by Jina Bacarr
That encourages my knight in a pinstripe suit to make his play. He gets up from his seat and approaches me with a boldness he didn’t display before. As if he’s made up his mind about something and he’s acting on it.
‘Is your husband meeting you at the station?’ he asks, concern deepening his voice. I thrill to his familiar tone, my toes curling. I ache for him to touch me, but he’s careful to keep his hands off me, though I sense he doesn’t want to. Did he finally recognize me?
‘My husband?’ Oh, no, what did I do? Did I marry someone else? It never occurred to me that that would happen. My heart breaks. No wonder he called me ma’am. He thinks I’m married.
I rip off my glove, check the ring finger on my left hand. Bare, thank God. I look up at him as if to say, now what?
A change comes over him then, as if he’s been waiting for me to say something. I see his face light up with a big grin and a shiver of anticipation slithers down my spine. Is this the moment I’ll have him back? Is it? I keep quiet, watching him, waiting, then—
He seems reluctant to let go of a deep emotion ripping him apart inside. Instead, he says in an amused voice. ‘You look as beautiful as a red rose in the Marché aux Fleurs, flower market, in Paris, and as flighty as a bird flitting around the stalls in search of a few crumbs.’
‘I’m not flighty,’ I insist, adjusting my clothing. ‘I’m confused.’ I can’t go on until I understand why he’s acting so strange. ‘Don’t you know me, Jeff?’
‘I’d know you anywhere, Jelly Girl.’ he says, his words tender, and my heart pounds in my ears when he sits down next to me. I want to grab him, but I don’t. I have the feeling he’s as confused as I am. His jaw tightens. Did he also feel the shift in time when I returned?
‘Then why didn’t you kiss me back?’
‘I didn’t think your husband would approve… especially with an audience watching us.’
It’s true. I can’t help but be aware of the sly looks from the passengers, whispering, waiting to see what I’ll do next, what Jeff will do.
‘I waited for you all these years, Jeff. The last time I saw you, we were on the train back in 1943.’ I attempt a smile, while trying to shake off the profound and eerie sensation he’s trying to process seeing me again, put the pieces together.
‘I heard you were engaged, so when I saw you I assumed—’
‘I was,’ I cut him off. ‘It didn’t work out.’
His eyes take on a distant look, as if he’s seeing back into the past and it’s painful. Which makes me wonder, where was he all these years?
‘Oh, Jeff, where have you been?’
‘Living in France.’
‘France? Why?’
‘After the war, I wasn’t the same man.’
‘What happened to you?’ I have to know.
‘After I was captured by the Gestapo, I was sent to a concentration camp in Germany, then a displaced persons camp after the war because I had battle shock. I lost my memory for a time. I wasn’t sure who I was since I carried French identity papers on me when I was caught.’
‘Then you don’t remember our last meeting on the train? The letter I told you about?’ My world crumbles.
‘For a long time, I thought it was a dream, that you were a dream. Then everything you said came true. The mission was crucial – set explosives on the tracks with incendiary fuses to derail the supply train and stop more trains from coming through. For two days I watched the man you called Leftie sneaking off and when he came back, his face was flushed, his nose twitching. I swear, his pocket bulged with rolled up franc notes he no doubt intended to trade for Reichsmarks.’
‘Money he made on the black market?’
‘I thought so at first. Then I found him going through the British officer’s bedroll at the church where we were hiding out. I stayed out of sight when I saw him unscrew the man’s pipe, take it apart and look inside, as if he was searching for something. It was empty. He looked around, saw no one, and replaced it.’
‘What was he looking for?’
He smirks. ‘I’m not sure, but I kept hearing your voice telling me not to trust him.’ He pauses, wipes the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. ‘I would have been killed if I hadn’t heeded your warning echoing in my head and made that split-second decision to go after him before the Nazis attacked. The mission was a success, but it took me a long time to find my way back.’
‘You never came home to Posey Creek?’
