Take Me Home (9781455552078) (5 page)

Heavy raindrops began to pelt the train car, striking the roof so hard and fast that it sounded like gunfire. Strong winds suddenly rose up, swaying the branches of the trees, rocking them back and forth.

“That soldier's no different than either of us,” Peter argued, sickened by the other man's bloodlust. “He's doing what he's been charged to do, no more, no less. Besides, the war's over for us. There's no more reason to fight.”

“To hell with that!” Otto growled angrily. “I will not surrender! Just because those bastards managed to capture us doesn't mean that we are powerless to hurt them! Hitler demands that we fight until our last breath!”

Anger filled Peter's thoughts. Hearing someone praise Hitler, the same maniac who had led a whole nation toward a ruinous defeat, whose army had conscripted Peter into a war in which he'd wanted no part, was more than he could bear. He hated the Nazis, as his father and mother had, but it hadn't been enough to keep his own fate from intertwining with theirs. But he was done doing Hitler's bidding. At that moment, he didn't care how dangerous Otto Speer was; shackled, he'd have no choice but to sit there and listen as Peter told him exactly what he thought of his beloved Führer.

But he never got the chance.

Before Peter could say a word, he was suddenly, unexpectedly thrown forward into the back of the seat in front of him. The shrill, piercing sound of the train's brakes filled the stormy night. The American soldier, jolted awake by the sudden change, leaped to his feet, his rifle clutched against his chest, his eyes wide with both surprise and fear.

“What in the hell is going—?!” was all he managed to shout.

The crunching sound of metal being twisted, the explosion of glass as it shattered, and the gasps and screams of men preceded Peter's being tossed up and out of his seat by only a second. He was lifted as effortlessly as a child's toy, thrown toward the roof, stopping short only because the metal of his handcuffs bit hard into the flesh of his wrists. Up became down, left turned into right; in the darkness of night, nothing made any sense. Peter saw the American soldier, unrestrained as he was, hurled upward, and then he was gone, swallowed by the chaos and the inky blackness. Peter's stomach roiled as uncomfortably as it had on the voyage across the Atlantic. When the train came crashing back to the ground, landing with a deafening thud on the left side of the car, the opposite from where Peter sat, it felt as if the world was exploding. Pieces of glass flew in every direction. Peter's head smashed into something hard, possibly the seat across the aisle, and the darkness grew deeper until everything was black.

What brought Peter back to consciousness was an insistent tugging at his hand. He blinked a couple of times, his head muddled; it felt as if he was swimming up out of deep water. Struggling to make sense of where he was and what had happened, he slowly opened his eyes. Until another fork of lightning flashed, everything was hidden in the darkness, but when the sky lit up, he saw the destruction that had been wrought. Shards of glass were littered around his feet, the wooden seats were snapped like kindling, and sharp jags of metal poked everywhere. Peter could smell the acrid odor of smoke. From all around him came the moans and cries of the wounded; when the lightning flashed again, he saw another German soldier staring at him, dead, his eyes never to see again.

“Get up!” a voice hissed. “Goddamn it, get up!”

This time, the pulling on Peter's still-manacled hand was so strong that it nearly yanked him all the way to his feet. He stumbled forward, his legs weak as he tried to steady himself in the debris of the crash. Strangely, he felt water stinging his face; looking up, Peter was amazed to find that a hole had been ripped out of the train car, allowing the rain to fall inside.

“Come on!”

Another tug and Peter was face-to-face with Otto. In the light of the storm, Peter saw that his fellow prisoner had suffered a cut across his forehead; blood trickled down one side of his face. Unlike Peter, who'd had one hand broken free of the handcuffs, both of Otto's were still restrained. The chain that linked the two of them together had come loose from the bolt on the floor.

“What…what happened…?” Peter asked.

“We hit something,” Otto answered. “It could've been another train or maybe a tree fell across the tracks. Either way, this is our chance.”

“Our chance to what?”

“Escape, you fool!”

Still addled from the crash, Peter nodded. Around him, the smell of smoke grew steadily stronger; looking toward what he thought was the rear of the train car, he saw hungry flames flickering to life.

