by Dean Hughes
“Well, I don’t know. It’s always a little more complicated than that. I’ve offended some folks along the way. I’m a little too set in my ways—as you used to point out to me—and some people will probably be more than happy to see me released.”
“I don’t know, Dad, but I doubt it. People always knew your heart was in the right place.”
“You’re a fine one to say that. You questioned my motives more than anyone.” He laughed, and then he added, “No. I take that back. LaRue has outdone even you.”
Wally sat down on the straight-back chair—one of two across from his father. Dad took his familiar seat behind the desk. But he leaned back, seemed more relaxed than he ever used to.
“Wally, this is as fine a moment as I think I’ve known in this life. It’s like . . .”
“The prodigal son coming home?”
“Well, you read my mind. That is what I was going to say. But you never caused so much trouble as all that. You were just—”
“No, Dad. I like the comparison. Mom’s in there cooking up a fatted calf.”
“Or a meat loaf, anyway.”
But this was not what Wally wanted, just to joke everything away. “Dad,” he said, “there’s something you need to know.”
“What’s that?”
“Right after I got taken prisoner, we had to make that march in the Bataan Peninsula.”
“The death march.”
“Well, yes. That’s what everyone calls it back here, but we didn’t have a name for it—and I don’t suppose we would have chosen that one.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“But right from the beginning I knew I was in big trouble—the biggest trouble of my life—and it was going to take more power than I had. You know me. I hadn’t been much of one to stick with things.”
“But I was harder on you about that than I needed to be. I’ve often thought about that whole business with the track team and wished I hadn’t said some of those things to you.”
“I’m not sure about that. You had me pegged about right. But when that march started, I knew I didn’t have the strength to do what I had to do, just to stay alive, so that’s when I started to ask the Lord for help. What was strange, though—I prayed to God but I would think of you. After all the complaining I did about you being too hard on me, the first time I was really up against it in my life, I knew that I had to turn to you to survive.” Wally leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. Tears began to drip from his cheeks onto the carpet.
“Not to me, Wally. You turned to God.” But Dad was crying too.
“I know. But you’re the one who always taught me to do that, and it felt like I was turning to you. And then later, when I came close to dying—more than once—you won’t believe what I would think about.”
Dad shook his head. “I don’t know. What?”
“Those talks you used to give us. You’d tell us about our forefathers, how strong and noble they were, and how we had to live up to our heritage. And I’d say to myself, ‘I’m a Thomas and a Snow. We’re people who keep on going, no matter what kind of test we have to face.’”
“Did that help, to think that?”
Wally was crying too hard to talk. He waited, cleared his throat, and then he said, “It got me through, Dad. You got me through. I thought about you and Mom, and about our family, and I thought about your strength and all the things you believe in—everything you and Mom taught us—and I made myself keep living when it would have been a lot easier to die.”
Tears were running down President Thomas’s cheeks, but he let them run, let them drip onto the lapels of his suit coat, darkening into little spots. “I told your mother a thousand times: When that boy gets tested, he’ll show what he’s made of. I believed that, all through this thing.”
“Did you, Dad? Really?”
“You bet I did.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that. I thought you’d be surprised if I made it.” And the idea that his dad had believed in him all along was almost more than Wally could accept. He put his hands over his face, cried against them.
Dad waited for a time, got control of his own voice, and then said, “Wally, one of the great sorrows of my life is that I knew, all the while you were gone, that I had made you feel that way—that I expected the worst from you. I never should have let you leave this house with so much of my doubt hanging over your head.”
“I earned the doubt, Dad. Now, I just want to earn your trust.”
Dad got up and walked around the desk, and Wally stood up too. “You have my trust, Son. But you didn’t have to earn my love. It should have come without any strings attached. I regret that I didn’t show you that.”
President Thomas wrapped his big arms around Wally again. The two of them clung to each other and cried. And Wally knew he was home.
Chapter 6
It was November, and Bobbi Thomas was being transferred back to her earlier assignment in the naval hospital at Pearl Harbor. The Charity had carried its load of POWs to Seattle, as it turned out, but it was not returning to Japan as she had thought it might. Hawaii was still receiving war casualties from all around the Pacific, many of whom were recovering
from mutilating burns, and she was being returned to where the navy said she was most needed. She would head up the burn ward where she had once been a raw beginner in the Nurse’s Corp.
Bobbi flew from Seattle to Hawaii with a crew that was shuttling seriously wounded patients to hospitals on the mainland. Her hope was that the Pearl Harbor hospital would be more or less emptied out during the next couple of months and she would be able to obtain her release. But if she had to stay in the navy a little longer, at least she took solace in the idea that she would be back with Afton and all her friends in Honolulu. What she learned on arrival, however, was that Afton had received her discharge just a few days before. She had been able to give her commanding officer a specific date for her planned marriage, so the navy had processed her papers, and now she was a civilian. What she had chosen to do first was to take a trip home. She was going to spend a couple of weeks back in Arizona, and when she returned, she and Sam were finally going to be married—in early December.
