Nightingale (21 page)

“If you try and escape, so help me, I'll come after you myself and make sure you don't walk for a week.”

Peter grinned at the nurse—Caroline, was it?—and eased himself into the chair in the solarium. An upright piano on one end of the room begged to be played. “I'm just here to listen to the hymns.”

“If you can hear over the Ping-Pong. Some of the boys have quite a match going. Apparently there's some high stakes. One of my guys bet all his pudding for a week.” She winked at him. “I'd stay away from that action.”

He would have compared her to Esther, but that wasn't fair. Caroline had a peasant beauty about her—chestnut-brown hair, freckles across her nose, a spare frame with a no-nonsense way about her mannerisms. Still, she'd gone from stone-cold, brusque treatments to finally giving him a gentle smile. Especially when he'd told her how he'd grown up in Iowa. It helped, too, that she'd caught him humming a hymn.

“The preacher from the Methodist church is due in today. He should be here in about an hour or so—after their service is over. But I'm going off my shift, and I don't think the other nurses will take the time to—well, they're a bit afraid of you.” She gave him a wry smile. “Promise you'll walk back to your room when he's finished?”

“I wasn't trying to escape.” It felt good to say this—not like he hadn't had the chance, but he feared for Arne and some of the other
men who would suffer at Fritz's hand if Peter brought trouble for the Nazis in camp. They had a long, very long memory.

“I believe you.” She smiled at him. “Esther isn't in today, by the way.”

He nodded, ignoring the pinch inside. Four days without seeing her felt a little like someone had reached in and torn his heart from its moorings, but like his other wounds, he'd have to breathe through the pain. She didn't belong to him.

Never really had.

“I'm going to bring Charlie in too. He needs to hear some hymns, I think.”

Bells rang through the blue-skied day, the ring announcing the early services, probably over at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Through the solarium windows he could make out the red spires of the church rising above the elms and red maples in lush bloom.

A mighty fortress is our God,

A bulwark never failing;

He let the hymn fill his mind, breathed it in even as two patients wheeled into the room. Both were missing legs, their blue hospital pajamas tucked under them, their robes cinched tight around their waists. One seemed vaguely familiar—dark hair, a stocky build. He—

“I hope you brought your dough, Linus.”

Linus.

“Please. Please try, Tommy,” Linus said, rolling over to the Ping-Pong table. He picked up the paddle.

Help.
The moment in the darkness, when he'd checked on the two German soldiers he'd come to rescue, rushed back to him.
Help.

Linus sprawled in the dirt, his blood puddling beneath him. He clutched his leg, writhing.

Peter crawled over to him and dug out his English.
Stay still, pal, and I'll do what I can.

At the Ping-Pong table, Linus served the ball. Tommy sent it back. Like the ticks on the clock, the ball dinged the table, back and forth over the net. Linus slammed it hard, and Tommy lunged for it, missed it.

“My point.” Linus held up the paddle, twirled it, a grin on his shaven face.

Am I going to die?

Peter had no choice but to tie off the leg in a tourniquet.
Not if I can help it.

I have a girl back home, you know. Someone. I can't leave her behind.

Peter had leaned close to his ear, tugging off the man's helmet. Sure enough, there was a picture inside.
This her?

Yeah. If she'll still have me.

More patients had roamed in, taken seats around the solarium. A couple nodded to him, as if he belonged here, one of them, a soldier. He found a grin, nodded back, the question searing inside him. Did Linus really love her?

Tommy and Linus battled it out. Linus missed, and the crowd groaned. “C'mon, Linus! Don't let him take you!”

Linus spun the ball on the table then slammed it over the net. Tommy swished the air.

“Point.”

Please, send this for me. To Esther.
He pulled the grimy letter from his pocket, his trembling hands shoving it into Peter's.
She'll understand, I know she will.

Who's Esther?

Linus looked at him, shook his head.

See, he should have seen it then. Oh—

No. I don't have a choice. Linus is my fate—

Linus is your atonement!

Linus laughed as Tommy lunged for another, a harsh laugh that grated through Peter.

C'mon, Tommy.
Peter willed Tommy's next point. And his next. Linus's grin vanished.

“Lost your magic, huh, champ?” One of the men in the crowd—a tall, lanky guy missing one arm—stood up. “Number-one Ping-Pong player in the school, and now look at this. Beaten by a kid. Turn it in, old man. It's time for the ball and chain.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Linus grabbed up the ball. “Shut up. I'm not getting married.”

“What do you mean, you're not getting married? Your mamma's practically got the church reserved. And your old lady is here just about every day—”

“I'm not getting
married
!” Linus slammed his serve over the table. It nicked the edge of the table.

“Out.” Tommy tossed the ball back.

Linus caught the ball in his grip. “In. My point.”

Tommy shook his head. “Out. It nicked the table.”

“I said it was in. Don't be a cheater.”

The room died to a crisp silence.

“I'm not cheating, Linus. I—”

“Shut
up
!” I said it was in.” His voice ground down to a nub.

Tommy eyed him for a long moment. “Fine, old man, it was in.” He glanced at his audience, lifted his shoulder.

Linus threw the paddle at Tommy's head. Tommy dodged and it crashed into the wall behind him, splintering.

“What the—”

But Linus had already cleared the table, faster in his wheelchair than Peter would have given him credit for—or any of his fellow patients, for that matter, for no one moved as he launched himself at Tommy.

“Linus! Stop!”

“Hey!”

Linus had Tommy on the floor, and they rolled like helpless, angry men, Linus slamming his fists into Tommy's head, his nose. He wrestled atop him, pinning him, his hands on his throat.