“The…the others are hurt…” he said.

The other man's answer was to again pull at the chain. As they picked their way toward another hole that had been torn in the car, broken and bloodied men moaned in the darkness. Someone must have grabbed Otto, pleading for help; he spat a curse and kicked himself free. Moments later, they were outside, the fury of the storm pounding down on them.

The train had come off the tracks and slid down an embankment. From farther up the line toward the engine, Peter heard the shouts of men and saw flashlight beams cutting through the darkness of the still-raging storm. Frozen in place, he could only watch them come closer.

“Move!” Otto barked, giving another pull on the chain that bound them together and heading for the tree line.

Rain fell into Peter's eyes, momentarily blinding him as they crashed through the underbrush, nettles tugging at his clothes and skin.

“They'll come after us,” he argued.

“Don't worry about them,” Otto answered, moving forward.

Peter kept thinking about the soldier in their car, the one who had pointed his rifle at him; he wondered what had happened to him.

“The Americans won't quit looking for us until we're caught.”

Otto stopped, thunder rumbling all around them, and pulled Peter close. “They aren't even going to know we're gone,” he growled. “If that fire spreads, it will be days before they know if anyone is missing, if ever. By the time they understand, we'll be a hundred kilometers away.”

With that, Otto started to run again, pulling his fellow prisoner behind him.

Peter had no choice but to follow.

B
ILLY
T
ATE ASKED ME
to marry him…”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Olivia wished she could take them back. But it was too late for that. Now, no matter how hard she tried, Olivia couldn't look her mother in the eye. Elizabeth Marsten sat expectantly in her favorite chair in the sitting room, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth, the knitting she'd been working on frozen in her hand, a stitch waiting to be finished. The seconds crawled slowly past. The only sound was the rhythmic tick-tock of the grandfather clock against the wall; its pendulum moved much slower than the fevered beating of Olivia's heart. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Olivia felt as if the words she'd spoken still hung in the air between them.

Ever since she'd left her father, Olivia had been dreading this moment. The thought of telling her mother that she had agreed to become Billy's wife terrified her. The whole way home had been agonizing; with every step, she thought of ways to avoid going through with it, had even considered pretending nothing had happened, but she knew that would only be postponing the inevitable. In the end, unlike with her father, she'd blurted it out.

Elizabeth stiffened in her seat, her long, dark hair pulled up tight, her hazel eyes narrowing as she stared at her daughter; there wasn't much of a resemblance between them other than the shape of their noses and the way they both chewed on their lips when they were deep in thought. Her mother was a proper woman, always trying to make a good impression; even now, at home without any visitors, her blouse's collar was buttoned all the way to the top. Eliz­a­beth was trying to keep a straight face, but Olivia could see her emotions just below the surface.

“And what was your answer?” her mother asked.

Olivia swallowed slowly, her mouth dry. “I…I said ‘yes'…”

Elizabeth smiled as brightly as the noontime sun as tears of joy filled her eyes. She shot out of her chair, dropped her knitting on the floor, grabbed her daughter, and pulled her close. For an awkward moment, Olivia stood frozen in her mother's embrace before slowly raising her hands and halfheartedly returning the affection.

“Oh, sweetheart!” Elizabeth gushed. “I'm so happy for you!”

Olivia struggled to find a response; failing that, she remained silent.

“My daughter's going to marry a banker!”

A spark of anger flared in Olivia's chest. It didn't really matter to her mother that Billy had always been her closest friend, that he was kind and courteous, the sort of man who went out of his way to help others. To Elizabeth, all that counted was that he came from an upstanding, successful family, that he made plenty of money, and that he was handsome enough that when he walked into Sunday church service, all of the young ladies' heads turned to look at him, jealously wishing that they were by his side.

Love had
nothing
to do with it.

“William will make a wonderful husband, don't you think?” Elizabeth asked; her mother had always refused to refer to Billy in any way other than with the formalized name he'd been born with; to do otherwise wasn't proper.

Olivia nodded, which caused her mother to frown.

