Henry was forty. He and Angie were married while he was still in dental school, and had become parents two years after he had set up practice in a little town in Ohio. He picked the location, thirty miles north of Columbus, specifically because there was no other dentist there. The population of about a thousand had taken to him immediately, and his practice had flourished from the start, drawing people from twenty miles around. Angie, who stayed home with the kids, had been trained as a dental assistant and helped out in the office when she was needed. If she resented not being paid, she was compensated by enjoying the little extras they could afford because of Henry’s not having to pay another employee.
Henry was an only child, and his mother lived in Cleve-land, refusing to move closer to his family. She was sixty, was actively involved in Republican politics there, and didn’t want to trade that life for one of uncompensated babysitting. Her husband had been killed in combat in Germany during 1944 when Henry was twelve, and his death had left a permanent scar on the family. There had been no opportunities for goodbyes and final loving words. He had been overseas since 1942 and, when the war ended, he simply hadn’t come home. There was no sealed casket, no officer bearing personal belongings, merely a letter expressing the regrets of the war department.
Henry, ten years old at the time his father shipped out, missed him desperately. They had been very close, playing sports together and taking in a variety of ballgames on weekends. Henry’s father, James, was a big man, and had been a foreman in a construction company. Henry thought his father could do anything, and loved squeezing his enormous biceps. He felt safe as long as his father was around, so the thought of his leaving was a scary one. As James prepared to ship out in 1942, Henry saved up money to buy him a goodbye gift, a Zippo lighter. He spent $2.00 for it, along with another $1.00 to have it engraved with his father’s initials – JKS for James Knox Shilling. Then, secretly, Henry had scratched his own initial “H” on the bottom of the lighter. James was very touched by the gift, because he was a heavy smoker and it would be a constant reminder of the son he had left at home, a son fortunately young enough to escape the draft.
Henry felt a tremendous surge of pride when he presented the lighter to his father, and often imagined him using it in his foxholes in France and Germany. Sadly, though, his father had been gone for three years by the time the war ended, and Henry had grown so accustomed to his absence that the news of his death did not seem real, and had no lasting emotional impact on him. His father took on the aura of a mystical hero who had gone off to fight Hitler and who had been killed in the process. Henry imagined a variety of scenarios that had caused his death, all of them heroic.
Henry’s mother had never gotten over her anger at the impersonal way in which the army had handled the matter. They told her that he had been killed in action in 1944, but she never got word of it until 1945 when the war was almost over. Her anger had taken her into local and then county politics. She had helped a friend get elected county controller, after which she had been given a supervisory job in the office. But she wore her widowhood like a badge of honor, and never let anyone forget what a sacrifice her husband had made. No one was more patriotic than she, and she waved the flag on every possible occasion.
Henry had little time for politics or anything other than his practice and his three sons. He was an exemplary father and was always taking the kids somewhere exciting, so that they cherished their time with him. He never forgot how much of his younger life had been spent without a father.
Fortunately, the boys were not in the backseat this day in 1972. He was returning from a ten-hour session in the office, and his back hurt more than usual. One hostile kid had bitten him on his left pinky finger and he was still feeling the pain. He was exhausted and could think only of sitting down with a drink before dinner. The detour was such a habit that he could drive it with his eyes closed, which was almost the case at this moment.
Up ahead was a right turn that most of the traffic took to remain on the shortest leg of the detour. You could see a line of cars during rush hour approaching this intersection, all of them with their right turn signals blinking. He always turned right there too, but this night he had promised Angie he would get bananas for the kids. They were always out of bananas. To stop at the mini-mart meant passing that side road and driving straight ahead another half mile. He was some distance back from the line of cars turning right, so when they cleared the way, he gunned the engine, thinking only of making his purchase and getting home.
The woman in the gray Honda, sitting on that side road waiting to pull out into the intersection, assumed that Henry was going to turn right like everyone else. So she started her left turn just as Henry sailed past. He hit her car directly on the driver’s door, shoving the car sideways twenty feet past the intersection. The noise of the impact was horrendous. When the cars came to a stop, Henry was dazed but conscious. Because air bags were not yet standard, he was thrown into the steering column and the windshield in spite of wearing his seat belt. He was bleeding from the face and scalp when several people rushed up to pull him from his wrecked car. They laid him on the grass beside the road, while a nearby homeowner called for an ambulance.
The woman in the other car was another matter. She was pinned in the driver’s seat by the front end of Henry’s car. The door had collapsed on top of her, and she was trapped between the crushed side of the car and the passenger’s seat. She was bleeding profusely and appeared to be unconscious. Passersby attempted to reach her from the other side of the car, but were afraid to try moving her.
