Back to Yesterday (7 page)

I
sat straight up, my heart pounding. Looking around, I noted my surroundings and was instantly zapped back to reality.

“You slept like shit didn’t you, son?”

My head snapped around in the direction of the voice. Levi was standing in the doorway sipping something from a mug. Sighing loudly, I admitted the truth.

“You could say that.”

“Well, come on. No sense in wrestling with sleep when we have a plane to wrestle with.”

I swung my legs over to the side of the bed and willed myself to be in the present. “Yeah, about that,” I said, slipping my feet inside my boots. “I have no idea how we’re going to fix the propellers. I don’t know, Levi, maybe my big plan for fixing the plane is impossible.”

Levi moved from the doorway, motioning for me to follow him. “I’ve been thinking about that too, and I think I have a solution.”

I followed him outside to the barn. The sun was barely breaking over the horizon. I rolled my stiff neck, feeling exhausted and still trying to push away the dream I’d had.

“So, what’s your idea?”

“We use the forge,” he said, pointing to a fire pit. He explained how he used the forge to make his own tools, equipment, and weaponry like knives and such. The fire pit had an air source that blew air underneath to create a hotter fire, hot enough to bend steel. Once the steel was hot enough you could manipulate it however you needed by using other tools. You could twist it, bend it…
straighten
it.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “You’re a blacksmith, Levi?”

“You didn’t think you were the only one with talent, did you?”

I placed my arm over his shoulders. “Of course not.”

“Well then, let’s get started,” Levi said, moving to start the fire.

“The only problem I see, and it’s a pretty big problem,” I said, causing Levi to pause, “is that there is no way we can completely straighten the propellers. Even slightly warped, they could cause my plane to vibrate, and if it’s too much vibration, it’ll rip my engine apart.”

Levi chewed the inside of his cheek, contemplating the scenario, and then said, “I can’t promise you we can make them perfect, and it’s a risk, but what other choice do you have, Charles? It’s this or nothing.”

The thought of falling out of the sky for a second time did not appeal to me. I paced back and forth while I weighed the pros and cons. Inevitably, I came to the same conclusion as Levi. I stopped pacing and blew out a breath. “Okay, show me what you can do.”

We worked tirelessly throughout the day. We hammered and pounded on the propeller blades until I thought my arms would fall off. It was hard work and part of me was grateful for it because it kept my mind occupied. I had a simple goal – to get home. Levi didn’t ask me about Sophie after I’d spoken briefly about her the night before, something else I was grateful for. I suppose he realized I wanted to keep her to myself for the most part and I figured he was trying to be respectful of that.

We had probably been working about five hours or so when Maikel, who had been working the field by himself, came running inside the barn. “Papa, we have company!”

Levi and I stopped what we were doing. “Who is it?” Levi asked.

Maikel’s eyes drifted over to me. I still had the hammer in my hand, suspended in the air mid-swing. “They’re looking for you,” he said.

“Who’s looking for me?”

“The Germans.”

“W
hy do you do that?”

“Do what?” Sophie asked.

She was letting me walk her home after her shift. Well, she walked; I hobbled, although I had gotten pretty good at the crutches thing.

“You smile like you have a deep, dark secret,” I said. “Like you’re bursting to let others in on it.” She stopped mid-stride, and I saw an opportunity to get close to her. I bent towards her and whispered in her ear, “Do you have a secret, Sophie?”

A hearty laugh erupted from her. She wasn’t one of those girls who giggled quietly. When Sophie found something funny she laughed from somewhere deep inside her and she let it out in rich, beautiful tones.

“Heavens no,” she said. “No one would ever trust me with a secret.”

“No? Why is that?”

“I can’t keep anything a secret. I don’t have that much self-control.” She looked at me with bright eyes and an undercurrent of mischief. “Don’t ever tell me anything you wouldn’t want anyone else to know, Charlie. Consider yourself warned.” She pointed to a wooden bench along the sidewalk. “Let’s take a break for a minute. We still have a couple more blocks to go and I know you must be getting tired.”

I was, but I didn’t want to admit it. “I’m all right.”

“We’re taking a break,” she insisted. “Don’t argue or I won’t let you walk me home again.”

I smiled at that. “I guess I’m following your orders then.”

