Letters From Home (8 page)

6

Late August 1944
France

“C
harlie! Where are you?” Morgan screamed, pain grinding his throat. He rubbed his eyelids with the back of his hand and strained to focus. The gray smoke of mortar explosions burned his nostrils.

“Charlie!” His voice melted into the bursting of artillery shells and hammering of machine guns. He fought off a cough. The taste of tar coated his tongue. He spat and missed the water, hitting the sleeve of his fatigues. Black, grainy liquid.

Waves were riding him mid-thigh. Ocean waves. But he couldn’t feel the chill. Too numb, too filled with terror. Too confused by how he and Charlie had ended up separated.

He clutched his Ml rifle to his chest and plodded through the bloody sea, the water like a flood of molasses. Leaning every pound of his body forward, he pushed toward the hazy beachhead. German bullets zipped past his ears. He ducked his face away, grasping his net-covered helmet. Behind him, miles of Allied ships, now tattered floating tombs, dappled the ocean. Infantry hung like soiled rags off bow ramps. Uniformed corpses plugged jagged holes in landing craft.

Morgan refocused and resumed his march, until something bumped his knee. He gasped at the sight. A swarm of dead bodies hovered beneath the surface of the water. Their unseeing stares reached for him, pleading for help too late. Boys, all of them, too young to be soldiers. Still, here they were, cut down by machine-gun fire. Drowned by the weight of their own field packs.

Staggering from dizziness, he trudged onward. He searched for pillboxes camouflaged in the trees overlooking the shore. Not a bunker in view, but he knew they were there, preserving the merciless rage of Wehrmacht troops awaiting his approach.

Once at water of knee-high depth, he hurdled the waves with his weighted boots. The suction of wet sand suddenly yielded. He stumbled out of the ocean and onto a quilt of fatigues covering every inch of the beach. Was he the only GI left standing?

The question retreated as he plowed through the patchwork of helmets and weapons, of crumpled bodies lying facedown in the gritty sand. A mortician’s waiting room for fallen heroes.

He dropped to his knees in a bucket-sized gap, tossing his rifle aside. He yanked back on jacket collars for a glimpse of their faces. Blood trickled from their gaped mouths. Gashes, bullet holes, missing pieces. The stench of death seared his senses, folded his stomach in quarters. And their eyes, their glassy eyes, shining hollow, like tinted doors entrapping their souls.

“Morgan….” A hoarse whisper seemed to cry out from the heavens.

He flew back on his knees. “Charlie?”

“Morgan….”
The voice drew nearer, echoing as if spoken from the base of a well.

“Charlie!” he shrieked, searching, searching. “Where are you?”

A fatigue-clad arm shot up from the pile of bodies. The sandy hand grabbed hold of his shoulder and shook him.

“Morgan, wake up.”

The unexpected words jolted him back to their French campsite. From the milky light of the moon, he could see his brother, wrapped in a blanket an arm’s length away.

“You okay?” Charlie asked groggily.

Yeah,
Morgan mouthed without sound. The terror of his dream tapering, he forced a dry swallow and nodded.

Charlie yawned as he rolled onto his other side, adjusted his head on his elbow.

The duty had always been Morgan’s, waking his brother from nightmares. All those months after their mother’s death, he would climb up the bunk-bed ladder to interrupt the kid’s tossing and turning.

When had things become so backward?

Morgan blew out a quiet, shaky exhale, his muscles as taut as tucked Army bedding. He swept a glance over the mounds bivouacked around him: his slumbering squad, spread throughout the pasture like grazing cattle.

He rested the back of his hand on his forehead and inhaled the familiar smell of dewy meadow. He’d find it soothing if not for the distant barrage of artillery fire, or the vengeful explosions of Hitler’s “Buzz Bombs.” Not quite the sounds of summer nights on the farm.

From star to star he drew imaginary lines, struggling to erase the haunting pictures flipping through his mind. Considering how many images there were, it was hard to believe only two months had passed since their troop transport ship left New York. For twelve days they’d sailed in the dank, creaking chamber, zigzagging to avoid wolf packs of German subs. Poor Charlie had rarely been sick a day in his life, but the Atlantic’s unforgiving pitch and roll made up for lost time; his waistline shrank two belt loops before the ship had anchored.

“Good thing we didn’t join the Navy,” Morgan had joked. Charlie hadn’t laughed.

