Navy Christmas (Whidbey Island)

by Geri Krotow

* * *

  THEY MADE LOVE two more times before Serena had to return home to Pepé. Armando would be bringing him back from the movies and they were going to have a family dinner before Armando left for Seattle and his flight home to Texas.

  “When can I see you again?”

  She paused in the middle of pulling on her sock, bent over his bed as she dressed. “I don’t know. Can we take it as it comes?”

  “I’d prefer to take you as often as I can.” Her pupils dilated at his response and male satisfaction coursed through him. He didn’t know when, but at some point it had become very important that she was as turned on by him as he was by her.

  “That can be arranged, to a point.”

  “What are you doing for Christmas?”

  “On Christmas Day we’re having Emily over for brunch, after Pepé opens his gifts from Santa.”

  “What about Christmas Eve?”

  She didn’t answer right away, concentrating as she buttoned her blouse. He wanted to pull her back beside him in the bed and rip the blouse open again, make love to her all night long.

  “Jonas, I have Pepé. I can’t allow anything to distract me from that, and it’s not fair to let you think otherwise. He’s my priority.”

  “I’m not questioning that, Serena. I like Pepé a lot, and I don’t want him to get hurt, either.”

  “So you agree it’s best to keep this part of our friendship under wraps?” She scrutinized him with her lawyer stare. Those eyes missed nothing.

  “From Pepé, yes. But he’s a smart kid, Serena. He’ll know.”

  She zipped up her boots. “No, he won’t. Not if we don’t act like teenagers in front of him.”

  “I asked about Christmas Eve because my family has a dinner every year. It’s early enough that the little kids can be home in time to get ready for Santa.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Please do. Serena, we’re your family now. Pepé’s, too.”

  She looked at him and he realized, too late, that he’d overstepped, despite his intention to the contrary.

  “You’re my lover. Your family is our extended family because of Dottie. That won’t go away, and I don’t want to ruin it with our relationship, Jonas.”

  “You weren’t worried about that for the past couple of hours.”

  She blushed in the fading daylight that filtered through the plantation shutters that covered his windows.

  Her profile was angelic, but her expression fierce with the fire of a woman who knew her strength. And wasn’t afraid to use it.

  “Let me think about it,” she said again.

  * * *

  “HOW WAS YOUR AFTERNOON?” Armando kept an innocent expression on his handsome face, but Serena knew her brother. He was perfectly aware of what she’d been up to.

  “Lovely.”

  “What did you do, Mom?” Pepé spoke through a mouthful of pasta, his eyes starting to droop. Armando and Emily had spoiled him with the movie and bowling afterward. He’d fall asleep the minute he hit his cartoon pillowcase.

  “I relaxed, honey. Sometimes Mommy needs time to herself.”

  “That sounds boring.”

  “It won’t sound boring in about nine years, when you’re sixteen, niño.” Armando laughed at Pepé’s confused expression. “I’m teasing your mom, Pepé, ignore me.”

  “Yes, ignore Tío Armando. He’s a funny guy.”

  “I love you, Tío Armando!” Pepé defended Armando with sincerity. Serena and Armando laughed and Pepé joined in.

  “I love him, too, mi hijo. It’s how we show we love each other—we tease.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s nice to see you laughing again, Serena. You were too sad for too long.”

  “I know. It’s good to feel alive. But...” She wasn’t sure how much to tell Armando. Everything she told him would end up getting back to Juanita, and she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

  “Yes?”

  She looked at her brother and sent a meaningful glance toward Pepé, as in “let’s talk about this later.” Pepé was asleep, his face practically in his plate.

  Serena smiled. “You tuckered him out.”

  “We did. Your friend Emily is very energetic.”

  “Maybe I should be asking you how your afternoon was?”

  “Oh, no. You know me. I’m a bachelor for life. Women, they complicate things.”

  Serena ignored him. She saw how his eyes lit up when she said Emily’s name.

  “Do you want to put Pepé to bed, since you’ll be leaving?”

  “Of course.”

  She walked behind him as he carried the sleeping boy into his room and laid him on his twin bed.

  “I’ll miss him. He’s a great boy, Serena.”

  “He misses you, too. You’re his favorite uncle.”

  They walked back into the kitchen and she made Armando a cup of coffee for the road. He was flying back to Texas the next day.

  “Tell Mama I’m fine, and Pepé and I will visit this summer once school’s out. I promise.”

  “I will. She’s over it, you know.”

  “Over what?”

  “You leaving, taking her grandson away from her. She understands.”

  Serena didn’t reply. Her relationship with her mother had never been easy. They loved each other, but because they were so much alike they needed time apart, too.

  Armando drained his cup.

  “Okay, sister. Take good care of yourself and don’t be a stranger. And remember, life’s short. If you find a chance at happiness again, don’t hold back.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I know you, Serena. You think you have to work your ass off for a chance at the good life. Sometimes it gets handed to you and I’d hate to see you turn down a great offer because of your screwed-up early years.” He smiled, and she laughed.

