Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion

by Karen White

  Ella had nothing and would not know a soul—except him. She simply had nothing to lose. She could not be dependent on him, any more than her father. But she could go.

  Rest, it appeared, would be another step away. She pulled the bracelet from her pocket and stepped toward the door of the shop.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My gratitude as always goes first to my family—without them this amazing journey would be neither possible nor worthwhile. Deepest thanks to editor Cindy Hwang and everyone at Berkley, and agent Scott Hoffman at Folio for their time and attention to my work. And much love to the Grand Central sisters, especially Kris McMorris, for including me in the most exciting project of my writing career.

  The Harvest Season

  KAREN WHITE

  To my nephew, First Lieutenant Gavin White. Your bravery in service to your country and your strength and determination in the face of adversity are an inspiration.

  1

  Journeys end in lovers meeting. Shakespeare’s words tumbled with my own inside my head, pushing aside the panic that had been building since I’d left Mississippi. Like the tiny seeds inside a cotton boll, my guilt and worry would have to be plucked out before the panic could go away.

  My heels clicked across the marble floor of New York’s Grand Central Terminal as I jostled past servicemen and their stuffed duffel bags as they were embraced by a mother, a father. A lover. Cigarette smoke hovered thickly, stinging my eyes. I blinked, focusing instead on the feeling of the telegram I’d tucked into the wrist of my glove.

  The paper had been folded and unfolded so many times that a hole had started to form at the center crease. There’d been no need to bring it with me; I’d memorized every word even though it had not been addressed to me. Will had sent it to Indianola to his father, letting him know that Will was finally coming home. A home I was afraid he wouldn’t recognize.

  SHIP ARRIVAL EXPECTED SEPT 19 WILL STAY WITH FRIEND IN CITY IF EARLY STOP IF YOU STILL PLAN TO COME TO NYC AND RETURN HOME WITH ME MEET ME AT THE CLOCK ON THE 21st AT 5 PM IN THE CENTER OF MAIN TERMINAL STOP LOVE WILL

  I clutched my carpetbag in my gloved hands. The kid gloves matched the smart tweed suit I wore—complete with silk stockings that I refused to feel guilty about—purchased four years before at Bergdorf Goodman on my last trip to New York with my mother. I’d never worn either the gloves or the suit, nor any of the other beautiful things purchased on that trip. This one suit had been a recent and furtive token from my mother. The rest of the clothes had remained in a trunk in my closet in my girlhood bedroom at Oak Alley, folded neatly with tissue paper and tucked in alongside the dreams of the places I’d once imagined wearing them. Three years is a lifetime when each minute is measured by all the things that have been lost.

  I stopped near the information booth in the center of the main terminal and looked at the round face of the brass clock that protruded from the middle, an acorn perched incongruously at the top. Ten more minutes to stop my hands from shaking.

  I began to people-watch to distract my thoughts. Grand Central was busier than I’d ever seen it on my yearly shopping and theater trips with my mother, the war’s end bringing an influx of soldiers and sailors through the cavernous space where the voices of so many people roiled and bounced against the arched ceilings and stone walls. Strangers jostled each other as they hurried in myriad directions toward the arched entranceways and ramps that lead to the tracks. Men with red caps scurried after harried passengers, clutching valises and hatboxes as they headed toward track number thirty-four where the elegant and luxurious Twentieth Century Limited waited.

  It was darker inside the terminal, and not just from the fog that had closed around the city like a soft fist. The large arched windows on the east and west ends had been painted black to protect the city’s icon from possible air attacks, and the paint hadn’t yet been completely removed. I half expected the enormous American flag hanging beneath a row of half-moon windows to be frayed around the edges like the lives of so many of her citizens.

  It was as if New York’s Grande Dame was stained, her beauty hidden by the pall of war. Despite the joy of the war’s end, people wore the strain of the past four years like battle scars. For Will and so many others, the long journey home was only just the beginning.

