Ribbon of Years

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  Somewhere around midnight, Miriam was forced to open the door or suffocate. Afterward, she returned to the cot and lay down, staring upward in the darkness. Tears slipped from her eyes and slid across her temples and into her hair. She didn't bother to wipe them away. They were falling too fast. Her throat hurt and so did her chest.

  Her folks would know what she'd done by now. They would know she'd run away from home. They would know she took money from the cash register. They'd be disappointed in her.

  Would they guess where she was headed? If they didn't, she supposed Jacob would tell them. The snitch.

  I hate you. I'll hate you forever.

  No, she didn't hate Jacob. Not really. He could make her madder than all get-out, but she couldn't hate him. He couldn't help being the way he was, any more than she could help being the way she was.

  She heard the sound of a squeaking door hinge, then footsteps on the wooden floor outside. A man's footsteps, not a woman's. Coming closer.

  Miriam sat up on the cot and turned toward the open door to the storeroom. Should she try to close it? There was a lock. If she moved quickly, she might—

  A light came on in the kitchen. There was a moment of silence, then the approaching footsteps again. Fear squeezed the air from her lungs. Suddenly, he was there, framed in the doorway, a large black silhouette—sinister, threatening.

  What do you want? Panic silenced her question before it could claw its way from her throat.

  "Miriam Gresham—"

  Even in her terrified state, she recognized Officer Tucker's voice.

  "You're under arrest."

  JULIANNA

  SUMMER 2001

  CHAPTER SIX

  I SUCKED IN A TINY GASP. "HE ARRESTED HER?

  "Yup," the old man said with a chuckle. "Del trussed Miriam up and hauled her back to River Bluff, giving her a piece of his mind the whole way." He shook his head. "She wouldn't admit it at first, not for years actually, but she was mighty glad to see him. Later on, she figured that all-night-long lecture was worth being rescued from her own stupidity."

  "Did she ever make it to Hollywood?"

  "No, she never did."

  "That's too bad. She wanted it so much."

  I considered the dreams I used to have for my future. In high school, I wanted a career in journalism. I planned to go to the university for four years. After that, I imagined I would travel the world, on assignment for one of the country's major newspapers.

  Only before any of that happened, I met Leland and fell in love. I delayed starting college for a year so we could marry. It seemed worth it at the time. But an unexpected pregnancy put an end to my lofty plans, once and for all.

  "Guess you didn't know Miriam very well," the old man said, interrupting my thoughts.

  "No. I didn't know her at all. I . . . I came for the preview, and when I saw the box and read what was written on the top, my curiosity got the better of me and I . . . " I let my babbling explanation fade into silence, feeling guilty for opening this box of memories.

  "Miriam would've wanted you to look. She—"

  The sitting-room door opened, interrupting him and drawing our gazes.

  A woman who looked to be in her mid-sixties was the first to enter. Pleasantly plump with thinning light brown hair, she grinned broadly when she saw us. "Jacob!" she exclaimed. "You're early!"

  Miriam's Jacob? I should have guessed.

  Jacob stood. "Hello, Sally." He looked beyond. "Sean. Christy. Glad you're here."

  Sean was a handsome man, about my age, with graying hair near his temples. I had the feeling I should know him, but I couldn't think from where.

  Christy was young enough to be Sean's daughter, although I saw no family resemblance. Petite with pixie-short, spiky brown hair, she wore bright yellow shorts and a white tank top.

  "Come in and sit down." Jacob motioned toward the chairs. "I was telling—" He stopped abruptly, eyebrows raised as he looked at me. "Sorry. Guess I didn't get your name."

  "Julianna Crosby," I answered, certain I should leave these friends to their memories. I opened my mouth to make my excuses, but I was too late.

  "It's nice to meet you, Julianna." Sean offered a warm smile, and again I thought I should know him.

  As he sank onto his chair, Jacob continued, "I was telling Julianna about Miriam and the things in her life box."

