by Sarah Jio
“Thank you, Mary,” I said, gathering my bags.
I took a final look into the living room before turning down the mahogany-paneled hall toward the bedroom. Mary sat on the sofa, motionless, hands folded in her lap, looking out at the Seine and the shimmer of a liberated Paris.
Something had happened here, inside these walls. Yes, something unspeakable. I could feel it.
The First U.S. General Hospital loomed in the distance, and I squeezed Mary’s hand tightly as we stood gazing up at its enormous facade. The sun shone in the sky, but all around the building were shadows.
I gulped. “Why does it look so . . .”
“Evil?”
“Yes,” I said, squinting up at the highest story.
“Because it was a place of evil,” she said, “before the Allies arrived.”
Mary explained that the twelve-story gray building, formerly the Beaujon Hospital, the largest in Paris, had once been a Nazi stronghold. After the takeover, Major General Paul Hawley, a surgeon, transformed the building, clearing out rooms of medical equipment the Germans had used for gruesome medical experiments, mostly on Jews and Poles. Now it had a red cross painted on the highest story, a cross that rather looked like a bomber airplane, I thought.
Mary pointed to a window a few stories up in the distance. “See right up there? The open window on the seventh floor?”
I nodded.
“That’s where I found a Polish woman and her infant,” she said quietly, “starved to death. Nazi doctors used them for a research experiment. They watched through a window, documenting the whole thing. I read the paperwork. It took her nine days to die. Her baby, eleven.”
I shivered.
“But the horror has ended,” Mary said solemnly. “General Pawley turned this place around. There’s been nearly a thousand admits in the last two weeks, and we expect many more.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of the seventh floor.
“Anne?”
“Yes,” I muttered weakly.
“Are you ready for this?”
“I hope so,” I said.
Together we walked up the stairs and into the building. Darkness lingered palpably in the stiff and heavy air. A structure could not endure such evil without absorbing some of it. Walls could be scrubbed, floors waxed, but the scent of evil remained.
Mary pressed the elevator’s ninth-floor button and we began our ascent. As the lights on the panel shifted, my mind reeled. First floor, second. Will he be conscious enough to recognize me? Third floor. Does he still love me? Fourth floor. What might be next for us?
“Oh, Mary,” I said, clutching her arm. “I’m so frightened.”
She neither comforted me nor acknowledged my fear. “It’s the right thing to do, coming here,” she said. “No matter what, you’ll have closure.”
I sighed. “Have you been in touch with Kitty?”
Mary looked uncomfortable for a moment, and I knew by her expression that she’d gotten wind of our history, our troubles on the island.
“About that,” she said nervously. “There’s something I need to tell you. Since I called you, there’s been—”
The elevator stopped suddenly on the fifth floor, and a doctor and two nurses entered the car, silencing our conversation.
We stepped off on the ninth floor, and I gasped at the sight. Perhaps three hundred, maybe more, wounded men lay on cots with dark green wool blankets pulled over their limp bodies.
“This is a tough floor,” Mary said. “A lot of serious cases here.”
My heart pounded loudly inside my chest. “Where is he?” I said, looking around frantically. “Mary, take me to him.”
A nurse about my age approached us and nodded at Mary without a smile. “I thought you were off today.”
“I am,” Mary said. “I’m here on my friend’s behalf. She’d like to visit Mr. Green.”
The nurse looked at me and then back at Mary. “Westry Green?”
The sound of his name on another woman’s breath sent a shiver through my body.
“Yes,” Mary said, “Westry Green.”
The nurse turned to me. Her eyes narrowed. “And you are?”
“Anne,” I muttered. “Anne Calloway.”
“Well,” she said, giving Mary a knowing look, then glancing back toward the room of men behind her, “I’m not sure that . . .” She sighed. “I’ll check.”
When she was out of earshot, I turned to Mary. “I don’t understand. Why did she act so strange?”
Mary looked around the room, out the window—anywhere but at my face.
“Mary,” I pleaded. “What happened?”