  I set down my bag, the raw skin on my knuckles and palms burning even with my gloves to protect them. My hands had once been declared in the Greenwood Commonwealth to be the creamiest and softest in all of Sunflower County. But those hands and the girl I’d once been no longer existed. And I’d long grown past the need to lament their passing.

  Clasping my hands neatly in front of me, I began to search the crowd in earnest, hoping to spot Will before he saw me. I had the advantage. He was well over six feet, and I was a good foot shorter. And he wouldn’t be looking for me because he had no idea that I was there.

  I watched as a well-to-do businessman in a suit and hat approached a young man in an Air Force uniform and offered his hand. The young man dropped his duffel and grabbed the older man in a bear hug, knocking the hat from his head. The businessman scrambled to pick it off the floor and replace it on his head, but not before I’d seen his smile and the dampness in his eyes.

  Still smiling, I turned my head slightly to the right and stopped. Stopped breathing, and hearing, and seeing the people walking past me. Everything seemed a blur of color except for the single image of Will Claiborne walking toward me in his olive drab Army dress uniform, his First Lieutenant silver bars on his shoulders, his dark brown hair nearly hidden by his cap. Ribbons decorated the left breast of his jacket; a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, a European Theater ribbon. A Purple Heart.

  But this wasn’t Will Claiborne. The man approaching me was a new version of the boy I’d known since I was tall enough to climb the fence that separated our families’ properties. It was as if his youthful face had been fired in an oven, removing all softness and replacing it with harsh angles and a pair of hazel eyes that burned as if still remembering the fire.

  I had time to see all this, to study him, as I watched him move around the information booth in search of his father, then finally come to a stop only five feet away from me.

  Clutching the handle of the carpetbag, I opened my mouth to speak. “Will.”

  The word was immediately absorbed into the jangling air around me, bounced between passersby before falling, unheard, to the floor.

  He turned his back to me as if preparing to make another trip around the information booth. “Will,” I shouted, louder this time, desperate to be heard because I didn’t think I’d find the strength to say his name one more time.

  His shoulders stiffened inside his jacket before he slowly turned toward me. “Ginny,” he said, too soft for me to hear. But I remembered the sound of my name on his lips.

  “Hello, Will.”

  I hadn’t expected him to embrace me, or even to smile. But I hadn’t expected the coldness that filtered into his eyes.

  “Where’s Tug?” he asked.

  My carefully prepared words deserted me, my frayed nerves coming undone in the babble springing from my lips. “He couldn’t come. That’s why I’m here. Our train doesn’t leave until six. Why don’t we go get something to eat so I can explain. There’s a terrific oyster restaurant . . .”

  “Where’s Tug?” he asked again as if I hadn’t said a word.

  My hands began to shake again. I stepped closer so I wouldn’t have to shout. “Your daddy had a stroke in January. A bad one. Amos found him by the cotton shed when he didn’t come for supper. He hadn’t been doing so well after Johnny . . .” Johnny. There. I’d said his name in front of Will and I hadn’t split down the middle. Will’s eyes never changed. I continued. “After we heard about Johnny being killed in action.”

  “How bad?” he asked, his voice emotionless.

  “He can’t walk, or speak. But his mind is sharp. H
e knows what’s going on, and can nod or shake his head. He wanted to be here to greet you so badly and make the trip back home with you. He couldn’t, so he asked me.” There was so much more I needed to tell him, but he needed time to absorb each blow. It’s why I’d agreed to the trip. Despite the troubled waters that rippled between us, I owed him this one last kindness.

  “Your mama and daddy let you come all this way by yourself?” His disbelief was belied by a grudging look of admiration.

  “My daddy has no say in my life anymore. Mama offered to give me money for the tickets, but I told her I was paying for them myself.” I took a deep breath. “I sold your engagement ring to upgrade our tickets for our first leg on the Twentieth Century Limited, and for my stay last night at the Biltmore. It was a splurge, but it’s where Mama and I always stayed when we came.” I blushed, realizing that some of the old Ginny remained, stubbornly clinging like a child to his mother’s hem.