Looking back, Morgan almost laughed himself, remembering how eager they’d all been to reach the living nightmare that waited across the English Channel. His squad had arrived on the Norman shore well after the D-Day invasion, but the gruesome crime scene still invaded his dreams. Even now, the memory of bodies washing ashore sent a chill zipping up his spine.

Then again, the thought of death sometimes offered a strange sense of peace. A morbid notion, perhaps, until you’re at the tail end of another twenty-mile march beneath the hot French sun, with sixty pounds of gear bound to your chafed, raw back, your feet swollen and bleeding, your stomach knotted from K-rations. All elements of an Army conspiracy, Morgan decided, to make battle an appealing prospect.

An effective strategy, as it turned out. At one point, he’d been suckered along with the rest of them. Like a kid awaiting a parade, he too had lined the road to welcome the tarpaulin-covered convoy. No one seemed to mind that the front line was the next scheduled stop.

Over winding roads, their deuce-and-a-half had bumped and groaned. They’d snuck through the black of night with taped-over headlights, getaway cars preparing for a heist. By the time they unloaded in Brezolles, Morgan was certain the torturous hours of marching or waiting for action would surely rival those spent in combat.

The theory didn’t last.

In three-foot-deep foxholes, he and Charlie had dueled trapped members of the German Panzer army, closing the Falaise Pocket like a tube of toothpaste. Though tens of thousands of Kraut soldiers had been captured, a hefty number escaped through the gap. Both a success and a failure. The essence of war.

The battles were far from over, but the amount of bloodshed Morgan had already witnessed could soak the earth to its core. He’d learned there was no limit to how violently men and their machines could deconstruct the human anatomy. How desensitized people could become. How barbaric it all was.

Now, studying the dirt road cutting through the meadow, the road they’d be tackling at daylight, he feared what other lessons war had in store for them.

“Charlie,” Morgan said in a loud whisper. Unable to sleep, he wanted someone to talk to. He tapped his brother’s shoulder. The kid didn’t move. Not even a break in the rhythm of his heavy breaths.

How was it that he rested so peacefully?

Maybe in Charlie’s dreams they were somewhere far away. A safer time, safer place, where the air brimmed with warmth and the lullabies of crickets. They were kids back in their dad’s Iowa fields, dozing out in the open, naming shapes made of stars in the sky. A sky that offered them promises, futures as limitless as the universe.

A sky that lied.

7

Late August 1944
Chicago, Illinois

T
he gilding of the room amplified the stiff formality at Liz’s table. In the corner, a string quartet played Rachmaninoff over silverware clinking on fine china. A tuxedoed host at the entrance relieved a woman of her fur stole while waiters slipped in and out of the kitchen that smelled of grilled steak and spices. Diners nodded and murmured and lobbed laughter back and forth like a tennis ball in a never-ending match.

“All done here, miss?” The waiter gestured with his upturned hand, the movement as groomed as his mustache.

Liz opened her mouth to decline, but Dalton replied for her. “We both are, thank you.”

Why on earth did he choose a place as fancy as this if he wanted to eat at drive-in restaurant speed? Had she known he was in a hurry, she would have bypassed the vegetables and savored the marmalade chicken first.

Liz pressed up a smile as the waiter retrieved their plates. The distraction of eating gone, she bounced her leg under the tablecloth, keeping time with the drumming awkwardness.

Dalton took a long drink of red wine. Tabletop candlelight traveled through his crystal glass and cast severe shadows across his face. With the chiseling of his features, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine him draped in a toga, orating before the Roman Senate in another lifetime.

“Was your steak all right?” she asked, attempting conversation.

“Come again?”

“You only ate half your dinner. Was something wrong with it?”

“It was fine. I just had a late lunch.” He offered a lean smile, then popped his second Rolaids of the evening into his mouth. If it weren’t for knowing heartburn ran in his family, she might suspect she was the cause of his indigestion.

Sipping her lemon-wedged ice water, she glanced to her side. A middle-aged couple, necks adorned in a bow tie and pearls, sat silently at the next table. Engrossed in their meals, they sliced, chewed, and dabbed their mouths with white linen napkins. They had to have been married fifteen, twenty years. No children, Liz guessed. Just a small, yippy lapdog waiting at home. The woman would knit next to the radio while her husband read the paper before they retired to opposite sides of the bed.

Liz tried not to stare, but she had exchanged so few words with Dalton over dinner she began to feel as though they had more in common with the neighboring couple than each other.

