“’Tis the Irish form o’ David.”
“Ah.”
“Will you two quit yakkin’ and git movin’.” Lenny came up from behind Oshki and scolded them. “Seriously, you’re holdin’ up the line.”
Oshki kidded his chum. “Someone is in a hurry for the sight of new dirt.”
“Ha, ha.” Lenny swatted Oshki on the back. “Naw, it’s just nice to stretch my legs. They’ve gotten awful cramped up in our old terrain.”
Daithi scratched his chin. “Whar we marchin’ ta, ya think?”
“To our deaths, most like,” Lenny said, deadpan.
Oshki gave Lenny a dirty look. “You’re gonna scare him, Lenny.”
“What?” Lenny shrugged with an innocent look on his face.
Oshki eyed Daithi for a second time. “How old are you anyway?”
“Old enough.” Daithi’s face reddened.
“Just old enough ta be off your mamma’s tit, I’d say,” Lenny snickered.
“Ah, leave him alone.” Oshki growled a little this time.
“Well, we’re glad of fresh blood. It’s been getting thin over here.”
“Come on, let’s just shut up and walk.”
Oshki tired of talking about what they’d lost, and he didn’t want to think about this young kid going the same way as all the others. He picked up his pace and put some distance between Lenny and Daithi.
He didn’t want to kid about dying, not today. He had in his mind that dying happened in the grime of the trenches, but not at home. Home was supposed to be safe, but death’s long arm had touched it all the same.
As he marched, Oshki really thought about dying and what it would mean. He remembered his mother talking to him about how death had lost its sting because of Christ’s victory over the grave. He knew his parents always tried to live according to that victory—a triumph over the wages of sin and hell. They wouldn’t escape a physical death, but death held no power any longer because of Christ’s sacrificial payment one time for all mankind. Those who trusted in Christ’s sacrifice could be alive in him. And death, when it came, became a kind of door to a transformation of sorts, as if the human body was a cocoon that was shed to let the living spirit free.
Dying required sacrifice, and Oshki knew about sacrifice. He watched men surrender their lives in battle every day. He’d seen more men die than he could count, but it had all become a pointless, endless drone. The picture of what he fought for became dimmer and dimmer with every plod towards his next position. Basically, it boiled down to one fact: he was there to honor his word and little else.
I love you,
And that’s the beginning
And end of everything.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter Fourteen
Late November 1917
St. Paul, Minnesota
“Look off to the side . . .. Yes. Now back the other way.”
I sit perfectly still as a doctor of ophthalmology hovers over my face. I can feel his breath on my cheek. A whiff of peppermint accompanies the wispy feeling. I hear the click of the ophthalmoscope as he turns the lens. The light from his instrument is the only light in the dim room. The lens focuses the light into my eye so its inner depth may be seen.
“Is there a problem, Doctor?” I can’t tell if he’s disappointed or concerned. This constitutes my second visit to Dr. Hamell.
“No. In fact, I think the scar tissue has improved. Your retina looks fine.”
He and the scope move back from my personal space. I hear him get up, walk over to the windows, and open the blinds. Light rushes into the room, and I squint with its brightness.
“Well, if my eyes are looking better, why am I not seeing well? Why do I see better on some days than others?”
I feel frustrated; my vision isn’t reflecting the progress he sees.
“I wish I could give you a pat answer, Mr. Wilson, but unfortunately I cannot.” He sits back down across from me on his stool. I can sense honesty and kindness in his voice. “Eye strain, inflammation around the injury, and the natural process of healing all have a say in this matter. It has now been many months since your injury . . . and I feel I must tell you that this is the best your eyesight may get.”
I close my eyes in the hope of shutting out such a future. Strangely enough, as I do, I see images bright and real in my mind. My inner sight, my sighted memory, has brought to life what I can no longer physically see with definition. At the same time, it comforts and frightens me, for this may be the only way I can see well—in my memory.
“Mr. Wilson? Do you . . . understand?” he asks quietly.
