Hope Rising (6 page)

Her gaze dropped to his right hand, where his large fingers lay splayed against his chest. Would he find her action forward or understand the driving need to share in his grief?

Before she changed her mind, she reached out and placed her hand lightly over his. An electric sensation jolted through her. Startled, Evelyn started to withdraw her hand, but Corporal Campbell captured it beneath his and held fast. She glanced at his face, but he wasn’t looking at her.

The tender touch and rapid thumping of his heartbeat through his hand to hers loosened the emotion clogging her chest and throat. Tears pricked at her eyes. She had no one else with whom she could mourn—no one else who had known Ralph or even about him. And so as much as she knew she ought to move away, Evelyn remained at the corporal’s side, motionless, her eyes focused on their hands, one atop the other.

Too soon, the squeak of a bedspring from behind broke the trance that held her bound. Evelyn pulled her hand away to remove the thermometer from the corporal’s mouth. The poor man had obediently kept it in.

“Your temperature is higher tonight.” Her voice wobbled a bit, adding to the embarrassment she already felt.

You’re the nurse, Evelyn
, she scolded herself.
Not a mourning widow, so to speak.
“Would you like me to remove your blanket?”

“I’m fine.”

The note of desperation no longer rang in his voice, but Evelyn knew he was far from fine. She’d told Alice the same lie earlier. Was there something else she could do for him?

His stubble from the day before had become a light-colored beard, giving her an idea. “Would you like a shave?”

He arched his eyebrows. “A shave? Now?”

Evelyn nodded, warming to the idea. “It might help you sleep better.”

A whisper of a smile flitted across his mouth, but it was there nonetheless. “Is that the alternative to pain medication? A shave at midnight?”

Her own lips curved in response. “It could be. Though you should know, the nurses on the day shift are often more pinched for time, so it’s a thorough job tonight or a quick one tomorrow.”

Corporal Campbell rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I could do it myself.”

“Would you like to try?” She gave his broken arm a meaningful glance.

Again, she caught the faint lift of his mouth. “All right then. I suppose I’ll surrender.”

With surer steps than before, Evelyn crossed to the supply closet and unlocked the cupboard where the shaving razors and scissors were kept. There had been no attempts at suicide yet, but Sister Marcelle wasn’t taking any chances. After locating some shaving soap on a lower shelf, Evelyn rummaged up a bowl of water and returned to the corporal’s bedside.

“Have you ever done this before?” She could feel his eyes on her as she set up the supplies on the bedside table.

She threw him a mock look of disgust over her shoulder. “You insult my nursing education, Corporal.”

“My apologies. No insult intended.” A faint smirk escaped his mouth. “And please, call me Joel.”

Should she? she wondered, working the soap and water into lather. He already knew her first name. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt, at least when she felt certain they weren’t being overheard.

Once the lather was ready, Evelyn brought over a chair and set it next to his bed. Since he couldn’t sit up himself, Joel would have to lean a bit in her direction, which she hoped wouldn’t further aggravate his injuries. But her tired body protested any more standing. Besides, the chair ensured she wouldn’t be committing a faux pas by perching on the edge of his bed.

Evelyn bent forward and applied the mixture liberally to Joel’s face with her fingertips. His light brown hair and tan skin held little resemblance to Ralph’s darker features and olive complexion. Joel’s jaw and chin were more prominent, too. Touching him felt different as well, stirring both feelings of familiarity and disquiet deep within her. Perhaps her idea hadn’t been such a wise one. What would Ralph think of her sharing such an intimate moment with his best friend?

She lowered her hand a few inches as guilt overcame her, but she couldn’t quit now. Not with lather all over his cheeks. If she got him talking, about something other than their connection to Ralph, she might feel better. “Tell me how many siblings you have.”

Joel waited while she smoothed the lather over his upper lip before answering. “I have two sisters and four brothers.” He cleared his throat. “Well, three brothers now. Tom was killed here in France a few months back.”

