With Every Letter: A Novel

by Sarah Sundin

  Rose’s mouth shifted to one side. “You know what she thinks of tardiness.”

  “I don’t care. Go.”

  To her amazement, they obeyed. Mellie picked hairpins out of the dirt and put them back in her carved wooden box. How had things gotten so scattered when her bag fell only eight inches off her cot?

  A sick feeling squeezed her belly. It hadn’t fallen. Someone had done this on purpose. She’d been the victim of too many mean pranks not to recognize one.

  “Mellie.” Lieutenant Lambert stepped into the tent, eyes snapping. “I told you to be at the truck ten minutes ago.”

  “I know. There’s been an accident.” She closed her bobby pin box.

  The tent flap opened. Vera stepped in. “Excuse us, ladies. Just need to get our gear.”

  Alice wrinkled her nose at the mess. “Unlike some people, we packed ages ago.”

  Mellie pressed her lips together and scooted out of the way. She couldn’t even look at Vera since discovering her with the flight surgeon, but the other nurse acted as if nothing had happened. Had she no shame?

  Vera gasped. “Who did this?”

  “Did what?” Lieutenant Lambert went over. “What on earth?”

  Mellie peeked around them. A pile of dirt sat on Vera’s barracks bag, as if someone had emptied a bucket on top.

  “Well, I got a present.” Alice smiled and picked up a little cardboard box from her cot. She untied a ribbon, opened the box, shrieked, and tossed it aside. Bugs skittered out in all directions.

  Vera screamed and stamped on them. Mellie joined in the stamping.

  Lieutenant Lambert set her hands on her hips. “What is going on here?”

  Alice smoothed her blonde hair and sniffed. “I can’t imagine who would do such a thing.”

  “I can.” Vera’s brown eyes honed in on Mellie. “I complain about the dirt. Alice complains about the bugs. You think you’re better than us because you like dirt and bugs. As if a jungle were a good place to be raised.”

  Mellie’s jaw hung low. “You think . . . but I didn’t . . .”

  Alice poked out her chin. “You’re getting back at Vera because she told Captain Maxwell about the twigs.”

  “What? I didn’t know that was Vera.”

  “Don’t lie. I told you myself.” A challenge quirked around the corners of Vera’s eyes. She had framed Mellie because Mellie knew about the affair, even fabricated a reason for Mellie to pull the prank.

  “I’m not lying. You never told me.” But truth spun in her head. To defend herself would require revealing Vera’s motivation—her affair. That would open Mellie to charges of slander.

  “Oh, Mellie.” Lambert shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe you’d do such a thing.”

  “I didn’t.” Her fingers worked together in front of her stomach. “You have to believe me.”

  The chief rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I know is I’m tired of having to defend you.”

  Mellie’s heart plummeted to her knees and made them wobble.

  Vera spun and faced the chief. “I don’t blame you. The nonsense with Georgie and Rose, a riot on her plane, using cactus and bark and cutting off a dog’s tail, all that know-it-all jungle talk, and now this. Why is she still here?”

  “Oh! The jungle talk.” Alice waved her hand in front of her face. “Don’t forget to take your Atabrine, girls. Your mosquito netting isn’t right. Set your cot legs in cans of water. Heaven’s sake, who put her in charge?”

  “I wanted to help.” Mellie fought for breath as cruelty burned up all the oxygen in the tent.

  Vera looked down her nose at Mellie. “Well, save it, sister.”

  “No one wants her here.” Alice leaned in close to the chief. “Georgie and Rose, even Kay, they try to be nice, but it’s hard. She just doesn’t fit in.”

  Mellie sucked in a breath, hating the sobbing sound. She wrapped her arms around her belly to hold herself together, as if she could, as if she could keep her world intact.

  Pity covered Lambert’s face. “Back at Bowman Field I told you we had to work together, that I couldn’t let one nurse drag us down. When will you learn?”

  Mellie shook her heavy head back and forth, grasping for words, for breath. She had learned. Couldn’t the chief see?

  “I have to think about this.” Lieutenant Lambert marched out of the tent. “Hurry up, ladies.”

