by Sarah Sundin
“I know.” But she couldn’t wait to leave. Traveling yesterday when Germany surrendered or on V-E Day would have been foolish, so she planned to leave tomorrow.
In the sanctuary, sunlight streamed over dark woods and creamy walls, and lemon oil scented the air. On the wall over the pulpit, a banner declared “Victory,” but at the front of the sanctuary, over two dozen stands held portraits of men in uniform, each draped in black.
Antioch’s fallen.
Her heart spilled molten lead down to her toes, but Helen dragged her feet down the aisle. The dead were arranged alphabetically. James Carlisle Jr.’s portrait stood near the left, and Helen studied his face, handsome and charming and cruel.
“Dat’s Daddy.”
“Yes, sweetie.” Helen squeezed the hand of the best part of Jim Carlisle. For the marriage, she bore no shame. For his death, she bore no guilt.
Gazing into his smiling, cold eyes, she felt neither love nor hate. “Good-bye, Jim.”
She walked past portraits, including those of former schoolmates, and stopped in front of Ray’s. Now she felt love, heart-crumpling love.
“I seen him,” Jay-Jay said.
“Oh?” He couldn’t possibly remember Ray from the year before.
“Gamma Nobak’s.”
The portrait on the piano. “That’s Ray Novak, their oldest son. He was a kind and good man, and he liked you very much.”
Jay-Jay turned a smile up to her. “He did?”
“Yes. He called you munchkin.”
He giggled. “Dat’s silly.”
“Yes, he could be silly and thoughtful and—and he was a very good man.”
“Why’s he wearing a scarf?” Jay-Jay touched the black draping.
“It means . . . it means he went to be with Jesus.”
Footsteps sounded behind her. Helen looked back to see Esther.
Her friend tucked her arm in Helen’s and looked around at the portraits. “Such a terrible cost, this victory.”
Ray’s image swam into a blur. “Terrible indeed.”
The Greyhound bus rumbled to the corner of Second and G, an intersection Ray thought he’d never see again.
“There she is!” Walt jumped from his seat.
On the sidewalk, Allie held a baby wrapped in a blue blanket. She bounced on her toes, grinning and waving.
“That’s my wife, my son! I’m a father.” Walt charged down the aisle of the bus. As soon as the doors whooshed open, he dashed out, threw his arms around his wife, and kissed her hard enough to knock her hat loose.
Ray stood and slipped on his waist-length “Ike” jacket, buckled the waist, and fastened the concealed buttons.
Walt broke off the kiss to hunch over the baby. His hand hovered beside Frankie’s head, as if his son were a delicate piece of machinery. He gazed at Allie with a look of wonder and kissed her again.
Ray headed down the aisle after Jack and Ruth. He’d never know that thrill, but at least he’d have nephews and nieces to enjoy. The way Walt was kissing Allie, he’d have lots of them.
Jack helped Ruth off the bus, but Ray lagged behind.
Allie exclaimed in surprise and hugged Jack, then exchanged shy smiles with Ruth. When Allie showed Ruth the baby’s face, the ladies’ smiles warmed.
“Excuse me, sir?”
Ray startled and looked behind him to the petite brunette at the wheel. He still wasn’t used to female bus drivers.
“You getting off?” she asked.
He wanted to say, “No. Take me to Ohio—now.” Instead, he said, “Yeah, it’s my stop.”
Ray stepped off the bus but didn’t approach the laughing, living group. For almost four months he’d been dead, separated from humanity, and now he wondered whether he belonged.
Walt turned to him. “Say, Allie, look who we found.”
Allie gave him the unblinking, fixed smile of someone who knows she should recognize a person, but doesn’t. Then her eyes rounded, and she glanced at Walt. “It can’t be.”
“That’s what everyone says.” Ray gave her a smile. “But it’s me.”
“Ray? Oh my goodness. We thought . . . how on earth?”
“Can we wait until we get home? It’s a long story, and I only want to tell it once.”
Jack laughed. “Fat chance.”
Ray held out his arms to Allie. “Not much left of me, but I still want a hug.”