This time she let her hand fall to her lap. “I’m sorry.” Had he been thinking about his brother earlier? “Were you close?”

“Yes.” He seemed to find sudden fascination in his sling. “We fought like any normal brothers, but he was my best friend, too. You know how it is with siblings.”

Longing swept through her as she pushed the razor through the water in the bowl. She’d always wanted a brother or a sister, and so she’d been determined to give her child what she couldn’t have growing up. Another wish that had died with Ralph yesterday.

“Actually, I don’t know. My mother died when I was a child, so I was raised largely by my grandparents. And my father, of course. But he was a busy country doctor.”

“Is that where the nursing comes from?”

“Yes. I enjoyed accompanying him when I got older.” She expertly shaved the right side of his face, until little lather remained.

Sister Marcelle’s question from the day before repeated in Evelyn’s mind:
Do you enjoy nursing?
Had she truly loved attending to the sick in the same way her father had, or had she simply craved time with her only living parent?

“Must’ve been awfully quiet.”

The words stung all the more because they were true. “I didn’t know any different,” she defended.

“I would’ve liked some quiet now and again,” he said when she lowered the razor. Could he tell he’d hurt her with his observation? “There was always a lot of noise, but that also meant there was always someone around to play with.” His tone changed to one of regret as he added, “I always expected to have a large family myself one day.”

So did I.

The talk of families brought her thoughts around to Ralph again. Evelyn glanced over her shoulder. Nurse Kent was occupied with another patient. How many more opportunities would she have alone with Joel during the night shift? Not many, once Nurse Phelps recovered from her cold.

Emboldened by necessity, she forced her next question off her tongue as she washed the lather from the razor. “How long did you know Ralph?”

She sensed Joel watching her. “Nearly as long as I’ve been a soldier. What about you? Are you the girl he met on leave?”

So Ralph
had
mentioned her, just as she’d suspected. The realization made her heart pound harder. “Yes.” She forced her hands to remain steady as she shaved the left side of his face.

When she’d finished, Joel spoke again, his voice low. “He didn’t mention you by name until yesterday. But he talked about you a lot.”

The grief rushed in again, so sharp it stole Evelyn’s breath. If she didn’t keep talking, though, she would dissolve into fresh tears. “I met Ralph before I transferred to St. Vincent’s.” She rinsed the razor again. “We were on leave in the same city.”

“I didn’t join him that time.” A long pause, weighted with hesitation, preceded his next remark. “When we were on furlough the time before, he spent most of it playing the charmer to several of the local girls. It wasn’t something I was comfortable with, so I opted to go somewhere else the second time.”

Why tell her this now? Evelyn’s stomach clenched with uncertainty. Could there have been other girls Ralph fancied? She shut her mind against the idea. Whatever Ralph’s past mistakes, he hadn’t charmed her, then abandoned her. She’d certainly been swept up by his magnetism, but he had promised to marry her once he knew about the baby. His words hadn’t been idle promises either—of that, she felt certain.

She chose her next words with care as she wielded the razor around his upper lip and chin. “I only knew Ralph a short time, but…” What else could she say? That he’d meant everything to her? That perhaps she’d foolishly given her heart to him after only a few days—never expecting he would be unable to fulfill his promise to marry her? She guessed Joel already knew those things.

She hadn’t realized she’d let the razor in her hand droop until Joel snagged her wrist in a gentle grip. “Ralph changed after that trip, Evelyn. You need to know that.” His voice was barely audible but earnest. “So much so, that I said something. That’s when he started talking about you.”

The tiniest hope flickered inside her at Joel’s story, though she feared it might prove too small to sustain the crushing weight of her grief. Was it possible some divine hand had sent Joel to St. Vincent’s? She would never have known Ralph had died otherwise.

