Sweet Expectations (25 page)

“Mr. Ludenburg, you were a player, a man about town,” I said.

His grin widened. “I was one of the best. I treated the ladies right, and they treated me good.”

“Was Walter a ladies' man?”

He chuckled. “No. He was a Regular Joe. Like I said, it took him all night to get the courage to dance with Jenna. But when he did, she had him hook, line, and sinker. He never stopped talking about her. That's how I remember so much about her. He spent the next couple of weeks talking about her.”

“When did you meet?”

“First dance was in January 1944. Cold as hell and snowy. Fact, the weather was so bad a lot of the girls didn't come to the dance.”

“Jenna dated Walter after the dance?” I knew Jenna was dating someone about that time. She gave birth eleven months later in December.

“They was like two peas in a pod. Every second he wasn't drilling he was with her. After a couple of weeks he talked about marrying her.”

“They never did marry, did they?”

“Was planning to. But we got shipped out faster than we thought. He couldn't get up to Alexandria for a proper good-bye, but had to call her on the phone. He kept telling her he loved her, and he'd be back for her and marry her proper in a church.”

“He wrote to Jenna often.”

“He was always writing that gal. So in love it was enough to curdle your stomach. I kidded him about it a lot. But he didn't care. No. He was gonna write his girl.”

“Did she write him back?”

“She surely did. As faithful as he was. When the war turned rough for us her letters kept him going. Hell, they kept me going. See, he'd read them out loud.” Another smile appeared. “Her letters smelled like cinnamon. Like you.”

“Can't get away from it when you work in a bakery.”

“It's nice. Wholesome.”

He dropped his gaze to the picture and again I sensed I'd lost him. He closed his eyes and I wasn't sure if he nodded off or was giving himself over to the memories. Finally, he sucked in a breath and opened his eyes. Stared at me as if I'd intruded into a world where I didn't belong.

“You were on the invasion team at Saipan.”

He cleared his throat. “We were. We knew it was gonna be a meat grinder. We weren't the first off the boats but close to it. Fighting got bad. Real bad. But we made it that first day. And then as we moved inland the fighting got worse, I lost Walter in the chaos. When the fighting settled, I went looking for him. Found him, shot up bad. A miracle he was alive.”

Joey didn't supply the details of Walter's injuries but I'd remembered the autopsy report.

“Almost sorry he wasn't killed right off. Would have been kinder. Death took a while, but he never regained consciousness.”

I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to find him so badly mutilated. “I'm sorry.”

Tears welled in the old man's eyes, and he didn't seem to notice or care that they streamed over his face. I suppose at his age, seeing all he'd seen, tears didn't matter.

“What happened to you after he was injured?”

“I kept on going. Kept on fighting. I wanted to go visit him and sit at his bedside but I couldn't. And when he died I wanted to give up. Walter was like a brother to me. But there were other kids, Marines, who needed me. And I kept fighting until mid-July when the Japs surrendered.”

His jaw stiffened as he raised it a fraction. “The worst days of my life. There were so many other guys who died like Walter. So many of them didn't deserve to be blown to bits or torn in two by mortars. Every time I lost one it felt like Walter all over again.”

“I'm so sorry, Chief.”

He shrugged. “A job had to be done.”

“Were you injured?”

“Shot in the arm.”

“Did they pull you out of the fighting?”

“Hell no. They tried but I wouldn't let them. My buddies had died on that ground, and I wasn't gonna pussy out and go home. Stayed until the final surrender.” No missing the deep pride simmering below the words.

“Did you ever hear from Jenna?”

“I wrote to her first chance I could. I wanted her to have Walter's dog tags. I sent those along. The Marines held his personal belongings for family. There'd have been lots of red tape getting his property sent to a woman not his kin or wife, but I knew a guy, who knew a guy. We got it put on the forms she was his wife so his body was shipped back to Alexandria. She wrote me back. Thanked me for sending him home. She said she'd buried him proper in the Alexandria Cemetery.”