  It was an ongoing joke in their family that Serena’s four years with her mother, before the other kids came along, were Juanita’s “messed-up years.” The time after their mother got married and gave Serena brothers and sisters were the “normal” years.

  “Got it. Don’t you suppose I’ve already done that, moving out here, finding my roots?”

  “Sure, but you know I’m not talking about your biological father. I’m talking about Jonas. He’s not a man to take lightly.”

  “You met him for one night, very briefly, Armando.”

  “Men know men. Trust me.”

  He gave her a warm hug and kissed her cheek.

  “Tell Pepé I’m going to teach him how to fly a kite the next time I’m out here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Whidbey Island

  Early November 1945

  SARAH ASTONISHED HERSELF with her patience. Or was it stupidity?

  The envelope lay unopened on the kitchen table, right where she’d placed it after Charles left.

  She coughed as the dust she was beating out of her rag rug blew into her face. Dottie played on the tire swing that hung from the lone oak tree in the front yard, from which Sarah had stretched a clothesline to the back porch post on the corner of the house. Her father had promised to put up poles for her, but steel was scarce.

  “Five more minutes, Dottie!” she yelled over to her precious little girl.

  Henry was going to make it back. She refused to let the fear creep in again—the voice that reminded her of all the diseases he might not survive while he was in a hospital. They had a daughter to raise, and Dottie needed a sibling. She was going to end up spoiled if she remained her parents’ only grandchild.

  “Nooooo, Momma!” Point proven. Dottie would settle for nothing less than twenty-four hours a day on that swing.

  The package
whispered to her, as did the letter she felt in its folds. Like a child on Christmas morning, she’d let her fingers touch, then grope the letter, desperate to know what was inside.

  Afraid of it, too.

  She never thought of herself as superstitious. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to open it. If it was the last thing she ever got from Henry, she wanted to wait as long as possible, as if to prolong his life.

  “Stop it.” She scolded herself for her worries about him dying. Charles Dempsey had said Henry was really sick, but he had every hope for a full recovery. She should, too.

  The sun was starting to peek from behind the clouds and she was glad she’d made the effort to get the rug out here. It was one of the many things she’d made through the long nights that were her life since the war began.

  Now it was ending, but it hadn’t for her, or for Henry. It wouldn’t be over until he was home with them again.

  “Time to come in, Dottie!”

  Dottie didn’t stop immediately her swinging, but waited for the tire to slow into little whirls, first counterclockwise and then clockwise.

  Sometimes Sarah would go down to the swing and push her a little longer, or sit on the ground and talk to her. Dottie was almost nine years old and full of life and imagination. Sarah didn’t want to miss a minute of it, or at least that was how she felt when she first woke up in the morning. After a day at work and then a few hours of housework that included making dinner, she was ready to crawl under her covers as soon as Dottie was in bed for the night. As if going to sleep early would somehow make the days go faster, bring Henry home sooner.

  She lugged the heavy rug up the short distance of lawn to the front porch, then dragged it into the house.

  “Momma, is the rug all sunny now?”

  Sarah laughed. It was a joke from when Dottie was younger. When she’d believed what her grandmother said—“the sun goes in and the dust goes out.”

  “Yes, well, it’s sunny all right. It’s as clean as I’m going to get it for now.”

  “We’re almost ready for Daddy to come home, Momma!”

  Dottie made Sarah drop the rug and return the exuberant embrace that she gave her mother.

  Sarah’s smile froze. Had she been wrong to encourage Dottie’s belief that Henry was indeed returning home from the war?

  All the other men on island had come back—she’d heard from friends or read it in the paper. All except for Henry. The War Department had sent a notification that had arrived a week after Charles’s visit, informing her that Henry was under rehabilitation in the Marianas and would be moved home as soon as he was physically able. The same things Charles had reported.

  The letter had listed his maladies—dysentery, malnutrition, fatigue.

  From what Charles had described, Henry was in a lot of pain that wouldn’t ease until his bones and muscles got healthy again.

  “What’s for dinner, Momma?”

  “Potato soup, sweetheart.”

  As she dished up the vegetable chowder, she wished she was filling a bowl for Henry, too.

  “Can we open the package, Momma?”

  Yes, they could. But should they?

  “I suppose so. Maybe after dinner?”

  “I’m going to finish my whole bowl!” Dottie slurped up a large spoonful of her soup, her eyes closed as if she were eating her favorite dessert.

  Sarah knew better. Dottie had it in her head that the package was a Christmas gift from her father. Sarah wanted to save her daughter the disappointment when they found only a letter or maybe a photo. There couldn’t be a toy in the package for Dottie.

  Or could there?

  Before her irritatingly logical self could grab hold, Sarah put down her spoon and reached for the square packet that had occupied their kitchen table for the better part of a week.

  The brown paper was smooth under her fingers, as if it had a coating of wax on it, not unlike the butcher paper her father used to wrap up chicken or deer after he cut it up for freezing.

  Tears filled her eyes as her imagination went wild. This had been touched by Henry, and now she and Sarah were touching it, touching Henry.

  It was a poor substitute for the husband she so dearly loved, but it was all they had.

