Some of the men—boys, really, not much older than I—are from prison camps and are sent back when they’re well enough. Others, the worst of them, are shipped home, too mutilated to return to the battlefield. And some die. Sometimes after seeming to make a full recovery. It’s always a shock to arrive in the morning and find a bed empty or already occupied by an unfamiliar face. The stories are always the same. A sudden turn for the worse. Sepsis. Hemorrhage. The doctors did all they could. It’s always so sudden, so horribly and tragically unexpected.
In the beginning I asked questions, but no one seemed to want to talk about those empty beds. The living are what the doctors and nurses are about. And as I have quickly learned, it is what I need to be about, too, if I want to remain at the hospital. I’m to do as I’m told without question or comment and keep my nose out of matters outside my purview.
And so I do as I’m told. I keep my head down and make myself useful, seeing to meals, stocking supplies, fetching and carrying whatever needs fetching and carrying. But my favorite duty is writing letters for soldiers who can’t write for themselves. Perhaps it’s to do with what Anson said in the mess that day—that writing letters saves lives too.
The words I take down are often sad, but they’re always brave. It’s hard sometimes not to cry as I write, knowing that somewhere there’s a mother or a wife or a fiancée who would soon read them and would weep with a mixture of gratitude and anguish. Maimed but safe. Blind but spared. Alive but forever changed.
There was no way of knowing when or even if the letters would arrive. Personal correspondence would sit in a pile for days, even weeks, waiting to be inspected by the censors. Finally, after being cleared, they were put on a ship or a plane and with any luck would reach their destination in four to six weeks. If they arrived at all.
Still, the men write—some of them every day—glossing over the muddy, bloody grind of war with false assurances and newsy bits of this and that. It’s hope they’re sending home, a slender thread tethering them to someone across the sea. To mothers and wives and sweethearts all enduring a hell of their own. Weeks without word. Prayers gone unanswered. Letters that never come.
And telegrams that do.
SIXTEEN
RORY
June 23, 1985—Boston
Rory grimaced as she wrestled her curls into a ponytail. She looked like she had during exam week, hollow-eyed and pale after pulling too many all-nighters.
It had been three days since her meeting with Soline, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that their chance acquaintance had been meant as a kind of wake-up call, a reminder that life rarely unfolded the way it did in novels. Love didn’t conquer all, heroes weren’t invincible, and lovers rarely rode off into the sunset together. Broken hearts stayed broken.
She glanced at her watch, then back at her face. She wished she’d gotten up early enough to at least blow out her hair. Or better yet, phone her mother to say something had come up and she couldn’t make brunch, but it was too late for that now. The Veuve was already on ice, and she was going to be late. Again.
She was on her hands and knees, rooting under the bed for her left shoe, when the doorbell rang. She headed for the door, expecting a child with braids selling Girl Scout cookies or a pair of well-dressed young men handing out religious tracts. Instead, she found Soline Roussel standing in the hall, holding a white pastry box tied with Sugar Kisses’ familiar black-and-white logo.
“Bonjour,” Soline said brightly. “I hope you’re hungry.”
Rory opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. She couldn’t have been more flustered if she’d opened the door and found Princess Di in the hall. “What are you doing here?” she managed, stepping aside to let Soline enter.
“It’s your turn.”
“My turn to what?”
“To tell me your story. I told you mine; now it’s your turn to tell me yours.”
“I don’t have a story.”
Soline arched a nearly black brow. “No?”
Rory felt her cheeks go hot under the pointed gaze. There was something troubling about those dark-chocolate eyes, a combination of warmth and steeliness that made her feel agonizingly transparent. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Monsieur Ballantine was kind enough to give me your address.” She smiled then, creating a fan of tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. “You see? I know my way around him too.”
“But . . . why?”
Soline’s expression softened. “The last time we met, you left my house in tears, chérie. I don’t know why, but I’d like to.”