A large part of her balked at the thought. She’d gone against her grandparents’ religious beliefs—and her own childhood faith—in becoming involved with Ralph. Surely that meant she’d been left to her own devices. She must hold to her new plan and the knowledge she’d bettered Ralph’s life, not complicated it.

“I’m glad I knew him,” she whispered, once she’d finished shaving Joel’s face.

“I am, too,” he said just as softly as she wiped away the remaining spots of lather. “He was an exceptional soldier and a loyal friend.” He flicked his gaze to the window again, and some of his earlier grief returned to his clean-shaven face. “We used to talk about settling down near each other and raising our families together. But I guess that won’t be happening now…for me or Ralph.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant, but before she could ask, a panicked voice from across the room pierced the quiet of the ward. “No. You can’t take me. Leave me alone. My legs! I can’t feel my legs.”

Evelyn rushed to her feet, only to pause in indecision at leaving Joel alone to weather another cloud of despair.

“Go on,” he urged with a wave at the other soldier.

“I’ll be back.” She hurried over to join Nurse Kent at the bedside of the terrified man. He strained against the pulleys that held one arm and both legs, his eyes shut tight. Evelyn spoke in soothing tones and wiped at his sweaty face with a dampened rag, while Nurse Kent administered a small dose of morphine. After a few minutes, the soldier calmed, and eventually he drifted back to sleep.

Evelyn brushed strands of her hair off her damp forehead and went to stand near one of the open windows. The stars hung low in the dark night sky and a breeze whistled around the old building and trees. The breath of wind helped cool her flushed cheeks and settle her rapidly beating heart. At least her conversation with Joel and the adrenaline of dealing with the other soldier’s shell shock had kept her from feeling too sleepy.

Her empty stomach had begun to protest, though. Maybe she could slip down to the kitchen and bring back some coffee for herself and Nurse Kent. Right after she cleaned up the supplies from shaving Joel’s face. She retraced her steps to his bedside and found him asleep.

Looks like the shave worked its magic
, she mused.

After gathering up the shaving things and locking the razor back in the cupboard, she settled the chair in a corner and sat to record her notes in the ledger. She jotted down the other soldier’s nightmare and the medicine he’d been given, then flipped idly through the book.

Remembering she hadn’t made a note of Joel’s temperature, she turned to the page with his name on it and wrote the information down. A description of his injuries, the same one she’d read on his medical card, was written at the top of the page. Underneath them, though, a few sentences had been added by the surgeon.

Injury to pelvic region determined. Soldier will not be capable of fathering children, but is fully functional otherwise.

Joel would never be a father? She glanced at his sleeping figure and a profound sadness settled over her, dark and heavy. Even in the short time she’d spent with him, she’d sensed that his desire for a large family ran every bit as deeply as her own. No wonder he’d been melancholy tonight. Like her, he wasn’t just grieving the death of his friend, but the loss of his hopes and plans, too.

In light of what she’d discovered, Evelyn suddenly knew what Joel had meant by his odd remark about him and Ralph being unable to raise their families together. Joel wouldn’t be having a family, large or small.

What a pair we make.

A harsh laugh threatened to scramble up her throat, but she hid it behind a half sigh, half sob. Her grief over losing Ralph swooped in to claim her captive all over again. She would eventually return to the quiet house in Michigan with her fatherless child, and Joel would return to his noisy one, this time without the anticipation of creating one of his own.

How she hated this war and its personal intrusion on her life and plans. Not only had it robbed her and Joel of their chance to have their own families, but it had left them to flounder in a wasteland of broken dreams, too. What could the future possibly hold for either of them now?

M
orning, Corporal Campbell.” Nurse Thornton approached Joel’s bed.

He muttered “Good morning” in return, though it was anything but. The pain and stiffness from his injuries had made sleep less than satisfying for a second night in a row, and yet he was already itching to be out of bed. Once outside, he felt certain he’d be able to breathe easier, free his nose of the constant smell of iodine, illness, and soap.

“I have a letter for you.”

