Letters From Home (37 page)

43

October 1945
Chicago, Illinois

M
organ settled beside Betty on a city park bench overlooking the Chicago River. Ignoring the passing pedestrians and cruising motorboats, he studied her eyes. He searched for a deep sense of familiarity, yet even her powdery perfume seemed foreign. Everything about their interaction suddenly resembled the discomfort of a blind date.

But what was he expecting? They’d need a little time to warm up, to transfer their affectionate messages from paper into verbalized words. Words like:
Will you marry me?

“So, Betty,” he said, “how have you been?”

“I’ve been extremely well. Thank you.”

He waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t.

As he sought another conversation starter, he noted her eying his cane propped against the bench. No wonder she was so quiet. She was probably deciding on a proper way to ask about his injury.

“If all goes well,” he assured her, “I shouldn’t need this old piece of wood much longer.” “Oh?”

“Just went back to duty a bit early. The doc at Fort Dix thought it’d help the knee heal faster.” The explanation seeped relief into her face. “I suppose I should’ve warned you. But I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Of course,” she said, followed by an interminable pause. He fought the urge to fidget.

Awkwardness was firmly planted on the bench between them. To boot off the invisible, unwanted guest, all Morgan had to do was imagine what he’d write to her at this very moment. Before he knew it, his words flowed out. “It’s hard to believe you’re here. Truth is, you’re even prettier than I remembered.” And she was. Not even her starlet-ranking photo did her justice.

“You think so, do you?” She smiled, angling her hat with a tip of her head.

“Betty, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at the picture you gave me.”

“My, my. You certainly know how to make a girl blush.” She covered her cheek with her gloved hand, but then protruded her lips as if hit by a disconcerting thought. “To be honest, I didn’t get the impression you were all that interested when we first met.”

The USO dance, where it all began. In rapid flashes, his mind rounded up a scattering of scenes: his encounter with Betty, the swaffled petty officer, the captivating brunette with no last name.

“Sorry,” he said. “Guess things were a little wild that night.” He needed to keep the focus on Betty, let her know she was the only person who mattered now. “You definitely got my attention with your beautiful writing, though.” An understatement, but the declaration appeared enough to refresh her spirits.

“Yes, well…I’m glad you liked it.” She immediately fluttered a glance at the Army bag resting at his feet. “So did you bring me back anything special?”

The way she brushed past the subject of their letters surprised him. But at least the tension between them was dissipating.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he said, recalling the gift he’d been saving for months. Out of his barracks bag, he pulled a small paper sack, scarred with wrinkles from its voyage. Despite his growing anticipation, he downplayed the offering. “It’s nothing as fancy as you deserve. Just a little something I found in Paris.”

“Paris?”
Excitement ripened on her face. He placed the bag in her expectant hands, slowly, to increase the buildup like a silent drum roll. With the giddy look of a child, she slid out the book and flipped it over to read the title:
Classical French Poetry.
In a blink, her expression fell.

“A book of poems,” she breathed. An emotion he could only interpret as utter disappointment entered her eyes, soaked her voice.

“Betty?”

She veered her gaze to his. Her smile had changed. “Thank you. It’s …terrific.”

He’d been certain the souvenir he had purchased at a shop near Gare du Nord would be perfect for her. All this time, he’d refrained from mailing it, preferring to enjoy her delight in person. How could he have been so wrong?

“Guess I’m not very good at buying presents. I just assumed, from what you wrote, that you’d like this sort of book.” Apparently, he didn’t know her as well as he thought.

“Oh, no, it’s grand,” she insisted, and set the hardback on her lap, front cover down. “You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been a long week. I’m still travel weary.”

He smiled as best he could. “I understand what that’s like.” He wasn’t fully convinced that was the reason for her lackluster reaction, but he really had no way to read her yet. Not off the page. “Say, where’d you just get back from?” he asked, jumping on the next topic.

“Houston,” she replied. “That was my last stop, anyway.”

“Houston
—as in Texas?”

“Actually, I should’ve said Fort Sam Houston. I was there to be processed out.”

“Processed out? You mean from …?”

She nodded proudly. “From the WAC. I was serving in the Pacific.”

It took several seconds for what she’d said to register. “You mean the Women’s Army Corps?”

“Yeah, I joined a year ago. That’s why you never heard from me again. I suppose I should’ve written to tell you I was leaving, but it all happened so fast.”

“Hang on.” He held up his hand to interrupt, but additional words escaped him.