‘I couldn’t talk about my experiences in the OSS because of military reasons – my participation wasn’t declassified until recently. After I recovered from my injuries, I stayed away because of the nightmares plaguing me. Men dying, men I couldn’t save. The sweats. I had anger issues that took me years to control. I wasn’t the Jeff you knew, Kate. You deserved better.’
I understand. Doors closed years ago in a fury. Against the backdrop of war. Pushing out everything else except survival. I can only imagine the torment he suffered losing so many days, weeks, months he can’t account for. Worse yet, not being able to feel the emotions of those times. Moments big and small, even if they’re painful, not feeling them because he can’t remember them is akin to losing his soul.
Unthinkable.
I don’t ask him any more questions. An incurable insanity is brewing in my mind, pushing me someplace so extraordinary, I’m more scared than I’ve ever been. Scared if I’m wrong, I don’t know if I’ll ever recover.
Does Jeff still love me?
I have to deal with the most explosive thing my heart has had to cope with in a long time. Coming back to Posey Creek. Seeing Jeff. It’s like squeezing every emotion I ever felt into a tiny, red velvet box and sealing it up with a green satin ribbon and praying it won’t explode. When I know very well it can.
‘Do you have the drawing you made of me?’ I ask, treading carefully.
‘Yes. It sustained me through it all, gave me courage. I couldn’t go back to my pampered life, not after what I saw over there. So I became an architect and rebuilt France. Better I stay dead to everyone, including my family, and especially when I heard you were to be married. I didn’t want to ruin your life. I saw no reason to come back to Posey Creek.’
‘Then why now?’
‘When I found out the house on the river we were going to live in was scheduled to be torn down, I had to come back. After I rebuilt so much after the war, to have that last link to you, to us, torn down hurt me more than I can bear. I intended to have it declared a historical structure, now I want to remodel the house and return it to its former glory.’
‘Oh, Jeff, that’s wonderful!’
He heaves out a deep breath. ‘I had no idea you were on this train, Kate. It’s quite a shock, but it doesn’t change anything between us. Nothing could. You know how I feel about you.’
‘Oh, Jeff,’ I say, more under his spell than ever. ‘Thank God, you came back to me.’
A knot of fear and anticipation make me nearly burst when I see him reach for me, a pure joy coming into his eyes. He picks me up and swings me around, kissing me and holding me tight. A fever in that kiss makes me ache to be alone with him.
‘I’m never leaving you again, my darling,’ he says in a low, husky voice.
‘Then you do love me?’ I beg him, drawing his face to mine, wanting with all my heart to kiss him again. I wait, because I can’t bear to spend another second not knowing. I pay no attention to the crowd in the railcar clapping, the heavy sighs. My body hums in a hot, steady rhythm as he wraps his arms around me so tight, I can’t breathe. Then he whispers in my ear what I waited so long to hear.
‘Will you marry me, Jelly Girl?’
‘Yes, Jeff, yes!’ I can’t hold back the hot tears forming in my eyes. I’m home for Christmas.
With Jeff.
26
December 25, 1955
Christmas Day is cold and snowless but as Jeff and I sit on the old sofa dotted with Ma’s lacy doilies before a roaring fire, it’s fitti
ng somehow for the lack of snowflakes mirrors that day back in 1943. As if the two timelines run parallel in harmony. When I kissed him on the train, I pulled them together into one glorious moment that set my world right again.
A melody of holiday favorites playing on the radio lends a timeless lift to our spirits and a big Christmas tree smelling of pine and decorated with silver and blue and red balls sets the mood. Multi-colored lights tied with string to the tree branches twinkle at us as we sort out the amazing series of events that brought us back together. I can’t tell you the pangs that went through me when I saw the fresh-cut tree and remembered that day with Jeff swinging the axe. His tall, muscular body making me ache for him, crave his warm touch. I never dreamed when I returned to the white clapboard house where I grew up, I’d be holding Jeff’s hand in mine. It seemed like I’d been here hours ago, not years.