  “We will.” Vera tipped over her barracks bag and poured the dirt onto Mellie’s things on the ground. “A little dirt won’t kill you.”

  On her way out, she and Alice shared the shortest, meanest smirk.

  Mellie dropped to her knees and poked through the mess. Tears left dark divots on the ground.

  Why did it have to be this way? She’d been set up. Vera and Captain Maxwell wanted her gone, and they’d get their way.

  She lifted the brooch from Tom out of the dirt, and a sob hopped out. Was he improving? Were the antibiotics working? She brushed off the colorful stones and blew dust from the delicate setting. Never once had she worn it. Jewelry didn’t belong on the front lines.

  Just as Mellie didn’t belong in the 802nd. She was a good nurse. She’d become more open and taught herself to smile. She’d made friends. She’d even cut her hair.

  But it would never be enough. She’d never belong.

  39

  3rd General Hospital

  July 26, 1943

  “Which one of you is the Killiver?” A man in fatigues leaned in the hospital tent, wearing an arm brassard with C for Correspondent.

  Tom sat cross-legged on the hospital cot with his stationery box on his pajama-clad knees, and he sighed.

  In the next cot, a tank officer with malaria pointed his thumb at Tom. “That fella.”

  The reporter’s face lit up and he rushed to Tom’s side. “Fred Freeman, Stars and Stripes. Got a few questions for you.”

  “Sorry.” Tom gave him a polite smile. “I don’t do interviews.”

  “Ah, come on. I’ve already got my headline.” He formed his hand into a bracket and painted a banner in front of him. “‘Son Uses Father’s Murderous Skills for Good.’ Whaddya say?”

  “I say no thank you.”

  “Ah, please?” He pulled out his notepad. “Everyone’s glad you’re on our side. Hey, they even say the Italians deposed Mussolini yesterday ’cause they’re scared of you. Why bother fighting when the U.S. has MacGilliver the Killiver?”

  Tom opened his stationery box. “Sorry to disappoint you. The U.S. has Tom MacGilliver, an engineer who happened to be at the right place at the right time and did the right thing, same as any of our boys would do.”

  “That’s swell.” He scribbled on his notepad. “Right place . . . right time . . . right thing.”

  He rolled his eyes. He hadn’t meant to be quotable.

  Lieutenant Steinmetz stood at the foot of the bed in her belted GI coveralls. She put her hands on her hips. “That’s the problem with tents. They don’t keep out the rats.”

  Freeman turned to her. “Say, toots, how about a quote from you? What’s he like?”

  “My quote?” The nurse put her finger to her cheek and batted her eyes at the ceiling. “Get lost before I give you an enema.”

  Tom burst out laughing.

  “Hey, now, baby, you wouldn’t do that to me.” The reporter draped his arm over her shoulder.

  She grasped his draped arm and marched him away. “I would. There’s the door.”

  “Please, baby. I’m the first one to get in here.”

  “And the last.” She gave him a gentle shove outside.

  He leaned back in. “Come on, MacGilliver, at least tell me one thing. Did you enjoy it?”

  Tom scrunched his eyes shut. Had the reporters tortured Dad before his execution? As horrid as his father’s crimes were, Tom knew he didn’t enjoy murdering the DeVilles.

  “Get lost. Now,” the nurse said in a firm voice.

  “All right, all right.” Foot
steps shuffled away.

  “He’s gone.” Lieutenant Steinmetz smiled down at Tom. “Better?”

  He worked up a grin. “With nursing care like this, how could I not feel better?”

  She flapped her hand and walked away. “My mama warned me about charmers.”

  “Smart mama.” But he meant every word about nursing care. He had no doubt the Lord sent Annie and Mellie and Lieutenant Steinmetz. Without Mellie’s physical intervention, he might have died. Without all three women’s spiritual intervention, he might have withered.

  Tom rolled his left shoulder, pushing against the pain to regain strength and mobility. He would live for Sesame, for his mom, for Annie, to honor Mellie’s faith in him, and for the Lord.

