Blue Skies Tomorrow (39 page)

“No, he’s—I think he’s trying to tell me something.” Ruth leaned over and tightened the bandages, her face pale and furrowed.

This was his last chance. He strained forward, lifted his face as close as he could to Ruth’s, and spoke with his eyes.
Yes, I’m telling you something. I’m Ray Novak.

Her eyes widened. Her lips parted.

Ray’s heart swelled.
See it? Lord, help her see it.

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.

Footsteps thumped up. “Oh my goodness,” Lieutenant La Rue said. “He looked so harmless.”

“I’ve got him under control.” The medic gave the knot a tug, and the cloth restraint cut into Ray’s elbow. “But harmless he ain’t. Get a sedative.”

Lieutenant La Rue put her arm around Ruth’s shoulders and guided her away. “Are you all right? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

Ruth cast a glance back at Ray, her eyes haunted. “In a way, I have. He—he reminds me of someone I used to know.”

Ray slumped in his chair. His eyes slipped shut. Fresh pain throbbed in his hands and jaw. How long until he could write or talk? Until he could be Raymond Novak again?

39

Antioch
Saturday, April 14, 1945

On the dance floor at the Forum Club, Helen swayed in Vic’s arms as the band played “Stardust.” She stretched her eyes wide and sucked hard on her teeth to keep the tears at bay. It had worked on the polio ward during painful procedures, because good little patients didn’t cry. It had to work now. The song drew memories that pricked her tear ducts—dancing with Ray in his parents’ parlor, Ray humming to the starry sky, his smell and taste and feel.

Helen blinked, and a tear dribbled out. She rubbed it away. Two months had passed since she’d learned of Ray’s death, but grief—true grief—had a way of sneaking up and knocking out her breath.

Tonight the grief was even less welcome. She needed courage to find out the truth from Vic. For the past week she had tested excuses for him in her mind. All failed.

He nuzzled in her hair. “Two weeks from today, we’ll be man and wife.”

Two weeks. She had to know what kind of man he was before then. She and Jay-Jay couldn’t afford another marital disaster. “Vic, I need to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

Her throat slammed shut as if someone had yanked a noose, and she almost gagged. She coughed to conceal it.

“Darling, are you all right?”

She wrestled her lips into a smile. “I’m fine.”

“Good. I’ve been worried. You’ve been out of sorts this week. Of course, everyone’s upset since President Roosevelt died on Thursday. I assume you have wedding jitters too. At least you’re no longer working, so you can focus on the wedding and the house.” He smiled, but the tightness between his eyebrows gave him away. He was scared.

A sigh seeped between her lips. He was so close to fulfilling his dream of marrying her, and he was afraid he’d lose her.

The band shifted keys and started playing “Every Time We Say Good-Bye.”

Helen couldn’t let pity or fear drive her, only the Lord. “I talked to Esther.”

“How nice.” He pulled her close. “When is she leaving for DC?”

“A few weeks. She has a bit more work.”

“That’ll be good for her. DC sounds like an exciting place. Always wanted to see the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.”

She dragged in a breath. “She heard from Thurgood Marshall. The Judge Advocate’s office in Washington—they have no record of Carver’s appeal.”

Vic groaned. “Bureaucrats. Always misplacing things.”

“Please don’t. They have no record. Not in Washington, not in Oakland. The appeal was never filed. You didn’t file it.”

“Ridiculous.” His shoulder tensed under her hand. “You know I filed—”

“Please don’t. Don’t make it worse. You lied, Vic. You lied to Carver, to Esther, to me.”

“You’re not a lawyer.” His voice came out stiff. “You know nothing.”

That stung almost as much as one of Jim’s blows. “I may not have an education, but I know you said you filed the appeal, and I know you didn’t.”