Dalton drained his glass and contributed to their small talk, finally. “Did you end up with all the classes you wanted?”

“For the most part. I was hoping to take the one on Yeats, but it was still full.”

“That’s great.” He glanced over his shoulder.

Had he heard a word she’d said?

“Dalton, I said I
didn’t
get into the class.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m just looking for our waiter.”

She hoped he was planning to ask for the bill rather than the dessert menu.

“Dalton Harris, how the heck ahh you?” A deep male voice encroached on their table.

Dalton shot to his feet, accepted a handshake. “Mr. Bernstein, it’s a pleasure to see you.”

A swath of the man’s slicked gray hair fell over his temple as he slapped a palm on Dalton’s shoulder. He reeked of cigar smoke and old Boston money, and the button closing his pin-striped suit jacket appeared ready to launch should he laugh too hard.

“Did you just arrive?” Dalton asked.

“Just finished up. Dinner meeting, you know. All hobnobbing and politics. Not a romantic evening like yours.” He motioned his double chin in Liz’s direction.

“Please,” Dalton said, “allow me to introduce my girlfriend, Elizabeth Stephens.”

Mr. Bernstein gave her hand a cordial peck. “Nice to meet you, missy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Her father is Professor Emmett Stephens,” Dalton pointed out, “a recent transfer from Northwestern to Georgetown.”

“Ah, yes. I believe my son, Warren, took one of his classes way back when. History, was it?”

“Classical literature,” Liz replied, then risked a peek into Dalton’s eyes to make sure correcting the gentleman was acceptable, an act she immediately regretted. When had seeking his permission become a reflex?

“Literature. Of course,” Mr. Bernstein said. “Well, no time for amusing folk tales anymore. Right, Dalton? Not with law school keeping you as busy as it does my own boy these days.”

Amusing folk tales?
Liz’s jaw coiled closed, and thankfully so. She was feeling less and less inclined to refrain from slinging retorts labeled “brash” by the charm school Julia had attended.

Dalton folded his arms, wholly absorbed. “Warren is in his second year at Harvard now, isn’t he, sir? And already published in the
Law Review,
I believe.”

“That’s right,” the man said, surprised. He looked down at Liz. “Sharp as a tack, this one is. You hang on to him, and you just might end up our nation’s first lady. Right after Warren’s presidential term, of course.” When he chuckled, Liz dipped her gaze to the taut thread securing his coat button, hoping for a fracture in the monotony.

“I believe you mean his
terms,”
Dalton said. “Re-election would be a given.”

Mr. Bernstein slanted a grin toward Liz. “What’d I tell you? Sharp as a tack.”

Dalton delivered a low, hollow laugh that grated on her ears, one he had developed when the campaign began. It was an imitation, she now realized, akin to a man of Bernstein’s build. Even Dalton’s chest appeared slightly puffed to enlarge his medium frame.

“You two enjoy the rest of your evening.” The fellow shook Dalton’s hand. “And you stay on top of those studies. We’re going to need men like you to lead when those boys get shipped back after the war.”

“I will, sir. Thank you.”

While other girls might, Liz never felt a bit embarrassed over her boyfriend’s lack of uniform. She preferred his safety to the unknown. Apparently so did his father, who’d made it clear that the primary obligation of his only son was to carry on the family name. That the nation would best benefit from his political prowess, not the sacrifice of his blood. With Mr. Harris’s connections, a deferment, or stateside defense job at most, was a surety should Dalton ever be drafted. A relief to Liz, on one hand; on the other, frustration that the decision wasn’t viewed as his own.

“Good night, Elaine,” Mr. Bernstein said to Liz while leaving. “Oh, and son”—he turned back, bumping a busboy in passing—“tell your father to give me a call. We’ll see what we can do to get that man the seat in Washington he deserves.”

Face alight, Dalton nodded. “Any support would certainly be appreciated.”

Another shark reeled in.

Dalton was in the midst of sitting down when their waiter returned and set a dome-covered plate before Liz. She peered up at the man. “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. I didn’t order any dessert.” Her desire to get home squashed any craving for a decadent torte.

Without a word, the server removed the lid in a grand arc, the dome pinging above his head.

Obviously, no one was listening to her tonight. She would be better off skywriting a message. “Sir, I said I didn’t order—” The objection died on a gasp, strangled by the sight of the small box on her plate.