  The others smiled and nodded as if they shared a secret. The next thing I knew, we were all seated around that small coffee table.

  "I remember thinking," Christy said, "the first time I saw these things, what a strange collection of junk it was."

  My curiosity took over. I glanced at Jacob and asked, "Why did she pick these particular things?"

  "Guess it's obvious it wasn't for their monetary value." He winked at me. "No, Miriam chose 'em for personal reasons. Things she learned. Precious memories." He lifted the faded service cap from the box, then let it drape through the fingers of his right hand. "Some of the lessons she learned came hard. Not just for her, but for the whole country."

  "Was that cap yours?" I asked softly.

  "No, it belonged to her husband, Del."

  "Del?" My surprised gaze moved from Jacob to the others and back again. "The cop?"

  Jacob chuckled. "Yup."

  "How did that happen?"

  "She grew up." He shrugged, then looked at the cap again. "Once she did, Del fell for her hard, and he wasn't about to let her get away, even though she was livin' here in Boise at the time. He was as dogged in his courtship of her as he was in pursuit of any criminal. Miriam never had a chance."

  "But why did she choose him and not you?" I regretted the question the instant it was out of my mouth.

  Jacob didn't seem to mind. "Plenty of reasons, I suppose. For one thing, I think she always saw me more as a brother and couldn't get past that. But mostly, it was 'cause those two were just plain meant to be together." He stroked the cap. "'Course I didn't realize it back then."

  MIRIAM

  SPRING 1944

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MIRIAM TUCKER LOCKED THE FRONT DOOR OF THE MAIN STREET Pharmacy, then slipped the key into her pocketbook before starting down the sidewalk toward home.

  Her parents' home, she amended, feeling a sting of resentment. Nearly twenty-three, married, and still in River Bluff, living with her mother while running her father's drugstore.

  She pressed her lips together and quickened her footsteps.

  Main Street was deserted as dusk settled over River Bluff. Not a single automobile in sight. There was rarely a car in sight these days. The war and gas rationing had seen to that. What gasoline there was in River Bluff was For Farmers Only, as the sign on the Texaco pump said.

  Essential use.

  Miriam was sick to death of phrases like that. She was sick to death of never being able to do anything fun or go anywhere exciting. She was sick of going bare-legged in summer and winter because she couldn't buy hosiery. She was sick of the sameness of every day. She was sick of living in a town where the only males were schoolboys and old men. She was sick of scrap drives and fat collection drives and rubber drives and every other kind of drive. She was sick of food rationing, of not being able to have something particular to eat because the family had no ration coupon for it. She was sick of using things up, wearing things out, making things do, or doing without.

  "Oh, Miriam! Miriam Tucker, wait!"

  She cringed at the sound of Grace Finch's voice, but she stopped and turned.

  Holding on to her ridiculous-looking hat, Grace hurried across the street, her face turning red from the exertion. "How are you, dear?"

  "Fine, Mrs. Finch. And you?"

  "Fair to middlin'. My back's been bothering me a lot lately, but I can't complain."

  But you will, won't you?

  "Dr. Carson says there just isn't anything more he can do for me. It's age, he says, and he can't stop that. He doesn't understand how much it pains me to sit and play the organ."


  And you don't know how much it pains me to listen to you play.

  "Any news?" Grace asked, not needing to explain her question. Everybody understood those words these days.

  "We had a letter from my dad yesterday." Miriam turned and started walking with long, determined strides.

  Grace fell in beside her. "Is Frank still in Portland?"

  "Yes."

  "It must be awful for him, living and working so far from home. Heaven knows what sort of housing he's found. I understand it's the same across the country. Men living in tar-paper shacks, and heaven forbid, women too. It's positively shameful the way so many wives and mothers are working in those war plants when their place is at home. My goodness, the sacrifices we've had to make in the war effort."

  Miriam said nothing.

