Blue Skies Tomorrow (23 page)

Betty flipped a hand. “I see how often he writes. Oh! Almost forgot. I brought you his latest letter. George feels like a secret agent delivering your letters. He wants to buy a trench coat.” She dug around in her bag.

Helen tried to look casual as she dried off the little boy Ray called “munchkin.” Ray had such a gentle way with Jay-Jay. And firm. He’d never been more attractive than on the day he hauled Jay-Jay off and shut him in his room.

Betty swung an envelope between thumb and forefinger. “In an envelope this time. Ooh, a love letter.”

“Oh, brother.” Helen snatched away the letter and opened it. “See, it’s not for privacy. There’s something loose in here. A leaf?”

“A leaf? That’s not very romantic.”

“I told you.” Helen pulled out a dried-up leaf and frowned at it. “Why a leaf?”

“For goodness’ sake, read the letter and find out.”

“Bossy, bossy, bossy.” But Helen read.

Dear Helen,   July 18, 1944

As of today, I haven’t heard whether you wish to correspond, and so I write. I pray often that the Lord will bring you peace and strength to help you through your difficult times.

You’re probably wondering about the leaf. It’s a tradition for soldiers to send home battle souvenirs, and this is mine. I can’t disclose details, but on today’s mission, under fighter attack, I flew at rooftop level over the homeland of our enemy.

As a girl, you wrote stories about a knight with a ridiculous name. Improbable as it sounds, today I put on my shining armor—all right, my flak vest—and smote the dragon of cowardice with the lance of the Lord’s strength.

Now, fair princess, I present you this token of my esteem.

“Why did he send a leaf?” Betty asked.

Helen fingered the gift, her heart warm and woozy. “This is no leaf. It’s the scale of a dragon.”

22

Bury St. Edmunds Airfield
Friday, August 18, 1944

Ray sat on an overturned crate facing the woods behind his Nissen hut, a luxury awarded by shirtsleeve weather and a late-afternoon training mission.

He glanced down to the small Bible he always carried in his pocket, open to Psalm 19:9–10. “The fear of the L
ORD
is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the L
ORD
are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”

Ray fingered the plum blossoms he’d pressed in those pages in March, the blossoms he’d plucked from Helen’s hair. At the time it seemed appropriate for the references to gold and honey, but now the truth of the verse rang out. “I had it wrong, Lord. You’re the only thing that matters, for me and for Helen too. Forgive me for putting my selfish goals first.” Deep inside, hadn’t he hoped Helen’s love would prove his manhood?

He sighed, closed the pages, and exchanged the Bible for her last letter. He leaned his elbows on his knees to reread the third page:

Tonight over dinner, Mrs. Carlisle mentioned Jim, and I willed up wet eyes and a quivering chin. I’m tired of it. You’ll think I’m horrible, but I’m tired of acting as if I were mourning when I’m not.

What if my marriage wasn’t idyllic? What if Jim was a less-than-perfect husband? What if my grief was never as deep as everyone thinks?

I’m ashamed to admit I’m an excellent actress. My grief is necessary for Jay-Jay to admire his father as a boy should, and for Antioch to have a hero to rally around. So I keep on acting, faking, lying.

You’ve already seen the worst side of me, and you’ve invited me to write openly to you. Perhaps you’ll regret the offer, but if I don’t let the truth out, all of it, what’s left of me will crumble and crack.

“This is good, honey,” Ray whispered. “This is good.”

Her revelation of Jim’s abuse, the fire, and the explosion at Port Chicago had burned up her pretenses, and now truth glowed like an ember among the ashes.

Ray uncapped his pen and added to the letter he’d started the night before.

I agree you shouldn’t reveal everything to Jay-Jay or the community. Honesty is important, but so is discretion. Your concern for their needs is kind and reasonable.

