Girl to Come Home To

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

World War II Eastern United States

T
he stars were all out in full force the night that Rodney and Jeremy Graeme came home from the war. Even the faraway ones were peeping eagerly through the distance, trying to impress the world with their existence, showing that they felt it an occasion when their presence should be recognized. And even the near stars had burst out like flowers in the deep blue of the darkness, till they fairly startled the onlooker, rubbing his eyes in wonder if stars had always been so large. It was early evening, scarcely six o’clock, but it seemed so very dark, and the stars so many and so bright.

“It almost seems,” said Jeremy, “as if all the stars we have ever seen since we were born have come out to greet us now that we’ve come home. They’ve all come together. The stars that twinkled when we said our prayers at night when we were little kids, and seemed to smile at us and welcome us into a world that was going to be full of twinkling lights and music and fun. The stars that bent above the creek where we were skating, and seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. The stars that smiled more gently when we drifted down in the old canoe and sang silly love songs, or lay back and grew dreamy with unmade ambitions.”

“Yes,” said Rodney with a grin down at his brother, “the stars that blessed us with a bit of withdrawing when we walked home from church, or a party at night with our best girls. Right, Jerry? There must have been girls somewhere in your life after I left. There’d have been stars for them, too, of course. That’s a swell thought that all those star fellows have sort of ganged up on us for tonight. Nice to think about.”

“It seems an awfully long time ago, though, all those other things happening,” said Jeremy thoughtfully. “Like looking back on one’s self as an infant. After all we’ve been through, I wonder how we’re going to fit into this world we’ve come back to.”

“Yes, I wonder!” said Rodney. “I sure am glad to get back, but I’ve sort of got a feeling every little while that somehow we oughtn’t to have come away till we’d finished the job and had ’em licked thoroughly so they can’t start anything again.”

“Yes, that does haunt you in the back of your mind, but anyway we didn’t ‘come’ away. We were
sent
, and
had
to come. They thought we were more important over here.”

“Of course,” said the older brother. “And I’m satisfied, understand. Only somehow there’s a feeling I ought to take hold and do some more over there yet. But I guess that’ll wear off when I really get into this job over here they think is so important.”

“Yes, of course,” said the younger brother. “But there’s this to remember: we aren’t like some of the other fellows. I heard one fellow on the ship complaining the folks over home didn’t understand. They hadn’t any idea what we’ve been through. They’ve been just going on happily having a good time between their good acts of doing a little war work. But our family isn’t like that. Our dad and mother understand. Dad’s never forgotten his own experience in the other war. You can tell from their letters.”

“Yes, of course,” the older brother said, smiling. “Our family has always been an understanding family. But you’re right about this world we’re getting back to, I suspect. For a while it will be like going out to play marbles or hide-and-seek. The trouble is one can’t go out to meet death without growing up. We’ve grown up, and marbles don’t fit us anymore.”

“Sure!” said Jeremy thoughtfully. “We’ll just have to get adjusted to a new world, won’t we? And somehow I don’t see how we’re going to fit anymore. I don’t really have much heart for it all myself, except of course getting back to Dad and Mom and Kathie. But the others will seem like children. Of course you don’t feel that way because you have Jessica. You’ll get married, I suppose, if it really turns out that we get that job they talked about overseas. You planning for a wedding soon, Rod?”

There was a definite silence after that question, and suddenly the younger brother looked up with a question in his eyes. “I didn’t speak out of turn, did I, Rod?” He looked at his brother anxiously. “You and Jessica aren’t on the outs, are you?”

Rodney drew a deep breath and settled back. “Yes, we’re on the outs, bud. Our engagement is all washed up.”

“But
Rod
! I thought it was all settled. I thought you bought her a ring.”

“Yes, I bought her a ring,” said the older brother with a forlorn little sound like a sigh. Then a pause. “She sent it back to me a year ago today. I guess by now she’s married to the other guy. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know anything more about it. She just wasn’t worth worrying about, I suppose.”