I had, in a way.
And I embraced those warm memories with Ma and Pop like snippets of a song that linger in your head long after the tune ends. I wonder what Ma would think if she was here with us. I can see her fluttering around like a busy mama bee, making the stuffing for the turkey and don’t forget the sausage, she’d remind me, then measuring the spices for the mince pie. Smiling with glee when the twins make their first ever sugar cookies and don’t burn them. I can’t help but wish she were here. Pop, too, chewing on his pipe and conning us one by one into playing a game of checkers with him.
Every Christmas has its own unique footprint evoked by the smell of fresh pine or the sound of boots crunching in the snow. This one is no different. First, I need to take a moment to tend the fires of the past. A special memory sparking to life, if only for a few moments before it’s gone. My journey back to Christmastime 1943 remains so vivid in my mind, I let the flame burn longer, going over every detail of how I got there, every life I touched. Mildred, Mr Clayborn, Helen, Freddie, the ladies at the mill, and my family.
God, I love them.
I can’t say for sure why it happened, what forces of time were in harmony that day on the train to send me back, but I’ve never been so filled with a sense of completeness. Perhaps I don’t have a right to be so happy, considering the years I spent feeling sorry for myself. No woman who lost her man in wartime is immune to the allure of wanting him back, if only in her dreams.
I remember every moment I spent with Jeff, trying to understand his elusive past, while falling in love with him all over again. Then when everything seemed so bleak, gone so terribly wrong, somehow I found the strength to keep going. Push through, break down the closed doors in my mind, my broken heart keeping me in a cage all these years. The hunger in me to dig up the past so strong, I wouldn’t give up. A desperate woman who traversed the slender tightrope between the spaces of time to find him.
Then Jeff came home to me and no way, not ever, will I let him go.
His dark eyes filled with the clear recognition of who I am when he saw me stand up on the train, then fall. He didn’t know what to think, what to do. He never expected to see me again. Then it hit him with such force, the distant but profound memory of him leaving that day, he couldn’t deny his heart any longer. He had a life with me once and he sacrificed it to help win the war. When he found out I waited for him, it was time for him to get it back.
I felt the change in him when he called me his Jelly Girl. It wasn’t a blast of cold wind from the past that struck him, he says, more like it burst into a flame from the embers smoldering in him, never gone, surviving in spite of the violence of war. He couldn’t believe I was here in his arms. He vowed not to lose me a second time.
In my dreamy state now, cuddled up next to him, I smell the woodsy scent he never abandoned, a steady compass he clung to, even when he struggled to find himself after the war. Resting my head on his shoulder, I finally close my eyes, knowing in my heart he’ll be there when I open them. I paid the price time demanded of me, endured those long, lonely years without him and in a strange way, my refusal to give up his memory is what brought us back together. We never would have met on that train if I hadn’t, however you want to see it – either gone a little crazy after I read the letter from the sergeant, or traveled back through time.
Jeff would have gotten off the train at our small town railway station, maybe brushed by me, our shoulders touching, my eyes catching a quick glance of him but not seeing his face under his Fedora. We wouldn’t have stopped to acknowledge one another in the holiday rush. Or in my case, the heartrending homecoming. We wouldn’t have taken the time to see the loneliness etched on our faces, the despair of two people who never allowed themselves to fall out of love with each other.
In the end, it’s that despair that brought us here. Two single people with nowhere to go, no one to spend Christmas with. Fate was laughing at us, I’m certain, watching us pass each other in the night. Instead or maybe because of our deep love, the muses who rule time gave us a second chance and we took it. Otherwise, Jeff would have checked out the house on the river, filed his historical claim, and then left on the next train. Never knowing I’m here, waiting for him. That I came back to Posey Creek to find him.
I broke the news to the family. I can’t tell you the craziness that ensued when I brought him home. Lucy couldn’t stop the tears and nearly collapsed. Whatever fight she’d had with Jimmie fixed itself. She wanted me to come home, she said, because she’s having another child and needs my help for the holiday.