The Charity was being sent to the Philippines, where it would be anchored and then function as a station hospital. The ship wouldn’t receive many burn victims now, nor many surgeries, so Kate Calder had been discharged and was heading back to Massachusetts. The last night before Bobbi and Kate had separated, they had had a long talk about their futures. Bobbi had tried to explain her complicated feelings about David. She had made her choice, had decided to marry Richard before she had known that David had died. But it was David’s death that was filling her thoughts now, taking first claim on her emotions. And that felt wrong, as though she were being untrue to Richard.
“Bobbi,” Kate had told her, “David was a wonderful friend. But he was more of a pen pal than a prospective husband. You always knew that. It’s okay to miss him. Just don’t let that interfere with your love for Richard.”
“I’m trying not to,” Bobbi told her, “but I doubt that I’ll ever know anyone like David again. I’m afraid I’ll look for David in Richard and never find him there.”
“Bobbi, don’t do that to yourself. You sound like a spoiled little girl. Just consider yourself lucky. You’ve had three different men want to marry you. That’s something I may never experience. I had little hope for companionship in my life before the war created a shortage of men. What can I expect now?”
“It won’t be that way, Kate. When you find a guy, he’ll be something special. That’s the only kind of man who’ll have the confidence to marry you.”
“You make me sound formidable. And I don’t think that’s what most men have in mind. I’ll tell you this: if someone like Richard were in love with me, I wouldn’t complain about anything.”
During her hours on the airplane on her way to Hawaii, Bobbi had a chance to think about that. She told herself that Kate wa
s exactly right. But when she tried to raise her own spirits, to feel lighter inside, she felt only the hollowness she had been living with since she had learned that David had died.
At church the first Sunday back in Honolulu, Bobbi had fun saying hello to so many of her old friends. And then after sacrament meeting she and Sam walked out together and strolled toward her bus stop. “What day are you getting married?” Bobbi asked him.
“December seventh,” he told her. “I know that sounds a little strange, but it’s a Friday, and that was the best day for us. We didn’t choose it because of Pearl Harbor. But maybe there will be another disaster. Maybe she won’t come back.”
“Sam, you can’t be serious. Of course she’ll come back.” Bobbi stopped on the sidewalk, turned and looked at him, touched his arm. He was wearing a white shirt and a dark brown tie. He looked like the missionary he had once been.
“I don’t know that, Bobbi. Her parents will work on her the whole time. They still don’t want her to marry me.”
“They won’t change her mind. They might have a year or two ago, but not now.”
“Maybe.” Sam began to walk again, slowly. “Or maybe at home, everything will seem different. They’ll tell her that she’ll have brown babies, that our children will have trouble. You know all the things they’ll say.”
“Sure, I do. But it won’t matter. Afton isn’t the little girl who came over here. She knows what she wants now.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Sam had a delicate quality that Bobbi loved—a gentle voice, higher pitched than one would suspect, and kindly eyes, long eyelashes. He was not as massive as some of the Hawaiian men, but he was strong and good, and he could offer Afton the things she needed. He had a good job as a grocery store manager, and he had a head for business. Bobbi had a feeling he would own his own store someday and do very well with it. But the important thing was, he was crazy about Afton, treated her as though she were made of porcelain. There was also an evenness about him, a reliability, that would give Afton a stability that didn’t come naturally to her.
“I got a letter from her,” Sam said. “She promised she would be back. But she talked about her home and how much she liked being there. That worries me. What if she comes back and then misses the mainland?”
“She’ll be happy here, Sam. And I’ll tell you something else. Someday her parents are going to see those brown, beautiful babies you’re going to have—even if it’s just in a snapshot—and they’ll fall in love. They’ll be here any time they can. And you’ll go there. I wish the Storys would come over and meet you now; they’d change their minds in five minutes.”
“I don’t know. Haoles only like Hawaiians when we stay in our place. We’re supposed to wear grass skirts and play the ukulele. But we’re not adults to them; we’re children.”
“I know that’s how it’s been. But the war has changed some things. People have gotten to know each other better. Some of those old prejudices are breaking down.”
“Maybe. But everything changes too slow. I’m not as patient as my parents. I get angry when I see the way my people look at us.”
“But I’m glad it hasn’t stopped you—either one of you. You’re two of best people I know. You should be together.”
“Thank you, Bobbi. I wish we could always be close to you—you and Richard. I like him, too. He doesn’t say very much, but he says things that are worth saying. I like that.”
“Then how can you love Afton? She says everything she thinks.”
“I know. And I like that too. There are all kinds of people. We can love them for different reasons.”
“I’m glad you said that, Sam. That’s good for me to think about.”
Bobbi rode the bus back to Pearl Harbor. Fortunately, the number of personnel at the hospital was dropping and she had a room of her own at the nurses’ quarters. But that was not so great at the moment. It was a lonely Sunday evening, and she was missing everyone. The war was over, and she wanted to go home to her family. She wanted to see Richard, to find out what would happen inside herself when she could spend some time with him again. She also missed Afton, and Kate. And tonight she missed Gene again, the way she did from time to time. She didn’t want to think about David, knowing she should start to control those thoughts, but she missed him, too.