It took the emergency squad and the wreckers an hour to get her stabilized, to clear the area, and to transport both of them to the hospital. Henry had a concussion, a broken nose, and lacerations of his scalp and forehead. He spent a night in the hospital before being released. Angie and the kids visited him that evening, and were relieved to find him in great good humor, in spite of a black eye, a swollen nose, and bandages on his head. Brayden thought he looked like a monster in a nightmare. That amused everyone.
Henry was discharged the next morning and told to take a week to recover. Before he left the hospital, he tried to see the woman who had caused the accident, but was told she was still in a coma. When he asked about her relatives, the nurse said she had no family members in the country.
Henry rested for four days before the inactivity began to get to him. So he called his office manager and told her to get things cranked up for work the following day. He went back to the office with an eye that was still black, a nose that was still broken, and a headache that wouldn’t go away, but work was therapeutic and he began to feel better when the patients arrived. They were all very concerned about him, and didn’t seem to mind having a monster from a nightmare fiddling around in their mouths.
But in the back of his mind, the woman from the accident kept bothering him. He wondered how she was doing because, when he was honest about it, he had to admit that he felt a little guilty, just slightly responsible for what had happened. He remembered gunning the motor when the last car cleared the intersection, in his hurry to get home. If he hadn’t sped up, could he have stopped in time to prevent the accident?
He went back to the hospital a week later and asked for her room number. Standing in the doorway, he could see that she was conscious. He rapped on the door to attract her attention, and she turned in his direction. “Do you feel like a short visit?” he asked. She scowled slightly, as if trying to figure out who he was. Or perhaps it was just a reaction to his still bruised face and the dressing on his forehead. Then she nodded.
He stood by her bed and said, “You can see from my looks that I was in an accident.” He waited a moment, then added, “It was the same one you were in.”
Her eyes opened wider in comprehension. She reached for his hand and said, “I’m so sorry. I am told it was my fault. But I don’t remember any of it.” She had kind eyes, but was obviously in a lot of pain. And she had a rather strong German accent.
“How are you getting along?” he asked.
She moved as if to relieve her painful position. “I have a broken hip and some broken ribs and lots of bruises. But I’m tough and I will live.” She spoke slowly with the hesitation of someone who was tired and feeling ill.
“Well,” he said, “I just wanted to say hello and see how you were doing. I hope you recover quickly. Can I stop again when you’re feeling better?”
She nodded. “I don’t want to talk too much now because I lost some teeth. So I look ugly.”
He laughed. “Well, for one thing, you don’t look ugly. And for another, I’m a dentist. So maybe we can talk some time about your missing teeth.”
She smiled in spite of herself, inadvertently showing him the extent of her injury – missing upper left medial and lateral incisors. That would definitely have to be fixed. She was an attractive woman whom he guessed to be in her late 40’s or perhaps 50. The missing teeth would detract seriously from her appearance.
“That would be nice,” she murmured, responding to his implication about fixing her teeth. “I don’t want to look like a war refugee.” That German accent. It made him wonder.
He said goodbye and started to leave, then turned back and added, “I’m Doctor Henry Shilling. I’ll drop in again sometime.”
She reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Gerda Lehmann.”
He nodded and said, “It’s nice to meet you. But I’m sorry it had to be this way.” She grinned again, then covered her mouth self-consciously. He smiled. “We’ll talk about fixing that when everything else is all healed up.”
Two months later he checked to see if she was listed in the local phone directory. Her name was there alongside an address in the nearby suburb of Gahanna, about ten miles away. He called and was surprised when she answered immediately. “Helloo?” That funny European inflection.
“Hello, Gerda? This is Doctor Shilling. You know, the guy who ran into you with his car. I called to see how your recovery is coming along.”
“Oh, hello, Doctor. I’m doing fine, thank you. I’m taking rehab for my hip, and my broken ribs are much better.”
“I wondered if I could come by to see you. We have some things to discuss.” Gerda said yes, so he found himself in her living room on the following Saturday afternoon. He started off by telling her that, though his lawyer was urging him to sue her for damages and liability, he wasn’t going to do so. His insurance had paid his hospital bills and replaced his car. He knew that she had been charged with negligence and would probably face a stiff fine, and he felt that that was sufficient punishment. He also noted that she was still unable to walk because of her fractured hip, so he had no desire to make her life any more difficult.
“Have you talked to anyone about replacing your missing teeth?” he asked, after they had chatted for a while.
She shook her head. “I don’t have the money to do that for awhile. The court costs are going to use up a lot of what I have, and I can’t take on any other expenses right now.”
He smiled at her, “I may be able to help with that. When you’re able to walk, I’d like to do a restoration for you. I can build you a bridge that will look just like your regular teeth.”
“Oh,” she said, shaking her head, “that’s very nice. But I could never afford that.”
“No charge,” he assured her. “The dentist knocked your teeth out, and I think the dentist should replace them. Don’t you agree?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You would do that?”