What you’ve chosen—honesty with a confidant—is the best course, and I’m honored to be selected. Please know I’ll respect your privacy. Please also remember the Lord is your best, wisest, and most loving confidant, and he already knows every detail.

A rustle in the brush caught his attention. A small brown bird hopped out and pecked at seeds.

To Ray’s left, a cat flattened itself to the ground, a white cat with large black blotches, as if young Jack had spilled ink on the cat as well as on Mom’s piano top.

The cat fixed gun-sight eyes on the bird, whapped his tail back and forth as if adjusting for range, and chattered, “Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack.”

Ray grinned. The British word for flak was
ack-ack
, and this cat sure considered himself an antiaircraft gunner.

The cat wiggled his backside and sprang. The bird darted away. After a few seconds of frantic search, the cat sat on his haunches and washed his hind leg.

That would be a cute story to put in his letter for Helen to tell Jay-Jay. The cat looked about the same age as Grandma’s kittens would be now, the ones Jay-Jay loved.

“There you are, Ray.” John Buffo ambled up, and the little cat skittered away.

“Hi, John. What’s up?” He scooted to make room for his bombardier.

Buffo perched his large frame on the edge of the crate, pulled off his garrison cap, and ran his hand through his wiry brown hair. “Being a man of intellect and sentiment is a liability in this profession.”

Ray folded his letter. “Second thoughts about what we do over here?”

“Second, third, millionth. We bomb from twenty thousand feet, and the brass is thrilled if we hit within two thousand feet of the aiming point. That’s half a mile, Ray. How many civilians do we kill down there?”

Ray looked into Buffo’s deep-set brown eyes. He had the same thoughts and discussed it often with William Miller, the base chaplain. “After every mission, I ask God to forgive me for hurting or killing anyone. But I get in my Fort the next day and do it again. I wonder how genuine my remorse is, if I’m as callous as the others.”

Buffo shifted his weight, and the crate creaked. “Sometimes I wish I were a dullard who could quaff a few beers and say, ‘They started it.’ ”

Ray’s gaze traced the border between verdant trees and blue sky. “Perhaps that’s enough reason after all.”

“What? That’s nothing but simplistic training film propaganda.”

“Is it?” He turned his pen in his fingers. “This is one conflict in which negotiation failed. Germany overran continental Europe and keeps attacking Britain. They aim for nothing and hope to kill civilians. Couldn’t a rational man argue the Allies act in self-defense?”

“Yes, but we’re attacking, not defending.”

“If we stopped attacking, they would grow stronger until they ran over our defenses.”

Buffo squinted and twisted his lips. “There must be a better way.”

“Maybe someday there will be, but now the only path to peace is through the land of conflict.” Ray tapped his pen on his knee. Hadn’t Gideon noted the irony too? When the Lord called him to war, Gideon built an altar called Jehovah-shalom—“The Lord is peace.” That was true not only for Gideon and for the Allies, but for Helen and for Ray.

They had to fight to find peace.

Treasure Island Naval Station, Yerba Buena Island
Wednesday, September 13, 1944

“Mutiny! How can they charge my husband with mutiny?” A black woman slammed the door of Vic’s office in an old Marines’ barracks. She wore a nicely cut dark blue suit with sleeves and trim of butter yellow, and when she marched to Helen’s desk, the same yellow flashed in kick pleats in her skirt. She glared at Helen. “Mutiny?”

Helen gave her a reassuring smile. “Remember, Lieutenant Llewellyn is on the defense team. He’s on your husband’s side, Mrs. . . . ?”

She sighed and held out a gloved hand. “Jones. Mrs. Carver Jones.”

Helen stood and shook her hand. “I’m Mrs. Carlisle. I’ll let the lieutenant know—”

“Esther, what a pleasure to meet you.” Vic popped out of his office. “I’m a great admirer of your husband. Please come in.”

Helen took a legal pad and led Mrs. Jones into Vic’s office.

