Tracie Peterson (24 page)

Mary Ann shivered as she brought in the last of the applewood for the fireplace. Her favorite apple tree had died from blight nearly a year ago and her brother had chopped it up for wood the spring before. The aroma it sent off was one that Mary Ann found particularly pleasing. It reminded her of happier days—of being courted by Erik and sitting in the front room holding his hand and gazing into the flames.

She hurried to stoke up the fire. Her siblings had come down with measles and it was important to keep the house warm. The knock at the front door did little to pull her focus from the task at hand. The doctor was due to come check up on the children, so no doubt that would be him now. She tossed a couple of logs on the fire, then dusted her hands and went to the door.

“Ellen!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t think you were still in town.”

“I know,” Ellen replied and the animation in her tone told Mary Ann that something very good had happened.

“What is it? Have you heard something from Erik? Has he written?”

Ellen smiled and waved a telegram. “Even better.”

“Better?”

She nodded as Mary Ann opened the screen door to allow Ellen inside. “What could be better?” Her heart pounded as she bit her lower lip.

“Read it for yourself,” Ellen said, handing her the telegram.

Mary Ann glanced down at the words on the tape. “Erik’s coming home?” She felt faint and reached for the only thing close by. Ellen.

Ellen put a supportive arm around her and met her gaze. She nodded. “He’s coming home. He was injured, but he’s all right.
Mother hasn’t been able to find out much more than that. Oh, Mary Ann! Isn’t this the best news of the new year?”

Mary Ann felt tears come to her eyes. “The very best. It’s like all my finest wishes coming true at once.” She looked at the paper again. “He’s coming home. My Erik is coming home!”

Lounging in the Brisbane hospital dayroom, Erik was still trying to come to terms with the news he’d been given. The terrible infection in his foot, brought on by a compound fracture, was not responding well to the medication available. He was being sent back to the States for more intense therapy away from the Tropics. The thought of being discharged from active duty still came as a tremendous surprise. Somehow he’d always figured to be in this war for the duration.

The doctor had assured him they’d get word back to his family in America and let them know he had been found and was headed home. Erik longed for their company and looked forward to seeing Mary Ann—to holding her and kissing her. But even as those thoughts came to bolster his spirits, Erik couldn’t help but worry that Mary Ann no longer cared. She seemed so distant. So very far away. Had she remained faithful—did she still love him?

“Lieutenant Anderson! Lieutenant Erik Anderson!” came the call.

“Yes!” Erik replied, waving from his seat.

An older man came forward, limping as he did and dragging behind him a huge duffel bag. “You Anderson?”

“I am,” Erik replied.

“This is yours,” the man said. He gave the duffel a powerful swing forward and landed the bag at Erik’s feet.

“What’s in it?” Erik asked curiously.

“Mail,” the man replied. “You were harder to find than ice water in the desert. Mail kept coming and stacking up for you and we had no clue where to send it. For some reason, the marines just lost track of you.”

Erik shook his head. “But how . . . why would it end up here?”

“Mail from the States goes to Hawaii and then Australia. We send it out from here to the boys all across the South Pacific. We just lost you in the shuffle.”

Erik tore at the strings that tied the bag shut. It was like having his own private Christmas morning. There inside the bag were packages and letters in such abundance that Erik immediately felt guilty for every negative thought he’d ever had about his family. For the first time since his ordeal had begun, Erik felt his eyes mist with tears.

Lovingly he picked up a letter and easily recognized his mother’s handwriting. Next he took up one from Mary Ann and then one from his sister Ellen. Laughing, he recognized letters from church members and neighbors, as well as additional missives from his loved ones. They had remembered him—they had been faithful.

He looked up at the man, not in the leastwise embarrassed by his tears. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I thought they had forgotten me.”

The man put his hand on Erik’s shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Lieutenant.”

Erik smiled. “You too, and thanks.”

He opened a letter with Mary Ann’s return address.

My dearest love
,

You consume my thoughts and I can’t help but wonder when we might next meet again
.
My heart is so full of love for you. . .
.

He could read no more as the tears blurred his vision. He sighed. The disappointment of being injured and sent home was overcome with a longing for the woman who was to become his wife.

He looked at his treasure of letters from home and knew that nothing could have made him feel more festive. Christmas had passed without snow or his mother’s home cooking. The new year had come without a sweetheart’s kiss or tender embrace, but this just might turn out to be one of his favorite memories of the holiday season. Something had changed inside his heart, and this time he truly knew why he was celebrating.

