by Alexa Kang
It was amazing to watch her. Since she made her decision, she had taken on a whole new persona. She had grown more thoughtful and serious. Her determination, her enthusiasm to serve, and her excitement about choosing her own path and following her own will, all made her look more attractive than ever. He wished he could tell her how much he admired what she was doing, except she and everyone else treated him like an afterthought in this whole matter. Why did everyone think he cared so little about her?
After Tessa left for the Veterans Hospital to submit her application, his mother brought up the subject of Tessa’s departure from St. Mary’s for the Cadet Nurse Corps again.
“Are you sure Dean and Juliet won’t mind?” Sophia asked William.
“I don’t see why they would,” William said. “Juliet’s a nurse herself. I don’t think she ever thought Tessa would follow in her footsteps. She told me she thought Tessa might do something involving the theater since she and her father are so close.”
Anthony stopped reading but didn’t say anything, partly because he wanted to hear what his parents had to say, and partly because he was still annoyed no one had asked for his thoughts since this whole matter started.
“Maybe we should’ve enrolled her in another school instead of St. Mary’s. I don’t think she ever liked it there.”
“We all knew it would be a difficult adjustment for her when she came,” William said. “It was a good plan at the time. St. Mary’s is academically superb, and she and Katherine are close in age. We thought they could be friends. Besides, we all thought she would be like Juliet, outgoing and sociable. We didn’t know Tessa would be so different and so much like her father.”
“Yes. Tessa can be a handful, that’s for sure.”
You don’t know the half of it. Anthony thought to himself.
“And you,” his mother jokingly reprimanded his father, “you indulge her. All those times she sneaked out of the house at night to go dancing, you never even tried to stop her. If something bad had happened to her, how would we ever explain ourselves to Dean and Juliet?”
Anthony put down his book. “How’d you know she went dancing?”
“We overheard her talking to her friend Ruby on the phone a few times,” his mother said. “I wanted to ask her more about it but your father didn’t want us to do that.”
“You worry too much, Sophie.” William stroked her back to comfort her. “Tessa’s a very independent girl. She wouldn’t stop doing something because someone told her not to. It’s better we gain her trust and let her come to us if she’s ever in trouble. Knowing Dean and Juliet, they wouldn’t want their daughter to be over-protected.”
Anthony thought back to all the times when he had told Tessa how she should conduct herself. How presumptuous he had been. He could’ve been more thoughtful like his parents in how he dealt with her.
“The dancing’s harmless fun,” William said. “It’s what young people do. She’s finding things she likes. If we restrict her from that, she’ll be very unhappy here.”
Why didn’t he consider that before? Anthony smiled to himself. What would make Tessa happy? What could he do to make her happy?
“Is that what you think? Harmless fun?” his mother said to his father. “Well, one day some boy’s going to fall in love with her while she’s having her harmless fun. Then you go ahead and explain to Dean what happened.”
Anthony stopped smiling. Without saying anything, he picked up his book and left the room.
Chapter 38
After submitting her application for the Cadet Nurse Corps, Tessa went to the hospital room where Jack was staying. Visitors’ hours wouldn’t start for another hour, but no one was paying attention to her. She couldn’t wait to tell Jack what she had just done.
She dallied near the patients’ room until the hallway emptied, then scurried inside. Even though she was not authorized to be here, none of the patients minded her. She looked to the far end of the room toward Jack. Excited to see him awake and sitting up in his bed, she approached him. But her joy vanished when she saw the look on his face. Staring out the window, he looked as sad and lonely as she had ever seen him. His body lay deflated as if he had no strength or spirit. All last week, he had looked so cheerful in front of everyone. Was it all a facade?
She walked up quietly next to his bed.
“Tessa!” He looked up, surprised to see her. His expression quickly turned upbeat. “What are you doing here?”
It’s all for show, she thought to herself. He’s acting happy so we won’t worry about him.
“I came to submit my application to become a cadet nurse.” She sat down next to his bed. “I’ve decided to become one.”
“Seriously? You didn’t tell us.”
“I only found out about the program last week, and I was undecided until a few days ago. So guess what? Starting in two weeks, I’ll be coming here for classes and work.” She looked at the door to check that no hospital staff or nurses were coming in, then she leaned closer to him and whispered, “I was on my way out but I took a detour to come see you.”
“Thanks.”
“How are you feeling?” She put her hand lightly on his injured leg.
“I’m getting better.”
She looked silently at him. She had so many questions for him. He stared back at her, then lowered his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know how to take it.”
But she couldn’t help herself. She gathered up her nerve and asked, “When you were away, did you think about me?” Her eyes were still on him.
He hesitated, then looked her in the eyes. “All the time.”
She tightened her hand on his cast.
“How could I not think about you after what happened the night before I left?” His voice softened. “Over there, I saw things I can’t even talk about. When things got really bad, when everything got to be too much, it always helped me to think of you.”