Joel’s mood lifted at that news. “Then I’ve changed my mind. It’s a better morning than I thought.”

Nurse Thornton smiled, but instead of handing over the letter, she set about checking his temperature and his wounds. Joel tried to hold still, but the fingers of his good hand drummed a steady beat against his wrinkled blanket.

“Impatient, are we?” Her tone was teasing.

He couldn’t tell her he’d been dying for something to read, something to occupy his mind. Being Sunday, he would’ve normally read his Bible, but Joel hadn’t opened it since hearing the news from the surgeon. He didn’t want to read about others’ incredible faith or their lack thereof. Not yet, at least.

“Just anxious for news from home.”

“Let me start the Dakin’s solution through your tubes, and then you may have your letter.”

Joel lay as still as he could, in hopes of helping Nurse Thornton move faster. As he watched her, his thoughts drifted to another nurse. Evelyn. His hand rose to rub the smooth skin of his jaw. She’d done an excellent job wielding the razor last night. And her efforts had given him a chance to observe her close up.

Those big, dark eyes of hers spoke volumes of pain, fatigue, loneliness, and compassion. But it was more than that. Something deep and powerful had swept through him when she’d touched his hand last night. Evelyn had felt it, too, judging from the way she’d started to pull back. In that brief moment of contact, the grief and guilt were no longer Joel’s to bear alone. And so he’d stopped her from leaving by covering her hand with his own. Their moment of shared sorrow ended too soon, but it was long enough to pull Joel free of the darkness threatening to consume him from the inside out.

The tender touch of a woman as beautiful as Evelyn had also raised his temperature. Thankfully she hadn’t been concerned with figuring out the reason for the difference. Regret sluiced through him as he realized how much he’d enjoyed her company last night, however brief. He couldn’t forget she was Ralph’s girl. The one Ralph loved, the one who loved him, the one who’d made Joel’s best friend into an even better man the last few months.

Would they have married, if Ralph had lived? The possibility brought a fresh wave of guilt and intensified the battle brewing inside him. He felt compelled to look out for Evelyn, to ensure her well-being, and yet doing so meant she might learn his part in Ralph’s death. Chances were she’d never want to see or speak to him again after that.

Nurse Thornton finally finished, bringing momentary relief to Joel’s inner war when she presented him with the promised letter. Joel tore it open at once. The letter was from his kid sister Mary. He hoped for current news from home, but apparently the letter had taken some time to reach him, judging by the six-week-old date in the top right corner. Still, any news of life back in Iowa was a godsend, especially now.

Mary had scrawled line after line about school letting out, about her latest trip into town with their mother, about Livy’s fiancé and the wedding plans. Joel found himself smiling as he read; he could almost hear Mary’s chattering, twelve-year-old voice relaying all the gossip. Then he reached the end.

Rose had a daughter? The news cut as deep and painful as shrapnel, tightening Joel’s chest and constricting his breath.
She could have been my daughter.
The realization stung with equal sharpness. If he’d married Rose, as he’d planned to for years, then his injury wouldn’t matter. They could have had a child together, and he would have been a father.

What would he do now, after the war? Live at home, while the rest of his siblings grew up and left to have families of their own? Evelyn’s account of her solitary childhood haunted his thoughts. He couldn’t live like that, with just his parents. What would happen once they became old and passed away? He’d be left alone, in a big empty house. The very idea brought a cold, clammy feeling creeping over him.

That would never do. He’d have to hold out hope of finding a woman who loved him enough to marry him in spite of his injury. They would be the adored aunt and uncle to his siblings’ children. The thought lightened the pressure in his chest, but only marginally.

As a kid, Joel hadn’t given much thought to his future beyond knowing he wanted to work the land on his own farm someday. But that had changed the year he turned fourteen and Vivian Jensen, an unwed mother, and her son, Les, came to live with his family.

