The Soldier's Bride (12 page)

“You look lovely.” He held out his hand. “I’m a lucky man.”

“Thank you,” she murmured and looked at her squirming son. “You be a good boy. Grandpa has a new story to tell you.”

“Pa! Story!” Danny shouted and sprinted into the kitchen where he knew he could find Grandpa reading the paper.

“I guess it’s time to make our escape,” she said.

Sterling hesitated and looked back into the kitchen. “Be sure to hug him good night for me later, will you?”

Evelyn nodded, unable to trust her voice to answer. Sterling had a way of making each moment so intense, like he treasured every second. She grasped his arm and wished she could be more like him.

Sterling whistled as they walked to his car.

She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “Thanks, Sterling, for being patient with me these past few months.”

“Thank you for letting me be a part of your life.” He touched her arm and trailed his fingers toward her hand. Her skin responded to his touch as he leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek. He opened the door and she slid in. Sterling started up the engine of the 1942 Series 61 Cadillac. She listened as it rumbled and then purred, reminding her of how Sterling had told her he’d always dreamed of driving a car like it. With almost no new automobiles manufactured in the past few years, he’d given up hope. Last year he had salvaged this one from an auto accident and spent every spare moment repairing it.

They drove to the movie theater and after Sterling parked the car, he turned toward her. His smile widened and he put his arm around her. She pushed down the fear of being near another man and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Will you sing it for me?” he asked.

“What?” Evelyn lifted her head.

“Your song.” He rubbed her arm and held her close. “You used to hum or sing that tune constantly, but now . . .”

“I know,” Evelyn said. “It’s just that every time I think about singing it, I get a lump in my throat.”

“Sing it anyway. It’s beautiful. And if you shed some tears, maybe it will help.”

Running a finger along the thin chain of her locket, she took a deep breath and let the words of the song play in her mind. “It’s so hard to keep on living when I’m falling apart inside.”

Sterling looked at her. “I wish I didn’t know what you mean, but I do. Evelyn, please tell me how I can help you.”

She reached down and touched his injured leg. “Sometimes I forget because you’re so good at hiding your limp, but knowing that you’ve gone through some of the same anxiety helps.”

He tapped the steering wheel with his left hand. “I read somewhere that it’s important to face your fears. That if you talk about them, sometimes they don’t seem so scary anymore.”

Evelyn swallowed. She didn’t want to speak but remembered her resolve earlier to try to open her heart to Sterling. “I’m afraid to get close to a man again.” Folding her arms, she whispered, “Sometimes I’m even afraid to be alone with you. I know it’s ridiculous to feel that way, you would never hurt me, but . . .”

Sterling rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re right. I would never hurt you. But I know why you’re scared. You’re scared of the unknown—of what will happen if you let down your guard and leave your heart vulnerable.” He took her hands in his and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “I love you, Evelyn. I want to protect you and help you heal.”

“I’m so scared.” She leaned toward him and he pulled her close to his chest.

“It’s okay to be afraid, but you can’t afford to waste as much life as I have by hiding from your fears.” He put his hand on her cheek and tipped her face upward. “You’re so much stronger than you think. Look at what you’ve been through. You have a wonderful son. You’re talented and beautiful and kind.”

She shook her head and a curl came loose, twisting down her back. “I don’t know if I have any strength left.”

Sterling put his hands on her arms and held her upright. “Sing it,” he said. “Sing your song to me now and let’s see what happens.”

Her lip quivered and she started to shake her head, but he cupped her face in his hands and locked eyes with her. “That song is magic every time you sing it. Now, please.”

Evelyn stared at him for a moment, at the determination emanating from the jade flecks in his eyes. She cleared her throat and sang,

There’s an angel on my shoulder.

Her voice cracked and she stopped, but the attentiveness in Sterling’s gaze didn’t falter and so she continued.

There’s an angel by my side.