  "Of course, it's far worse for our boys at the front, isn't it? You must be grateful your husband is stateside. I'm sure the army's glad to have him training their recruits. Del was always good with the young people of this town." Grace waved at Gard Holbright as he left the bank, then turned her attention once more to Miriam. "Where did you say Del was stationed?"

  "I didn't say," Miriam replied tersely. "Loose lips sink ships."

  Grace didn't have the good sense to know she'd been insulted. Instead, she laughed. "You're so right, my dear." She patted Miriam's arm. "Well, here's my corner. Give my best to your mother. I'll catch up on news about Arledge next time I see her." She scurried down the street, once again holding on to her hat with one hand, as if she were moving so fast she feared it would blow off her head.

  Anger and frustration surged in Miriam's heart.

  Fat old busybody.

  She turned her face heavenward and demanded, "Why did You do this to me? It isn't fair." Then she continued toward home.

  But even in a foul mood, she recognized that God hadn't created a world war just to cause trouble for Miriam Tucker, even if it did feel that way.

  She sighed as her thoughts drifted backward in time. It helped to search out the good memories, to remind herself that there had been better times, that her life hadn't always been like this, that her husband and her brother hadn't always been in the military, that her father hadn't always lived five hundred miles from home, that she hadn't always been stuck in River Bluff, working at the drugstore and living with her mother.

  No, it hadn't always been like this. She remembered . . .

  The summer she graduated from high school, Miriam moved to Boise. She found employment as a switchboard operator for the state government and rented a small apartment with two other young women. Away from her parents' watchful eyes, she stopped going to church, usually because she was dancing until all hours on Saturday nights and was too tired on Sunday mornings to get out of bed before noon.

  Oh, the fun she had! She particularly enjoyed the men who came calling, trying to win her affections. Like a cat turned loose in a creamery, Miriam lapped up their adoration, accepting their gifts and flowers as if they were her due.

  She received three proposals of marriage before the end of her first year in the capital city. Not that she seriously considered accepting any of them. Not for a moment.

  And then, one Saturday afternoon in the fall of 1940, Del Tucker appeared on her front porch. To this day she wasn't certain when he had changed from being the stern older officer of the law into the handsome suitor who was destined to steal her heart. She seemed to forget it was Del who'd arrested her and taken her back to River Bluff, humiliated and chagrined only a few years earlier.

  Their courtship—and later, their engagement—was slow and old-fashioned. Del drove to Boise on his days off, and Miriam visited River Bluff on the weekends, ostensibly to see her parents, but everyone in town knew it was so she and Del could spend more time together. Every moment they were apart was torturous for Miriam.

  She could still recall the joy she felt when Del told her his application to the Boise Police Department had been accepted. His new job was to start right after the new year, in January 1942.

  Miriam and Del were married on November 15, three weeks and a day before Pearl Harbor. Blissfully unaware of what the future had in store, they settled into an apartment in Boise, certain that love was all they needed to be happy forever.

  But Del never started with the Boise police force. Instead, he enlisted in the United States Army and was gone from Idaho—and from his wife's side—before they were married four months.

  Miriam stopped when she reached the sidewalk that led to the Gresham front door. Through a blur of unwelcome tears, she stared at the house while wishing she could hit something. Anything! Better yet, she'd like to take a sock at a few hardheaded males. She'd like to punch every one of them smack-dab on their stubborn, albeit patriotic, chins.

  She would have started with Del. Why had he felt compelled to enlist? Why couldn't he have waited until he was drafted? Who knew how many more months they would have had together? Maybe, since he was a police officer, he wouldn't have been drafted at all.

  Then there was her dad. Why had he taken that defense plant job in Portland? He was forty-eight, for pity's sake. He could have stayed home and seen to his own store, instead of relying on Miriam to return to River Bluff and mind it for him. If not for the store, she could have joined Del in California, like other army wives.

  And she'd like to blacken both of Arledge's eyes. The idiot had enlisted the day he turned eighteen, with scarcely a thought for how their mother would feel about her baby going to war. He had already spent a year on the opposite side of the Atlantic, although his letters home never gave an exact location.