Her eyes shimmered, and she hugged him with her free arm. “Oh goodness. How on earth . . . ? Your parents—they’ll be so happy. So happy. This day just gets better and better.”
Ray pulled back and admired his nephew, and Frankie flashed Ray a quick, gummy smile.
“Look, he’s happy his uncle’s alive. Everyone will be thrilled.” Allie wiped away tears, and her smile broadened and softened. “And Helen—how happy she’ll be.”
Why would she connect him to Helen? “It’ll be good to see her, to see everyone.” The words tasted like dry oats in his mouth.
Jack wrinkled his nose. “The newlyweds off on a wedding trip, I hope?”
Allie blinked. “Newlyweds?”
“Vic and Helen.”
“Oh, that’s right. You couldn’t have received my letter yet. You don’t know.”
Ray’s heart went into a holding pattern. “They got married on the twenty-eighth, right?”
“A lot has happened the past few weeks.” Allie’s smile rose as slowly as the sun. “No, they didn’t get married. Let’s just say something came up.”
With a swift wind, the clouds swooshed out of Ray’s life. The wedding was postponed. He had time to tell Helen he loved her, to have a chance with her. “Where is she? Where is she right now? Do you know?”
“At the church, of course.” Allie held Frankie up to her shoulder and patted his back. “You’re just in time. Thank goodness. Another day and it would have been too late.”
“The church? Too late?” Why would it be too late? Her wedding? Had she postponed it to . . . today? What day of the week was it? Monday? Tuesday? Odd choice for a wedding, but maybe they’d grabbed the first available date. “What time’s the ceremony start?”
“Eleven. Why?”
Ray glanced at his watch. Already eleven, and weddings only took about fifteen minutes. He had to act fast. No thinking, no planning.
A cab sat at the curb, waiting for the lot of them to stop chatting, load the luggage, and settle the baby in.
Ray didn’t have time. This was the scramble for the jet all over again. “I’m going to the church. Take your time, get the luggage. See you later.”
He took off running with his head down. He didn’t have time to be recognized and rejoiced over.
The postponed wedding was a gift, a sign that God wanted him to act. Not necessarily that Helen would ever love him, but that Ray had to declare his love.
Amazed at his strength and stamina, he turned onto Fifth Street, down two blocks, across the church lawn, up the steps, and into the foyer.
All his life he’d been a man of words, but now he knew he could also be a man of action. Ray flung open the sanctuary doors and charged down the aisle. “Stop the wedding! Stop the wedding!”
Two hundred heads swiveled to him. Dad glared from the pulpit. Mom peeked around the piano.
Emotion surged up, grabbed him around the middle, and he ground to a halt halfway down the aisle. He hadn’t seen them for a year. And he was about to turn their grief to joy.
But before the reunion, he had a wedding to interrupt. “Stop the . . .”
Something was wrong. Where was the bride? The groom?
A banner spread across the wall behind Dad. What kind of man was arrogant enough to display his name at his wedding?
No. It read “Victory,” not “Victor.”
This wasn’t a wedding.
It was a service for V-E Day.
Ray’s engines sputtered. His plan stalled. And he drifted alone in a sky of familiar faces.
“Excuse me, sir,” Dad said. “May I help
you?” He didn’t recognize his own son, not that Ray blamed him.
Ray pulled off his cap and raised a sheepish smile. “As Mark Twain said, ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ ”
Dad stared at him, his eyes searching, doubting, questioning, believing. A murmur rose in the congregation, whispers, gasps, his name repeated, building to a crescendo of crying, laughing, and shouting. People stood, leaned, strained to see, heads bobbing to get a better view.
Of the dead man back from the grave.
Of the father lurching to him.
Of the mother crying out and stumbling down the aisle.
Ray’s chest sank under the full weight of his parents’ grief, only imagined beforehand, now visible, etched on their faces.
He met them halfway and almost fell from the impact. Mom grasped his shoulders, his face, exploring like a blind woman. “Ray? Ray? You’re alive? My baby boy.”
He winced from the pain in his jaw and pulled his mother into a hug. “I’m back, Mom. I’m alive. Sorry you had to go through that.”
