Homefront Hero (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

L
eanne had never seen a man die before. The waste of it all, the sheer mass of life draining out of bodies in that building seemed to crush the air from her lungs. Or worse, as if she were breathing in death itself, as if the flimsy, suffocating mask were not keeping the virus out but forcing it down her throat. She stumbled out of the ward, feeling she’d spent three days in there instead of three hours. Despite orders, she pulled off her mask to gulp in fresh air. How alive the world looked, with sunlight and green grass. How thankful she was to leave behind that desperate place of stark white, bloodred and deathly gray.

How thankful she was to see John waiting for her.

She had no strength to draw lines of faith or sense, she merely fell into his open arms and let him hold her up. How many times had she been his support? Today he was the strong one, and she was glad of it to her weary bones. “It’s awful in there. Ghastly. There are so many of them, all so sick. We haven’t enough of anything.”

He didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He had no words for such a calamity any more than she. She clung to his shoulder, letting the soothing rhythm of his healthy breath and the steadiness of his heartbeat return her to the outside world. “Let’s get you inside,” he suggested after a moment or two.

“No, please, not yet. I need to be outside for just a little while, to feel the breeze and see the sun.” Today felt a hundred years long, and although the sun was low in the sky, she needed every last scrap of it she could find. “There’s a garden over behind that building. I used to go there when I was a student.”

“Of course,” he said, following her.

His limp was pronounced as they set off, and Leanne was glad it wasn’t far. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” She ached everywhere; she could hardly imagine how John’s leg must pain him after a day like today.

“Hardly seems to matter in all this, does it?” He assessed her face as they walked. “You are all right? Not feeling ill?”

“I can’t feel anything. And yet I feel too much of everything. Charles Holling, someone I knew back in Charleston, he died. Practically right in front of me. He begged for death, he was in so much pain. I couldn’t…”

John tightened his grip on her arm. “Don’t. Try not to dwell on it, try to be here, now, not back there.”

“How? How do I do that?”

John’s shrug reminded her that he had been in battle, had seen landscapes strewn with bodies worse than what she had just seen. “You force your mind to stay where you need it to be. You tell yourself over and over you’re here and alive. Over and over until you start to believe it.”

“I can’t.”

He stopped and turned to her, taking each of her shoulders in his grasp so that she felt the cool of his cane press up against one arm. “You can. You must. Look into my eyes and say it—‘I’m here, I’m alive.’”

“I’m here, I’m alive.” Her words had no strength.

“We’re here, we’re alive,” he repeated, eyes locked on hers.

“We’re here, we’re alive. Thank God, we’re here, we’re alive.” She brought her hands up to clutch his arms, craving the feel of his strength.

“I do, you know,” John said softly. “I don’t know how to begin to explain what had happened to me this afternoon, but I do thank God we’re here and alive. I realize God kept you safe and kept me with you.”

“John.” She exhaled. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “You shouldn’t be here. You could have saved yourself from all this. You’re too important.”

John’s hand came up to cup her chin. “I couldn’t leave you. I needed to be here. I ought to be here.”

Her breath caught as he ran his thumb across the curve of her cheek. “You ought to be safe.” She fought the surge of feelings his words sent over her. “They’ll need you back at Jackson. You ought to leave.” She was trying hard to mean it.

“I cannot. You know the quarantine order, no one can come or go until it is lifted.” He said it with a complete lack of panic, when Leanne thought he ought to be feeling as though he’d hung himself by his own choice.

“No.” She turned her head away. “Now you’re trapped here because of me.”

“Everything has lined up to such order. Don’t you see it all fits only one way? You prayed for me, prayed that the outcome would be not what either of us wanted, but God’s will. This is. I see that now.”

Astonishment filled her heart to overflowing. “John?”

“You’ve done the inconceivable, Leanne.” He almost laughed, his astonishment evidently no less than her own. “You’ve saved the last soul on earth I would have ever thought possible.”