“You don’t understand.” His gaze bore down hard. “It’s a lost cause. The Navy convicted two other men with documented medical excuses. Carver didn’t have a chance. I had no choice.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make. You promised—”

“Don’t you know what I’ve been through? Haven’t you seen?” He kept his voice low, and his gaze swept the dance floor. “I tried to help, you know I did. I had justice on my side. I had the law on my side. But when that conviction came through, I saw the truth. I was just a pawn so the Navy could pretend they’d done the right thing.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“It means I’m on the wrong side. The wrong side. You don’t know what they’ve said about me. I’ve lost friends in the Navy, in the legal profession, because I defended colored men. You don’t know. If I’d kept fighting, my career would have been finished.”

“Your career?” She blinked back tears. “What about Carver’s career? His life?”

Vic squeezed his eyes shut. “His career is already finished. There’s nothing I can do. The best thing for him is to lie low and earn an early release. I have other things to worry about.”

“Other things? What could be more—”

“You, for example. You deserve so much.” His gaze melted, as soft and sweet as molasses. “I can’t have you marrying a man with a lackluster career and a tarnished name.”

“Tarnished?”

He sighed and tried to pull her closer, but she resisted. “I didn’t tell you earlier, because I didn’t want to worry you. My dad’s gotten letters—threatening letters for being my father, because I took up the Negro cause. He’s afraid he’ll lose his judgeship, and if I’d kept fighting, that’s exactly what would have happened.”

Helen blinked at the wavering image of the man in her arms, a man swayed by politics as surely as those men in the jury had been.

Vic rubbed her lower back. “Don’t you see, darling? It’s all for the best. Filing the appeal wouldn’t have helped Carver, not a bit, but it would have hurt my family. That means you too. You don’t want to marry into a family with a bad name.”

She shook her head. That’s what she feared she was about to do.

He wiped her tears with his handkerchief. “Let’s forget about this and enjoy our evening.”

“I can’t.” How could she when everything inside her tumbled and twisted? “I need to go home.”

“Helen—”

“No.” She wrenched out of his arms and threaded her way through the crowd toward the coatroom.

“Helen . . .” His voice pressed up behind her, and he took her elbow. “You can’t leave alone. People will talk.” With a wide, flat smile, he helped her into her coat and escorted her out of the restaurant, tossing friendly greetings to everyone they passed.

Vic put his arm around her shoulders as they walked down Fourth Street. A stiff wind blew Helen’s hair straight in front of her like blinders, and Vic told humorous stories in a voice higher, louder, and faster than usual.

In Helen’s abdomen, a rock-hard pain developed.

What kind of man was she marrying? A man who cared—but not enough to follow through. A man who did right—until his reputation was at risk. A man who valued justice—but valued opinion more highly.

A coward.

They turned onto G Street, and the rock of pain pressed up against her stomach, her lungs, her heart. She’d accused Ray of cowardice for avoiding combat. He’d proven her wrong. To the death, he’d proven her wrong, and she couldn’t breathe.

The man laughing by her side was a true coward. A moral coward. And he’d lied about his actions. He couldn’t even be an honest coward.

He jiggled her shoulder. “Remember that? Sure, you do. I remember you standing in your parents’ parlor when my dad brought me in to see your father. You wore a pink dress. I loved you even then.”

She mumbled as if too windblown to reply.

“Funny, isn’t it?” Vic guided her around the corner onto Fifth Street. “My parents forbade me to swim in the river with my friends, afraid I’d drown, but it backfired on them. They never thought I’d sneak out my window, fall from the tree, and break both arms. They tried to protect me, but I got hurt in a different way. Goes to show some things are out of our control.”

“Out of our control,” she whispered.

He bounced into another story, but Helen held the other before her, cupped in her hands so she could inspect it.

She was marrying Vic to protect Jay-Jay, but would it backfire? Was she placing her son in a different type of danger? What would he learn from Vic? That truth and justice and courage could be embraced or discarded based on convenience. That some people were more deserving than others. To protect yourself first.

Victor Llewellyn might be a lesser evil than James Carlisle, but he was hardly a good man.

An inaudible moan flowed from deep inside, from the aching stone.
Lord, what can I do? I have to protect Jay-Jay.

But could she protect him? He was out of her hands, out of her control. She had to trust the Lord to protect Jay-Jay. She had to do what Vic hadn’t done—the right thing.

