Nightingale (14 page)

“No! It's not…” She gulped in a breath, shot a look at Caroline. “Arlene—Mrs. Hahn—I can exp—”

“Not only do you trick my son into marriage, but now, already, you are
cheating
on him.”

“No I'm not.”

“Then what do you call this?” She shoved the letters at Esther, who let them drop to the ground like leaflets.

“He's already dead!”

Oh. No. She hadn't.

Except, she had, because Mrs. Hahn stopped moving, her mouth working but her eyes fixed. Then, lethally quiet, her words so sharp they slid up between Esther's ribs and serrated her heart, “
Who's already dead?
”

Who. Oh, for a second she wanted to point at the ground, to the letters—because, in a way, wasn't he, to her?

No. And Linus's mother clearly saw the truth on Esther's face, because she began to tremble.

Sadie began to cry, flung herself at her mother, her legs vised around Esther's waist.

Caroline came around the table. “Sadie, come with me.”

Sadie clamped her arms around her mother's neck.

Esther schooled her voice, added something gentle. “Mrs. Hahn, maybe we should just go home—”

“You tell me what you're talking about
right now
!”

Esther pried Sadie's arms from her neck, shoved her into Caroline's grasp. “Listen, we don't even know if it's true—I mean, it could be, but—”

“
What
are you talking about?”

Teddy moved to stand beside them. “Ma'am—”

“I got his letter.” Esther drew a breath. “I got…the letter.”

Mrs. Hahn's eyes widened. She clamped a hand over her mouth. Shook her head. “No you didn't.”

“I did. Before…” Oh why hadn't she told them? “On V-E day. Or just before. Peter sent it.”

The name didn't register with Mrs. Hahn, and Esther didn't bother to explain.

“Linus didn't love me, Mrs. Hahn. He—it was all a terrible mistake. We were foolish and only thinking of the war, and what could happen, and—he didn't love me. And he didn't love Sadie—”

“That's a
lie.”
Her voice dropped so low it tremored through Esther. “That's a
vicious lie
. Of course he did—
does!
He sent you here, to us, so that we could—well, clearly, watch over you, keep you from your whoring ways—”

From behind the counter, the waitress wrapped her arms around her waist.

But probably Esther deserved that.

“He wrote it in his letter—he even apologized for sending me here.”

“You're a filthy liar.”

No, for the first time, a dam had burst inside her, the truth came rushing out of her, filling her with the taste of something fresh and alive.

“I'm
not
a liar. But I have been for three years. Lied to everyone. I don't love Linus either—probably never did. And unfortunately, you and the judge and Sadie paid for our—”

Mrs. Hahn's hand connected with her face, a stinging slap that jerked her head back, split her face into flames.

“Ma'am—” Teddy took a step towards them.

Mrs. Hahn's eyes filled, her finger pressed into Esther's face, her voice so low it must have been dug out of the darkest places inside. “You came into our lives to steal from us. Did you think you were going to
live off our money, on the dole and my son's inheritance for your bastard child? Linus isn't even the father, is he?”

“Of course he is.”

But oh, how she wished he wasn't. And she hated that, yes, in that brief moment, she hoped it all might be true. Awfully, finally true, that Linus had died on the battlefields of Germany.

Because she simply couldn't bear to be married to a man who felt nothing for his daughter, and possibly despised her. Married into a family who hated her.

Are you sure?

No.
Never!

“I don't believe you. I don't believe any of it. You're just trying to justify your own promiscuity!”

“I haven't—” She shook her head, cut her voice low and polite. “I'll prove it to you. I'll show you Linus's letter. It's back at the house. I swear it's true. He didn't love me, Mrs. Hahn.”

Linus's mother took a step back, her foot grinding Esther's crumpled letters to Peter into the linoleum. “You do realize that if you are telling me the truth, then I want you out of our house tonight.
Tonight
!”

Then she turned, and the silence parted for her as she stalked out.

“Get out. Get
out
!”

Mrs. Hahn's words, on the fraying end of her sanity after she read Linus's letter, clawed their way into Esther's brain, finding her in the night. Sadie fitted herself into the embrace of Esther's body on Caroline's narrow sofa, the heat slicking them together. The blades of the fan whirred, stirring the tepid air, and she would have liked to blame her insomnia on the way summer lay over Roosevelt like a washcloth.

You
tramp
!

She didn't know what she would have done without Bertha.

With Esther's clothing, her books, her shoes, even Sadie's rabbit cast into the yard, and dusk closing in, Bertha stepped off the porch and began to gather the debris into the battered case Esther had—not soon enough—hauled out from under her bed in the attic.

The woman spoke nothing, however, and if it hadn't been for the glisten in her eyes, Esther might have suspected her of simply attending to one of her daily housekeeping tasks.

But something must have moved her, because the next day Bertha waited for Esther outside the hospital and offered to help babysit, anytime.

But of course the housekeeper cared more for Sadie than her own grandparents. Because, well, why pretend any longer? If only Esther had the words to confront—or perhaps comfort—her.

At least the Hahns weren't trying to wrest Sadie from her. This, perhaps, Esther could look upon as providence.

And, Bertha's offer allowed her the means to serve in Caroline's place at the POW camp set up on the hill above the brewery.

Maybe he wouldn't be here. She'd spent most of the last week forcing him from her mind.

Heidi Swan carried a box of candy from the truck toward the canvas tent set up as the PX. “My brother and his buddy were on bikes, and they watched them pull up at the station. They said the men rode in Pullmans and had little red and white flags with the swastika on them on the outside of the car. My brother waved, but he said they didn't wave back.”