Her eyes welled up, and John smiled as he wiped the single tear that stole down her cheek. To know such joy, now, seemed impossible. “Surely you don’t think yourself so unworthy?”

Leanne placed a hand on John’s chest and felt his heartbeat pounding under her palm. Alive. Here. Now. The darkness that had always lurked in the corners of his eyes had vanished, an unlikely, irrational peace of in its place. “To be frank, I don’t know what I think.” He pulled her closer. She did not resist. “I’m quite sure, however, what I feel.”

Leanne could scarcely draw breath. The world had unhinged itself in a single day, coming apart at the very seams, and yet here was this wonder unfolding at the very same time. It seemed unthinkable that God’s will had been done, and yet John could believe that answer to her prayer more swiftly than she. To think that he had walked knowingly into danger, for her. It was a heroism too great to bear. “I’ve no words…”

None were needed. He bent his head and kissed her softly, and she felt life blooming back into her. Then his kiss was not so soft, and she found herself returning the urgency in his kiss with a vitality she thought all but gone. His embrace pushed back the despair, blocked out the sick ward’s horrors. When John pulled back to look at her, his eyes burned fiercely with the sense of “here now and alive” she desperately needed.

What a splendid strength John had; how grateful she was for his presence. The wonder of his fresh faith offered deep encouragement—had she really been so weary just moments before? John pulled her tightly to him, and she marveled how perfectly her shoulders tucked under his, how her head fell naturally against his shoulder. “I’ve still no words,” she said against the warmth of his chest.

“Rendered you speechless, have I?” His tone was almost a laugh, and she felt herself smile. To smile, in the face of all this. What a gift that was.

She looked out at the fading daylight, thinking today’s tragedies would only double with the coming darkness. It seemed as if dawn could only bring worse news. “Whatever is to become of us?”

John’s chest expanded with a sigh as large as her own. “God only knows,” he said. Kissing the top of her head, he added, “And goodness, I actually mean that when I say it now. It’s going to take me a little while to get used to all this.”

He did not say what she knew they both were thinking: a little while might be all they had.

* * *

The next day became a surreal, catastrophic struggle of life and death. John continued his work with the supply effort while Leanne and the other medical staff fought for life inside. He caught glimpses of her as they worked through the day, but rarely had time to say much more than a few words. Now, grateful for the dusk that marked the end of a long day, John and Leanne found half an hour to sit on the steps of a nearby building and share what meager food either could roust up for dinner.

John had coaxed some priceless meat—a pair of sausages—out of the cook in an effort to restore Leanne’s appetite. He’d planned to let her eat both of them if he could, despite the fact that they smelled wonderful enough to set his own mouth watering. All of his world had the most awful smells these days, but he would gladly forsake the savory meat if he thought he could convince her to eat it. Leanne’s color gave him pause. “Eat, my dear.” Her shy smile, the one that always appeared now when he used the term “my dear,” tickled him. He put the tin plate on her lap and stretched out his leg.

His confounded leg. He’d overused it in the worst way today. The thing ached to the point of distraction now, but all his pain medicine was still back at Jackson and anything they had here must be saved for patients. “This long day’s end is only the beginning.” He pointed to the plate. “You must eat more.”

Her gaze was on the horizon, the purple dusk now barely visible through the trees. “Is this what war is like, John?”

He’d had the same thought dozens of times today—that this was a war. “Yes.” He found himself hard-pressed to elaborate on such a drastic declaration, but her silence worried him. “This morning I couldn’t help thinking I didn’t need to go back to the battlefield because the battlefield has been brought to me.”

When she still offered no reply, he took her hand. “You’d think that would be an awful thought, but it’s not. I know I ought to be here. I’ve had my eyes opened in so many ways. I’m seeing God’s hand in places I always put down to luck and self-importance.” He put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her to him. She felt too thin, too void of the vitality that had charmed him back before the world fell apart. “That’s you. That’s you in my life and I wouldn’t trade that for twelve shiny medals.”