“Let’s sit down,” she said, leading me by the arm to a bench a few feet behind us. A clock ticked overhead, taunting me with each movement of its hand.
“When I called you,” she said, “I didn’t have all the information. I didn’t know that Westry—”
We both looked up when we heard footsteps approaching, clicking on the wood floors. My eyes widened when I saw a familiar face approaching. “Kitty!” I cried, leaping to my feet. Despite the past, I found myself unable to resist the urge to run into the arms of my old friend, to embrace her with the love and forgiveness we both owed one another.
But I stopped quickly when my eyes met Kitty’s, the eyes of a stranger. “Hello,” she said stiffly.
Mary rose and stood by my side. “Kitty,” she said, “Anne has traveled a great distance to see Westry. I’m hoping we can take her to him.”
Kitty frowned. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
I shook my head, blinking hard as my eyes began to sting. “Why, Kitty?” I cried. “Is he hurt badly? Is he unconscious?”
Kitty looked down at my engagement ring, and I wished I’d thought to take it off. The nurse who greeted us moments ago reappeared and stood in solidarity next to Kitty. What are they hiding from me?
“Kitty,” I pleaded, “what is it?”
“I’m sorry, Anne,” she said coldly. “I’m afraid the fact of the matter is that Westry doesn’t want to see you.”
The room began to spin, and I clutched Mary’s arm for support. My God. I traveled all the way from Seattle, and now I stand mere feet away from him and he doesn’t want to see me?
“I don’t understand,” I stammered, feeling waves of nausea churn in my stomach. “I only want to—”
Kitty clasped her hands together and turned back to the floor. “Again, I’m very sorry, Anne,” she said as she walked away. “I wish you all the best.”
I watched her proceed into the room, turning right, where she disappeared behind a curtain.
“Let’s go, Anne,” Mary whispered, reaching for my hand. “I’m so sorry, dear. It was wrong of me to bring you here. I should have explained—”
“Explained what?” I cried. “That I would be barred from seeing the only man I’ve ever loved by . . . my best friend?” I listened to my own words echoing in the air, surprised by their raw honesty. Gerard may have had my hand, but Westry would always have my heart. I broke free from Mary’s grasp. “No,” I said firmly.
I pushed past Mary and into the room of injured men. The sounds that had been muffled near the elevator now amplified to reveal moaning, babbling, crying, laughing. The range of human emotion on the floor was maddening.
I walked faster through the aisles of beds, scanning face after face. Some looked up at me longingly; others just stared ahead. Where is he? Surely if I find him, if I look into his eyes, he’ll have a change of heart? Surely he still loves me? I won’t let Kitty stand between us. I won’t let her speak for Westry. My heart fluttered as I weaved through the rows of men, praying that just around the corner I’d see the familiar hazel eyes that had captured my heart on the island.
Minutes later, however, I had combed through every aisle without finding a trace of Westry. I looked around the floor frantically, then remembered Kitty slipping behind a curtained area in the distance. Could he be inside? Clutching my locket, I walked
across the room, stopping in front of the gray-and-white-striped curtain. Could this swath of fabric be all that separates Westry from me?
My hands trembled as I lifted the edge of the curtain, just far enough to peer inside. Four hospital beds, all occupied by soldiers, lay inside. I gasped when I made out the face of the man in the bed farthest away.
Westry.
My legs weakened when I saw his face—thinner now, with a shadow of stubble around his chin, but just as handsome, just as perfect as I’d memorized in my heart. I pulled the curtain back farther, but stopped quickly when I saw Kitty approaching his bed. She pulled up a chair, and I watched as she ran a wet towel over his face, lightly, lovingly, before caressing his forehead. He gazed up at her with a smile that made my cheeks burn.
I felt a tug at my waist, and then heard Mary’s voice. “Anne,” she said, “don’t do this to yourself. Let him go.”
I shook my head. “But, Westry, my Westry!” I cried, releasing my grasp on the curtain and burying my head against Mary’s shoulder. “How could she? How could she, Mary?”