“I would think you should be much more excited than
that
,” she scolded. “What young woman wouldn't be ecstatic to marry a man like William? Think of all the wonderful dinner parties you'll get to host, the people you'll meet, the luxurious clothes you'll get to wear, and especially the home you'll get to live in!” As she spoke, Elizabeth looked around them, her nose turned up a bit; Olivia suspected that she was comparing her current surroundings to those she imagined her daughter would soon be entering, and found her own lacking.

“I am excited,” Olivia lied.

“Let me see the ring!”

Olivia held out her finger for her mother's inspection. She saw Elizabeth's obvious confusion at the plain gold band; from a man with Billy's wealth, she expected something far gaudier. “It must be a family heirloom,” she muttered. “Probably belonged to a great-grandmother.”

Quickly, Olivia hid the ring from sight, self-conscious about it.

“When is the wedding going to be held?” her mother pressed. “It's sure to be before William heads off for the service, won't it?”

Olivia felt dizzy, as if the room was spinning around her. “We…we didn't set a date…” she explained.

Her mother's frown would have darkened the brightest of summer afternoons. “Why in Heaven's name not?” Eliz­a­beth demanded, her hands on her hips. “How am I supposed to plan if I don't know when it will be? I have an engagement notice to write, family members to contact, menus to prepare, to say nothing about meeting with William's father. There's so much to do and little time to do it in.”

“I'll talk to him about it…” Olivia managed, not for the first time wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

“See that you do,” her mother replied. “This has to be done right. Anything else would be a disappointment.”

If there was one thing Olivia had gotten used to over the years, it was Elizabeth being disappointed in her. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, it never seemed good enough for her mother. One winter morning when she'd been a little girl no more than seven, Olivia had lain on the floor beside the wood-burning stove, drawing her mother a picture of a much warmer day. She'd struggled to get the sun just right, had put in a couple of trees, and tried her best to make the house look just like theirs. Finally, beaming brightly with pride, Olivia had brought the drawing to Elizabeth.

“With all the time you've spent on this,” her mother said, “I would've thought it would be better.”

And that was the way it had always been between them.

In her mother's eyes, everything Olivia did had to be perfect; when it inevitably fell short, she wasn't shy about expressing her dissatisfaction. To Elizabeth, Olivia's singing voice was too shrill. Her cooking was either too salty or not seasoned enough. For a month, her mother had tried to teach Olivia how to knit but had finally given up in frustration when her daughter hadn't taken to it. Olivia's marks in school weren't high enough. Her friends weren't the sort a proper lady should consort with.

“Why are you never happy with me?” she'd once asked.

Her mother had answered with a question of her own. “Isn't that something you should be asking yourself?”

Because of the demands of his job as sheriff, Olivia's father wasn't around enough to act as a counterbalance to his wife. When Olivia complained, John would smile knowingly, as if he, too, knew what it was like to be held to Elizabeth's high standards. But nothing ever changed; if it was his responsibility to provide for the family, it was Olivia's mother's to raise the children. With Grace's birth, there had been a moment when Olivia had held out hope that her mother would ease up, but Elizabeth had instead doubled her efforts, becoming even more restrictive with two daughters than she had been with one.

But the one thing her mother had never interfered with was Olivia's friendship with Billy Tate. Ever since the day they had met by the creek, Elizabeth had welcomed the boy into the Marsten home with open arms, offering to bake cookies, giving Billy a gift at Christmas, and always asking about his father. Olivia knew that the only reason her mother did these things was that Wellington Tate was the president of the bank and she hoped that being associated with him would raise her own family's standing, but Olivia didn't mind; anything that kept her mother's displeasure at bay was fine by her.

Still, Olivia wondered if her mother hadn't been hoping for a romance between her and Billy all along.

The first time a boy had shown a romantic interest in Olivia, the summer she turned twelve, Elizabeth hadn't approved and had kept her daughter indoors for almost a month; by the time Olivia could go out, her suitor's attentions had wandered somewhere else. But there had never been any such restrictions with Billy. Had her mother seen a spark pass between them? Something that Olivia had missed? Had she known that someday Billy would ask her to be his wife?