There was a deep silence with only the thunderous rumbling of the train. The younger brother sat and stared straight ahead of him, his startled thoughts taking in, in quick succession, the sharp changes this would make in his idolized brother’s life, the things he knew in a flash must have been being lived down by Rodney all these silent months when they had not been hearing from each other. And then his comprehension dashed back to the beginning again.

“But the ring!” he faltered, thinking back to the bright token that had meant to him the sign of everlasting fidelity, the lovely, peerless jewel that they had all been so proud their Rodney had been able to purchase with his own well-earned money and place upon the lovely finger of the beautiful girl who was his promised bride. “What will you do with the ring?” Jeremy was scarcely aware he was asking another question. He had been merely thinking aloud. Rodney turned toward him with a look almost of anguish, like one who knew this ghastly thing had to be told, and he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

“I sold it!” he said gruffly. The brothers’ eyes met and raked each other’s consciousness for full understanding. And in that look Jeremy came to know how it had been, and how it had to be with Rodney. Rodney was four years older, but somehow in that look Jeremy grew up and caught up the separating years, and understood. It did not need words to explain, for Jeremy understood now. Saw how it would have been with
him
if he were in a like situation.

But after a moment Rodney explained. “At first I wanted to throw it into the sea. But then somehow that didn’t seem right. It wasn’t the ring’s fault, even though it was of no further use to me. Even supposing I should ever find another girl I could trust, which I’m sure I never will, I wouldn’t want to give her a ring that had been dishonored, would I? No, it would never be of any further use to me, or to anybody unless they were strangers to its history. Yet what to do with it I didn’t know. I couldn’t carry it on my person and have it sent back to my mother sometime after I had been killed, to tell a strange story she wouldn’t understand, could I?”

“Then Mom doesn’t know?” asked Jeremy.

“Not unless Jessica has told her, and I doubt if she has. She wouldn’t have the nerve! Though maybe there was some publicity. I don’t know. I haven’t tried to find out. There hasn’t been a word of gossip about it in any of my letters. My friends wouldn’t want to mention it, and any others didn’t bother to write, so I’ve had to work this thing out by myself. After all, it was my problem, and I worked at it part-time between missions. It helped to make me madder at the enemy, and less careful for myself. What was the use when the things I had counted on were gone?

“And what was the ring that I had worked so hard to buy but a costly trinket that nobody wanted? So I found a diamond merchant who gave me a good price for the stone, more than I paid for it, and I was glad to get rid of it.

“That’s the story, Jerry. It had to be told, and there it is. At first I thought I couldn’t come home, where Jessica and I had been so much together, but then it came to me that there was no point in punishing Mom and the rest just because Jessica had played me false. So I’m here, and I only hope I won’t be subjected to too much mention of the whole affair. Jessica, I’m sure, will be out of the picture, thank heaven! She spoke of being married in another part of the country.

“Certainly I never want to lay eyes on her again, of course, and perhaps in due time, with the help of a few more wars, I may forget the humiliation I have suffered. But I don’t want pity, kid. I’m sure you’d understand that.”

“Of course not,” said Jeremy, giving a sorrowful, comprehending look. “But Rod, I don’t see how she
could
. She always seemed to be so crazy about you.”

“Well, let’s not go into that. I’ve been through several battles since that thought used to get me,” said Rodney.

“The little vandal!” said Jeremy. “What did she do? Just send the ring back without any letter or explanation?”

“Oh, no, she sent a nice little letter all right, filled with flowery words and flattery, to the effect that she was returning the ring, though she did adore it, because she thought I might want to use it again, and that I had always been so kind and understanding that she was sure I would see that it was a great deal better for her to frankly tell me that she had discovered she didn’t care for me as much as she had supposed; and as she was about to marry an older, more mature man, who was far better off financially than I could ever hope to be, and she wished that I wouldn’t feel too bad about her defection. She closed by saying that she hoped that this wouldn’t be the end, that she and I would always be friends as long as the world lasted. That we had had too much fun together to put an end to it altogether. Words to that effect, said in a flowery style, quoting phrases that had been supposedly dear to us both in the past, showing me plainly that they had never really meant a thing to her but smooth phrases.”