“When was that?”

“I got her letter in late December.”

She'd have been ready to deliver by then. Silent, I let him talk.

He shook his head. “I went back to Alexandria after the war to find her. I wanted to return the letters she'd written to Walter. I went by the bakery but they wouldn't tell me about her. Said she was gone. It took me a good two days to find Walter's spot at the cemetery. When I was leaving, I saw another new headstone. It was hers. I bawled like a baby.”

Sadness burned sharp in his gaze as if this had happened to him yesterday and not seventy years ago. “What happened to her? No one would tell me.”

“She died on December 31, 1944, giving birth.”

He blinked and shook his head as if the news struck like a fresh blow. He stared at the cookie, looking at it as if he imagined Jenna had given it to him. “There was a time when I feared dying. Figured it was the worst thing. But it's not the worst thing.”

He'd been a warrior, a man who loved women, and now here he sat alone in an old-folks' home with a controlling receptionist telling him he couldn't eat cookies.

I'd never feared death or worried about it. That might have been because I'm young. Might have been because deep in my soul I didn't think I had much to lose. Terry had left me, and I didn't think I mattered.

But now with the kid on the way, I had an anchor in this world. For my child, I'd move mountains. I feared losing her more than dying.

“So what happened to Walter's kid?” Joey asked.

“I don't know. The newspaper said he'd been sick when he was born. But I never found a grave near Jenna's.”

“She was from Winchester. Her kin owned an apple farm. I remember she told Walter she'd moved to Alexandria because the apple crop had gone bad that year . . . killed by a frost and she needed to make money. She and her father also got into some kind of fight but she never said over what.”

“An apple farm in Winchester. Last name Davis. That'll narrow the search.”

“Why you looking into this? She ain't your kin.”

I struggled to put into words what I didn't really understand myself. “Maybe I feel for a woman alone with a baby on the way. She had to have been scared.”

He straightened his shoulders. “Wheel me back to my room.”

“What?”

“Wheel me back. I got something to give you.”

I glanced around for the nurse, and seeing no one who said I couldn't, I moved behind his chair. “The old lady gonna give us a hard time?”

“I bet she might. But I ain't worried about it.” He cackled. “What the hell could she do to me? I got two feet in the grave.”

I unlocked the brake on his wheelchair and turned him around. He sat a little straighter, holding Jenna's picture in his hand as if he were on a mission.

I pushed him out of the sunporch and along the long cream-colored hallway smelling of bleach and flowers, to a room at the very end. As I tried to turn him into the room, I bumped the edge of the wheelchair on the wall.

“Women can't drive worth a damn,” he grumbled.

“Hey, don't blame me. I've never driven one of these contraptions before.”

He waggled his finger over his shoulder. “Back up and try again.”

A glance behind and I pulled the wheelchair back. “I'm doing it.”

“Well, you are taking forever.”

“I'll get you there.”

“When? I'm damn old if you haven't noticed. I could be dead by the time you figure out this door.”

“Shut your yap.”

He grunted and went silent, but I didn't sense any annoyance. This was an adventure for him, and I treated him like a man and not a potted plant to be shuffled around.

Finally, I got the angle right and pushed him into his room. It was a very simple room with a hospital bed, dark curtains kept drawn, and a chewed-up La-Z-Boy. No books on a small nightstand by the bed. No extra sundries on the bureau. No pictures on the wall. I had the sense he hated this place so much he wasn't giving it the satisfaction of any kind of decoration.

He pointed toward the nightstand. “Push me over there.”

I wheeled him the remaining feet and he pulled open the drawer. He removed a well-worn Bible from the nightstand and then closed the drawer.

“This was Walter's Bible. It never made it into his effects because I'd borrowed it the day before we landed on Saipan. I'd put it in my footlocker. My hope was always to give the Bible to Jenna. That's one of the reasons I went back to Alexandria. To give it to her. And when she was gone I didn't know what to do with it. So I kept it.”

