Guarded

by Angela Correll

  Lindy ordered a Merlot and she selected a Chardonnay. The waiter brought their drinks, took their dinner order and removed the menus.

  “So, how are you doing?” she asked.

  Lindy sighed deeply. “Honestly, I’m tired,” Lindy said. “Tired of being single. Tired of loving someone who doesn’t love me back the way I want. Tired of being here when he comes and still being here when he goes.”

  “Have you talked to him about how you feel?”

  “I don’t know what else to say. If he wanted to be here, wouldn’t he move back?”

  “You’re both from Somerville?”

  “He’s from Rutherford, so we didn’t really meet until college. It was our senior year before we dated. Rob always talked about traveling and seeing the world and I planned to go with him. When my mom died suddenly, it changed everything and I decided on law school so I could come home and practice with Dad. I thought Dad needed me and I didn’t want to take him for granted. Rob went to Namibia with the Peace Corps.” Lindy took a sip of her wine.

  “West Africa?”

  “Southern Africa. It was supposed to be temporary so he could get it out of his system. We dated the whole time he served in the Peace Corps—if you can call it dating. Long e-mails and even handwritten letters for nostalgia’s sake. I couldn’t wait until he came home and we could be together. When he finally got here, it was only a couple of days before he took off for South Africa to rock climb and backpack. I thought the two years in Namibia would be enough for him, but it was only the start. We had a big fight, I cried a lot, and we decided to take separate paths for a while.”

  “An ambiguous ending,” Annie said.

  Lindy nodded. “I finished law school and moved home to practice. Rob returned from South Africa and spent all his time with me, even though we never talked about officially dating again. Then he left for New Zealand. A few emails here and there, and then he comes in this last time. Same thing. And now he’s off to California.”

  “You don’t have any resolution.”

  “Exactly,” Lindy said, and leaned forward in her seat. “I’ve been waiting around on him to decide he’s ready to stay home. I need resolution. Does he simply need time to get the traveling out of his system? Or should I move on?”

  The waiter brought their salads with herbed vinaigrette.

  “Have you tried asking him?”

  “Sure, you know me.”

  “And?”

  “He says something like, ‘Lin, it’s all good, let’s just roll with it for a while and see what happens.’”

  Annie started to speak and then paused. It was important to tread carefully in this tender place. She remembered her own situation only months before when she was in need of hard advice she was not quite ready to hear. “Do you really want to go on living in this ambiguity?”

  Lindy put her fork down and looked at her as if she had revealed a secret.

  “I do have a choice, don’t I? What is wrong with me? I’ve turned into one of those victims they teach you about in law school.”

  Annie took another bite of her salad, savoring the salty sweetness and then waited before responding.

  “You both seem to want different things. Emotions, or even physical attraction, are not enough to make a life together. Believe me, I’ve learned the hard way.”

  “I’ve let my emotions run over my brain. I’ll call him and lay it all out. If he wants to be here, then we can have a life together. If he doesn’t, he can’t keep coming around me. End of story,” Lindy said with a resoluteness Annie wasn’t quite sure her friend felt just yet.

  “If you want a guy’s point of view, ask Jake. Or even your father.”

  “Dad’s already told me. He likes Rob well enough, but doesn’t like the effects of his visits. He thinks I need to go out and meet other guys, but there’s nobody else to go out with. Scott and Jake were the only two single guys around, and they are both taken,” she teased.

  “Well, there’s always Woody,” Annie said. Lindy gave her a scathing look. “But you don’t need another guy to give you the strength to do this.”

  “No, I don’t. I’ll call him this week.” Lindy said, putting her salad fork down and leaning back in the booth as the waiter removed her plate. “Now how about you? I have to admit, I’m jealous of you and Jake finding your way back to each other. You’re so lucky. Jake’s handsome, but he’s a real man, not some pretty boy who is afraid to get his hands dirty. Everybody in town admires him for coming back and taking over the farm.”

  “People talk about Jake in town?”

  “Dad says the bank wants him to consult for them while he’s getting all the farming stuff going. He’s well respected.”

  Annie decided to plunge in with a question she would have never thought to ask before hearing Betty Gibson’s comments.

  “Lindy, what do people say about me?”

  Lindy hesitated. “People are impressed with the exciting life you’ve had, traveling all over the world.”

  “And they don’t think I’ll stay.”

  “Well, you have to prove yourself in these small towns. Jake’s been around more regularly over the years, especially since he lived in Cincinnati. He’s kept relationships with the locals.”

  Lindy reached across the table and placed her hand over Annie’s.

  “Don’t sweat it. You’re different from what people think.”

  The waiter brought their pastas. It looked and smelled delicious, but somehow she had lost her appetite.

  ***

  Her grandmother’s bedroom light was still on when Annie came up the stairs. Before going into her room, she knocked, and cracked the door open.

  “Just checking on you,” she said. Beulah was sitting up in bed, holding the metal box of letters found in the old stone house.

  Annie couldn’t read the look on her grandmother’s face; it seemed part anguish and part joy.