“I know,” she sighed. “It’s hard to imagine me slaving away in some hospital out in the middle of a jungle.” When her lips curled upward, he mentally stepped back. Reviewing her claims, he felt a grin spreading, his confusion rolling away.

“Okay.” He laughed. “You had me goin’ there. For a minute I thought you were serious.”

In an instant, the corners of her mouth dropped. Angry slits replaced her large blue eyes. It was a glare he recognized, a hardening for battle. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those macho dogfaces who think women in the military are nothing but a joke.”

The stern comment knocked the props out from under him. “N-no, of course not. I didn’t say that.” He had no inkling what had just happened. Her expression, however, made it clear she wasn’t pulling his leg, and that he’d better explain himself but good. “It’s just that…” He struggled to assemble the mismatched pieces. “If you were overseas all this time, well, then, you couldn’t have got my letters.”

“Letters?
What letters?” Her knitted brow shifted from irritation to a perplexity equaling Morgan’s. Then her forehead relaxed as if a revelation came to her. “No wonder. I just got back a few days ago. I haven’t had a chance to go through my mail at home yet.”

He shook his head. “No,” he told her. “I meant the letters you
answered.
”

She paused, again appearing baffled. “What ever are you talking about?”

“Your letters. The ones you’ve written me over the past year.”

“Look. From what I remember, I only wrote you once before I shipped out.”

That couldn’t be right. The letters she’d sent weren’t imaginary, nor was her photograph. So why would she say such a thing?

A pair of possibilities quickly formed in his mind, threatening to strip him of all he held dear. The loss would be unimaginable.

Yet he had to know.

“Betty, you don’t have to make up a story.” He strove for a smooth tone but could hear it roughening. “If you’ve met someone else, or are having second thoughts now that I’m here, you should say so. Just tell me the truth.”

In the old days, he never would have been so blunt, but he simply didn’t have it in him to waste time anymore. And he wasn’t about to walk away from the best thing in his life without a fight.

“I am not
lying
to you.” Her voice turned to ice. “Like I said, I only wrote you once.”

Something within him was picking up speed, a tornado destroying everything in its path. He yanked the cigar box out of his bag and opened the lid. “You expect me to believe you didn’t write all these?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything.” She tilted the carton set sideways on his lap, barely affording the envelopes a glance. “But no, I didn’t write them.” Crossing her arms, she sat back on the bench. “You clearly have me mixed up with another girl.”

He discounted the excuse, the impossibility, with a rigid shake of his head. If she didn’t want to be with him, he at least deserved to hear it outright. “You’re telling me there’s another Betty Cordell? On Kiernan Lane?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. “Let me see one of those.” She grabbed the top envelope and pulled out the pages. A moment later, she presented the expression of a detective who’d solved a crime yet wasn’t pleased with the findings. “It’s my name and address, all right. But I’m
not
the person who wrote these.”

He peered at her, searching for the truth. What he discovered in her eyes was honesty, a frightening find. “If it wasn’t you,” he said, “then who did?”

“Based on the handwriting? I’d say my roommate’s had some fun with you.”

Roommate?
But—that would mean—

At the conclusion, the city fell silent, the bustling disappeared. His body weakened under the pressure of air that now stifled him. He clutched the corners of his box as if it were a life raft, afraid to let go. Afraid to accept that his greatest love was an illusion, the result of a stranger’s joke.

Betty rose and held out the poetry book. “I’m sorry about the mix-up,” she intoned.

Morgan remained mute, motionless, paralyzed. As if part of him had died.

She waited, placed the book beside him. “Take care of yourself, Private.” Her voice dipped with a fraction of sympathy, a strained consolation from a fellow victim. Then she turned, hailed a Checker Cab, and climbed inside. “Guthrie Nursing Home, Lincoln Square,” she commanded to the driver, and slammed the door closed.

44

October 1945
Chicago, Illinois

“Y
ou knew all about this, didn’t you?” Betty stood in the office doorway, arms layered, nails dug into her purse.

Julia looked up from her paperwork. “Betty, what are you doing here?”

“As if you didn’t know.”

Julia appeared at a loss. She spoke slowly. “Why don’t you back up and tell me what happened?”

Betty studied her, unable to tell whether or not she was playing dumb. “A telegram came today. It was from a soldier named McClain, asking me to meet him at Union Station. That name ring a bell?”

Julia’s face tightened. “You met up with Morgan?”

“I suppose that answers my first question.”

“Does Liz know?”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“Do you know how to find him? Is he still at the station?”