  Will hoisted his duffel onto his back as if preparing to leave. “I’m sorry you wasted your time. I’d rather hitchhike all the way to Mississippi than spend five minutes in your company, much less two days on a train.”

  I touched his sleeve, the one with the three yellow bars lined up one after the other. One for each six-month period he’d spent in a combat zone, never once returning home. I could tell he wanted to jerk away, but I held on.

  “I promised your mama and daddy that I would bring you back safe and sound. And if you decide to hitchhike, then I guess I’ll just have to hitchhike right along beside you.”

  He looked down the length of me to my calfskin wedge-heeled sandals, his expression an odd mixture of anger and amusement. And uncertainty. The corner of his mouth lifted. “That’s tempting enough to take you seriously.”

  There’d once been a time when I would have pouted or stamped my foot, but the desire was long gone, replaced by the need to show Will that I was a different girl than the one he’d left behind. Kneeling down in front of my carpetbag, I opened it and removed the paper-wrapped package that I’d carefully placed on top, right next to the folded letter I’d brought to give to Will. If I found the courage.

  Standing again, I handed him the package. He unwrapped it slowly, revealing a dark blue bottle that had once contained sarsaparilla purchased at the state fair. “From Lucille?” he asked, his voice thick.

  I smiled weakly. “She took it off her bottle tree and told me to give it to you if you gave me any trouble. It’s supposed to help you focus on getting home as quickly as possible.” I paused. “She said you can smell the Mississippi mud inside, which is guaranteed to make you homesick.” I recalled the scent of the lye soap she used to scrub the floors that clung to her skin like a dress, and the tears slipping down her dark face as she’d handed me the bottle.

  He stared hard at the blue bottle and smiled for the first time. He lifted the lip of the bottle to his nose and sniffed. “I think she might be right about the Mississippi mud.” Carefully, he wrapped the bottle and handed it back to me to repack. “Can I see the train tickets?”

  With relief, I twisted open the clasp on my pocketbook and slid out the tickets, hesitating only a moment before handing them to Will. “I’ve already worked out the train schedule for the next two legs of the trip once we reach Chicago. I figured we could purchase the tickets once we arrive at each depot so we could be more flexible on times . . .”

  I stopped speaking as Will stepped away from me and toward a young couple at the information booth. It was an Army private and a beautiful, dark-haired girl with a bright gold band gracing the fourth finger of her left hand. They turned to Will as he approached.

  “Did I overhear you saying you’re headed to Chicago?” he asked.

  The man—barely older than a boy—smiled. “Yes, sir. I’m bringing my new bride to meet my family. She’s French.”

  I watched with growing trepidation as Will studied the soldier’s service ribbons and division patch. “You were at Normandy?”

  “Yes, sir. First Infantry. Omaha Beach. We were in the thick of it.”

  “Yes, you were,” Will agreed, an odd smile on his face, and I knew what he was about to do. He handed them the tickets. “Here’s a wedding gift to you and your bride. Best of luck to you both.”

  The soldier stared at the tickets in his hand, the Twentieth Century Limited logo emblazoned on the top along with a picture of the train at the bottom, and his eyes widened with recognition. “Thank you. Thank you, sir!” he said, his free hand squeezing his bride closer to his side. He was still thanking Will as Will walked away toward me.

  “Too refined for me. I hope you don’t mind,” he said, assuming I would. He began walking toward the ticket counters. “I guess we’ll need to buy two train tickets home.”

  I looked over at the exuberant couple who were still embracing and speaking rapidly in a mixture of French and English, and I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry. I hoisted my bag and followed Will to the ticket windows, refusing to complain. Will was alive, and I was going to bring him home, and it was enough.

  He didn’t acknowledge me as I stood at his side in the line; rather, he stared stoically in front of him. My hands stung, but I wouldn’t let him know it. One thing at a time.