  “Everything okay?” she said, coming into the room and sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Fine,” Beulah said, in a husky voice.

  “What is it?”

  Her grandmother handed her one of the letters. It was not a military letter, but instead an old-fashioned script in a feminine hand addressed to Ephraim May on Gibson’s Creek Road. The postmark was dated January 17, 1946. Annie opened the envelope and pulled out the ivory paper. The letter was written in Italian. Beulah handed her a picture in muted tones of a beautiful, dark-haired young woman, erect and serious in front of the camera.

  “I think the letter might be from her,” Beulah said.

  “A love interest?”

  “It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Beulah said. “I never knew anything but Bessie Sprinkle.”

  “I didn’t see it in the box.”

  “There was a false bottom,” Beulah said. “I noticed a felt tab when I was going through the letters and when I pulled it, there was this picture, this letter, and also this one,” she handed another letter to Annie.

  “At least this one’s in English,” she said. “Have you read it?”

  “Oh yes,” Beulah said. “And I want you to read it, too. Out loud, so I can hear it again.”

  Chapter Twelve

  ANNIE READ THE return address out loud: “Arnie Mason, Fort Worth, Texas.”

  “I remember a guy from Texas in one of his letters,” Annie said as Beulah nodded. Annie picked up the letter and read it aloud.

  January 15, 1946

  Dear Mr. And Mrs. May,

  My name is Arnie Mason and I was in the same company as your son, Ephraim May. In fact, we became good pals. We were both sent to North Africa for training, then to Sicily, and on to Salerno and what is now known as the Italian campaign. Although I can tell you we called it many other things.

  We had much in common. I lived on a cattle ranch and we both knew cows. Both of us grew up hunting and handling guns. I trusted Ephraim and he backed me up many a time as I did him.

  This trust served us well as we be
gan in Sicily with several skirmishes there before getting into the real stuff on the mainland of Italy. We landed at Salerno and made our way on foot north, headed for Rome. You will have heard all about this now and know what a disaster it was at Monte Cassino, although we were not in the battle. Our company was charged with taking the Volturno River and that was where Ephraim saved my life.

  We were in a valley approaching the river and the Germans were placed in better positions on the cliffs above us. They had all the advantage, but we were there to draw them out and distract them while our troops were building a bridge upstream. We were advancing to the river when two Germans came up from a hiding place as I moved positions. In a flash Ephraim took out both of them before they could raise their guns. If he had not been there, I would not be here today.

  We did take the Volturno but at a great cost. With our troops bogged down in the Italian mountains, a new plan for taking Rome was developed and we were sent to Naples for training. We didn’t know for what or where back then, but we had our own ideas.

  We were in Naples for nearly three months. During that time, Ephraim got to know a shopkeeper and his family. I went with him many times and shared a meal with them in their home. There was little English spoken, so we had to learn some Italian and do the best we could in both languages, but they were fine people and took great care of us. In turn, we shared cigarettes and tins of meat they could sell. Times were hard then for the people of Naples. They were caught under the rule of an ambitious dictator, but the people wanted freedom and they caught hope when the American troops arrived.

  While we were in Naples, Ephraim came down with malaria. He never told you of this, I am sure, since his main concern was to keep you both from worrying about him. He spent a week in the hospital and the shopkeeper’s daughter, Elena, often visited him and was better for him than the medicine.

  The picture I am enclosing is of Elena. I took this picture out of his pocket after he was killed. I was determined to send it to you myself. We have heard all the personal effects don’t always reach the family in order to “protect” them. He told me too much about you all and I know you don’t need protecting from knowing how happy he was the last few months.

  After battling through Sicily, Salerno and the Volturno, our time in Naples had been a good break for us, even with the rigorous training. And what was ahead, we did not know, although rumors abounded. Some thought we were on our way to take southern France. Others thought we were headed straight to Rome. Training in full battle gear and wading through seawater made many of us believe we were headed for a beachhead assault.

  In mid-January, the training stops. We are confined to the company area and given a day to rest other than the inspection of our equipment. We understand what is unspoken. Church services are held, chaplains are called in, and letters are written home.

  The next morning, we left for what we now know as the battle of Anzio. We loaded onto ships down at the port and sailed up the coast of Italy, landing at the beachhead off Anzio, with Rome as the ultimate prize. Rome meant we had Italy.

  When going over the mountains failed with Monte Cassino, they decided we needed to attack from the closest beach to Rome. It is strange how these decisions are made in strategy rooms. A sleepy town is selected for its geographic and logistical connections and then its name becomes infamous ever after. That’s what happened to Anzio.

  We were supposed to attack and go inland for Rome, but it didn’t work out. We took the beachhead easily enough, but in the week we stayed to organize our forces, the surprise we had on the Germans diminished and they responded with a vengeance. The Germans fought hard to keep what they had left of Italy and the history books will record these months as some of the worst fighting in the war’s history. Slowly, we edged our way inland, pushing towards Cisterna. On February 1, we were still a mile outside the village under heavy attack.