Mary lifted my chin, and dabbed my cheeks with a rose-colored handkerchief. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said. “Let’s go.”
I followed her to the elevator, then stopped, reaching into my purse for a scrap of paper and pen.
Mary looked confused when I sat down on the bench. “What are you doing?”
Moments later, I stood and handed her a folded slip of paper. “Tomorrow,” I said, “after I’m gone, will you give this to Westry?”
Mary took the paper in her hands and looked at it skeptically.
“Kitty will intercept any letter I try to send here,” I continued. “My only hope is you.”
Mary eyed the paper cautiously. “Are you sure you want to say anything more to him?”
I nodded. “I need him to read this.”
“Then I’ll make sure he gets it,” she said, but I could hear a strain in her voice that worried me. “I work the morning shift tomorrow. I can try to give it to him then.”
“Promise?” I said, searching her face for the assurance I needed.
“Yes,” she said softly. Exhaustion permeated her voice. “I’ll do my best.”
Seattle did little to take my mind off of Westry. More than a month had passed since that dark day in Paris, and even with the familiar distractions of life at home and a wedding just weeks away, I couldn’t get him out of my mind, or my heart. I jumped every time the phone rang, and sat by the window each morning, eagerly awaiting the mail. Surely after he read the note Mary had delivered, he’d write, or call? Why hasn’t he written?
Then, on a quiet Tuesday morning when Maxine and I were getting ready to go into town, the doorbell rang. I dropped my purse, and a tube of lipstick fell to the floor, rolling underneath the sofa.
“I’ll get that,” I called to Maxine. I opened the front door to find a postman standing outside.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said. “Miss Calloway?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am she.”
He handed me a small envelope. “A telegraph for you,” he said, grinning. “From Paris. If I can just get you to sign right here.”
My heart lightened as I scrawled my signature on his clipboard and ran up the stairs to my bedroom. Safe behind the closed door, I ripped open the envelope. A yellow slip of paper with five typewritten lines nestled inside. I held it up to the light and took a deep breath:
I stared at the paper for a long time, letting the words sink in until the haze of shock lifted. “No!” I screamed. Not Mary. Not you, Mary. I remembered the sadness in her eyes, the hesitation. She’d endured more heartache than any woman should, but to end things like that? How could she? Tears trickled down my cheeks as I crumpled the paper and threw it to the floor.
Moments later, my pulse raced faster. Dear God, when did Stella say she hung herself? I retrieved the scrap of paper. September 18. No. No, this can’t be.
I stared at the wall in horror. Mary never made it to her shift the day after we’d visited the hospital. She died before she had a chance to deliver my note to Westry.
“Are you ready?” Gerard stood in the doorway on the morning of our wedding, two weeks later. Spurning tradition, he had insisted upon picking me up and taking me to the church before the ceremony, maybe because he was worried I wouldn’t come any other way.
I looked at him in the doorway, dashing in a tux, with a perfect white rose pinned proudly to his lapel. Mother’s words rang in my ears: When you marry, make sure he loves you, really loves you.
I thought of Westry and Kitty’s tender moment in the Paris hospital. How naive I was to assume he’d wait for me, to assume he still loved me. And what does it matter now if he got the note or not? I looked at Gerard with new appreciation. He loves me. He will always love me. That will be enough for a lifetime.
“Yes,” I said, gulping back the hurt, the pain, the ghosts of my past and weaving my hand in his. “I’m ready.”
As I stood, my gold locket dangled from my neck, before settling itself once again over my heart.
Chapter 16
“So you married Grandpa,” Jennifer said, her voice pulling me back to the present. The sun had set, leaving just a line of pink on the horizon outside the window.
I smiled, wiping away a tear with the handkerchief in my hand. “Of course I married Grandpa. And aren’t you glad I did? After all, you wouldn’t have been here any other way.”
Jennifer looked dissatisfied with the answer. “So I owe my existence to your heartache?”
“Nonsense,” I said reassuringly. “I loved your grandfather.”