Her voice grew husky with tears, but she kept singing,

And it leads me and it guides me

through the trials in my life.

A tear slipped down her cheek as the impact of the words seared into her heart.

With a jolt, she saw every detail of that day so long ago when Jim gave her the music box. As her voice reached for the high note and bloomed with the crescendo, she realized it hadn’t been so long ago—just a few short years—that her life had changed. Sterling’s face blurred before her as more tears fell. She finished the song and in the seconds before he spoke, she heard the wind blowing outside the car and thought about the words Jim had written in the music box,
Don’t die with me
.

A sob escaped her throat and she buried her head against Sterling’s chest. The part of her eternally linked to Jim wanted to die with him. It was so painful to be apart. The corner of her heart that would always love Jim would rather die than keep on beating without him. But she had made a promise to herself that she would heed his last wish—she would live for him, for his son, and for herself.

She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief Sterling offered her. “Before Harlan . . .” she stumbled on her words. “I believed I was getting on with my life and doing what Jim wanted me to do, but I was still holding back. I wasn’t living with my whole heart.”

Sterling rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. “I did the same thing—tried to tell myself I was getting on with life when half of me was still hiding.”

Headlights from another car illuminated the interior of Sterling’s Cadillac. “I guess we better get going. The show will start soon.”

“Thank you,” she spoke in a low voice, “for understanding.”

“You’re an incredibly brave woman, Evelyn. I know you’ll make it through this.”

As Sterling guided her inside the theater, thoughts churned through her mind. She had listened to the wind, to Jim’s words, and was living again. But did that mean she could love another man?

The room smelled like antiseptic, medicines, and other things that stung Emika’s nose. Unfamiliar noises surrounded her—nurses talking, charts flipping. She could hear the different kinds of shoes making contact with the floor—that one a heavy step, this one light, that one stopping next to a patient’s bed. With her eyes closed, she could still see the room because every sound gave off a picture.

The music box was magic because when it played, she didn’t have to see the ugly green hospital walls, or the bandages, needles, and silver trays of medicines. She could close her eyes and listen to the music and imagine her mother’s face.

Her father brought the music box to the hospital after her first treatment, and when Emika’s very bones seemed to cry out with pain, she focused on the song. The medicine made her vision cloudy, and it was difficult to focus on the spinning ballerina. So Emika closed her eyes and pictured the graceful dancer, with a tiny bit of white tulle wrapped around her slender waist, twirling, smiling, and never pausing until the brass handle halted in its slow rotations.

Emika shared a room with several other polio patients, but when she began to respond to the therapy, she was moved to another floor. The music box went with her and played by her bedside as often as her mother wound the crank. There were times when her mother left to visit Emika’s aunt and take care of her baby brother. When her mother was gone, she couldn’t listen to the music because her small fingers were too weak to wind the crank. During those times, Emika would close her eyes and listen to the sounds around her, always curious how a note of the music seemed to drift into her surroundings.

Like now, as she listened to footsteps and felt a cool breeze from the tiniest crack in the window across the room, she heard it again. The wind rustled a bit of paper on the floor, pushed against the tendrils of hair on Emika’s face, and she heard the soft clang of the metal clipboard swaying and bumping into her steel bedframe. It kept time with the wind and the song in her head.

Her legs ached, and Emika clenched her fists against the pain. Two other children shared the room with Emika. The far corner of the room was empty. Last week, Chloe had begun shaking and the nurses couldn’t get her to stop. They rushed her out of the room to another part of the hospital. Later, when Emika and the other children asked about Chloe, the nurses looked at each other and shook their heads.

Emika knew it was because Chloe had died. She wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but it was very sad. She heard the nurse saying that six years old was too young to have to learn about death. Emika knew her mother cried because she was afraid of death, and her father was so quiet because death scared him, too.

Something very bad had happened in the war with Japan. Emika had heard someone talking about bombs that blew up entire cities and killed everyone and finally ended the war. She wondered what her father would think about Japan and bombs, and his relatives who still lived in the country across the sea.