Leanne softened against his shoulder. The structure’s thick wooden front columns, still warm from the strong fall sun, baked his aching back. The soreness in his leg eased up the smallest bit. He offered up a word of thanks for the moment’s peace in a day of struggle, and the prayer came as easy as his breath.

He felt her sigh against his ribs. “I fought so hard to resist you. I suppose you know that.”

Her admission made him chuckle. Was she unaware how hard he’d fought to resist
her?
“Well, I have often heard how irresistible I am. And here I am bearing sausages. It took six compliments to lure these out of the kitchen, so we’re feasting thanks to my legendary charm.” He tipped her chin toward him. “But you are not eating nearly as well as you should. I am worried about you. Let me care for you, Leanne.” John swallowed, realizing he was dancing around what he really wanted to say. “For I do care for you. A great deal.” He kissed her forehead and thanked God again, grateful to be granted this time with Leanne. “We must be the only two people in the world to have any reason to be thankful for this.”

“And hate it at the same time. John, I feel too much all at once. I’m so happy, and yet so tired and so sad. And frightened. And worried. How can I feel hungry on top of all that?”

“Every soldier knows a body needs to eat, hungry or not. Your strength is important.” He broke off a bit of sausage and held it in front of her as one would a small child, tucking it inside with a smile when she relented and opened her mouth. She consumed the luxury dutifully, without enjoyment, but she ate two more bites besides.

They sat without conversing. Around them the sound of hammers pierced the gathering dusk alongside birds and crickets. Mere months ago the constant hammers at Jackson had meant building—barracks and structures that sprang up in astonishing speed as Camp Jackson burst into being. Now the hammers were building only one thing: coffins. Twenty in the past four hours alone. Eventually, Leanne looked up at him. “I do wonder if we are at the end of the world.”

He could hardly blame her. He’d had the thought himself walking past the outbuilding they’d set up as a morgue two hours ago. Still, it bothered him to see her optimism failing, so he attempted a jest. “Are you saying my faith is a sign of the apocalypse? I had no idea I was so influential.”

She didn’t laugh, merely pulled a telegraph paper from her pocket. “Dr. Madison dropped this off earlier.”

“Madison’s here?”

“He was on campus lecturing an orthopedics class when the quarantine order came. He chose to stay and help however he could.”

John found his presence oddly comforting—a small piece of his past that had traveled with him to this surreal present.

“John, he told me one hundred and thirty men have died at Jackson. How many will die here?”

John cast his eyes down to the yellow half sheet Leanne held out. It was a wire statement from Army Surgeon General Victor Vaughan. While John might conclude it was Vaughan’s job to size up threats in the worst possible light, this exceeded the staunchest pessimism. “If the epidemic continues its mathematical rate of acceleration,” the smudged type declared, “civilization could easily disappear from the face of the earth within a few weeks.”

It wasn’t that hard to believe. Death felt as if it lurked around every corner, hid in every sunken set of eyes. According to the velvet box back somewhere in the bottom of his rucksack, John had faced death down, had “saved lives at the risk of his own.” Still, John could not escape the truth that he’d felt terror at that episode and mostly peace here. Is that what faith did? Gave one peace in what might be the end of the world?

“I’ll admit to very little knowledge of God, but I cannot think He would grant me you and then not give me the world to enjoy with you. Does it look like the end of the world? I’ve seen battlefields that show nothing but devastation, so yes, I suppose it does. But it does not feel like the end of the world, at least not to me. It feels like war.” He gazed into Leanne’s eyes, willing her his battle nerves. “I know war, Leanne. I know what to do in war. In the one out there and the one right here. Victory isn’t out of reach. You hold on to that thought. I’ve far too many things I want to show you to consider anything else. I plan to take you up in a plane and show you the sky from God’s point of view. Would you like that?”