Longview, Washington, December 1943

With a gentle winter rain falling outside and a well-laid fire on the hearth, Melody Thompson attempted to decorate the Christmas tree, while Ginny Williams settled down to string cranberries. The radio offered a variety of holiday songs and the day promised to be good for staying inside, drinking something hot, and reading a good book. If only her husband and Ginny’s son could be on hand, Melody thought, the day might well have been perfect.

Ginny sighed and stuck a needle through a rather tough cranberry. Melody knew her mind was far away. Ginny’s son, John, was somewhere in England flying bombers for the war effort, and her dear husband had passed on to his reward two years earlier. Melody thought her a very brave but very lonely woman.

Ginny smiled from across the room, and Melody couldn’t help but feel warmed at her caring expression. Ginny had taken her in as a favor to her son. Melody was married to John’s good friend and co-pilot, Collin Thompson. The two men had trained together in California and it was there that Collin had fallen in love with sixteen-year-old Melody. It was also there that their love led to Melody getting pregnant and to both rushing into a wartime marriage that neither had planned on.

Melody’s parents had been enraged when they’d learned of her condition. Highly religious people, they proclaimed Melody had disgraced the family in a most unforgivable way. They’d kicked her out of their home in spite of the fact that she and Collin quietly married. They were ashamed of her and it grieved Melody sorely. She knew she’d done wrong, but her folks had always said that God could forgive a person when they were truly repentant. And Melody was truly repentant. She had never intended to get caught up in her whirlwind romance with the dashing pilot. She had never intended to
become romantically involved with any soldier. But Collin had a way about him.

She smiled as she thought of him and tried to reach past her ever-expanding stomach to hang a ceramic cherub on the tree. Collin held her heart in his hand almost from the start. He had winked at her one morning as she worked collecting scrap paper and from that moment on, Melody had been captivated by the handsome stranger.

Falling in love had been easy. It had been just as easy to say yes to Collin’s proposal and to find herself in his arms sharing a passionate kiss and whispered promises for their future.

Her courtship, however, was bittersweet with the memory that she’d not remained pure as she’d always planned. She grieved over her thoughtless choice that night and when she knew for sure she was carrying Collin’s baby, the wedding was rapidly stepped up. Even so, her parents had been harsh and cruel. Her father had voiced threats of physical violence. Her mother had cried until she was sick.

Knowing her folks were highly respected religious pillars in the community had made Melody feel even worse. Once the talk started circulating, her father was asked to either put Melody away from them or resign his position as an elder in the church. One simple act, one sinful choice, had caused everything to change. Consequences were strict masters.

“The tree is looking a little bare on the top half,” Ginny teased. “But don’t you go worrying none. I’ll help you out as soon as I get these stubborn berries strung.”

Melody laughed lightly and stepped back. “It does look a little strange.”

“Never you mind. Although it’s good to hear you laugh,” Ginny said before focusing back on her work.

Melody had been so discouraged over her parents’ rejection. A part of her understood the stand they’d made, but a part of her didn’t. If they served a God who truly forgave, then why, after Melody had apologized and married, did they continue to act as though she didn’t exist?

It was almost her undoing when Collin announced that his unit was leaving for the war. Terror had struck a deep nerve in Melody, who was not only shut out of the relationships she’d held all of her life, but now she would have no husband to care for her either. John
had been the one to save the day for them both by suggesting Melody stay with his widowed mother.

Ginny Williams had been understanding and kind. She listened to their story and agreed that what they had done was wrong. Collin had bristled at her chiding, but Melody found herself easily drawn to the older woman. Ginny wasn’t simply pointing a finger and harboring disgust, she openly offered forgiveness or at least assurance that God had forgiven them. After Collin and John said their goodbyes and Melody moved into John’s old room, the love she found in Ginny’s care was all that would get her through the coming days.

There were goods days and bad. Long nights that seemed to never end tormented Melody the most. The first few weeks had been given over to crying herself to sleep each night, and sometimes even waking up in the night to cry some more. She missed her folks and she missed her husband. She harbored the fear that she might never see any of them again and she worried for her future and that of her child’s.

“
You’re going to grieve yourself to death
,” Ginny had admonished the girl months ago. And Ginny knew well how that could be.

Two years earlier, John had told Melody, Ginny had been the happiest woman in the world. Life was pretty routine in Longview in spite of the war raging in Europe. America was cautiously being neutral on the side of the Allies, yet life went on in a fairly normal routine. John had just graduated college the previous May, and Ginny and her husband, Harold, had proudly announced his accomplishment to the world. He was the first Williams to attend college, much less graduate. That same summer, John had completed his pilot’s training and hoped very much to begin working in commercial air service.

But that winter the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and not two weeks after that, Ginny’s beloved Harold had suffered a heart attack at work and had died on the spot. Ginny had been inconsolable. Harold and John were her life, and now an important part of her life was gone.