Authors: Jackie McCallister
One night in May, books put away for the night, Chelsea sat down to write a letter to her mother. The two Bannister Girls (as Linda liked to call herself and Chelsea) stayed in touch through social media and the like, but occasionally Chelsea knew that her mother liked to receive an old-fashioned letter, written out in old-fashioned ink on paper. Chelsea had laughingly asked her mother once if she wanted a letter done in quill pen. Linda pursed her lips and said, “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience an eagle that way.” Chelsea smiled as she remembered that conversation. As Chelsea started her letter she relived some of the past year over again as she shared some of the highlights.
“The first semester was mostly certified nurses’ aide type of work, but I threw myself into the geriatric and rehab facilities. There was a lot of complete care and changing bed linens as well as taking vitals and med administration. The first semester was not only mentally challenging with regards to the tests but also hard getting used to being in a real medical facility for clinical work.
Switching it up, second semester was unbelievably challenging with regards to the testing, but I had the most amazing clinical experiences! I had labor and delivery, medical-surgical and pediatrics. I have grown much more comfortable in the clinical setting, but the test taking still really challenged me. I’ll be honest Mama, I questioned why I was doing this to myself after every test! But then I would go on clinical rounds, talk to the patients, collect their smiles and know that this is exactly why I chose to go to nursing school.
I have two semesters left and, fingers crossed Mama, I will graduate next May. It is no joke how difficult it is. Many of my classmates did not make it through this last semester. It is known as the toughest of the four clinical semesters for my school’s nursing program. My mentor, a really cool nurse named Kim Poulter tells me that the second semester out of the four is often the make or break semester.
Classmates can be challenging...instructors are definitely challenging...and I found myself to be my own worst enemy. However, when I am at that clinical site, and I am helping my patients get better...feel more comfortable...or just listening to their concerns I know I have chosen the right field for me.
I hope you and the boys are doing well. I love you much, Mama.
Love, Chelsea.
Linda Bannister read her daughter’s letter and set it aside, knowing that she would read it a couple more times before she went to bed. Though the two were separated by 126 miles, Linda felt very close to Chelsea at that moment. At long last Linda felt that the damage that had been done by George Bannister’s peccadilloes and bad habits could be put into the past and not bothered with again.
While Linda was pondering her daughter, Chelsea was pondering a slice of Supreme Combination pizza from Bella Pizza in downtown La Plume. Some of the nursing students were throwing an impromptu goodbye celebration for Guy Harris, who had achieved his nursing degree and was going to Lackland Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas to begin Basic Training. He wanted to serve his country and put his medical education to work in the military before settling down stateside.
“Guy, you would be the one that would get his hand chopped off by helicopter blades as soon as you stood up to salute. In three weeks you’ll be back with a stump where your right hand used to be,” said Gloria Vesta. She and Guy teased one another like brother and sister but everyone knew that there was a deep bond of friendship between the two.
Guy grinned at his tormentor. “You’re right, but I’ll have something else. I’ll have a Purple Heart. I won’t have to work. I’ll travel around the country making hero speeches for the rest of my life.” The rest of the students at the table hooted. Chelsea threw a piece of breadstick in Guy’s direction and said, “Sure. Come on everybody! Let’s go hear Guy Harris. He was in Iraq for 20 minutes. Ooohhh, Guy, you’re so good you’re baaaad.”
Chelsea looked around as the rest of the table joined her in laughter at Guy’s red face. She had developed such a close bond with these people. True friendships are forged in a challenging educational environment. Students rely on each other when the hours grow long, and the eyelids begin to flutter. Chelsea’s eyes fell away from Guy and settled on John Chambers, seated to Guy’s left and directly across from Chelsea. John Chambers was a North Dakota boy for whom the movie “Fargo” seemed less like a comedy and more like real life.
He had blue eyes and a shock of blonde hair and stood a more than slender 6’3” and 175 pounds. He and Chelsea had first shared a class when they took Anatomy and Physiology together at the killer hour of 7:30 a.m. their first semester at Keystone. They used to split up the month, one bringing coffee and pastry for the other one week, while the other reciprocated the next.