“I highly doubt it,” Betty sneered. “And with the way he looked when I left, I’d be shocked if he had anything to say to either of you.”

Behind her desk, Julia sank back into her armchair. “Oh no,” she breathed.

“'Oh no’ is right. What’d you two think, that he’d get a kick out of your practical joke?”

Julia’s forehead crinkled as she met her gaze. “Gosh, no. It was nothing of the sort.”

“Isn’t that good to know.”

“Betty,” Julia said. “I admit I knew about the letters, but I had nothing to do with writing them. I give you my word.” A deep sincerity filled her voice, attesting to her innocence.

“Fine. Then, where’s Liz?”

Julia shook her head, gave a helpless shrug. “I have no idea. She said she was heading home to see you.”

How’s that for coincidence,
Betty groaned to herself. “Well, if she turns up, tell her we need to talk.” With a flip of her hat, she marched toward the entry.

“Wait,” Julia called once, then again louder. “Wait, let me explain.”

Betty wanted desperately to shut her out, but the words baited her curiosity—always that same maddening weakness. She turned to find Julia in the office doorway. “I’m listening,” Betty huffed.

Julia gestured behind her. “Please,” she said, “just come sit down.” Her eyes shone with an appeal, strong as a magnet. Despite Betty’s reluctance, they pulled her back to the room, where she dropped heavily into the visitor’s chair.

Julia leaned against the edge of her desk to face her, and started. “A lot happened while you were away.”

“Obviously,” Betty lashed out, then remembered the news about Christian. Her own dilemma paled in comparison. She softened her reply. “Sorry. Go on.”

Julia laced her fingers across her middle. “It’s true, Liz kept writing Morgan under your name after you shipped out. But you and I were just as responsible.

“Me?”

“I believe you’re the one who asked Liz to write him in the first place. Am I wrong?”

Betty cowered slightly in her chair. She’d forgotten about that. “I guess not.”

“And,” Julia added, “I’m the one who practically forced her to read the letter he wrote back.”

Betty felt her humiliation over the debacle with Morgan draining away. But she straightened in her seat, salvaging her rightful indignation. “That still doesn’t explain why she kept writing him after that.”

“Because she started to care about him.”

“But—what about Dalton?”

Julia hesitated. “You haven’t heard?”

Hadn’t heard what?
Betty stared, waiting.

“It’s really Liz’s place to tell you,” Julia said, “but I suppose you’ll hear soon enough. She sighed before explaining. “They broke off their engagement last February.”

“Engagement?” Betty suddenly felt like she’d been away for a decade rather than a year. Somehow in her mind, she had always envisioned her friends’ lives going on as usual, even frozen in time. As if her own world was the only one that had flipped upside down. “So why did they break up?” she asked.

“Liz said they just realized how different they’d become. I guess the war has changed everyone, in one way or another. But then, I’m sure you know that better than anybody.” Compassion flowed like a brook in Julia’s tone, rounding and gentle.

Betty removed her hat and rested it atop the pocketbook on her lap. Still unsettled, she redirected to the issue at hand. “I don’t understand, though. Why didn’t Liz just tell Morgan the truth? If she cared for him, really cared for him, she should’ve told him.”

“That’s an easy one,” Julia said with a light shrug. “Because she was scared of losing him. And I guess she loved him too much to risk it.”

As Betty digested the logic of her friend’s response, she saw her own statement for what it was: a vent not against Liz, but against Lieutenant Kelly.

Was it possible—could it be that Julia’s reasoning applied to both?

Betty had spent months telling herself that everything with Leslie had been a farce, blame and anger padding her pain. Nonetheless, on occasion, the night she and Leslie shared behind the waterfall would surface in a dream, and she would see his eyes, a loving look in their depths, too ardent not to be real.

Perhaps her mother’s scandalous affair hadn’t been all that different. Being a fool in love, it seemed, didn’t necessarily constitute a foolish person.

The thought linked Betty’s focus back to Liz. She kneaded her hat, pressing down the guilt easing in from her earlier behavior. “I only wish I’d known. If I had, I could’ve helped. Or at least handled things better.” She hated to think she’d prevented a dear friend’s happy ending, even if Betty might never get her own. “You think there’s a chance they’ll work things out?”

Julia paused. “I don’t know,” she said. “I sure hope so.”

“It’d be nice to think there’s hope for the rest of us.” Betty had tried for a light tone, but the phrase came out solemn, reflective.