“What’s going on with my husband?” Mrs. Jones sat with her butter yellow pocketbook on her lap.

“Well, Esther, everything’s going to be fine.”

“He’s been charged with mutiny. That carries the death penalty.”

“Nothing to worry about. None of these men will be convicted, especially not Carver. He has a medical excuse for refusing to work.”

“How did he get mixed up in this in the first place?”

Vic slid his fingers along his pen as if stretching it. “On August 9, when the men were told to load ammo, 258 of them refused. Two days later, they were asked again under threat of a charge of mutiny, and 50 men still refused.”

“But Carver—”

“I know. But when asked whether he was willing to load ammo, he refused.”

Mrs. Jones turned to Helen with indignation all over her face. “His arm’s broken. He’s wearing a cast.”

Helen nodded. She remembered his injuries too well.

“This will all come out in the trial tomorrow,” Vic said. “All we need is the documentation from Dr. Thompson at Port Chicago.”

Mrs. Jones sat up even taller. “I talked to him. He says he’ll get it out when he has time. He used the most condescending tone, as if I didn’t speak English, much less major in it.”

Vic turned to Helen. “Carver and Esther both have degrees from Howard.”

Helen, the only one in the room without a college degree, gave a thin smile.

“He’s been subpoenaed, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Jones said. “He has no choice.”

“Correct.” He tapped his pencil on a stack of paperwork. “I need to warn you this trial won’t be pleasant. The Navy wants to make an example of these men. But justice will prevail. Carver’s case will be dismissed, as will those of two others with medical excuses. And the rest will be acquitted. At worst, they’re guilty of insubordination, not mutiny. There was no conspiracy, no attempt to overthrow the officers. All seven of us on the defense team have worked hard, and the men will be freed and cleared.”

“I pray you’re right, Lieutenant.” Mrs. Jones stood. “Thank you for your help.”

“My duty and honor. That’s my motto over there.” He nodded to a cross-stitched sampler on the wall that read, “Let justice be done though the world perish—Saint Augustine.”

Mrs. Jones shook his hand. “A fine motto.”

Helen saw Mrs. Jones to the door, then returned and leaned against the doorjamb to Vic’s office. The sampler had been stitched in blue and red—blue for the truth Vic would bring to light in the trial, and red for the courage he’d need to stand for justice.

He had been assigned to defend ten of the accused mutineers, and his desk teemed with thick file folders. He leaned over an open folder and scratched down notes.

“You’re doing a good thing,” she said.

“Hmm?” He took a few seconds to focus on her.

“I appreciate what you’re doing. It takes courage to stand up for what’s right, even when it’s unpopular.”

Vic’s gaze honed in on her, and he opened his mouth. But then he squeezed his lips shut and returned to his notes. “Thanks.”

She smiled. He hadn’t proposed once since the explosion. Back at her desk, she straightened a pile of papers in Vic’s compact script to type up.

“Say, Helen,” he called. “How do you know I’m not like my dad, angling for connections and currying favor in the black community?”

She laughed and rolled a form into the typewriter. “At the risk of losing favor in the white community? I don’t think so. I’m afraid your motives might be pure.”

“Yeah.” His voice was quiet and distracted. Buried in his work.

Something Helen knew well. She pecked at the typewriter keys, the kind of loud busywork she used to love to keep her memories at bay.

Work didn’t comfort her the way it used to, not even her volunteer work.

Oddly, what comforted her most was what she’d avoided for years—confronting the truth. In each letter to Ray, she opened her memory bin a little further, released a few more ugly memories, and stilled their demonic dance by pinning their leathery wings to paper.

She swung the carriage return, flipped the paper release, and aligned the next part of the form.

In increments, Ray was receiving a catalog of Jim’s abuse, but he encouraged her disclosure and reciprocated by telling of his own fears and doubts. The distance between them provided safety, as did his confidentiality as a pastor. He’d even promised to have Jack return her letters if anything happened to him.