Chelsea and John became better friends when they started nursing school together. Chelsea’s clinical rotation to Geriatrics coordinated with John’s clinical rotation to Orthopedics. The buildings for the two disciplines were next door to each other far past the west end of the Keystone campus proper, so the two students rode together.
One late spring afternoon John was doing the driving and Chelsea was letting the sun that was coming in the passenger window warm her face. John cleared his throat and said, “Chelsea?”
“Hmm?” Chelsea said without opening her eyes.
“Would you like to go out with me sometime? I mean like a date?”
Chelsea looked at John’s earnest open face and answered, “Certainly, John. That would be nice.”
John smiled widely and suggested dinner two nights hence at an Italian eatery named Bazil’s Ristorante Italiano in Clark’s Summit, six miles south of the Keystone campus in La Plume. John had shown up at Chelsea’s dormitory dressed in a camel hair sport coat over chocolate brown slacks. Chelsea had never actually thought of John in a romantic sense, but she was flattered that he had dressed up so nicely for their date.
The two classmates had an enjoyable evening over pasta and red wine. When the bottle was empty, John ordered another. He and Chelsea continued talking over dessert and Chelsea notice that John stumbled a bit as he got up from the table. She offered to drive, but John assured her that he was okay. Since Chelsea had matched him glass for glass, and carrying a much smaller frame at that, Chelsea decided that John driving was likely the better choice.
They only had a half dozen miles to go and on a lightly traveled highway. Halfway home John pulled off the road. Chelsea assumed that he needed to either get some air or relieve himself, though it seemed odd that he would stop on a six mile drive to do that. John surprised her by pulling her to him when the car stopped. He surprised her more by kissing her.
Chelsea wasn’t repulsed by John’s wine-fueled amorous attentions. In fact, she kissed him back the first couple of times. But she wasn’t turned on by them either. She had suspected that John had developed an attraction to her, but he had seemed like a perfect gentleman at dinner. Now he was muttering how “beautiful” she was and how “gorgeous” her eyes were. All the while he was sliding a hand up underneath her left breast. He was initially foiled by the underwire on her bra but seemed bent on successfully circumventing it.
Chelsea gently moved John’s hand away. Then when he took another run at glory, she moved his hand away slightly less gently. “John!” she said as he opened his mouth to kiss her.
“John! Stop!”
John pulled away from her with a startled look. In seconds the startled look gave way to embarrassment. He quickly rubbed his hand through his short hair; a gesture that Chelsea had learned meant that he was frustrated. He avoided Chelsea’s eyes as he spoke to her.
“I’m sorry Chelsea. I just care a lot about you. And I thought…I mean, we went out, and you kissed me and stuff…”
His voice trailed away. He was giving every indication of being totally fascinated by the flora and fauna out of the driver’s side window of his car. Though there was nothing to see, it being dark, looking into nothing was preferable to looking at his friend, the date that had just rejected his advances.
Chelsea felt bad. She liked John a lot but not the way that he wanted her to like him. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her, but she missed the closeness of being with a man. She hadn’t had sex since just before her life had come crashing down two years earlier. She remembered the way that Chauncey McMillan had touched her with his hands, and then with his lips. She remembered throwing her hips into the air to meet him when he was inside her.
She also remembered how he hadn’t been able to make time for her when the news of her father’s (and by extension her) societal collapse had occurred. As if the change and destruction, of her family fortune hadn’t been enough, Chelsea had to absorb the knowledge that the boy who had been her first love was also the boy who believed that she wasn’t worth it poor. Now it was Chelsea’s turn to be embarrassed. She had given herself willingly to Chauncey McMillan, who had been as sincere as a snake oil salesman. Now she had made her genuinely good friend feel bad. She touched John’s hand.
“I know it doesn’t make it okay, but I’m sorry, John. I would hate for tonight to make it so you don’t want to be friends with me. And you’re a great guy. We have such a good time together that I wish I did like you…that way.”
John nodded and started the car. Time, emotion, and fresh air had sobered both John and Chelsea to the point that they were walking freely by the time that they got back to campus. John walked Chelsea to the front door of Moffat Hall, where he received a warm hug.