His answer was more than she had hoped for. She didn’t think he felt the same way about her at all.
Just as her hopes were raised, he said, “But I can’t think about any of that. Especially not now.” He glanced at his wounded leg.
“It doesn’t bother me,” she said.
“It bothers me.” His terse response and firm tone dashed her hopes. “If I’m with someone, I want to be able to take her to a better place and show her a better world. I couldn’t have done that for you even before, and I definitely can’t do that for you now. All I would do is drag you down. I’m sorry, Tessa. I can’t give you what you want.”
Tessa looked away from him to the floor. Why was this so important to him to take someone he loved to a better place? “Did you think about her?” She was afraid to ask, but she wanted to know.
“Sometimes. I tried not to.” He looked at his leg in the cast again. “Some wounds never heal.”
Her heart hurt, both for him and for herself. But in the next second, he told her, “She’s married now. She wrote and told me. I was the only one in my entire company to get a Dear John letter from an ex-girlfriend. It was like she broke up with me twice, and the second time I wasn’t even her boyfriend anymore.”
She tried to laugh with him, but couldn’t. With his attempted joke fallen flat, he finally dropped all pretenses. “Doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t think about any of these things now. What I actually need to do is to figure out how I’m going to find a job when I leave the hospital. I won’t be able to move around all that easily. I’m worried I won’t find anyone to hire me. And we might have to move. I can’t climb up and down three flights of stairs. With me not working, it’ll be tough to find a new place for my family to live.”
“Jack…” She felt horrible. He had serious life worries, and she didn’t even think of that. All she thought about was her own feelings for him, her silly schoolgirl dreams. At last, she began to understand what he meant when he told her a year ago they were in different worlds. How stupid and insensitive she had been.
�
��Don’t look so sad, Tessa.” His smile returned.
She took his hand and nodded. She realized then that if she truly cared for him, she had to put aside her feelings for now and not add more burden to his already troubled mind.
“I’ll be all right. I only told you all this because, I don’t know why, you’re the only one I can tell these things to.”
She knew why. It was because his problems had no real impact on her life, whereas for his family, or even Janie and Ruby, his problems would become their problems as they all depended on each other one way or another.
But it did mean something to her that he trusted her.
“Don’t tell anyone what I told you,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Are we still good friends?”
“Of course, Jack!” she squeezed his hand. “Always.”
Chapter 39
At orientation on the first day of class, Tessa sat quietly by herself in the back row and read the information packet given to each attendee. While she waited for the orientation program to begin, a new trainee, slightly chubby with curly hair, sat down next to her. “Hi. I’m Sarah Brinkmann. What’s your name?”
“Tessa Graham.” Tessa wondered what she should say to the new girl. She never liked small talk with strangers. But her worries were unnecessary as Sarah continued talking. “Nice to meet you. Where are you from? I was born in Chicago. I’m eighteen years old. I have three brothers in the military. Dale is the oldest and in the Marines. Donald is a paratrooper, and David is in the army anti-aircraft unit. It didn’t feel right for me to sit at home while they serve, so I joined the Cadet Nurse Corps. I love to bake. Especially pies. I can make a mean pecan pie. Do you like pecan pie?” she asked but never gave Tessa a chance to answer. “My mother’s a school teacher and my father works for an advertising agency…”
Could this girl ever stop talking? Tessa wondered. In less than five minutes, Sarah had told her entire personal and family history. Thankfully, the hospital administrator entered the room and everyone quieted down as the orientation began.
Several nurse trainees entered the room with the hospital administrator. Tessa recognized one of them as Ellie Swanson, the young nurse she met a few weeks ago. When the administrator’s welcome speech was over, Ellie surprised her by coming to the back of the room and greeting her. She didn’t think Ellie would remember her.
“I’m so glad you decided to join,” Ellie said as she took hold of Tessa’s hand. “What’s your name?”
“Tessa. I’m Tessa Graham.”
“I’m Sarah Brinkmann,” Sarah introduced herself. “How long have you been a trainee?” she asked Ellie. “Do you like it? Are the hours very long? I heard the hours may be very long. Well, as long as I still have time to bake, I don’t mind. Do you plan to sign up for overseas assignment…”
“We’ll get to all that,” Ellie said and laughed. “First, let me take you around and show you the rest of the hospital. Come and follow me.” Ellie brought them to the front of the room where all the new trainees were divided into groups to be taken on a tour of the facilities. Tessa was relieved to move on, but Sarah stuck by her side the entire time. When the tour ended, Tessa realized to her dismay that Sarah Brinkmann had somehow decided they were new best friends. By the end of the morning, she had learned everything there was to learn about Dale, Donald, and David. She could write their biographies. She wondered how she could extract herself without being too rude.