The stone went into a spasm that jolted pain through her stomach. If she didn’t marry Vic, she’d be trapped at the Carlisles. She couldn’t work for Vic again, but without a job, how could she rescue her son?

She couldn’t. She had to marry Vic. With no money of her own, she had no choice.

Wasn’t that Vic’s excuse? That he had no choice? But he had. He could have done the right thing no matter the cost.

Shivers coursed through her. God loved Jay-Jay even more than she did. She had to let the Lord protect her boy in his way, a way she couldn’t plan or control or even imagine.

Vic rubbed her arm. “Cold tonight. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

Helen pushed back her billowing hair. Vic’s face shone with compassion and love. He adored her. He’d never hurt her. But that wasn’t enough.

The stone shifted and forced out her words. “I can’t marry you.”

“Excuse me?” Vic stopped right in the middle of D Street.

“I can’t—I can’t marry you.”

He laughed, high and staccato. “Wedding jitters. Mom warned me. Just relax. In two weeks this commotion will be over and we can set up our happy little home.”

“No, I can’t.” Her head shook back and forth, every muscle twitching. “You broke your promise. You lied to cover it up. You had a duty to your client and you failed. That’s against the law.”

His hand tightened on her shoulder. “Carver isn’t preferring charges against me, is he?”

Helen squirmed free. “He—he hasn’t decided.”

“What? Why would he turn on me after all I’ve done for him?”

“All you’ve done? But you haven’t done. You’re nothing but empty promises.”

“That’s baloney.”

“ ‘Though the world perish.’ ” Her voice quavered. “That’s what your motto says. ‘Let justice be done though the world perish.’ ”

“That’s the ideal. This is the real world.”

She clenched her hair at the roots. It hurt. “I can’t marry a man who doesn’t follow his own motto.”

He reached for her, his fingers splayed wide. “Be reasonable. It’s only two weeks before the wedding.”

“I don’t care. I have to do the right thing. I won’t marry you.” She twisted her engagement ring off over the first knuckle.

“Don’t be silly. Let’s go to the Carlisles and talk it out.”

The Carlisles? A cold wave crashed over her. If Mr. Carlisle found out she broke her engagement, what would happen? Although her security lay in God, she wriggled the ring back in place.

“Oh goodness. Oh no.” Shakes pulsed through her, and her vision blurred. “Please, Vic. Please do me a favor. One favor. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“What?”

She needed to find a job and a place to live. “Please don’t tell anyone I broke up with you.”

A harsh bark of a laugh. “What am I supposed to do? Act happy? For crying out loud, our wedding’s in two weeks. You want me to keep planning and smiling? Are you crazy?”

Helen pressed her hand over her eyes. “Please. A week. Give me one week. If not for me, for Jay-Jay.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“I can’t tell you why. Please believe me, this is very important. I need a week. Just this one favor.”

His upper lip twisted. “You have the audacity to break up with me and then ask a favor? You
are
crazy. What on earth do I get out of this?”

“I know it’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense. But please believe me. Please.”

“Talk to Esther.” His voice came out low and hard. “Talk her out of preferring charges. If I were convicted, I’d be discharged and disbarred. I’d be ruined. Talk sense into her.”

Helen looked up to his stony face. He knew the consequences beforehand. He knew his actions were illegal. “I’ll talk to her, but I can’t make any promises.”

He glanced away. “You’ll try but no promises? Fine. That’s what you’ll get from me. I’ll try to keep it quiet—for one week—but no promises.”

“Thank you. I—I’m so sorry.”

“Sure you are.” He marched down the street.

Helen turned in circles in the middle of the intersection, not sure which way was which. All alone in the dark. Utterly alone. “Oh Lord, did I do the right thing? I’m so scared.”

The wind rushed past, tangled up the branches of an apple tree, and a flurry of pale petals danced around her in the starlight.

She reached out. The petals brushed her fingers and cheeks, as they had when she’d fallen off her bike and Ray had helped her up.
“How can I forget helping a pretty girl with flowers in her hair?”

Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, but tears of peace. She had done the right thing. No matter the cost.