The air was a little thick between John and Chelsea for a while, but to their credit the friendship that they had forged was not irreparably damaged by the incident on Highway 11. They looked at one another across the table at Guy Harris’ party and smiled.
Six months later the same group of friends, sans Guy, was at the same table in the same pizza parlor. Winter break was afoot, and the classmate’s spirits were high. Chelsea was particularly ebullient that evening because her Mom was driving up the following week to spend the holidays with her daughter. Linda, Chelsea, and Chelsea’s brothers Thomas and Nathan were going to take a snow weekend at Blue Mountain Ski Area in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
Thomas and Nathan had become quite expert on the slopes and wanted to show off their skill to their big sister. The presence of a lodge full of snow bunnies was certainly part of the appeal as well. Terry Harrington, a student at Keystone albeit not in the nursing program was working part time behind the bar at Bella Pizza. Some of the nursing students knew Terry quite well from their General Studies days on campus. Chelsea knew him particularly well as they had shared public speaking classes together.
Earlier in the evening Chelsea and Terry had shared a laugh and a quick hug before Chelsea joined her nursing student friends at the table. Just as the last slice of Hawaiian Pizza had been consumed Chelsea noticed that Terry was talking quietly with the restaurant manager, a woman named Mary Lou Campbell. After a quiet word with her bartender Mary Lou had hugged Terry, who quickly left the restaurant by the front door. Chelsea, with a shiver of worry traveling up her back, excused herself and went outside.
She found Terry Harrington sitting on the cold sidewalk with his head in his hands. As Chelsea moved closer she could hear the sobs that were wracking Terry’s body. Chelsea sat down next to Terry and put her hand against his back.
“Oh dear, Terry what’s wrong?” Chelsea asked.
Terry turned to Chelsea and, with tears coursing down his face sobbed more than spoke, “Guy Harris is dead!”
Chapter Two
Somewhere behind Chelsea’s shock and dismay she remembered that Guy and Terry were half-brothers from Pittsburgh who had come to school at the same time. She had seen them together at freshman orientation. Though they couldn’t have looked more dissimilar, Terry short and fair, Guy tall and dark, they were very close. Now…Guy was dead.
Chelsea wanted to say that it must have been a mistake or that Terry must be mistaken, but she could see the truth in Terry’s trembling lips and taste it in the tears that he shed against her cheek when she hugged him tightly to her. Her tears flowed freely as well, and the two friends sat together in each other’s arms and wept over the senseless and foolish loss of young life cut down in its precious prime.
After a few minutes Terry’s head slipped down into Chelsea’s lap and she cradled him in his inconsolable grief. Snow had begun to fall, but Chelsea and Terry failed to notice the flakes as they wafted about.
Chelsea stroked Terry’s crimson cheek and asked a question, the answer to which would do nothing to assuage her sadness but one that she needed to ask nevertheless.
“How did he die?”
Terry answered without looking up. Chelsea heard most of what he said.
“They called our Mom and told her that Guy was in a convoy on the way from Baghdad to Tikrit that was hit by a roadside bomb. Twenty-nine people were wounded, and eight were killed. Guy was in the second Humvee. It was the one that took the most direct hit. They say that he would have died instantly.”
Terry turned his head and looked up at Chelsea with a face contorted in anger, anguish and despair. “That was supposed to make us feel better. I mean, I guess it does, or will, but it doesn’t make me feel any better right now.”
“No, Terry. It doesn’t. Why Guy? Everybody loved him,” Chelsea’s voice trailed away. She had just said that everyone loved Guy. That included, of course, a table full of nursing students inside Bella Pizza. The task of informing them of the tragedy fell, Chelsea knew, on her.
She asked Terry if he wanted to join her in telling tell Guy’s friends the news. He shook his head and said, “I need to try to pull myself together. I’ll just sit out here for now. “Chelsea patted Terry on the back and rubbed his neck before she stood up. Terry’s neck was as tight as a drum with the tension that he was carrying inside. Chelsea straightened her blouse and walked back into the pizza parlor. Those still at the table fell silent when they saw the tracks of Chelsea’s tears on her face.
“I just heard, I mean Terry just heard and he told me, Guy was killed in Iraq.”