At lunch time, Tessa changed her mind. When she found herself seated among a group of new people, and keeping to herself like she always did at St. Mary’s was not an option, having Sarah with her turned out to be a life-saving convenience. As long as Sarah kept talking, she didn’t have to. Sarah relieved her from having to bear the suffering of being superficially social. Having Sarah by her side wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
A few weeks later, the hospital staff had come to think of them as inseparable. They referred to them as the talkative one and the quiet one. Tessa didn’t mind. By then, she had gotten used to Sarah’s incessant talking. It became background noise to her. The good thing about Sarah was, she never pried. She didn’t seem to mind that Tessa, on her part, never told her anything. Or maybe she was too busy talking to notice Tessa never said much. Either way, the arrangement worked for Tessa.
The new environment suited her too. Here, no one gave a second thought to who she was or was not as long as she did her work. She even liked some of the people here, like Ellie Swanson. The way Ellie handled the patients reminded her of her mother. Ellie knew how to comfort the injured ones in pain, and console the broken ones in sorrow. She could even appreciate Sarah. The veterans loved listening to her stories, especially when she brought them her famous pies.
And the best thing was, being here, she could check in on Jack and make sure he had everything he needed.
She had made the right decision. She was sure of it.
PART TWELVE
Dream of Love
Chapter 40
Lying on the field of browning grass outside of his dorm, Anthony opened his text book on his lap and rested his head and back on his book bag. A fall breeze blew past and flipped the pages, breaking his concentration on his book. He looked up out at the sun shining on the field. Ordinarily on a day like this, male students would be out playing a game of pick-up football. Today, only female students strolled by when they took walks between classes.
Sometimes, he wondered what he was still doing here. Last winter, he had resolved to enlist after Pearl Harbor. His father had persuaded him to wait until the overcapacity at the Army training camps eased. Since the summer, the glut of volunteers for enlistment had dropped. If he wanted, now would be a sensible time to follow through, except for one thing that was holding him back.
The autumn wind blew again and the tree branches around him swayed. The yellowing tree leaves fluttered and fell to the ground. He closed his eyes and thought of the night when he and Tessa drove home after the beach, when the summer breeze blew through the car windows, carrying with it the faint scent of rose perfume.
He had left home to return to school without even saying a proper goodbye to her. At the time, he felt as awkward as ever around her. If she was someone he had just met, it would be so much easier. He wished they could start over and he could introduce himself anew. As it was now, she would probably laugh at him. She probably thought he was a close-minded prig.
Or worse, she didn’t think of him. She certainly didn’t seem like she did. The two weeks before he returned to school, all she could talk about was becoming a cadet nurse at the Veterans Hospital.
What if he told her how he felt?
His mother had warned him not to make her feel uncomfortable living with them.
What if he told her how he felt and enlisted and went away? If he was gone, she wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable. If she laughed at him and he made a fool of himself, then at least he could go off to do something honorable and regain some dignity. But if by some miracle, she didn’t laugh at him…
Across the field, two military vehicles parked alongside the road. The Army officers exited the cars and entered their campus.
He opened the cover of his book. The paper with the address and phone number of the enlistment office stared back at him.
How much longer would he have until his draft number came up?
If it did, would she be there to send him off and promise to wait for him to return? If he had to go to war, could he have that small piece of happiness?
Maybe he could. After all, she chose to become a cadet nurse. Chances were, he would have to enter service at some point whether by enlisting or by conscription. Maybe she would think more highly of him if he were off to serve too.
In his heart, he knew he would not let this rest without at least trying. He wanted her. He had never wanted something and not acted on it. Besides, with conscription looming, he would regret it if he didn’t let her know. If only he could fi
nd some way to let her know how much he wanted her to be the one waiting for him.
# # #
When Anthony returned for fall break in October, Tessa was glad he was acting normal around her again. He didn’t avoid her or keep far away from her the way he had after that night at the beach. That was a relief. After all, he was Uncle William and Aunt Sophia’s son. She had worried he might resent her presence in his own home. She didn’t exactly want him to think she was some kind of abomination.
But then he started acting strange in another way. Now he was around her all weekend. Normally, he liked to study alone in his own room. But when he saw her studying in the den, he came in there to study too. He even offered to drive her to class Friday morning. She told him she didn’t need a ride and took the bus, which she did everyday. When she started training to become a nurse at the hospital, Uncle William had offered to have his chauffeur drive her too, but she had turned him down. All the other trainees came by public transportation. She didn’t want to appear pompous.
The best news for her that weekend came from her parents. They wrote back and praised her decision to join the Cadet Nurse Corps.
“Father wished me good luck,” she told everyone at dinner. “He said if he ever gets ill, he would now have two nurses to look after him. But Mother! Good Lord. She sent me ten pages worth of advice. She sent medical books too, and she wants me to send her photos of me in my uniform.”