  To live, to really live, he had to make changes.

  He pulled his mother’s latest letter out of the box and scanned her familiar script. After he heard from his grandparents, he’d taken two weeks to write his mother. Likewise, she’d delayed in replying.

  It must have been hard for her to write. In her letter she confirmed her love for Tom’s dad, her fears due to her father’s violence, her lack of mercy, and her failures as a mother. Regret flowed with every loop of her handwriting. She meant only the best, but she’d failed him. Could he forgive her?

  Tom laid a fresh sheet of stationery on the box and pulled the cap off his pen.

  My dearest, most beloved Mom,

  Of course I forgive you for wanting to protect me, even though you made some mistakes doing so. I don’t hold you accountable for my father’s failures, crimes, or death. Each man lives his own life and is responsible for his own deeds.

  Likewise, I must live my own life, responsible for my own deeds.

  I understand why you raised me to always smile and be cheerful. You meant to show the world I wasn’t my father so I could succeed.

  All my life, I’ve suppressed sadness, anger, and distress, striving to be inoffensive. Yet I offended because I would not be strong when strength was required, or angry when anger was warranted.

  This is a way to function, not to live. I want to live.

  From now on, I will mourn and rage and laugh like everyone else, true to how God made me. I will stand up for what’s right, even if I lose every friend. I will seek love, even if my heart is shattered. And I will— “Tom?”

  He looked up. A smile rose, natural and unforced. “Mellie. What brought you here?”

  “An evac flight.” A twitch of a smile, which melted into a real one. “Goodness, you look so much better.”

  “I feel better too. Come, sit down.” Tom scooted his rump back to the head of the bed, set aside his stationery box, and patted the foot of the bed. “I’m glad you came. I wanted to thank you.”

  “Thank me?” She bent to sit. She had curves in all the right places and plenty of them.

  Tom jerked his gaze back to her face where it belonged. “Yeah. Thank you. For bullying me into the hospital.”

  She smoothed her blue trousers and winked. “All in a day’s work.”

  Why did she have to be so cute? “Well, you earned your pay and then some.”

  “It’s worth it to see you healthy again.” She leaned a bit forward. “I stopped by Ponte Olivo yesterday. Sesame says to get back soon. Larry takes good care of him, but no one spoils him like you.”

  “He said that, did he?”

  “Sure did.” She gave a serious nod. “I’m multilingual.”

  Tom laughed. “Well, tell him bark, bark, woof.”

  “I don’t speak that dialect.”

  “Nothing to it. It’s all in the r’s. You’ve got to roll them around in your throat like you’re gargling.” He demonstrated.

  Mellie laughed, a lilting soprano that made him want to pull her close and kiss that fascinating mouth. “I think you need medication for that throat condition,” she said.

  Tom sat back. No, what he needed was restraint.

  She looked around, a few chuckles still escaping. “How do they treat you here?”

  “They treat me well.”

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  “How are things in your squadron?”

  The playfulness drained from her face. She pulled her clasped hands closer to her stomach. “Overall, they’re going well. We’ve had lots of flights. The commanders have finally seen the value of air evacuation.”

  “But . . .”

  She sighed and looked up to the canvas ceiling. “But it looks like I’m going home.”

  “Home? Why?”

  Mellie shook her head. “To explain would require revealing secrets, and I refuse to do that.”

  Tom leaned forward on his knees. “You don’t want to go.”

  “No.” She blinked several times. “It’s not my choice. But I think it’s for the best.”

  Tom’s breath grew choppy. How could it be for the best? Mellie was an outstanding nurse, and she always managed to be there when he needed her. And if she left . . .

  If she left, he’d lose any chance he had with her. The thought made him squeamish, but he couldn’t deny the hope that if things didn’t work out with Annie, he could pursue Mellie. Annie resisted him. What if he was wasting time in his imagination when he could hold reality? A spark of anger parched his lips.

  He swabbed his mouth with his tongue. “What do you mean ‘best’?”

  Her liquid gaze melted into his. “It just is.”

