He shoots me a roguish grin. “You’re Soline Roussel from Paris, France. You’re kind and beautiful, and once upon a time you and your mother owned a bridal salon. Now you spend your time nursing soldiers. I’m Anson Purcell, Yale dropout. My family is from Newport, Rhode Island. My father is named Owen, and he builds racing yachts. My mother’s name was Lydia. My sister is Cynthia—Thia for short—and she wants to be a French Impressionist when she grows up. There. Now we know each other, which means I can miss you properly.”
Something warm and unfamiliar spirals in my belly. My world has been one of women, brides and their mothers, Maman. No one has ever flirted with me, but I recognize it when I hear it, and I can’t blame him. It’s easier than talking about war and death. But I’ve been warned about Americans, all disarming smiles and apple pie. I take an awkward step back, pulling my hand free.
“I have to go. The patients need their lunch.” I turn toward the door, then glance back at him over my shoulder. “Try to be careful.”
I feel curiously removed from my body as I walk away, as if my feet aren’t quite touching the floor. Adeline is waiting with an arched brow and a sly cat’s grin.
“And what was that about?”
“Nothing,” I reply quickly. A lie. Because even in that moment of flushed confusion, I know it was the very opposite of nothing. “He lent me a handkerchief on my first day, and I was just saying thank you.”
“Over coffee?”
I reach for an explanation but quickly give up. Nothing I say will wipe the grin off her face. “It was nothing, Adeline. He was kind to me.”
She chuckles knowingly. “They usually are—kind. But be careful, chérie. This isn’t the cinema. The hero, however handsome, isn’t always a safe bet.”
“Do you think he’s a hero?” I ask, sounding every bit as dreamy as I feel.
“Well, if he isn’t, he certainly looks the part. And the AFS must think so. They’re terribly picky about who they accept. Then, I suppose they have to be. It takes a special breed to do what they do. Which is why you should be careful with your heart, little girl. Attachments are dangerous things in wartime.”
I nod obediently, but in my bones, I know it’s too late. An attachment has already been formed, at least for me.
Adeline claps her work-reddened hands as we approach the orthopedic ward, where a cart stacked with metal mess trays awaits. “Voilà! C’est très bien. We’ll feed the men, and then you and I will have some lunch, and you can tell me about this handkerchief.”
I don’t know where I would be without Adeline. She’s helped me find my footing, introducing me to the other volunteers and stepping in to smooth over my blunders.
I remember one day in particular. We had a flurry of casualties come in and everyone was scurrying to make up fresh beds. I’d just left the laundry with an armload of linens and was coming around a corner when I blundered into the hospital’s resident physician in charge—Dr. Jack, as he’s known—soaking him with a scalding cup of coffee.
Sumner Jackson’s temper is a frequent topic of discussion among the nurses. But as I looked up at him that day, at his dripping white coat and thundercloud face, I realized the rumors hadn’t done him justice. He was tall and broad with thick shoulders, heavy brows that sat low over his eyes, and a nose that reminded me more of a prizefighter than a surgeon.
I gulped out an apology in French, then in English, then in French again, all the while trying to keep my armload of sheets from tumbling to the floor. As usual, Adeline appeared to rescue me, explaining that I was new and still a little clumsy. I held my breath while he looked me over with his dark, flat eyes.
Finally, in place of his scowl, the hint of a smile appeared. “Mademoiselle, it is my considered medical opinion that coffee, while highly effective when taken internally, is of little value when applied to the skin. Perhaps a little slower around the corners in future.”
And with that, he stepped around me and moved off down the hall, leaving me with knocking knees and an armload of coffee-spattered sheets.
In the weeks since, I have learned a great deal about Sumner Jackson, about his personal mission and the extraordinary lengths he has undertaken to make sure no German soldier ever occupies one of our beds. The patients we tend are either French, Canadian, English, or American. For the most part, we’ve stopped paying attention to their nationalities. All we know is that the beds are full and so are the bedpans.