Remembering You (20 page)

“Hey, Jill. I need your help. I would call around myself but I prepaid only a certain number of minutes on this phone. Also, I have a video to work on…”

For the next few minutes, Ava rattled off all the information she had about Angeline. She also left Tana’s number for Jill to contact if needed. She also left Camille’s contact information.

Just as she was finishing up, she heard a knock on the door. Her heart raced and she guessed it was Dennis—most likely with his feathers ruffled about something else.

“Hey Jill, I have to go, but…” She bit her lip, trying to decide if she should ask for one last thing. “But can you also look up something else? Chenogne, Belgium. C-h-e-n-o-g-n-e. I did some Internet searches, but I’m looking for something—I don’t know—impacting. Maybe Judy at the library can help? Something happened there near the end of December or beginning of January that my grandpa was involved in. Okay, love ya. Thanks.” She hung up and then hurried to the door, hoping the knocking wasn’t going to wake up her grandfather. A dozen different greetings for Dennis came to mind. None of them good.

“Yes?” She swung open the door and was greeted by the scent of flowers. Then she saw them. A small bouquet, and behind the mix of colors, Dennis’s apologetic smile. The flowers stuck out of an old bottle and looked handpicked. In his other hand was a paper bag.

Ava sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. She was tired of this. Mr. Nice Guy one minute and then receiving a lecture from him the next. She lifted her chin and narrowed her gaze. Then she stepped into the hall, shutting the door behind her. If she was going to give Dennis a piece of her mind, she didn’t want to wake her grandfather.

His eyebrows furrowed. “After such a great morning, I really messed things up.”

“Yes, you did.” She placed a hand on her hip.

“Would it help if I told you I was walking by a field and thought of you?”

“I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. Can we just deal with each other over the next couple of days and get through it? Besides, those weeds are a poor excuse for a peace offering.”

The elevator opened and a couple exited. They eyed Dennis and Ava suspiciously and then hurried past. Dennis held the bag up. “Actually, this is the peace offering—sandwiches from a bistro down the street.”

She shook her head and thought about walking back inside and slamming the door, but her stomach growled. The food did smell good.

Dennis extended the bag, and she took it.

“I was also going to offer to read more letters for you if you need some for your video. There’s a nice patio out back. We can leave food for your grandpa and eat back there.”

Ava rubbed her hand across her forehead. Why did he have to do this? The flowers were just a warm-up, she now knew. The food was nice, but she really needed help with the videos. He knew that. She hated that he knew.

“It’s amazing how quickly things change. Back at the farmhouse, I thought you were going to tackle me as I pulled my camera from the car, and now you want to help?”

Dennis looked to his side, as if there was someone there holding cue cards, telling him what to say, and then turned back to her. “Yes?”

“Fine.” Ava pulled the hotel key card from her pocket and turned back to the door. “I’ll accept your help, but I’m not happy about it. My deadline’s got me in a chokehold, and you just happen to be a slight breath of air. Slight. Very slight.”

Chapter Twenty

Ava woke with a smile. Her first thoughts were of Dennis reading the letters about her grandfather’s fight through Germany. He’d done his best to let his emotions come through his words, and it had made her job easier. She’d finished the video by 11:00 p.m., sent it off, and gotten some much-needed sleep.

Dennis hadn’t tried to flirt. She hadn’t pushed him away. It had been enough to just record and go their separate ways.

Her grandfather was gone. She guessed he was already downstairs enjoying breakfast with his friend.

After rising and dressing, she checked her voice mail, hoping for news from Jill or Camille. There wasn’t any. She checked her e-mail too. There was nothing from Jill or from Jay either—not that she should be surprised. He’d been such a charmer, but no one could wear a mask forever. Her grandfather had seen the truth. He’d told her about it. He’d warned her, and what had she done? She’d yelled at him. Ava bit her lip, realizing she still hadn’t apologized for that. She needed to make amends to her grandfather.