The rest of Joel’s siblings soon tired of four-year-old Les’s constant questions, so Joel stepped in to play the part of “big brother.” Les became his little shadow, wanting to do everything he did. Joel taught him what he knew about birds, how to skip rocks, how to run faster without tiring, how to do the farm chores. He liked the precocious little kid and his ability to grasp things quickly.

Coming in from milking the cows one night, Joel overheard Vivian talking with his parents in the parlor. “Les has been so happy since we moved here. He’s always talking about Joel. I hope the poor boy doesn’t mind having Les as a constant tagalong.”

There was light chuckling, then his father spoke up. “It’s been good for Joel, too. He’s growing up, learning what it takes to be a man, to be a father. He’ll do a fine job at both.”

The note of pride in Josiah Campbell’s voice made Joel swallow hard against a sudden lump in his throat and puff his chest out a little farther as he crept past them up the stairs. That single snatch of conversation settled into his heart and shaped his thoughts of the future.

He would be the best farmer, father, and man he could be. A man as honored and respected by others as his own father. And someday, Joel would share that same measure of pride and love that Josiah had shown him with his own sons and daughters.

Why, God?
he silently cried out as the death of his dreams washed over him anew.
Why didn’t You let me marry Rose?

He may not have loved her, at least not in the deep way his parents felt for each other, but Joel figured that sort of devotion would come later. After all, he and Rose had known each other for years—their families expected a union between them. But even in his anger over what might have been, he couldn’t deny the strong feeling he had when he’d walked over to Rose’s house, intent on proposing.
He’d known then, as sure as the rising and the setting of the sun, it wasn’t meant to be with them, however natural the union seemed.

Is that what I’m to think about being a father? It’s not meant to be either?
Joel crumbled the letter in his hand. The crunch of the paper eased some of his frustration.

“Bad news from home?”

Joel glanced at the soldier to his left. Even seated in bed, the man looked tall.

“Your letter—bad news?” he asked again.

“Uh…something like that.”

“Name’s Dennis. Sergeant George Dennis.” He leaned to the side and stuck his hand across the space between the two beds.

“Corporal Joel Campbell,” Joel said, shaking the man’s meaty hand and trying not to wince from the pain of moving.

Sergeant Dennis straightened. “Your girl up and get married?”

“No,” Joel said around the tightening of his jaw.

“I tell you,” the other man continued with a shake of his head as if Joel hadn’t spoken, “those guys who can’t go back to the front end up marrying all the girls left at home. Which is why you’ve gotta look for opportunities elsewhere.”

Joel followed Sergeant Dennis’s gaze as it settled on Nurse Thornton speaking quietly to a patient on the opposite side of the ward. “You know that’s against the rules.”

“Maybe it’s different between patients and nurses. Besides, a fellow can try, can’t he? I just want to get to know her.” He twisted to look at Joel and pointed at his neglected Bible. “You a chaplain or something, lugging that Bible around?”

A chuckle escaped Joel’s throat. “No. That’s the Army-issued Bible. Didn’t you get one?”

The sergeant scratched his hairline. “I can’t remember. It say anything in there about not talking to a nurse?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Then me and Him…” Sergeant Dennis pointed to the ceiling. “We’re still square, even if we ain’t talked in some time.”

Joel chuckled again, despite Dennis’s somewhat faulty reasoning. From what little Joel knew about Nurse Thornton, he had a hard time imagining her being easily persuaded to break any rules.

He didn’t plan on breaking them either. The lessons he’d learned from having Vivian and Les on the farm all those years ago went beyond seeing what it meant to be a father. Observing firsthand Vivian’s difficult life, Joel quickly concluded he’d never contribute to placing a woman in a similar situation. Even now, despite knowing he couldn’t father a child, he would still choose to be the man, the gentleman, his parents—and God—wanted him to be.