“Yes,” I say with resignation.
“With limited vision you can still lead a semi-normal life. The newest corrective lens I am prescribing will assist you further.”
Semi-normal? What exactly does that mean?
“I would like you to schedule one more appointment with me . . . say six months from now.”
“Yes. Fine.”
He stands up. “My assistant will show you out to your family.” He places my hand on the arm of a woman nearby. “Take care, Mr. Wilson.”
“Yes. Thank you.” I manage to be polite.
“This way, sir.” His female assistant leads me slowly back to the waiting room of Dr. Hamell’s office. While we walk, I think of all the things I may never see clearly again: my art, nature, my home, the faces of my loved ones, my own face, and . . . Rose. Well, I actually never did see her with clarity, in more ways than one.
I hate it that I can’t stop thinking about her. Surely, she’s forgotten me in her ministrations to other soldiers. Men who will probably lose their fool hearts to her as I did.
Fool—the key word. My pride made me a fool from the very beginning, and my heart makes me a fool still for being duped by the wiles of a witch.
“I’m sorry . . . I didn’t know what I was doing.” Rose’s words echo back to me. I never did take the time to hear her story. I just attached spite to her.
But was she ever spiteful or cruel in any way to me while under her care? No. Then again, I wouldn’t have been in Victoria General, battered, blind, and broken, if it hadn’t been for her.
You don’t know that, I hear myself say.
I wonder where Rose is now and what she’s doing. Is she on duty, carefully tending to some patient’s needs? Probably. Something warm rises on the back of my neck. Jealousy rears its ugly head at the thought of her tender hands on someone else’s flesh.
But what do I care? She drew the line between us with a white feather, and I will never see her again.
“Here you are now, sir.”
“Thank you, miss. We’ll take it from here,” I hear Michael say.
Mom wraps her arm around mine.
“Ready to go home?” she asks.
“Ready,” I say, but I only think of . . . Rose . . . Rose . . . Rose.
Early October 1916
Halifax
“So, Mabel, what’s your favorite pie, then?”
Alma Johnson had her shirt sleeves rolled up and a pastry cutter in her hand. The swift chop and turn action of her wrist on the implement ground the flour into the fat. One hand worked the cutter, while the other turned the crockery bowl.
“Ah, I would have to say blackberry. My granny made the best with sugar crystals on top of a crispy crust . . . mmm.”
Mabel had accompanied Rose on a visit to the Johnsons. The three ladies were in the kitchen, elbow-deep in flour, lard, and apples, with apple pies their objective. Alma needed to make some pies for the fall harvest festival at church.
“What about you now, Our Rose?” Alma asked as she spooned some ice water into the blended flour and fat.
“Well, gosh . . . maybe pecan first and apple second. My mother didn’t bake much, but we always had those two pies at holiday times.”
Rose puffed a strand of hair off her nose as she bent over the kitchen table rolling out a pie crust.
“Will you be going home for a harvest
meal this year?” A hint of hope lifted Alma’s question.
“If I don’t have to work.” Rose turned to Mabel. “You on the schedule?”
“Probably. The old battle axe—pardon me French, mum—seems to have it in for me.” Mabel put a sweet smile on her face and leaned her head towards her shoulder in a move to appear innocent, but both Rose and Alma knew she was anything but.
Rose had filled Alma in prior to their visit about Mabel and her mischievous, fun-loving spirit.
“Matron isn’t all that bad. You have to admit, Mabel, you do egg her on some.” Rose looked sideways at her friend.
Mabel continued to slice the peeled apples in front of her. She shrugged and gave a quick wink.
Alma changed the subject. “Rose mentioned you are engaged, Mabel.”
“Yes.” Mabel perked up. “Milton and I plan a Christmas wedding. That’s such a magical time of year, isn’t it? Perfect for a wedding.” Mabel looked dreamily at her heap of apple chunks. “There will be candlelight and the smell of cedar in the air. My attendees will wear crushed, evergreen, velvet dresses. My dress will be lace, of course.”