Heading downstairs, she discovered Grandpa Jack sitting in the small hotel breakfast room with a cup of coffee. His Bible was open on the table, and it reminded Ava of her grandparents’ house as a child. She would wake to find them reading the Bible together most mornings.

Even though he wasn’t a big man, Grandpa looked large at the small café table. Ava paused, seeing him there. She was still sometimes struck with the reality that she was in Europe with her grandfather. He was the grandpa who ate bologna on white bread for lunch and found joy in writing down each day’s high and low temperatures on the free calendar he’d gotten from the bank.

He was really here way back when. This is part of him.

She crossed her arms over her chest and tucked in her lower lip, realizing that all the times she’d visited, gone fishing, and joked around with him, she’d never asked about the war. He always asked her about her work and life and friends. How come she’d never thought about getting to know his life better or learn about his experiences? She thought about offering the apology she’d wanted to give since before they started. The other guys weren’t around, and this seemed to be her chance. Yet her chest grew heavy just thinking about it. Not only had he been right about Jay, the truth was, she didn’t have many more answers than she had six months ago. If anything, she was more confused about her life, her faith, her everything.

She approached with quiet steps. He was looking out the window. His eyes were focused on the narrow road leading out of town.

“Good mornin’, sweetheart. How are you today?”

She pulled out a chair. “Good.”

He lifted his cup. “Good coffee here.”

A waitress approached, and Ava ordered coffee, sausage, and toast.

The waitress returned and poured her coffee. Ava took a sip. “You’re right. It is good coffee. Reminds me of Starbucks.”

“Four dollars for a cup of coffee?” He shook his head.

Ava smiled. Four dollars probably fed his family for a week before the war, maybe longer. She wondered if he was thinking about that, or thinking about something else. It was clear his mind wasn’t on this café or the coffee.

“There’s something that’s really stuck with me from the war.” He had a contemplative look on his face. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened. He wore a half smile as he talked. It was a sad smile. Ava wished she could capture that smile on camera, but he was never this relaxed when she had her equipment out.

“I don’t know if it was this town or another one like it, but I remember when we entered,” he continued. “It was just piles of rubble. Old piles from the bombers. New rubble from the artillery. There didn’t seem to be one building that was whole.”

She looked outside at the brick buildings—the painted window frames and flower boxes that were just beginning to show their first buds. “I bet it’s different seeing the buildings standing, not crumbling.”

“It is different, but what was even more troubling were all the people. I keep thinking about the refugees. They were walking out of town, stumbling along the road. They were leaving the city—old people, small children. Mothers carrying babies in pouches across their fronts. Some had wagons or baby carriages filled with things. And they didn’t look back. I could see it on their faces. It was too hard for them to look back. They didn’t really look ahead. Mostly, they just watched their feet. The children, not knowing any better, sneaked glances at us.”

Ava could picture that. She felt the same way. Not looking back because of the pain. Afraid to look ahead. Maybe she was just watching her feet too.

They sat a few more minutes in silence, sipping their coffee and watching people pass on the street. It seemed right, in a way, to enjoy being together without an agenda. She breathed out a soft breath, taking in the sight of an old woman riding down the street on a bicycle, of a younger woman pushing her baby in a pram.

A family walked by, and Ava could tell where they were from by their Texas T-shirts and guidebooks. The dad led them, video camera in hand. The mother followed with a guidebook, reading as they walked along. Behind them were two girls, around seven and ten. They held hands as they trailed behind, singing. Joy filled their faces, and seeing them warmed her heart. Ava looked again at the dad, and she wished she could call to him—to tell him to look back at his daughters. He was missing so much—missing the joy of the moment, in search of the next site.

Thinking of this, her heartbeat quickened.

Is that what I’ve been doing? Missing the joy of being here in search of the perfect shot?

She turned her attention to her grandfather as he watched the passersby. She took in his pale eyes, the slight smile on his lips. She appreciated the sight of his age-spotted hands wrapped around his coffee cup and tried to capture the moment—not with a camera but in her memory. Tears welled when she realized this was what she wanted to share with her children someday—moments exactly like this.