She patted the seat beside her and I sat, resting my crutches on the other side of me.

“So,” she said.

“So,” I repeated. We both seemed to be searching for what to say next and apparently we figured it out at the same time because together we said, “What do you–”

Then again we said in unison, “Sorry…you go...I’ll start...”

“Oh for crying out loud,” Sophie said. “Are we starting and finishing each other’s sentences now?”

“It would seem so.”

“Well, ladies first,” she said.

I gestured for her to continue. “Be my guest.”

She settled herself against the bench. “Tell me something, Charlie. What do you do when you’re not hanging around the café?”

I leaned back, making myself comfortable and smiled. “I like that.”

“Like what?”

“That you call me Charlie. No one has ever called me that. I thought I would hate it if anyone ever did. I don’t, not when you say it.”

She looked disappointed.

“What?” I asked.

The corners of her mouth lifted into a semi-grin. “I was hoping you would hate it.”

A laugh bubbled up inside of me so I let it out, sounding loud against the quiet backdrop.

“I kinda figured that. I think that’s why I love it.”

She huffed and crossed her arms.

“What? Do I win a round? You wanted to irritate me and you didn’t. Ha! One point for Charlie!”

“Oh hush. You’ve won nothing. Answer my question.”

Feeling good about my win, I decided to let it go and bask in my victory later. “I’m on furlough until my leg heals. As soon as I’m out of this cast I’ll have some rehab to do.”

“And then what?” Sophie asked

“And then, hopefully, I get to fly again.”

“So you’ll be going back to war?”

“That’s the plan.”

Sophie worried her bottom lip and for the longest time she wouldn’t look at me. Then she said, “Break’s over. Finish walking me home?”

I was afraid I had upset her, and because I didn’t want to broach the subject again…the talk of war…I let the subject fade away into the misty evening. The rest of our walk was quiet and my victory from earlier was long forgotten. When we reached a white house with blue shutters she said, “This is me.”

Her father was sitting on the porch. He stood when he saw us. “Hi, honey,” he said.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“This is Charlie. He walked me home.”

He walked down the front steps and met us where their white picket fence met the sidewalk and reached over to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you. Charlie, is it?”

I shook his hand. “Yes, sir.”

He noticed my uniform, which I always wore when I ventured out. “Pilot?”

“Yes, sir.”

He pointed to my leg. “What happened?”

“A flak burst, sir. I caught shrapnel while escorting our bombers over Germany.”

“I see. How bad is it?”

“Well, three surgeries later, I’m doing all right.”

He nodded in understanding while Sophie stared at my leg. “You didn’t tell me you had three surgeries,” she said.

“It’s no big deal. I’ll be good as new in no time.”

For a minute, her father looked between the two of us, and then announced he was going inside. “Well, I have some papers to grade. It was nice meeting you.”

“You too, sir.” Once her father was out of earshot I asked, “Papers to grade?”

“My father is a professor. He teaches history at the university.” I was getting ready to say something else when she blurted, “Well, thank you for walking me home. I need to go inside.”

“Have I upset you?”

“No. I – look, Charlie, you seem like a sweet guy. Really. But I can’t do this with you.”

“Do what with me?”

“This,” she said, waving her finger back and forth between us. “I can’t worry about you when you go back off to war. I mean, I won’t let…” She cursed under her breath. “I have dreams, you know. And they don’t involve me sitting around waiting and worrying all the time. I can’t do that. It’s best we end this now.”

She unlatched the gate to their fence. I grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

“Charlie–”

“No, let me say something.”

Keeping her back to me she said, “I can’t–”

“I don’t have anyone, Sophie.” She turned and looked at me. “I lost my best friend, and it was my...” My voice broke and I found it impossible to keep looking her in the eye, so I looked down and flicked a rock with the toe of my crutch, shaking my head while I gathered my composure. “I blame myself,” I muttered.

“Charlie...”

“I need someone who will care about me if I don’t come back. I need someone to care about me, Sophie.” My eyes skirted over her head and up towards the moon. I closed my eyes and quietly said again, “I don’t have anyone and I need someone. I desperately need that someone to be you.”

She placed her hand on mine. “Why?” she asked softly.

I lowered my eyes to hers. “Because…I think you need me too.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t think it. I feel it.”