“Sounds lovely.” Alma smiled at Mabel. “I wish you and your intended every happiness.”
“Thank you.” Mabel stilled her knife. Regret weighed down her tone and her brow. “I will have to give up nursing, though.”
“How unfortunate,” Alma sympathized. “I think it unfair that married women are banned from the occupation.”
“The wards are a cheerier place with Mabel on duty.” Rose winked at her friend as she rolled back some of her pastry over her rolling pin.
She picked it up, plopped it over a pie tin, and pressed it in the pan with her fingers, leaving the excess hang over the rim.
“There have been so many young men admitted to the hospital, wounded from the war.” Mabel slowly sliced an apple quarter. “I tease and tell them stories or jokes. They deserve a little cheer from a pretty face.”
“Who says you’re pretty?” Rose grinned and mixed cinnamon, sugar, and a little flour into a large bowl of apple slices.
“They all do,” Mabel replied smartly.
Alma kneaded a new crust. “I’m sure they do, but it is what your young man thinks that’s most important.”
She passed the crust off to Rose to roll out. This was their last one.
“Yes.” Mabel ducked her head a bit and actually blushed a little.
“What does your young man do again?”
“He works at a new company in Quebec making a new type of material being used in munitions.”
“I suppose you’ll be moving there, then.”
What a dummy I am, Rose thought.
She really hadn’t taken the time to let the fact sink in that her friend, co-worker, and roommate would soon be gone from her life.
“I . . . we need to discuss the details. I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you about it yet.” Mabel scooped up the last of her sliced apples and dumped them in the bowl with the others. “Milton hasn’t quite decided what he wants to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he may be transferred into the military as a weapons specialist.”
“Oh, Mabel, I’m sorry.” Rose reached for her friend’s hand, not minding the flour, sticky apples, and all.
“I figured it would happen someday . . . his getting caught up in the war.”
“Men do what they must, and so must we.” Alma wisely spoke her mind. She wiped her hands on her apron and brought her mixing bowl to the sink. She kept her back to the girls, but her voice contained tears. “Del and I couldn't stop our lad, now, could we? I sometimes think ‘what if,’ but that doesn’t do us any good.” Alma sucked in a steadying breath and turned to face them. “At least we have Our Rose.” She offered them a wobbly grin.
Rose moved to hug the older woman. “Yes, you do.”
Alma clung to Rose for a few moments before wiping her eyes with a corner of her apron.
“Well, you’ve lost a son but gained a daughter,” Mabel, always the bright one, pointed out.
“Now, my girls, these pies aren’t going to bake themselves. Let’s finish their assembly and get them in the oven.” Alma gave a smile like a spectrum-colored bow in the sky after a good rain.
“Hear. Hear.” Rose raised her fist in the air and set to finishing one of the pies.
She placed a top crust on the filled pie tin, crimping the edges with her fingers, cutting off the excess with a paring knife, and making some slits in the top for steam vents. Mabel and Alma each finished another, and soon the Johnson home steeped in the fragrance of baking apple pies.
The women had just finished cleaning up when Delano slammed the screen door on his way in. “Somethin’ smells good ‘nough ta make a grown man cry.”
“Always did know how to make you tear up,” Alma teased her husband.
“Ha, that ya did woman, that ya did.” Delano snuck behind his wife and planted a quick kiss on her neck before taking himself off to the washroom.
Rose watched their kidding and sweetness. A tender spot in her heart ached, and, not for the first time, she thought, That could very well have been Henry and me in twenty years.
But it wouldn’t be. I wonder what, or, rather, who IS to be, then.
Maybe there wouldn’t be another chance at love. Some months ago, Rose had felt loving again an impossibility anyway, but now she hoped for it.
Early December 1916
Webaashi Bay
“What’s the last month’s women’s meeting going to be on?” Mauve stood in the Cotas’ living room visiting with Jenay, the girls, Natalie, and Lily.