Jimmie is at her side, giving her his special smile and strong arms to hold her. Frankie can’t stop shaking Jeff’s hand. Yes, he came home as I hoped. I believe he recognizes a fellow soldier who’s known the horrors of combat and came out on the other side. When we went to church services early this morning, I told Mildred and the reverend that Jeff is back and they both wept with joy. We decided to break the news about Jeff publicly at a later time when the whole town can welcome him home.
Today is Christmas and there’s nothing we want more than for him to spend the day with us. He has some healing to do. No one knows yet the whole story of where he’s been, what he did in the service of the OSS over in France during the war.
Earlier this afternoon, I showed Jeff the letter from the sergeant as we stood under the cherry tree. He feels rooted to his past here, our past. It’s the only time I’ve seen him break down and bury his head in his hands. Nothing I say can compare to the heartfelt, wrenching words written by a brother-in-arms. What happened to him is more real with the letter. Making it easier for him to accept the truth.
He has to look forward, but first confront the past and let it slowly turn in his mind. Face the reality learning his father is gone, the mill closed, and his brother left town. More worrisome is how Jeff feels about his mother leaving Posey Creek and never looking back. He doesn’t mention going to see her. I have the feeling he will when the time is right. We’ll make peace with her as a married couple and I hope she’ll accept me.
Then it’s his turn to talk and mine to listen.
‘The whole thing with the War Department was my mother’s doing,’ Jeff said, looking over the horizon toward Wrightwood House. ‘She received a phone call from the Washington hotel asking if Mr Rushbrooke and his guest would be staying longer than two days since rooms were impossible to get during the war and they needed it for a visiting dignitary.’
‘Our honeymoon.’ I never tire of hearing his sexy, hypnotic voice, deeper and richer now.
‘Yes, and when she found out the reservation was in my name, it didn’t take her long to unravel the cord and wrap it around my neck. She’d planned to have me called up to Washington after her big New Year’s Eve party. After that, she pulled some strings to get me away from you sooner.’
‘Didn’t she know she was sending you into danger?’
He shook his head. ‘No, she assumed I’d spend the rest of the war behind a desk, but the President’s office called late Sunday afternoon with a change of plans. I was to speak to no one, but leave the next morning by train for Washington.’<
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‘The President?’
He nodded. ‘I intended to do my part, wherever they needed me, so when the sudden need for a French speaking agent came up, I jumped at the chance to join a special operations team working in France.’ He took a moment to reflect. ‘I never dreamed my years in military school learning how to use a weapon, making maps, and combat training would save my life more than once. The mission was very hush hush, so they sent a special car to pick me up that morning. My mother kept peering over my shoulder all the way to the railroad station as I wrote you that letter. I told her I was making notes for my meeting with the President and his staff overseeing clandestine operations.’
‘I was devastated when the stationmaster gave me your letter.’
‘I can’t tell you what great pain pierced my heart when I had to tell you I couldn’t take you with me, Kate.’ He held me tight under the cherry tree. ‘But I had every reason to believe I’d get a furlough before I went overseas so we could be married.’
I nodded. ‘We were at war, Jeff, you did what needed to be done.’
‘So did you, Jelly Girl,’ he loved to tease me about traveling through time. I’m not sure he’s convinced, but he has a recollection of me disappearing that day in 1943 after the train came out of the tunnel. He thought he dreamed the whole thing when the conductor claimed not to remember me. I imagine he didn’t want to lose his job for allowing me on board without a ticket.
We continued talking when we went back to the house, filling in our lives right up until the moment we collapsed on the couch in the parlor next to the fireplace. His hands wrapped tight around my waist, his face nuzzling in my hair. We haven’t spoken for a while, sitting here, wrapped up in each other. I can’t tell you how much I love resting my head on his shoulder and holding him. The lovely smells of turkey roasting and pies baking is enough to keep us happy until eating time. We’re both exhausted with little sleep and so many years to catch up on.