Joel folded Mary’s letter and slipped it beneath the cover of his Bible. His gaze wandered the room. He would likely die of boredom and inactivity before his injuries healed. What he wouldn’t give to feel the sun on his face and the slap of his shoes against the dirt as he ran. Even the thought of baling hay or mucking stalls or driving the plow sounded heavenly in comparison to the confines of his bed and the whitewashed room.

To pass the time until lunch, he opted to look through his bird notebook. Pain sliced down his side and leg, making him grunt, as he reached to pull the book from his bedside table. When the ache lessened, he rested the book on his chest and thumbed through the pages. Each one was filled with meticulous drawings and full descriptions of birds. His sister Livy, the true artist in the family, had sketched some of the pictures, but the ones Joel had drawn himself weren’t half bad.

Ever since he’d been a boy, he’d found birds fascinating. The way they flew, and lived, and ate. His mother had been the one to encourage him to take notes about the birds he saw. Most of his bird-watching had been on his own, until Les came to the farm. The young boy turned out to be as eager an observer as Joel himself, and they’d spent many hours studying birds together.

Joel had always envied the birds’ abilities to effortlessly take to the skies. Especially now, when he felt tethered to the earth by his wounds and the irrigation tubes. If only he could soar right out of the window and away from the hospital. But it would never happen, now or in the future. Only in one of those airplanes he’d seen flying over No Man’s Land were humans ever likely to grasp the same perspective as a bird.

Lunch arrived and, with it, his freedom from the red tubes. Joel slurped up every last bite of broth. Today there were the tiniest slivers of meat and vegetables floating in it. Not the greatest improvement, but he welcomed any change to his bland diet. After his tray had been cleared, he took up his notebook again.

A flash of movement at the window drew his attention from the drawings and words on the page in front of him. A plump brown-and-white bird with a reddish-orange breast had alighted on the sill, its head cocked. Joel had seen few birds during his time in the trenches.

Excitement pulsed through him, masking the pain that came from moving about as he tried to locate a pencil in his bag. Once he found it, he sketched a quick picture of the bird, then noted its size and color next to his drawing. He’d have to ask one of the French sisters the name, though.

Joel watched the creature hop from one side of the sill to the other. It seemed to find as much fascination in observing the men inside the crowded ward as Joel did observing it. Would it stay or fly away if he were to try to get a closer look? Either way, the effort of walking across the room suddenly felt worth the risk. The bird reminded him of happier days, and closing the gap between them would shrink the distance between Joel and home. He could also prove to himself, and the nurses, that he wouldn’t be completely confined to a bed against his will.

A quick glance at the two nurses in the ward confirmed neither one was looking in Joel’s direction. He pulled back his blanket and scooted to the edge of the bed. The action started a steady ache in his wounded thigh and pelvis, but he tightened his jaw in retaliation. All he needed was to make it ten, maybe fifteen, steps across the room. A simple task.

Joel twisted to face the nearby wall and let his right foot join his left on the smooth wood floor. Once he rose to a standing position, he’d likely attract attention. He would need to move quickly if he planned to reach the window before one of the nurses stopped him.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed to his feet on the exhale. The pain along his right side intensified and his knees nearly collapsed beneath his own weight. But he was standing! A tight grimace pulled at his mouth as he forced his left foot to shuffle forward along the floor. The pressure on his injured leg robbed him of breath until he could shift his balance back to his left. He followed up the shuffle-step with a hobble forward, bringing his legs in line again.

Joel glanced over his shoulder to discover he’d made it only six inches from the bed. Disappointment swept through him, but he gritted his teeth against it.
Rome wasn’t built in a day
, his dad had always said. Fisting his good hand, he began the process of taking a step all over again. Left foot forward, hobble. Left foot forward, hobble.

To his surprise, when he looked to the window, he found the bird hadn’t moved. Its head was still tipped at a curious angle as it watched Joel’s funny walk across the room. Encouraged, Joel shuffled forward again, and again. Sweat broke out on his brow and rolled down his face, but he kept moving. Thankfully the soldier lying in the bed beside the window was asleep.