“But not in the same way you loved Westry.”
I nodded. “There are all sorts of love. I’ve come to realize this in my life.” I thought of Gerard—strong, sure Gerard. I missed the way he’d nuzzle my cheek or greet me with the morning paper and a poached egg on a plate with golden brown toast. He’d devoted his life to me, giving me his whole heart freely, when I let him have only a piece of mine. For in my heart, I’d kept a room locked, where a candle burned for someone else.
“Oh, Grandma,” Jennifer said, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me this story sooner? How lonely to keep it to yourself all these years.”
I patted my locket. “No, dear,” I said. “I have never been alone. You see, when you share love with someone, even for a time, it always remains in your heart.” I unclasped the locket and let the tiny bit of wood from the bungalow’s floor fall into my palm. Jennifer hovered over it, marveling at the sight.
“No,” I said again, “I have never been alone.”
Jennifer frowned. “But what about Kitty? What about Westry? Didn’t you ever try to find them?”
“No,” I said. “The day I married your grandfather, I vowed to let it all go, each of them. I had to. It was only fair to him.”
“But what about the bungalow, the painting? And what about your promise to Tita? Remember what she said about finding justice?”
I felt a deep exhaustion setting in. “And I haven’t forgotten,” I said honestly.
“I’m coming with you,” Jennifer said, nodding with determination.
“Coming with me?”
“To Bora-Bora.”
I smiled. “Oh, honey, you’re very sweet, but I really don’t think—”
“Yes,” she said, ignoring my apprehension. Her eyes looked wild with excitement. “We’ll go together.”
I shook my head. The retelling of the story had opened up old wounds that felt raw again, as painful as the day they were inflicted. “I don’t think I can.”
Jennifer looked deep into my eyes. “Don’t you understand, Grandma? Don’t you see? You have to.”
The airplane rattled and shook as it made its descent over the Tahitian islands. “We’re experiencing a little more turbulence than normal, folks,” a male flight attendant with an Australian accent chirped over the intercom. “Sit tight. The captain will have us safe
ly landed in no time.”
I closed my eyes, recalling the flight into Bora-Bora so many years ago, with Kitty by my side and a cabin full of eager nurses listening, with bated breath, as old Nurse Hildebrand warned us of an island full of danger. I sighed, remembering the way Kitty had softly touched my arm, thanking me for coming and promising me that I’d be glad I did. Would I take it all back if I could?
The plane jolted violently, and Jennifer turned to me. “Don’t worry, Grandma,” she said lovingly.
I squeezed her hand tighter as I looked around the cabin filled with young couples, presumably honeymooners. A young man in a seat to our right gently smoothed his bride’s hair, kissing her hand as the two looked out the window to the island below. I couldn’t help but feel envious. How lucky they are to have found the island this way, without the complications of war or time. I longed to be twenty-one again. To start over again from this point forward, with Westry seated beside me.
“Ready?” Jennifer asked, rousing me from my thoughts. The plane had landed, and I stood up quickly, following my granddaughter to the open door, where passengers were already making their way down the steps.
A flight attendant pinned a purple orchid to my shirt, so deeply colored I wondered if it had been spray-painted. “Welcome to Bora-Bora, ma’am,” she said. “You will love this island.”
“I have always loved this island,” I said, smiling, taking in a breath of the warm, humid air. A bustling airport stood where a single runway had seventy years prior. The emerald hillside was now dotted with homes. Everything had changed, and yet the familiar floral scent lingered in the air, and the turquoise water sparkled in the distance, beckoning me to its shore. I knew it then: My heart was home.
“Take my hand, Grandma,” Jennifer said, reaching out to steady me.
I shook my head, feeling stronger, steadier than I had in years. “I can do this,” I said, making my way down the steps. Yes, I said to myself, I can do this.
A shuttle deposited us at our hotel, the Outrigger Suites, just a mile from the airport. Jennifer pushed the key card into the door, and we set our bags down in the air-conditioned room.