The entire camp consisted of no more than a dozen canvas tents with a hasty mess hall set up in the middle, all penned in by a rickety perimeter of knee-high snow fencing. Even a half-hearted insurrection would overrun the few lazy guards at the gate before they woke from their Saturday afternoon naps.

“We live just across the street, and sometimes at night we can hear them singing hymns. And they play with a ball, kicking it with their feet. Sometimes it goes over the fence and Albert fetches it.”

She and Heidi walked into the canvas tent, and the smell nearly knocked Esther to her knees. Sweat, and the rank odor of old milk and cigarette smoke, all marinating under the July sun. She set her box of socks on the table. Behind it, Dr. Sullivan, an elderly man with silver-gray hair and wide hands, sat on a stool, readying his equipment to meet with the POWs who were lining up at the door. Most had their hair slicked back, wet, as if they'd just showered.

“My father says they're working for the Roosevelt Food company, shelling peas.” Heidi brushed away the hair from her face. Esther had
piled her hair into a bun at the back of her head. At least they didn't have to wear their uniforms. No, instead she had on a pair of jeans and a sleeveless shirt.

“And some of them are working at the cannery—right beside the other workers! Shirley says they're as polite as can be—letting her go first to get a drink. She says they're hard workers too. She made them popcorn to put in their lunches.”

Esther picked up a box from the back of the truck, checked it—bandages and antiseptic.

“Have you ever met a German?” Heidi said, retrieving a box of penicillin.

“Heidi, half the town is German,” Esther said, returning through the gate, nodding to the two guards she knew eyed her long after she passed by.

“You know what I mean.” She cut her voice low, like she might be a French conspirator. “
Nazis.
Have you ever met a Nazi?”

“Not all these prisoners are Nazis, Heidi. It's—well, not everyone in Germany was a Nazi. Some were just forced to fight.”

Most definitely, none of my family joined the Nazi party, which in the end became our demise….

She wouldn't look for him. She'd already determined it. No. The last thing she needed was scandal heaped upon the town's mutterings, thank you, Mrs. Hahn.

No. She would not look. Besides, there were over eighty branch POW camps in Wisconsin alone.

He wouldn't come here.

Stepping inside the canvas tent, she set the box down on the table. Wiped her forehead.

Heard an intake of breath.

She looked up as Dr. Sullivan pressed his stethoscope to the bare chest of a patient seated across from him. Wide-shouldered, with strung muscles and the hue of hard work on his skin, the patient stared at her, his burnished blond hair tousled by the heat, wearing a rugged husk of reddish blond whiskers on his face. His blue eyes fixed on her like he might be seeing the sunrise for the first time.

Oh no.

“Esther.”
He mouthed it, but she could nearly hear his voice, dark and soft, slipping in under her skin, like a whisper, or a sweet breeze. It caught her breath, ran a fine thrill under her skin.

Peter.

Of course he would be here—hadn't he been working in pea fields all over the state?

Of course he would be here—because she'd lain in bed, hands clasped around Sadie, and wished it with a sort of aching dread that she couldn't deny.

Of course he'd be here, because God wanted to her to suffer for her crimes.

Peter.

“Nurse, I'll need you to take his blood pressure. And it looks like his wound is getting infected, so he'll need it redressed. And make sure to give him a shot of penicillin.”

Perhaps she needed the shot of penicillin for the way he looked at her. His eyes seemed to spear right through her, opening fresh wounds, and she nearly cried out with the sweet pain of it.

Oh, in the deepest pockets of her heart, how she'd thirsted for this moment.

Except, what did the doctor mean about
his wound
? As Peter picked up his shirt and slid off the stool, she saw the puckered flesh, the needle marks, the catgut stitches across his ribs. She met his eyes and he caught her gaze, shook his head.

It looked like a knife wound—or perhaps something from the fields.

Picking up a box of penicillin, she led him to an area curtained off from the room. Behind it, cotton swabs, bandages, iodine, and a jar of needles on a wooden table suggested a makeshift clinic. She patted the metal examination table behind her, her eyes away from him, her heart in her throat. Her entire body, even her head, buzzed with the closeness of him.

Yes, he'd showered. She could smell the Ivory soap on his skin.

She didn't hear him move.

“Esther.”

He barely spoke, but she heard it now, and turned. He stood over her, so close she could smell the finest layer of sweat on him, despite the shower. He lifted his hand, as if to touch her cheek—

“Put your arm behind your head.” She couldn't meet his eyes.

He did, and she tried not to inhale, tried not to wish for his hand curled around the back of her neck, pulling her close as she examined the wound, the stitches. She even managed a cool voice as she asked, “What happened?”

“Did you get my letter?” he asked quietly.

She couldn't—no. She said nothing as she probed the infection for signs of discharge. One of his eyes closed, his jaw tightening. “What happened, soldier?”

“Esther.” The way he said it, so softly, like a caress—she had to step back, turn away.

He followed. “I thought I'd never see you again. This is like a miracle.”

She closed her eyes, shook her head. The iodine spilled out over her hand as she tried to moisten the cotton to clean his wound.

He reached around her, took the iodine from her hand. Set it down. “Tell me you didn't come to see me.”

I didn't come to see you.
But she couldn't, her hopes in the night filling her chest.

She pressed her hands against the counter, took a breath. “Peter, I…”

He backed up, slid onto the table. “Tell me you got my letter.” He lifted his arm as she turned.

She picked up the cotton, swabbed it over his wound, hating the way he flinched, the quick intake of breath. “I got your letter.”