Of all the death, sadness, and glory he'd witnessed in his life. His had been a rich, full life and he'd saved scant few items including a change of clothes, which hung in the closet, and the Bible.

I didn't speak, because he really had so little time and I sensed he'd had a lot to say.

He lifted his chin a fraction. “I wanted to be buried with it. That was the only request I had. But now it don't seem right.”

I studied the cracked, worn leather and the embossed gold cross. “You should keep it. You've guarded it all these years. Seems right you'd keep it.”

His shook his head as his jaw tightened with determination. “No. I don't want it with me no more. I want you to have it.”

Leaning back, I held up my hands. “Chief, I cannot take your Bible.”

He pushed it toward me. “You can take it. And you will. Seeing as you might find Jenna and Walter's baby, you need to have it so you can give it to him.”

Worry prickled my skin. “What if I don't find him?”

Chief cocked his head, eyeing me as if I were a new recruit. “You don't strike me as a quitter. If that kid is out there, you'll find him.”

“That kid will be in his late sixties now. What if he's also passed from old age?”

“I don't believe you'd be here if he were. Jenna wouldn't have sent you. She wants you to find him. Wants him to know about his father.”

“How do you know Jenna sent me?”

“Can't believe death would get in that gal's way. She went after what she wanted.”

What if he didn't know he'd been adopted? That happened back in the day more often than people realized. Babies were taken in and folded into families without a word ever spoken again about their pasts.

“Take the Bible and find that kid. Do my heart glad to know I kept Walter's Bible safe for his kid all these years. Do my heart glad.”

* * *

When I returned to the bakery, Rachel was standing behind the display case with Meg and Tim. I checked my watch and realized it was after six. “So how did it go?”

Rachel nodded. “I think we are going to make it. I think we will open tomorrow. Though we won't have a full menu, we won't shame ourselves.”

“It's not the end of the world. Less might be more in our case.”

Rachel rested her hands on her hips. “I know we only have the six basic cookies, but I think you're right. Chocolate chip, sugar, peanut butter, pecan, elephant ears, and maple are our best sellers, and I didn't have the energy to bake the rest.”

“I think the basics are fine. Right now we really should stick to what we know.”

“I also got a call from Mrs. Cranston. She heard about the cookie dough and wants to buy enough to make five dozen. She also mentioned her daughter's school is having a fund-raiser and they sell dough to raise money for the school. She thought our dough would be a big draw.”

“Really?”

“I told her we could talk to her on Monday. We needed to get through tomorrow and the reopening. That'll also give you time to crunch the numbers.”

I grinned. “Rachel, you sound like a grown-up businesswoman.”

She nodded. “Maybe not completely grown up but I'm getting there.”

I looked at Meg. “So how was your first real day of baking?”

“Sweet. Tim and I loved it.”

“Where is Tim?”

“He's in the back scooping the last of the cookie dough to go into the oven.”

Meg untied her apron. “What time do you want me back in the morning?”

“Eight o'clock,” Rachel said.

She nodded. “I'll grab Tim, and we'll head out. If we hurry, we can catch the bus.”

“Thanks, Meg,” I said.

“No, thank you. This is totally cool.”

She vanished into the back, and I was left shaking my head. “She thinks this is totally cool.”

“That used to be me,” Rachel said.

“It will be again.”

Rachel shook her head. “I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed.”

“Never say never.” I pressed my hands into the small of my back and stretched out the kinks. “So they did well?” Better to shift to what seemed like a happier topic.

“The kid is strong. He can operate the scooper for hours and not miss a beat.” She smiled. “Though I learned very quickly not to leave him alone too long. I left him for an hour and came back to fifteen pans full of perfectly scooped cookies. I'd forgotten to tell him to stop at five.”

I winced, dollar signs dancing in my head, as I calculated the waste. “You cover them with foil?”

“Yeah, yeah. No real problem. No loss. Only a word to the wise.”

Nodding, I couldn't stifle a grin. “Meg and his mom said to be specific with him.”