Stunned silence gripped the folks who had been having such a good time minutes earlier. No one spoke until Gloria Vesta, Guy Harris’ good friend and so recently his tease and tormentor, began to sob. She sat down in her chair with a thump and put her head on the table. As the rest of the group looked at one another with slack jaws and glazed eyes, John Chambers sat down next to Gloria and comforted her.
Nine days later, Chelsea’s study in the structure of the tendon was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. She answered the knock only to see a distraught faced Gloria Vesta standing in the hall. In her hand was an unopened envelope.
“I just got this,” Gloria said, in a quivering voice. “It’s from Guy. I’m afraid to open it. Will you open it and read it to me?”
Chelsea opened her door wider so that Gloria could come in. Chelsea softly closed the door behind Gloria and followed her guest into the living room.
“Can I get you something, Gloria? Would you like a drink, or a cup of tea?”
“No, I’m okay. I didn’t know what to do,” she said, waving the envelope slowly at arm’s length. “I tried to open it. But then I didn’t want to open it, so I almost threw it away. But then that felt disrespectful, so I tried to open it again. But I didn’t want to be alone. “Gloria quickly rubbed at her eyes as they began to leak. Chelsea stepped forward and hugged her friend. “I’ll read it to you, or I’ll read it first to myself if you want.”
Gloria shuddered a bit and considered the options that lay before her. Then she said, “No. Just open it and read it to me. I just couldn’t face it in an empty room.”
Chelsea took the envelope and carefully freed the letter inside from the adhesive. She sat down and began to read the words penned by the late Guy Harris.
“Dear Gloria, We’re going to be in a long slow convoy in just a few minutes (I would like to tell you where we’re going, but I’m not supposed to and it would be blacked out by the censors anyway) I have been busier than I ever thought I would be. You wouldn’t believe the things that I see over here. Every patient that we try to put back together is so young that it makes me want to cry or scream. A lot of them are younger than us. They’re little kids, really.
I have been thinking about you. I’ve been thinking about everyone back home, my Mom my brother and our friends from school but mostly I have been thinking about you.
I know that you know what a pain in the ass you are. Stop shaking your head. You do know what a pain in the ass you are. Well, you know what? I have lots of pains in the ass around me all the time, but you’re the one that I miss the most, and you’re not here. But there are two things that I want to tell you.
First, I have only been in one helo since I got here, and it didn’t cut my hand off as you said when we all went out for pizza. So you were wrong about that! I wish I could tell you that in person.
And that’s the second thing. Most days here are just really boring as Hell. Once in a while they’re scary, but mostly they are just plain old boring. But on the boring days I wish I could see you and talk to you. And during the scary times I want to see you and talk to you even more! One time a mortar round hit just outside of the compound, and I jumped three feet. You would have laughed your butt off. But it has all made me realize just how much you mean to me.
You may be shaking your head now and saying, ‘Guy, you’re such a moron’. And I may be one. But you are on my mind and in my thoughts all the time. Sometimes I can hear you ragging on me about something, and I’ll think, ‘Shut up, Gloria.’ One time I’m almost sure that I said it out loud when I was sleeping. But then I always think, ‘She won’t shut up. She never does.’ And you don’t. It really gets on my nerves. But I wanted to write to you and tell you that I miss you. And I pray to God at night that I’ll be able to feel you get on my nerves again.
I don’t know if you think of me as anybody, but just ‘that dope, Guy’ but if you do I would like to come see you, just you this time (I can see my friends later)and tell you the things that I’m thinking to your face. Then, if you laugh at me okay, but I want to tell you face to face that I think I love you, Gloria Vesta. I better get this in the mail pouch. It’s almost 0500 hours and that’s when we’re out of here. Write back when you get a chance.
Maybe you think that I should have waited until I saw you to say these things, but I wanted you to know my feelings for you in case I don’t make it back. But I will, damn it! I’m too much of a coward to get shot! And I have too much to live for to get shot. Especially if you think about me as I think about you. I gotta go now.
Love, Guy.