So Bobbi did what she always did when life got a little too much for her. She went to bed early and escaped into a long night of sleep. And she awoke to a beautiful morning that didn’t feel quite so empty. Work was not easy because the remaining patients in her ward were severely burned, and often depressed, but at least the crisis days were over, the overcrowding in the ward, the long hours. And that night, when she finished her shift, she found a letter from Richard waiting for her.
Bobbi opened the letter with some hesitancy. His letters had been so awkward lately, as though he didn’t want to presume anything, was tiptoeing around their difficulties. But this letter was surprising:
Dear Bobbi,
I talked to your mother today. She told me about David Stinson. I’m sure this is a difficult time for you. I hope you’re doing all right. I’m not sure what to say about it, except that I’m sorry. I know that at least in some ways he was a man more suited to you than I am, and maybe that will always be a problem between us. But that’s not the most important thing right now. He was someone you cared for, and he’s been taken, and I’m very sorry.
Bobbi, I don’t know what to do. I don’t like what’s happened between us, and I’m afraid you need some time to deal with this loss. But I’ve needed to make some decisions, and I’ve done that now. You don’t have to decide about me right away, but I want one thing to be clear in your mind: I still want to marry you. I know I haven’t sounded that way lately, but these last few weeks, feeling like you’ve slipped away from me, have told me that I’d better speak up for what I want or lose you forever. Maybe David would have turned out to be your first choice, and that bothers me more than I like to admit, but it doesn’t change the fact that my life will never be what I want it to be if I can’t have you.
Bobbi, at one time it seemed that you had chosen me even though David was still available. What I fear is that I fouled everything up between us. I know the troubles I’ve been going through have had a lot to do with that. But there were things going on in my mind that I didn’t know how to deal with. Something happened to me in the war—something that has been bothering me and making me act a little strange. It happened after my ship went down in the Leyte Gulf. But that’s all I want to say. I just can’t tell you anything else about it. I’m sorry about that, but I don’t want to think about it or talk about it ever again. I know you think that isn’t the right approach, but it’s what I have to do. That’s not such a negative thing as you might think, because I’ve made up my mind that I have to move ahead and put all that behind me. I’ve talked to some friends who were there, and we all feel the same way. A guy can come home from the war and worry about certain things the rest of his life, maybe have some real psychological problems, but he can also choose to let all that go and get on with his life. He just has to be a man about it. And that’s what I’ve decided to do.
Here’s one of the things I’ve made up my mind about. Your dad has offered me a swell job, a “position,” you might say. It’s just too good to pass up. I know I talked a lot about going back to college, but I have to tell you, the things I wanted to do in college weren’t really going to get me anywhere. A lot of what I wanted to study was stuff that won’t solve any problems—not for me, and sure as heck not for the world. What I’m a lot better off doing, I think, is getting on with my life, making a good living, and being in a position to get married and start a family. A good, busy life will solve more personal problems than anything.
Your dad isn’t making my position contingent on you marrying me. He says he needs people like me, and he’s willing to hire me whether things ever work out between us. All the same, that could get real awkward, I’m su
re, so I guess we could cross that bridge when it comes, but I doubt I’d stick around if that turned out to be a problem. But what I’m trying to say is, I would like to think we’re still engaged. I would hope we could get married soon after you are discharged. My hands are not too bad, so the navy is about to let me go, and I just think it’s time to be happy the war is over, happy I found someone like you, and not so dreary as I’ve been sometimes lately.
Bobbi, I haven’t said the most important thing. I love you. I’ve never known a girl I like a tenth as much. When I think about you and remember the closeness I’ve felt with you, I just want to grab you in my arms and hold onto you forever. I feel like a real idiot for letting other things get in the way—a lot of things that aren’t as important as they seemed at the time. I’m going to be healthy now. I’m choosing to get on with things, and you’re the one I want to share the rest of my life with. I got feeling sorry for myself when I first heard about David, and then, when it seemed like I had lost you, I told myself I was going to fight for you. Maybe I’ve said all the wrong things, and you’re about to rip this letter up and throw it away, but I don’t want to give up without your knowing that I love you and want to marry you, and without promising that I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. I know I need to talk more, and express myself, and I think you can teach me how. Or at least I’ll try.
So anyway, think about all this. And then come home. If our engagement is over, and you aren’t interested in me now, just tell me that, but if you think we can still work things out, just know that I’m ready on my end. This is the worst letter I’ve ever written in my life, and it doesn’t even make a lot of sense to me, but I’m going to send it anyway, because I’d rather try to say what I’m thinking about this than keep my mouth shut, the way I usually do. So just let me say it one more time. I love you and I still want to marry you, and I’m hoping that you still feel something for me. Please write back and give me some idea what you’re thinking about all this.