  “Here, help me.”

  Dottie needed no further incentive to slide out of her chair and hurry over to Sarah’s side, her hands reaching out to finger the package.

  “Can I untie the string?”

  “Sure, sweetie. If the knot’s too tight we’ll use the scissors.”

  The scissors were another joke between mother and daughter. When Dottie was six she’d snuck them out of Sarah’s sewing-table drawer and given her doll and herself a new hairdo. Dottie’s bangs had taken months to grow back and her school photo from that year showed her bald forehead in stark contrast to her long, curly, shoulder-length hair.

  Dottie’s face puckered in concentration and Sarah bit back a laugh at her daughter’s intensity. It came straight from Sarah’s mother, this ability to focus her energy in such a fierce beam of determination.

  “This is a tough one.”

  “Yes, it is, honey. Do you want to get the scissors?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Sarah was impressed by the level of self-control Dottie was demonstrating. Not just for a nine-year-old, but for a girl who would become a young woman in less time than Henry had been gone.

  So much time had passed.

  “Look, Momma, I got it!”

  As Sarah eyed the frayed string, a jolt of understanding made her start. They might very well be looking at the last communication from Henry. She put her hand on her chest, against her pounding heart.

  Don’t think like that.

  She couldn’t help it. Weak as Charles had described Henry as being, Sarah knew it wouldn’t take a lot to make him ill again, too ill to move. And the longer he stayed on some Pacific island, away from the States...

  “Why did you click your teeth, Momma?”

  She’d clenched her teeth at the shudder that had raced through her, but she wasn’t about to reveal that to Dottie.

  “I’m just excited, is all.”

  The string fell away and Sarah turned the package over so that Dottie could open the folded flaps.

  A layer of thin tissue paper covered what was inside. Once it was opened, Sarah held a couple of photographs, a letter and an intricately woven angel. She recognized that palm fronds, similar to the ones used at Palm Sunday service, had been used to make this small ornament.

  “Let’s put this all on the table.” Her hands shook so badly she didn’t trust them not to drop the precious cargo.

  “Is it a toy, Momma?”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s a Christmas ornament.”

  “Look, it has a place to hang it from.” Dottie smiled.

  “Yes, we can hang it on the tree next month.” She was hardly aware of murmuring the words as she opened the letter that had her name scrawled across it. Henry’s handwriting was distinct and she had no doubt he’d written the words, but as Charles had warned her, his writing was shaky, as though his hands barely had the strength to form the words.

  September 6, 1945 LST-19

  My Dearest Sarah,

  I’m onboard a Navy vessel on my way to the Marianas. I don’t want you or Dottie to worry about me. The Navy nurses are wonderful and the doctors will fix me up real soon.

  Forgive my writing. We didn’t do a lot of writing in the prison camp. There is a fine Navy sailor helping me write this to you. His name is Charles Dempsey and he has promised to get this posted to you and Dottie as soon as he’s back Stateside. I daresay he’ll beat me there, as my legs need a little time to get their strength back.

  We’ve made it, Sarah! The war is over and we
won. I’ll be able to join you and Dottie back on our farm soon. Remember how I used to complain about how I missed Texas and my hometown? I still think of it fondly, but all I’ve missed these past four years has been you, Dottie and our home on Whidbey Island. It’s like heaven in my mind, with the water and mountains all around. I can’t wait to see how Dottie likes to pick the raspberries and marionberries at the edges of our property.

  I know you’ve done an amazing job with everything and I’m so proud of you. I’m not the man I was when I left for the war, but I hope you’ll love me just the same.

  Until we meet again, know I love you with all my heart. I’m giving you a photo of the sailor who has been so kind to me, in case he shows up at your door. His name is Petty Officer Charles Dempsey. He’s from Dubuque, Iowa. I don’t want you to be afraid. Also, he will give you a photo of me. Don’t worry about my bruises. They will be healed by the time you read this.

  I carved a little tiger plane for Dottie when I was shot down, but it didn’t make it this far. I’ll carve her another one once I’m home. I’m enclosing a little angel one of the nurses helped me make for her. It comes with all my love for you both. I can’t wait to be home with my two angels.

  I’m counting the hours until I hold you in my arms again, my darling Sarah.

  All my love and affection,

  Henry

  Sarah reread the letter at least five times before she put it down on the table next to the photograph of Charles Dempsey in his Navy uniform. He’d looked much the same in his civilian clothes when he’d visited the farmhouse. The war had been kind to him, physically at least.

  The photo of Henry took her breath away. Confirmation that he was alive ran through her, thrilling her, making the hair on her forearms prickle with anticipation at his return.

  Familiar dread that he might not make it back alive quickly replaced her excitement. The photo was Henry, no question, as he sat up against what she assumed to be the wall of a hospital, or maybe a tent wall, the low back headboard of the bed he was on supporting his torso. His hair was gone, as if he’d been shaved with a razor right through an entire layer of his skin. She made out marks on his scalp, lines on his face and neck that could be cuts. The photo was too grainy to reveal enough information.