  “That doesn’t—”

  “That reminds me. I have letters for you. Kay asked if I could deliver them.” She opened her purse and pulled out four envelopes. “You’re quite the letter writer, aren’t you?”

  Mellie’s hands—hands he’d held, hands that had touched him—wrapped around Annie’s letters. Guilt contorted his insides.

  “Thanks.” He took the letters. “Sorry to inconvenience you.”

  “It’s no inconvenience.” Mellie glanced toward the tent opening. “I should go.”

  Tom shuffled in his stationery box and pulled out three envelopes. “If it isn’t an inconvenience, I have a few letters myself. Would you mind giving them to Kay?”

  “Not at all.” Her eyelashes fluttered on her cheeks.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Bye, now.” Mellie got up and headed to the tent entrance.

  What if she left the theater? What if he never saw her again? He didn’t even have her address, her hometown. “Mellie!”

  “Yes?” She turned, one hand holding back the tent flap, the other grasping his letters for Annie.

  His heart went down, but his smile went up. “Thanks again. Bye.”

  She smiled, waved, and left.

  He groaned and leaned back. The metal head rail jabbed his spine. All these years he’d mentally beaten up his father for his failings, when Tom had plenty of failings of his own.

  Annie. Annie. He loved Annie.

  To remind himself, he spread her new letters before him. One a day. In her concern and her love, she took time from her busy life to write him every day. Beautiful letters that built him up as much as she claimed he’d built her up.

  Had he really loved her before he was injured? He thought he had, but new passion pulsed in his heart. She knew him and loved him and encouraged him. If anything, she was far more real than Mellie, whom he knew only superficially.

  He wanted Annie in his life always. To have and to hold. No matter what she looked like.

  It was time to act, to force things to a head.

  He closed his eyes, shutting out the crowded, noisy, muggy hospital tent. Lord, let her see how much I love her. Convince her to trust me.

  40

  Agrigento Airfield

  Sicily

  July 30, 1943

  Mellie paused outside the tent that served as squadron headquarters, drew a shaky breath, and gazed up to the brilliant morning sky. Lambert had summoned her.

  She didn’t want to leave. Sicily enchanted her with sparkling beaches, olive groves, winding roads lined with stone walls,
and homes with trays of tomato paste drying on the roofs. A few days before, she and Georgie and Rose had visited the Valle dei Templi south of Agrigento and its ruins of seven Greek temples. She wanted to see more and to build these sweet friendships into something deep and lasting.

  Three nurses from another flight passed and shot Mellie a dirty look. Since Mellie couldn’t defend herself without exposing herself to charges of slander, Vera and Alice’s story held.

  She sighed, opened her purse, and pulled out Tom’s most recent letter, written after her visit to the hospital.

  She skipped to the last page.

  When we started this correspondence, you and I stood at opposite ends of a bridge. I was everyone’s friend. You kept to yourself. Over the past nine months, we’ve both found balance in the center.

  I’ve learned the only person I need to please is the Lord. I’m determined to be genuine and strong and stand up for what’s right, and I’ll smile only when I feel like it. In the process, I will not please everyone. That is as it should be.

  You’ve learned you can only please the Lord when you step out of yourself and offer friendship to others. You’ve had to learn to please people. But some people can’t be pleased, nor should they be.

  My love, be friendly and open, but stay true to how God made you. He created us all unique. Delight in your differences while reaching out to others.

  We both stand in the middle of the bridge, where we must meet. I hold my hand out to you and long to draw you close. It’s time, darling.

  Mellie slammed her mind shut against the final, inviting, heart-melting paragraph, and focused on the fortifying words before it.

  “Good. We get to watch her comeuppance.” Vera brushed past Mellie into the tent. Alice bumped Mellie’s shoulder as she passed.

  Mellie lifted her head. Lord, help me be merciful and kind, truthful and strong.

  Inside the tent, Lieutenant Lambert sat at a folding desk and motioned to three camp stools. “Have a seat, ladies.”

  Mellie saluted then sat, glad her hammering heart couldn’t be seen. Why wasn’t Captain Maxwell present? He’d enjoy this too.