Dad’s arm clasped Ray’s shoulders. “My boy’s alive,” he said with a throaty laugh. “My boy. Praise God! Praise the Lord!”
Grandpa and Grandma Novak approached with faltering steps and tear-stained faces, and Ray hugged them with his left arm, because Mom wouldn’t leave the space under his right arm. She burrowed into his chest, shook with tears, and clutched his uniform.
“Excuse me? May I have your attention?” Mr. Wayne rapped on the pulpit with his fist.
The church hushed except for random muffled sobs. Ray took advantage of the shift in attention to search for Helen, but he didn’t see her.
“Pastor Novak,” Mr. Wayne said. “I assume you’re in no shape to continue this service.”
Dad gave a big, damp laugh. “Absolutely not.”
“As chairman of the elders, I have a request for Ray Novak. You must have quite a story, young man, and I can think of no better way to celebrate V-E Day than to hear it.” He beckoned Ray to the pulpit.
Ray hung back, but the crowd urged, and the idea of telling his story only once appealed to him. He ducked to his mother. “I need to go. Dad, I may need some help.”
With a little coaxing, Mom dislodged from Ray and locked onto Dad. Ray headed up front, where Mr. Wayne greeted him with a handshake.
Ray faced the pulpit and ran his hands over the varnished wood, along the dark, furrowed curves of the grain. The Lord had stripped everything from him, but now he had given it back—identity, family, and ministry.
He folded his hands around the rim of the pulpit and gazed upward. Lord, thank you for restoring my life. Let me use this experience to serve you better.
He gazed at the congregation.
Helen sat in the third row on the right, gloved hands over her mouth, her eyes enormous.
Pain wrenched through him—deep, visceral pain over what he’d lost.
Who was he kidding? He’d lost her a year before, and she loved another man. She had to know what he meant when he screamed about stopping a wedding. Could he have made a bigger fool of himself?
The sooner he got to Ohio the better.
Ray huffed off the pain. He had a story to tell, not about him but about the Lord. “Ladies and gentlemen, this past year has brought great change, and not just in my body weight.”
The laughter encouraged him and poked up a smile. “I’ve done things I never thought I’d do and realized things about myself I’d never thought possible. Through this, I’ve learned much about God’s love and strength. He’s changed me.”
For a split second, he met Helen’s gaze. The Lord had changed her too. She’d grown and healed in ways he loved on paper but had never witnessed in person. And what had happened the past four months? How much more had she grown through Vic’s love?
Could he honestly say he knew this woman? That he loved her?
Ray threw himself into his story, editing in mind of the small children present. He shook his thoughts off what he’d lost with Helen to what he’d gained with Christ.
46
Paralysis was the most unnerving sensation.
For months, Helen had lain in the county polio ward. No matter how hard she’d concentrated, her legs wouldn’t do what she asked from them, demanded from them, pleaded from them.
Now she sat paralyzed in the pew, her hands plastered over her mouth, and her eyes strained to dryness, afraid if she blinked he’d be gone again, dead again.
Yet he stood there and told his story, his raspy voice a soothing ointment. When he smiled, the same bittersweet pain thumped behind her breastbone as when she watched Jay-Jay sleep.
Ray’s story proved him a hero of the conventional sort with bold action in great danger. But he was also—had always been—a hero of a deeper sort, a better sort, who stood up for good and right no matter what.
Even though he was skinny, she couldn’t imagine a more attractive man.
But he rarely looked at her. Their romance had ended in flames, and a deep friendship had risen from the ashes, but so much had happened since. Had he heard about her engagement, how it ended, the custody case, and the rumors of insanity? If he hadn’t, he would soon.
If only she could move her muscles. If only she could take Jay-Jay and slink out of church. She needed time in private to pull herself together. Ray was alive. Now what? Would he want to renew their friendship? But she loved him, and he’d see it. Her love lay on the surface where no performance could hide it.
When Ray finished his story, he stepped down from the pulpit into a swarm of family and friends.
Betty gripped Helen’s arm, which disengaged her hand from her mouth. “Aren’t you thrilled?”
Helen’s lips felt numb from the pressure. “I—I’m happy for his family.”