“Grandpa.” She looked down into the coffee cup. “Remember that conversation we had just after Thanksgiving? I’ve been wanting to apologize.…” Ava paused when she heard footsteps behind her, and then hands squeezed her shoulders.

“All packed up and ready to go?” It sounded like Dennis wore a smile, but she resisted the urge to turn and look at him, lest he see the heat rising to her cheeks.

“Mm-hmm.” Ava closed her eyes. Dennis’s hands felt warm and strong. She tried to stay mad at him, but it was hard.

She opened her eyes and looked at her grandfather, trying to remember what she was saying before being interrupted. Grand-Paul watched with a large grin. An ache circled in her chest. This was his last year. What an honor it was for her to have this time with him. To see his smile. She captured the smile in her memory.

“Dennis, have you told Ava about your date tonight?” Grand-Paul asked.

Dennis released his hands then stepped back.

The last word dropped from his lips, and Ava felt as if cold water had been splashed in her face.
Date?

She shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t bother her. He traveled the world. He knew lots of people. It only made sense he had a girlfriend in Germany.

Dennis cleared his throat, and Ava looked up.

“It’s not confirmed yet, though. Ava, would you like to go out with me tonight?”

From the corner of her eye, Ava noticed a smile fill Grandpa Jack’s face.

Dennis quickly added, “As friends of course. It might be good for us young folk to get out and see the city.”

Ava cleared her throat and looked down. “I don’t know. There’s the video. I’m going to have to edit and send it in on time.”

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll give you good stuff today and make it easy, right, Jackson?” Grand-Paul elbowed Grandpa Jack. Grandpa Jack’s smile didn’t fade as she expected it to. Maybe it was going to be a good day after all.

* * * * *

An hour later, Ava had already set up her video camera, and the guys sat on two folding chairs they’d picked up at a small hardware store before heading out to the countryside. Behind them was a small portion of the Siegfried line, a line of concrete “teeth” that had once protected the border of Germany for hundreds of miles in both directions. The line had been there to protect Germany from an invasion from a foreign enemy, but Ava happened to be talking to some of the first soldiers to get through.

Ava looked at the steel and concrete triangles. They reminded her of the Egyptian pyramids with their tops lopped off, only these were small—knee high—and they were lined up in a wide, zigzag pattern, six deep and stretched across the fields in both directions.

The triangles were covered with moss and worn down slightly from age, but she could see how challenging it would be for tanks or trucks to break through them.

Grand-Paul wore a large smile. Grandpa Jack sat perched on the edge of his seat, and until this moment, Ava hadn’t been sure he would really go through with it. He looked at the camera and then looked at Paul with a narrow gaze. Her grandfather was doing this for his friend, which was fine with her. If it meant she’d get good footage, she’d take it.

Dennis was also silent as she prepared to videotape, and she wondered what had gotten into him. She especially wondered about his proposed date. Why was he being so nice? Ava shook her head to refocus.

“Okay, feel free to start whenever,” Ava told them. “Just talk like you’re explaining what took place here—as if the viewers had never heard of the Siegfried line.” She laughed. “And since I really haven’t heard much except for what I studied on the Internet, you can just talk to me.”

She turned on the camera. “How did you two feel, waking up and realizing you were going to try to break through the line?”

“Scared. We were heading into unknown territory. But it all turned out. Intelligence had gotten us accurate information on the pillboxes, and we completely surprised them,” Grand-Paul said.

“Pillboxes?” Ava shook her head. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Mini fortresses,” Grand-Paul explained. “Concrete huts with machine guns. They were spaced out along the whole Siegfried line and were manned by German soldiers. You can’t see them now, but they’re up in those hills behind you. It wasn’t us just trying to get over these teeth. There were fortifications filled with enemy soldiers on the other side.”

Grandpa Jack looked at Paul. Then he looked at the camera. Ava cast him a reassuring smile. “We snuck up on them on foot. Paul here was our unit commander and he watched out for me. He told me he didn’t want to have to write a letter home to my mom. The commanders always got the job of writing to the parents if they lost a guy.”