  My thoughts were distracted by a flash of yellow from the corner of my eye, the color a surprise in the wash of mostly browns and grays. It was a young girl wearing a crumpled silk dress and carrying a small suitcase, her hat as weary as her face. She was walking quickly, and as she passed where we stood in line she began to run toward one of the track entranceways shouting, “David!”

  I watched until she’d disappeared from view, hoping from the earnestness in her eyes that she would find him in time.

  Will’s voice startled me. I glanced up to find those eyes, both familiar and not, staring at me. “Thinking about home is what got me through the war. Please don’t ruin my memories now by talking about my brother.”

  I thought of the letter nestled against the bottle in my carpetbag, wondering now what my purpose had been in bringing it. What my purpose had been to even come to New York.

  We remained silent except for the words necessary to navigate our route, and then to hurry down the ramp to the platform where our train waited, our tickets for the slower and less opulent Wolverine clasped in our hands. We boarded our train, preparing for the long journey home, both of us thinking about all the things that had changed in the last three years. And all that had not.

  2

  We changed trains in Chicago, embarking on the City of New Orleans, and again in Mississippi where the colored passengers, even soldiers in uniform, had to ride in the seating areas of the baggage car. Things changed slowly in the South, and sometimes one had to wonder if things ever changed at all. Some say it was the oppressive heat that slowed any kind of momentum. And as we traveled farther and farther south, I was tempted to agree.

  On the way to Chicago on the first leg of the trip, Will did not speak to me except to find our way to our seats and then later to seek out the dining car. We joined a woman wearing a large, feathered hat and dining alone at one of the communal dining tables. She kept staring at us, assuming by our silence that we were having a lover’s spat. At least Will’s concentration on his food meant I could watch him, could study him as he ate, could be thankful for each breath he took.

  The woman finished and left while we were halfway through our dessert, and Will watched her leave, his fingers drumming on the table just as he’d done as a boy when he was working up his courage. He put down his fork. “Why did you really come to New York, Ginny? It couldn’t have been just to let me know about my daddy. You could have told me that in a letter or a telegram.”

  Because I need to tell you a secret. I took a sip of water. “Because Tug asked me to. And I . . .” I faltered. And I’ve missed you so much, but I couldn’t tell anybody because you were no longer mine. “There’s some
thing you need to know . . .” I started, each word heavier than the last.

  “What happened to your hands?” he asked softly.

  He’d been so busy ignoring me that I’d forgotten to try and hide them. “I’ve been helping out. In the house and around the farm. Sometimes in the fields if Amos needs me.”

  He reached out and took my hands in his, turning the reddened palms up to face him. “You’ve been working in the fields?”

  I nodded. “But I’m glad, Will. Glad to be useful, to contribute for the first time in my life.”

  Slowly, he placed my hands on the table, leaving me bereft. “I suppose that’s a better use of your time.”

  I flushed, remembering. “It was only a kiss, meant to make you jealous.” I paused, feeling as if I were talking about a stranger. Which, I supposed, I was. “I knew how Johnny felt about me, and how easy it would be to hurt you. I was just a stupid, stupid girl.”

  “Yes, you were.” Will had never been one to strain his words through a filter.

  “And you went straight to the enlistment office and signed up. Then you were gone. You didn’t give me a chance to tell you that I was sorry. That I loved you.” That I still do. I looked down at the slim gold wedding band I still wore on my left hand even though Johnny had been dead for over a year. “Things have changed, Will. I’ve changed. There are things I need to tell you . . .”

  He stood, swaying with weariness. “I’m tired, and I’m done fighting battles. I just want to go home.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, as if trying to erase the past few years. “Please, Ginny. Just leave me be.”

  I breathed in deeply, tasting disappointment and relief, and placed my napkin on the table. Will helped me stand, then escorted me to my sleeping berth before leaving me after a brusque good-night.

  I watched him walk down the corridor, knowing now how useless my words would be. He’d survived the war, and that would have to be enough for all of us for now. He’d see the changes soon enough, recognize them as a shedding of skin, and a leaving behind of an old life.