“For his family? What about you?”
“Me? It’s too late,” she whispered.
In the center aisle, Ray hugged Mrs. Anello, but his gaze swept the congregation and locked on Helen.
“See?” Betty said. “Didn’t you hear him say, ‘Stop the wedding’?”
Helen turned to her sister. She had a vague memory of an officer yelling about a wedding, but when she realized it was Ray, all that washed away. “That . . . that has nothing to do with me.”
“Baloney. Who else had a wedding planned? He wanted to stop you from marrying Vic. Just like in the movies. Isn’t that romantic?”
“Couldn’t be. It must have been a joke.” Ray wasn’t the type to barge in on a wedding . . . but he also wasn’t the type to play practical jokes. Of course, she didn’t think he was the type to steal an airplane either. Who was this man?
“Well, he’s coming this way. You can ask him yourself.”
He crossed to the side aisle, his gaze locked on her.
Not now. She had to get away and compose herself, pray about this, and figure out what to do. Helen stood and grabbed Jay-Jay’s hand, but Betty blocked her escape.
“Ray! Over here.” Betty waved him over and drew him into a hug. “Goodness, your mom needs to fatten you up.”
“I’ll say.” He turned to Helen, one arm slightly extended in a subtle invitation for a hug, but he didn’t step forward.
Neither did Helen. She was a porcelain vase, rapped and cracked. One touch from Ray and she’d shatter.
His soft smile threatened to shatter her as well. “Hi, Helen.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“I can’t believe it either,” he said with a quick shrug. “So, I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Congratulations?” She searched his face, but his polite smile revealed nothing.
“You and Vic? When’s the date?”
Her eyes opened and closed, over and over, as she tried to comprehend. He thought she was still marrying Vic. Was Betty right? Was that why he barged in? To stop her wedding?
“You didn’t hear,” Betty said. “She broke up with Vic, thank goodness. You wouldn’t believe what h
e did.”
Helen snapped her gaze to her sister. “We mustn’t gossip.”
Betty slung her purse over her shoulder. “She never loved him anyway. She only agreed to marry him to get out of the Carlisle house, and who can blame her after what Mr. Carlisle did?”
“Betty, please. No gossip.”
“It’s not gossip. It’s the truth.”
“Oh, Helen.” Ray stared at her cheek, his voice low and husky. “Did he do that?”
Her hand flew to her cheek, but she lowered it. No more performances. “That’s why I moved out. I’m leaving for Washington DC tomorrow. I would have gone today but . . .”
One corner of his mouth crept up. “So that’s what Allie meant by ‘just in time.’ ”
“Excuse me?” Helen said.
Jay-Jay tugged Ray’s trouser leg, and Ray squatted. “Hello, munchkin. You’ve sure grown up.”
Jay-Jay gasped. “You’re right, Mama.”
“Your mama’s always right and don’t ever forget it,” Ray said. “I brought you something from Germany. I’ll give it to you later.”
Helen’s mouth flopped open. “You brought souvenirs?”
Ray’s laugh scrambled up her insides. “That’s the only one. Well, and the plane, the manual, the Luftwaffe uniform. Though I want to get the uniform back to Johannes’s family somehow.”
Jay-Jay balanced on one leg like a flamingo. “Why din’t Jesus want you?”
Ray shot Helen a quizzical look.
“I told him you—you went to be with Jesus.” Her voice cracked.
He gave her the longest look, full of knee-buckling compassion, and then lowered his gaze to Jay-Jay. “Sorry, munchkin. I didn’t get to see Jesus. He still has plans for me here on earth.”
He looked up to Helen. His eyes shone with hope, but questions tugged at the edges.
Helen couldn’t breathe, and she grabbed the pew back for support. Goodness, he still cared for her.
Mrs. Novak came down the aisle in a flurry. “Ray, how could you boys—all three of you home, and Ruth too, and not one telegram to warn us.”
Ray stood and put his arm around his mother’s waist. “And miss seeing the look on your face?”
She swatted him on the stomach. “You rascal. Good thing I already had a reception planned at the house after the service. We have so much more than victory to celebrate.”