Maang-ikwe and Angelica listened from the dining table where they worked on a small lap quilt together. On her hip, Mauve jiggled Pearl, who fussed and drooled. Pearl sucked on a cool, wet washcloth to ease her sore gums; she was cutting another tooth.
“I’m not sure. I did think of sharing ideas about homemade gifts for Christmas.” Lily tapped a pencil on a pad of paper. “Any other ideas?”
“Sounds nice.” Jenay yarned over on her crochet hook and worked a row of double crochet stitches on a soft, cream-colored, wool blanket.
“Oh, what about gingerbread?” Celeste chimed in.
“Yes! You could make yummy houses with frosting and candies.” Elizabeth smacked her lips.
“Well, that may not fit our rationing, but I can ask Marm if she thinks we could get the supplies.” Mauve sat down, her back in a crick from holding her daughter.
“I asked Mayor Maddox if he thought we should still have our annual Christmas party. He suggested something more fitting—a prayer vigil or Christmas hymn sing-along,” Lily informed the group. “I wonder if we should have something less celebratory for our meeting too.”
Angelica spoke up as she pieced together a log cabin block from scraps of fabric. Her sharp eyes looked over the top of her spectacles. “Are we not to celebrate the birth of the Christ child? War has not changed that one jot.”
“I think pairing frugality with the joy of Christmas seemly.” Jenay agreed with her aunt. “Christmas is a time for joy even if hard circumstances surround us.”
“Agreed. Any other suggestions?” Lily looked around the group.
“I like the homemade gift idea. And perhaps we could all make a Christmas tree ornament and exchange those,” Natalie suggested.
“Ooh, I like that.” Lily scratched a note down on a pad of paper. “I’ll put up a notice at the post office and Trent’s pertaining to specifics.” Lily looked up with hopeful eyes. “Anyone want to share an idea for a homemade gift—other than food, that is?”
“I could give an easy demonstration on blending bath salts and making a simple muscle rub,” Jenay volunteered.
She reached out to take Pearl from Mauve, who looked relieved.
“Good.” Lily scratched more notes. “What about gifts geared more towards men?”
“Hmm, maybe Maang-ikwe could demonstrate how to use leather to make s
ome useful things like belts or wallets?” Jenay looked slyly at her aunt.
“What you say I do?” Maang-ikwe looked over her work at her niece. “You know, my hearing still mino.”
“Yes, I know your hearing is still good.” Jenay smiled. “What do you think? Can you show us ladies how to make some simple things from tanned hide?”
“Oui. If I have enough.”
“Wonderful.” Lily wrote some more things down on her paper.
“I look forward to it.” Natalie smiled. “What date do you think you’ll go with, Lily, for the meeting? I promised my folks I’d visit and bring some treats from The Eatery.”
“Probably in two weeks, so we have time to make the gifts being demonstrated.” Lily looked up from her paper and met Natalie’s gaze. She knew how hard it was for her friend to see her parents living in an internment camp. “Your parents have been there more than a year,” she said with sadness.
“I’m sorry, Natalie.” Jenay wore an empathic expression on her face. “It still doesn’t seem right.”
“I know, but I’ve gotten over it. It is what it is. They are both well, though Mother has a cough I worry about. Father keeps himself busy with carpentry work, and Mother works in the kitchen of the camp. Someone got wind of what a good cook she is. Not that she gets much of a chance to make what she wants. She mostly has to go with the meal plans they give her.”
“How many are at this particular camp?” Mauve asked.
“Several hundred, I’d say.”
Angelica added her thoughts. “Well, it’s nice they have some occupation. Too much time on your hands is a troublesome thing.”
“Yes. I’m glad they are doing well for the most part.”
“Well, what say I bring out the treat the girls and I made? Mauve, will you take Pearl back?” Jenay sneaked a kiss on the baby’s cheek before handing her off to her mother. “Girls, come help me, please.”
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