Julia tilted her head, as if remembering. “So I take it you and the Australian pilot…” She stopped at that, inviting Betty to expound on the patient in her postcards. Oh, how things had changed since mailing those cards. Their tropical illustrations, like her writings, had too often represented how she wanted life to be, versus how it was.

She deliberated over where to begin, regarding her relationship with Leslie. She’d always been one to recount her romances, never shy about spicy details—but this particular story, she decided, was one she preferred to keep to herself, tucked in a warm place.

“Just wasn’t meant to be,” she replied simply.

Julia offered a rueful nod. “I’m sorry, Betty.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.” Fending off the moisture in her eyes, she pulled up a half-mast smile. “But hey, not to worry. If my love life doesn’t pick up, I could eventually move in here. A rest home’s a swell place for lonely old maids, right?”

Julia leaned forward and touched her hand. “Sweetheart, you of all people are
not
going to end up alone. I promise.”

As Betty absorbed the assurance, needed so greatly her chest ached in response, a drop leaked down each of her cheeks. “Neither will you,” she told Julia, whose eyes now glistened. Then, following Rosalyn’s advice, Betty dashed away her tears and prepared to forge on.

“So,” she said, “what should I do now? I’m open to suggestion.”

Julia produced a handkerchief from her skirt pocket. She handed it over with a warm look. “I wish I could help you, hon. But really, you’re the only person who should decide where your life goes from here.”

Betty had intended her question to address how she could best remedy the Liz-Morgan situation, yet inadvertently, Julia had stumbled upon another of her troubling crossroads.

Where
did
Betty want her life to go? Where would she find her calling, her purpose?

“I don’t know,” she answered the thought aloud. “The only place I’ve ever actually felt useful was working in the hospital. But I can’t exactly run out and become a nurse.”

“Why not?” Julia asked, a gentle challenge. No hint of teasing. “You could do it now, couldn’t you? Using the GI Bill?”

Betty hadn’t given any of that much thought. “Well, yes …I guess I could but …”

“But what?”

Wasn’t it obvious? Did she seriously have to say it? “School has never been my forte, you know that.”

Julia sat back and raised an eyebrow at her. “Quite honestly, Betty? I believe you could accomplish anything you put your mind to.”

At those words, Betty’s memories skimmed through the past year, flashing on things that, until then, she’d have never thought herself capable: nursing duties in leaky tents; emergency care with limited supplies. Imagine what she could do in a nice, clean, civilized hospital. Plus, she couldn’t deny the tinge of envy she still harbored for those fancy blue capes. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “We’ll see.”

And that was the most certain answer she could give. For a powerful truth had come to her: Before she could spring into her future, she needed to smooth over the bumps of her past.

Betty dabbed at her cheeks, finally knowing what she had to do. She looked at Julia. “Any chance you’d be up for taking a trip with me, in the meantime?”

“Sure.” She sounded intrigued. “Where to?”

“Kansas.”

“Kansas?” Julia echoed. “Why there?”

“My mom and I—we’ve never been great about writing each other, as you probably know. I just figured a visit might be nice, now that I’m home.”

After a thoughtful beat, Julia nodded. “I’m sure she’d like that,” she replied. “But are you certain this shouldn’t be just the two of you? I wouldn’t want to intrude, if you’d prefer having family time.”

“But you
are
family,” Betty said, realizing that Julia and Liz both were. Their wartime stations may have differed, but they’d all still served together, and survived. “What’s more, I’ll need the support. New Guinea, I can handle; going to Wichita alone, I’m not so sure.”

“Well, since you put it that way.” Julia let out a giggle and collected her hankie. “Say, what are you doing tonight? Want to hit the town, a way to officially welcome you back?”

Betty started to accept, then remembered her other roommate. “I’d love to, but I think Liz and I have some catching up to do.” Starting with a strategy of locating a specific GI.

“Actually,” Julia said, “she has an awards thing tonight. Told me not to expect her until late.”

Betty glanced at her watch, confirming that not much could be accomplished until morning, anyway.

“So, what do you think?” Julia asked. “Dinner at Parnell’s?”

Parnell’s. A beloved oldie featuring the three C’s: chatting, chili, and cherry Cokes. And, best of all, a slice of normalcy.

“You’re on,” Betty said. “Although I should warn you. After living in a god-awful jungle, my table manners might need polishing.” Over more than the remark, they exchanged smiles, reflective of the women they’d become, enduring and strong. And no matter where their journeys took them, those traits would only grow.