A sterling box.

For a ring.

Dalton reached across the table and clasped her hand. “Elizabeth.” He spoke slow, articulate. “We’ve known each other for as long as I can remember.”

Her hands tingled with fear of where this was leading, of sentences resembling a life-altering speech. She focused to hear him over the quick thumps of her heart. Every word carried a pulse. She strained for each vital syllable, to confirm that merely an early birthday present lay before her. Or a Christmas gift—in August.

“Thanks to our grandfathers, you were the little pest I was stuck playing with every summer.” Nostalgia seeped into his voice. “For years I thought of you as a kid sister. But eventually, it became clear our friendship was destined to grow into something more.”

A proposal. It was a proposal. Too soon, it was too soon!

“Dalton,” she stage-whispered, “I thought we were going—”

“To wait, I know. But there’s no reason we can’t make our plans official now. In less than two years, I’ll have my degree and you’ll have enough credits to graduate early. Still top of your class, knowing you. Then we can finally start our lives together. With my practicing law, and your professorship, we’ll be …unstoppable.” He smiled, eyes twinkling like sapphires.

“But my father—”

“He’s already given his permission.”

The statement clattered in her head. “He what?”

“He said so long as you had a degree in your hand first, we could sign the marriage license whenever we wanted.”

Her life, in an instant, became a runaway train. The velocity left her breathless. “You spoke with him?”

“On the phone last week. Told me he was absolutely delighted.”

Absolutely delighted.
Did he use those very words? Ones that conveyed an actual emotion? The image of her father wearing an expression in the realm of happiness slowed her thoughts, lessened her alarm. His acceptance of Dalton, though established long ago, had never implied such zeal. Perhaps with the inclining prominence of the Harris family, their marriage could resuscitate her father’s approval.

Certainly, she favored that possibility over the alternative: his delight but a form of relief, her wedding vows marking the end of his parental obligations.

Dalton slid from his chair and knelt before her. He picked up the box and creaked open the lid. “This ring has been in my family for four generations.” He pulled the heirloom out of the turquoise velvet tuck. A beveled emerald shone at the center of the star etched into the gold band. Five small diamonds winked between each point. “If you’ll have me, Lizzy, it would be my honor to pass it along to you.”

Either the restaurant had fallen silent or shock was hindering her hearing. No tinking of silverware, no lobbing of laughter.

He peered into her eyes. “Elizabeth Stephens, will you marry me?”

The question burned in her ears, its heat stretched down her neck. Her tongue was cold absent a reply. She glanced over Dalton’s shoulder, stalling to produce her answer. Against a swagged velvet curtain, their waiter stood at attention. She wanted to ask him to open a window before the pressure bowed the fabric-lined walls. But the bottle of champagne in his hand, surely intended for her table, indicated his task card was full.

“Elizabeth?” Dalton said.

She returned to the ring, then to Dalton’s face. When he leaned forward a fraction, candlelight brushed a caramel glow over his skin, erasing the hard lines on his forehead. Before her eyes, he reverted to the boy she’d grown up with. Dalton Harris, her childhood friend. The one who spent a week by her side when she had chicken pox, playing jacks while stuffing themselves with Baby Ruth bars. The same one who taught her how to ice fish and took her to her first dance. The guy who’d held her hand at her grandfather’s funeral.

And now, here he was, matured into a man, offering his devotion and security. What girl in her right mind would say no?

Liz drew a breath. Under the gaze of the entire room, she smiled. Then nodded.

Applause erupted as Dalton guided the ring onto her finger. It was halfway on when her knuckle resisted the band. She winced from a second push. A feeling of self-consciousness stirred inside, an itch she couldn’t reach. Was the coliseum of spectators interpreting the mismatched size as a bad omen?

“I think it might be a little small,” she said quietly.

“It’s okay, it’ll fit.” Determined as always, he twisted the band one way, then the other, as if the solution were a matter of angle.

“No, Dalton, really.” He shoved harder, pinching her skin. “Ow!” she cried, halting him.

He raised his eyes, and his whole body sighed. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “This isn’t going the way I’d planned.” His crestfallen tone released a rush of compassion in Liz, and, in its wake, regret for misjudging his behavior throughout dinner.

“It’s no problem.” She shrugged. “I’ll just have it resized.” Smiling, she shifted the ring onto her pinkie. “Until then, this should work.”