“Absolutely! It’s the kind of thing I do all the time. I think you’ve suffered enough. This might take some of the sting out of your recovery.”
A month later, he was back for another visit. By then she was walking with the help of a cane, which she had been told she would never be able to do without. The accident had permanently injured her hip.
They got to talking and she told him something about herself. Born in Germany, she had lived there through the Second World War. She had been in Frankfurt when the Third US Army had overrun it.
“Really?” he asked, surprised. “My father was with the 87th Infantry Division, part of the Third Army. They called them the Golden Acorn.”
She had remained in the city until 1950. At that time, she and her five-year-old son had moved to Bonn to be near the west, since she was hoping to move to the United States. But money and the difficulty of obtaining a visa had frustrated her for years. The authorities were punishing her because of her work for the Nazis. By the time she was able to get her visa in 1965, her son was already twenty and had a good paying job with Merck Darmstadt, the huge chemical and pharmaceutical company.
“So, you came over by yourself?” She nodded. “What about your husband?”
She searched his eyes cautiously. “I’ve never been married.”
He waited a moment, then said, “Oh, I see. And why did you decide to leave Germany?”
She thought for a long time. “There are more opportunities here. I’m still not comfortable with the climate over there. My father was a Jew and I barely escaped the concentration camps.” She struggled with her memories for awhile. “I worked for the Nazis before the war began, and they were so used to me that I got overlooked.” She was silent again for a while, then added, “And my son’s father was from America.”
Henry nodded. “So he was a soldier?”
“Yes, I met him when he was stationed in Frankfurt. I was only twenty and he could get me food and clothing. We only met a few times, but we were truly in love. I tried to write him after he left Frankfurt, but I never heard from him again.”
“And you’re here trying to find him?”
“Oh, no, he was killed in 1945. He had told them to send his belongings to me in case something happened, so I received a parcel and a letter from his captain. But there was no note from him. I don’t think he ever knew he had a son.”
Several weeks later, Gerda came to the office to begin her restoration work. They had become quite good friends by then, and Henry continued to be concerned about her progress. He made a series of appointments for her and, by six months after the accident, she had been fitted with her new bridge, and her recovery seemed complete, except for her limp and the cane.
The day after she received her new bridgework, she called the office to report that she had lost her cigarette lighter somewhere, and wondered if she might have left it in the waiting room. Henry’s assistant searched the cushions on the sofa and found it. She laid it on the counter in the inner office by the telephone in preparation for calling Gerda.
That was where Henry first saw it.
It was a battered Zippo lighter, the stainless steel case stained nevertheless, showing the evidence of hard usage. Henry couldn’t remember seeing another Zippo since he had presented his father with his gift twenty-eight years before. Curious, he picked it up. And froze in shock!
It bore the engraved initials “JKS.”
He held it in his hand for a long moment, half afraid to turn it over. When he finally managed to do so, he could see the letter “H” still faintly visible where he had scratched it with his penknife almost three decades earlier.
Lightheaded, he leaned back against the counter to keep from falling. His office manager saw the expression on his face and asked if he was all right. All he could do was nod.
She said, “I was going to call Gerda and tell her we found her lighter.”
Waving her off, he said, “That’s all right. I’ll do it myself. I…have to go see her.”
He arranged for a meeting, not knowing if he was angry or merely curious. Mostly he was confused. He had no idea now what to think of her.
He sat on her sofa and handed her the lighter without a word. She took it, examined it in her palm for a moment, then said, “Thank you for finding it.”
He looked her in the eye for the first time. Then it occurred to him – “You meant for me to find it, didn’t you?”
Her face clouded over. �
�I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this, to tell you the truth, for a long time. But now that the moment is here, I’m afraid you’re going to want to reject me.”
There was a tense silence on both sides. “So you did something that should make me want to reject you?” No response. “Well, you can start by telling me where you got this lighter.”
“I already told you. The army sent it to me along with the rest of Jim’s…uh, your father’s things.”
“So,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief, “you’re telling me that your lover was my father?” She nodded. He stared at her, open-mouthed, trying to process this incredible information. Then, recovering, he asked, “Why did he have his things sent to you instead of sending them back to us?”
“Because,” she said, shaking her head slowly, “he didn’t plan to go back home.”
Henry scowled at her in disbelief. “What the hell would make you say something like that?”
She was visibly trembling. He knew that this was difficult for her, but he wasn’t inclined to make it any easier. She continued, “I said we were only together a few times, but we spent all that time talking. It was like he was desperate for someone to talk to, because he was badly confused about what he wanted to do in the future. He knew the war was going to end soon, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to his life before the war. He loved you very much and talked about you a lot, but I think if he had returned he would have divorced your mother. The war had changed a lot of things about the way he thought.”
“Wait a minute!” Henry yelled. “Are you telling me that he was the father of your son?”
She searched his face carefully, then nodded.
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