She missed her father. He was in Colorado working and saving money to help pay for Emika’s treatment in Minneapolis. “Live to dance again”—those were the words her father had read to her before he left. He had read them to her as he looked at the music box.

“Leland wanted you to have this music box because he wants you to try your very best to get well,” her father had whispered. “He wants you to live to dance again. We want that, too.”

Emika didn’t think she could dance—her legs hurt so much—but she did want to live. With eyes squeezed shut, she listened to a group of people approaching her room.

“We can’t put him here,” a woman’s voice said.

“There isn’t another speck of available space in the hospital right now,” a male voice said. “He doesn’t even know who he is. I doubt he’ll care where we put him.”

“Hush now, Suzy’s just bringing him around the corner,” the woman said.

Emika cracked an eyelid and took a peek at the nurse and doctor now standing in the doorway. The familiar squeak of a rickety wheelchair echoed in the hall. Emika squinted as a nurse pushed it into the room. A man covered with white hospital blankets slumped motionless in the chair. His eyes were open, and at first Emika thought he was staring at her, but his gaze was vacant.

The nurse they had called Suzy pushed the man to the corner across from Emika’s bed. She tucked the blanket around his legs and then turned to Emika, who immediately squeezed her eyes shut again.

“I saw you peeking.” Suzy’s voice approached the child’s bed. “It’s okay to open your eyes. I want to tell you about this man I just brought in.”

Emika opened her eyes a crack and the blonde-haired nurse laughed. “He won’t hurt you. He’s almost better, and we’re trying to make room for new patients.” Suzy patted her hand. “How are you feeling today?”

Emika shook her head and listened to the crunch of the starched white pillowcase each time she moved.

Suzy chewed on her bottom lip and then motioned to the man. “He can’t remember his name. His head was hurt really badly and then he got sick, so we’re trying to help him get better.”

Emika turned toward the man in the wheelchair again. He looked skinny and his dark hair was shiny like hers, but his eyes were blue like the sky on a summer day.

“I’ve got to go move another patient. Do you need anything before I leave?” Suzy asked.

Emika shook her head.

Suzy smiled. “You’re going to get better soon and have a big party when you go home.”

Emika’s lips twitched but she didn’t smile. All the nurses said she would get better soon, but her legs continued to throb. Emika closed her eyes. She felt Suzy pat her hand once more, and then Emika listened to her walk across the room. She heard Suzy say hello to someone in the hall.

“I just moved number seventy-eight,” Suzy said.

“That’s too bad. Still suffering from memory loss?” another woman, probably a nurse, asked.

“They brought him from the military treatment center.” Suzy said. “Severe head injuries while he was a POW. He’s only been back in the states two weeks and he gets this mess.”

The other nurse sighed. “So many cases of polio this year, but at least his case is mild. The doctors were worried about depression and stress from the trauma, you know the problems so many of these guys are having—combat fatigue.”

“He’s got a ring on. How he kept it through everything, I don’t know, but he probably has a family somewhere.” Suzy said.

“It’s terrible. You think the war is over and everything should be fine, but it keeps on beating people down anyway.”

Emika listened to their voices fade down the hall and opened her eyes again. The man stared at the floor now, his body trembling under the blankets. Emika watched him twist the gold band around his finger. Then he lifted his hands to his face and began crying.

The man sobbed and Emika watched him, wondering how much his body hurt. She looked at the music box sitting on her bedside table and lifted her head. Her mother had wound the crank and closed the lid before she left.

“If you get worried before I come back you can open the lid and the music will play,” she told Emika and then kissed her on the forehead. “Baby Shun misses you. I will kiss him for you and be back soon.”

Her mother could stay at the hospital for only a few hours at a time because she had to take care of Emika’s baby brother, Shun. Emika had not seen him for nearly five months because it was too dangerous for the baby to come to the hospital.