Chelsea slowly put the letter down and looked toward Gloria. She couldn’t see the raven-haired beauty because Chelsea’s own eyes were filled with tears. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose before taking another look at Gloria, who was sitting bolt upright on the couch, with tears streaming down her face. Gloria looked like she wasn’t going to speak in the near future, so Sphinx-like was her demeanor.
Finally, a good two minutes after Chelsea had completed the reading of Guy’s letter, Gloria’s face broke down. She cried the tears of a grief-stricken friend. She cried for a future that had been blown to bits on an Iraqi desert highway. She cried because she was never going to be able to tell Guy that she had in fact, been having similar thoughts about him. She cried and, with a heart breaking like only a young person’s heart can break, she grieved to her soul.
That afternoon was a turning point of sorts for Chelsea and Gloria. There was something about sharing the almost primal moment of reading Guy’s letter that cemented what had been a friendly acquaintance into a true friendship. Chelsea invited Gloria to accompany the Bannister clan on its snowy getaway. Gloria accepted and bonded with both Chelsea and Linda around the fire in the ski lodge.
Thomas and Nathan both took a shine to Gloria, especially Thomas, but kept a respectful distance after their sister had taken them aside and told them of the current circumstances of Gloria’s life.
One night, just after Linda and the two boys had said their goodbyes, Chelsea and Gloria were sitting at Delmonico’s, not able just yet to return to Bella Pizza. The new school quarter was just about to begin, and the rest of their friends were straggling back from Winter Break, so no significant gathering had been planned. Chelsea had suggested, on the spur of the moment that she was “a quart low on Alfredo sauce.” Gloria readily agreed to accompany her to dinner.
Delmonico’s was decorated in dark tones. Each table was illuminated only by candlelight, and there was a strolling violin player providing background ambience. Gloria and Chelsea each ordered Pasta Alfredo Penne and Gloria, one year Chelsea’s senior, had ordered a bottle of wine. Chelsea was later to wonder if the discussion turned in the direction that it did because of wine, or because it had been on Gloria’s mind for a while. Gloria dabbed at her lips with a napkin and said,
“I’m going into the service right after graduation.” Chelsea stared at Gloria without answering for a few seconds. The import of Gloria’s declaration only slowly sinking in, Chelsea said simply, “You’re what?”
Gloria leaned forward in the red leather booth and spoke in an urgent tone. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Guy died. It’s like he didn’t get a chance to finish what he was sent there to do. I want to go and serve, in his honor or in his place or something.”
Chelsea knew that Gloria was always someone whose hair was perfectly done, and makeup expertly applied. Chelsea had a brief mental image of Gloria trying to file her nails and apply polish in a desert encampment. Then, when she realized that Gloria was looking back at her with the most serious of expressions on her face, Chelsea banished the picture from her mind. But she still felt as if there were questions that should be raised.
“Have you talked to anyone about this? I mean, except for right now?”
Gloria’s eyes shone as she answered. “Yes, I spoke to my Dad. He was in Desert Storm back in 1990, you know.”
Chelsea hadn’t known that. But the way Gloria said it made Chelsea feel like she had probably already been told. She refocused on Gloria’s words, realizing that she had missed a few.
“…a little bit proud to hear it. He asked me six or seven times if I’m sure that this is what I want to do. I told him that I was very sure.”
“Well…okay,” was all that Chelsea could manage. She felt her eyes fill with tears. Some of them were tears of pride in Gloria’s determination. Some of them were tears of anxiety. Not surprising since the recent loss of Guy Harris was still fresh on her mind.
Gloria reached across the table and covered Chelsea’s hand with hers. “I want you to be happy for me, Chels. I feel like I’m figuring things out for the first time in my life. It’s a lot about Guy, of course, but it’s also a chance to give back to my Dad for what he did so long ago. I’m scared, of course, but I’m more excited than scared.
Chelsea smiled, “I am excited for you if this is what you want. I’m scared for you too, but I think it’s a great thing to be as sure about something as you are about this,” She lifted her wine glass and silently toasted Gloria Vesta.
It didn’t take long for news of Gloria’s plans to become well-known around the campus. Some of her friends were horrified and thought that Gloria would change her mind when the shock of Guy’s death lost some of its immediacy. Others, though, saw in Gloria a steely resolve that had been missing before.