxygen bottle, he grabbed the fire extinguisher. Yellow flames licked out of the control panel. With shaking hands, he raised the horn of the extinguisher, aimed it at the fire, turned the handle, and pumped the plunger. Powdery white carbon tetrachloride coated the control panel.
Ray stopped. The flames came back, higher now, creeping to the middle of the panel.
Crying out in frustration, he emptied the extinguisher into the flames.
“What’s going on up here?” Lieutenant Casey, the navigator, stuck his head up the passageway. “The inter—oh my—” He dropped his jaw and half a dozen curse words.
“Get me another fire extinguisher. Now, Casey. Go!”
Something exploded behind the control panel, warped it, and the flames spread.
Casey ducked and swore. “The oxygen.”
Ray coughed. The phosgene gas from the fire extinguisher was poisonous. He’d have to open the windows, but that would feed the fire. And the flames reached toward the wheel and distorted his view out the windshield.
As when Helen’s house burned down, he was struck with the impenetrable translucence of fire—and how a life could change in an instant.
He turned to Casey. “Bail out! Go to the nose, get Rogers, and get out of here. I’ll go to the back, get the others.”
Ray reached down beside the pilot’s seat to ring the bailout bell. One long ring to signal stand by for bailing, then three short rings to bail out now. But he couldn’t rely on the bell. He’d tell the men in person.
The heat built, but Ray had work to do. After he turned off the autopilot, he strained through the heat to put the plane into a shallow dive away from the formation. He tossed aside the portable oxygen, fumbled in his left thigh pocket for the connecting tube on the bailout oxygen bottle, and attached it to the adaptor on his mask. Then he threw the “flimsies,” the mimeographed flight plans, into the fire.
A sick feeling writhed in his stomach as he left Donatelli and Shreve behind. He forged through the bomb bay, gripping the supports for the bomb racks. His seat-pack parachute flapped at the back of his knees.
Today he’d have to use it.
Dread clamped a fist around his heart, but he kept moving.
“Bail out,” he told the radio operator at his desk. “Fire in the cockpit. Get out of here.”
�
�But—but—”
“Now.” Ray pulled the release tabs on the shoulders of Fitzgerald’s flak vest, then remembered to take off his own. “Where’s your chute?”
Fitzgerald pulled his chest parachute from under his desk.
Ray pressed through the door to the waist section. “Bail—”
Noise jammed his ears. The floor kicked out from underneath him. He tumbled to the bulkhead, to the wall, banged his shoulder, his back, his head.
He grabbed something—control cables. His legs swung loose and slammed the wall.
Where the tail should have been—nothing but open sky.
“Dear Lord in heaven.” Ray grasped the cables with all his might. An antiaircraft shell must have taken off the tail.
Ascalon plunged toward the earth, and Ray stared at the cables in his fists, pulling him down with his plane.
The only way to live was to let go.
Antioch
Helen rolled over in bed and snuggled the chenille bedspread over her ear, but she knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep. How could she with the tension in the Carlisle household as taut as her leg muscles when the polio struck?
On Saturday, she’d taken Jay-Jay to a matinee of Roy Rogers in Red River Valley, then stayed at Betty’s house until Jay-Jay’s bedtime. After church, she accepted the Llewellyns’ dinner invitation and then spent the afternoon calling on anyone she could think of. But suppertime forced her home, where Mr. Carlisle grumbled about overcooked vegetables in the soup and the profusion of hillbilly music on the radio. Even the Allied progress in the Philippines and the closure of the Bulge failed to cheer him.
Something would happen soon.
Helen sat up in bed, clicked on the lamp, and pulled her Bible from the nightstand. Only at the Lord’s feet could she calm her nerves. Ray was so good for her, not just his wise words but his advice to take her concerns to God.
The day before, Pastor Novak preached about the Day of the Lord. The war caused many to fear the end of the world, but Pastor Novak reminded them fear didn’t come from God.
The ribbon in Helen’s Bible still lay in Obadiah, so that’s where she read, until she reached verse 4: “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.”