  Ephraim was lying next to a haystack. I was under the cover of an old wagon. Strange thing is, he loved those haystacks. He said they reminded him of home. The bullets came in fast and hard and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him drop his gun. I ran to him, yelling for a medic. When I got there he was already gone. You should know he didn’t suffer. There was no time for it.

  For the first time in the war, I was in shock. It was all wrong since Ephraim and I were in this together and I could not believe he was gone when just a minute before we were joking about who owed who a cigarette. My captain came by and told me to leave him and move on, but I couldn’t go until I took the picture from him. I guess one thing I could do for him, is to save the picture of the girl he loved. I know this must be painful for you to hear, it is painful for me to write. I debated telling you these details, but my parents encouraged me, saying they would want the same from Ephraim if it had been me.

  We took Rome, but it was three more months of fighting. Afterward, I was sent to France. When VE day came, I was discharged and sent to a hospital to recover from some constant health issues not for polite mentioning. I just got home a month ago, in time for Christmas. I wanted to write as soon as I could, as hard as it was for me to tell this story.

  I don’t talk much about what happened. They are lost years and a time to put away. I am one of the lucky ones. I am alive and home.

  I write all this because I want you to know, your son was my best pal, and I will never forget him nor that he saved my life. I hope my life will honor his memory.

  With all due respect,

  Arnie Mason

  Annie wiped her eyes and dropped the letter to her lap. Her grandmother was looking past her, staring into a dimension of time Annie had not experienced and could never know.

  There was a long moment before either of them spoke and Annie did not want to be the first to break it. It was as if she were a guest witnessing an intimate moment with her grandmother’s immediate family.

  Beulah shook her head.

  “I never knew all this, but I guess they thought I was too young to hear it,” she said. “When I was old enough, it was too painful for them to bear it all over again. They hid it away in a secret bottom under the rest of the letters and then they hid the box under the floor of their bedroom.”

  “Like Arnie said, lost years to be put away,” Annie mused. “I always thought the room where I found the letters was your room?”

  Beulah fingered the fold in her nightgown.

  “I slept in the same room with them until Ephraim went off to war. We only had two bedrooms. After he left, I moved into Ephraim’s room since I was getting older and it was time I had a room to myself.” Beulah leaned back and closed her eyes; her cheek was still wet from the tears.

  “The night we got word was the worst of all. Mama cried so loud. No, it was more like a howl. Like some awful sound from a dying animal. I never knew such a noise could come from a human being, let alone my mama. Daddy held her and tried to console her. Finally, the doctor came and gave her something to help her sleep. By then, word had got out around the community and people were paying respects. Eunice Gibson, Joe’s mother, was one of my mother’s best friends. She came over and took charge of the kitchen and me. We had a wake of sorts for several days, but there was no body, and no funeral to give us closure. After the war, they had a place for Ephraim at the American cemetery in Anzio along with thousands of other boys. But Daddy wanted him back here in our family cemetery, resting with our kin. So we waited.

  “It was in March of 1948 before we got him home, a long spell to wait for a funeral. Apparently, there is much to sort out at the end of a world war. When we finally did have the funeral, the entire town of Somerville turned out for it. The color guard escorted his body down Main Street with flags on the car while the mayor arranged for a band to play taps when the hearse stopped in front of the courthouse. We followed in a fancy black car with leather seats. I had never seen anything like it. People lined the street so thick they were three and four deep. Farmers who should have been in the fields were dressed in their best
clothes. School had let out and the teachers stood with the classes. There were housewives with small children, all with sad faces, and all grieving with us. Out of the seven boys killed from our town, Ephraim was the only one brought home. I don’t know why he was the only one, but Ephraim ended up representing all the boys we lost.”

  Annie was transported by the story, seeing in her mind the parade of cars going down Main Street, headed for the cemetery on Gibson’s Creek Road.

  “I was young enough to think once we buried Ephraim, our grief would end. It didn’t,” Beulah sighed. “Survival demanded we move on. No one had the luxury of wallowing in misery back then.”

  Annie waited and hoped her grandmother would continue. After a moment, she did.

  “It was an economic hardship as well. Daddy depended on Ephraim to help with the farm. They were partners in it and Ephraim was the future of it. There was no one else to do the work, so we put our heads down and did what had to be done. After the war, Daddy hired on Fred and his brother Pete to help with our tobacco. If Ephraim had lived, Daddy wouldn’t have needed them.”

  Annie sat in the silence of the memories, hardly daring to move, as if paying respect to what her family had suffered. After a few moments, she put the letter back in the box.

  “What a treasure to have this letter. I wonder if your parents ever wrote him back?”

  “Surely they did, if nothing else, to thank him.”

  “And what about this letter, the one written in Italian?” Annie picked up the letter and studied the handwriting.

  “I can’t imagine how they would’ve managed.”

  “Do you think it’s from the shopkeeper’s daughter?” she asked, opening it up and scanning the two pages in beautiful script.

  “I wouldn’t venture to say, although it seems possible with what the other letter says about how Ephraim fell in love with her.”

  “Janice could translate it, if you want her to,” Annie offered.

  Beulah was quiet.

  “Let me think about it. Sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.”