“Linus!” Hands grabbed at him, pulled him off, and he thrashed out, kicking, taking down Tommy's two-legged protector, rage twisting his face.

Linus jumped on his new assailant, fisted his pajamas, slammed his fist into his face. But Tommy had pulled himself over, yanked his arm around Linus. Pulled him off even as the other man shoved him away.

Then three other soldiers landed on Linus, pinning him.

Linus lay on the floor thrashing, his face hot, crying, swearing. “Help! Help! Rosie! They're killing me, Rosie!” His voice tore through the room, pitiful with the tone of it, wrenching through Peter—and probably every man there—so reminiscent of their own battle-wounded cries. “Rosie!”

And then she appeared, and Peter should have known it all along. The woman in the picture. The woman in the doorway to his room watching Esther kiss him, the woman in Linus's heart.

The woman Linus had wanted to come home to.

Rosie. With the red hair caught in a snood, wearing a white apron
over her blue nurse's dress. Rosie, who had probably loved him since first grade, definitely hoped to marry him when he returned from war. Rosie, the nightingale who parted the chaos, dropped to her knees, and gathered Linus into her arms.

Linus clung to her, coming back to the wreck of himself, and sobbed.

Rosie, the woman Linus loved.

Am I going to die, man?

Peter sat in the chair, staring out at the blue-skied morning, listening to the hymns filter through the window, and wished the answer had been yes.

“O Lord, how shall I meet Thee, How welcome Thee aright?”
Thy people long to greet Thee, My Hope, my heart's Delight!”

The words twined out of Esther like old bones creaking, driven from cobwebbed corners in her soul, the tune of the old hymn stirring to breath inside her.

“O kindle, Lord, most holy, Thy lamp within my breast.”

Sadie hung on to her hip, her arms around her, pretty in her pink sundress and curls. Esther had pin-rolled her own hair, found a dress for herself that didn't bag on her and turn her into a refugee.

Although, she felt like one, tiptoeing behind the Hahns into St. Peter's Lutheran Church. Eyes tracked her, and she silently begged the judge to stop near the back. But no, their pew sat three rows
from the front to the left side of the altar. Within reach of the fire and brimstone.

The sun through the stained glass windows gilded the polished wood pews, and at the side of the altar, the pipe organ gleamed gold as it rang out the hymn.

“To do in spirit lowly All that may please Thee best.”

The judge loomed beside her, taller than she remembered—or perhaps she'd just never stood this close to him. In his black suit, the wide red-and-yellow-patterned tie, the way he held his fedora in his hands, with Mrs. Hahn in her black pillbox hat, her long-sleeved navy suit, the voices raised in precision and harmony, all of it peeled back time.

“Don't fidget, Esther. It's not proper.”
Her mother cast a look on her, her blue eyes lighting on Esther's wayward foot. Esther tucked it back in line with the other, wrapped her hands around the curled wood of the pew as her mother returned to the hymn.

My heart shall bloom forever, For Thee with praises new

And from Thy name shall never, Withhold the honor due.

Next to her, Hedy made eyes with Francis across the aisle, and as Esther looked up at her beautiful sister, Hedy winked.

Esther followed her gaze to Francis, saw him overdramatize his singing.

I lay in fetters, groaning, Thou com'st to set me free;

“What are fetters, anyway?” Hedy said into her ear. Mama shot them both a sing-or-else look.

Hedy straightened, held out her songbook, lifting her glorious voice. Oh, to sing like Hedy. She could probably be a singer someday, on a stage somewhere, with her golden-blond hair, her pretty smile. And someday, maybe Esther could be just like her. Beautiful and with a boy like Francis flirting with her across the aisle.

“‘I stood, my shame bemoaning, Thou com'st to honor me.'” Esther glanced at the hymnal that Mrs. Hahn held, pushing away the rest of her memories.

Still—”

“Hedy, God doesn't suffer harlots!”
Her mother's voice rising through the farmhouse, through the vent in the second-floor bedroom. If Esther pressed her eye to the curl in the grate, she could just make out her mother's expression, the eyes flaring with anger, the snarl of her mouth, her hat still pinned to her head. And Hedy, standing there, her weight on one skinny hip, staring out the window.

“I'm not a harlot, Mama.”

“You will be, and then what? There's no coming back from your sins, then.”

“Maybe I won't want to come back.”

The crack of a palm against Hedy's face jerked Esther away, and she scooted back, her hand to her mouth.

Hedy didn't cry out. But moments later the house shuddered as the door slammed.

I'm not a harlot, Mama.

“Love caused Thy incarnation, Love brought Thee down to me; Thy thirst for my salvation, Procured my liberty.”

Sadie wiggled on her hip and Esther set her down on the pew. Mrs. Hahn looked over, raised an eyebrow, but Esther ignored her. How many verses did this hymn have?

She took count of the people she knew in the audience—there was Dr. Sullivan and his wife, and behind them, one of the younger nurses, who had married just weeks ago one of the soldiers from the ward.

Clearly, Esther wasn't the only nightingale to give her heart to a wounded man.

Maybe we could just hold on, for one more moment.

Peter's words clung to her like the heat of the sun on her skin. She curled them into herself, letting herself see his eyes, the way he listened to her confession without condemnation.

Even, after it all, still wanted her. Still…

“Rejoice, then, ye sad-hearted,

Who sit in deepest gloom, Who mourn o'er joys departed, And tremble at your doom.”

She caught the words, let them tiptoe inside.

Do not despise the grace given to you by staring at your sin. You must turn around and keep your eyes on the face of love. The face of grace. This is where you'll find forgiveness.