  Jacob McAllister was on her list of troublesome males, too. He was piloting planes somewhere in the Pacific. He deserved an extra hard thump on the head, as far as she was concerned. She'd have thought at least he—of all people!—would've considered her feelings before rushing off to get himself shot or maimed or . . . or killed.

  She swallowed the sob that rose in her throat and swept the fallen tears from her cheeks.

  In defeat, she admitted she wasn't angry with any of them. Not with Del, her father, her brother, or Jacob. She wasn't angry; she was afraid. Afraid that she, like so many women across the country, might lose someone she loved.

  Grace Finch was right. Miriam should be grateful that Del was training recruits at a military camp in the States instead of serving overseas. And she was. As long as Del was stateside—even if she couldn't be with him—she needn't fear for his safety the way she did for Arledge's and Jacob's. She might miss him horribly, but at least he was safe. He wrote twice a week and called home once a month.

  Yes, she had much to be grateful for. The next time she felt sorry for herself and cursed the inconveniences of war, she would try to remember that.

  Del stared out the living-room window, captivated by the first sight of his wife in more than two years. She'd cut her hair to just above her shoulders. Golden curls framed her face. He could only imagine the effort she went to each morning to accomplish that look. She was thinner than he remembered, but she always had been a slight thing.

  He smiled, remembering how he'd thought the teenage Miriam was nothing but trouble and would never be anything else. That night he found her in Nevada, he'd told her she should be locked in her room and the key thrown away. He'd meant it, too.

  Just went to prove that God had a fine sense of humor.

  It had been a shock to Del's sense of order and justice that day, four years before, when he saw Miriam—who seemed to have become a woman overnight—and realized his attraction to the former juvenile delinquent. It had taken another six months to talk himself into driving to Boise and calling on her.

  It still surprised him that he'd won her heart, that she'd agreed to marry him. She could have had any guy she wanted. There'd certainly been plenty of them hanging around in Boise. Guys closer to her own age, too. Why on earth she'd given Del a second look, he still hadn't figured out.

  But she'd done more than give him a seco
nd look. She'd given him her heart.

  Unable to wait another instant, he strode to the front door, yanked it open, and stepped onto the porch. Miriam gazed at him for a moment, disbelief written across her pretty face. Then, as if suddenly realizing he wasn't a figment of her imagination, she dropped her handbag and raced toward him.

  "Del! Del, it's you!" She threw herself into his arms. "It's really you!"

  He kissed her mouth. He kissed her cheeks. He kissed her temples. He kissed the tip of her nose.

  "Oh, Del. You're home! You're home. You're really here! Really and truly here."

  "Really and truly." He kept right on kissing her, tasting the salt of her tears, holding her close, never wanting to let go.

  Eventually he would have to. Eventually he would have to tell her that he was shipping out. But he didn't want to think about that now. Later, but not now.

  "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" she whispered when their lips finally parted and they came up for air.

  "I didn't know until a few days ago. I wanted to surprise you."

  "Oh, you did. You really did." She cupped his face between the palms of her hands while staring into his eyes. "I've missed you so much. I can't believe you're here. How long can you stay?"

  He kissed her again before answering. "A week."

  "Only a week? But Del—"

  "That's all the United States Army can spare me." He gave her a cocky grin, hoping to tease away her disappointment. "I'm indispensable. Haven't you heard?"

  "I hate the army."

  Del placed an index finger over her lips. "Don't say that, Miriam."

  She drew back from him, a frown creasing her forehead. "I can't help it. I want you with me."

  "Soon," he said softly. "I think it'll be over soon."

  "Really?"

  He nodded, then drew her back into his embrace. Please, God, let it be over soon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MIRIAM DIPPED HER TOES INTO THE ICY COLD WATER, THEN QUICKLY drew them out, thankful for the warmth of the spring sunshine upon her back.