Unfortunately, Olivia knew that now, when she desperately wanted to talk about her doubts about marrying Billy, her mother wasn't an option. Their relationship wouldn't allow for it. Elizabeth would think her crazy for even considering turning down his proposal, would take it as an affront to her parenting, and would excuse her worries as the normal jitters every soon-to-be bride faced. Regardless of how much Olivia might want to discuss it, she couldn't.

She was all alone.

Olivia sat at the window seat in her bedroom and stared out into the night sky. The moon hung high above the trees, half-illuminated. Thousands of stars dappled the darkness, twinkling brightly. A brisk wind blew the tops of the trees back and forth; even with the window shut, she had wrapped herself in a blanket to stay warm.

Downstairs, Olivia could still hear the sounds of the dinner table being cleared. She knew that her mother would be upset with her for not helping, but after all that she had just endured she'd needed some time for herself.

Her mother had gone to great lengths to show how excited she was about her daughter's engagement, making telephone calls to relatives and starting preparations for the wedding by writing out a long list of things that would need to be done. Olivia had retreated to the kitchen, her mind twisting and turning as if it were caught in a storm. Checking the stove, tears had suddenly filled her eyes, but Olivia had stamped them down quickly. Her father had arrived just as she was taking out the roast, kissing the top of her head on his way to the dinner table; it had been a struggle for Olivia to smile in return, but somehow she'd managed.

Grace had wandered in just in time to eat. Fourteen years old, Olivia's sister was every bit a tomboy, the exact opposite of the prim and proper girl Elizabeth wanted her to be. She plopped down in her seat, her sandy-blond hair unkempt and plastered against her scalp with sweat. A streak of grime dirtied one of her cheeks, and her hands were so filthy that Olivia imagined that her sister had spent the afternoon rummaging around in the city dump. Her clothes were just as messy; her mother surely considered them the attire of a tramp or vagrant.

“Go clean yourself up this instant,” Elizabeth ordered, aghast at her daughter's appearance. “You know better than to sit down looking like that.”

Grace groaned before finally lurching to her feet and halfheartedly washing away the day's adventure.

After saying a blessing but before anyone could begin filling their plates, her father stood and raised his glass. Looking at Olivia, he said, “I do believe this occasion calls for a toast.”

Elizabeth smiled brightly. For Olivia, it was a struggle just to look happy; as she raised her glass, she was relieved to see that it wasn't shaking. She hazarded a glance at Grace; her sister looked from one face to the next, clearly confused.

“To Olivia and Billy,” her father announced. “May their marriage be filled with happiness.”

“Marriage?” Grace blurted incredulously. “To Billy Tate?”

“He proposed today,” John explained; Olivia was glad that he had answered, because she wasn't certain she would've been able.

“And you said ‘yes'?” her sister asked.

This time, it was her mother who came to her aid. “I don't think your father would've proposed a toast if she'd turned him down.”

Grace stared at Olivia from across the table, her expression one of bewilderment. She couldn't really blame her sister; sitting there at the table and listening as her family began to talk about her engagement, it seemed unbelievable to her, too. Between her mother's happiness, her father's warnings, and her sister's surprise, to say nothing of her own worries, Olivia had no idea what to think. But in her heart, Olivia knew that it was too late to change her mind. She couldn't break off the engagement now.

She was caught in a trap of her own making.

As her mother and father discussed how to announce her engagement, even details of the wedding itself, Olivia stared down at her untouched plate and kept quiet. She marveled at how much her life had changed with the uttering of a single word.

Olivia was still staring out her bedroom window, lost in thought, when she was startled by a short, insistent knock on the door. Her heart pounded; she was sure it was her mother, and the last thing she wanted was more of Elizabeth's enthusiasm. But just as Olivia was about to answer, the door swung open and Grace slipped inside. Her sister quickly hurried over to where she sat.

“You're marrying
Billy
?” she asked, her voice as full of disbelief as it had been at the dinner table.

All throughout the meal, as their parents talked, Olivia had felt Grace's eyes on her, imploring her to look up, to give an explanation for what she'd done. Frustrated, Grace had even kicked Olivia's shin beneath the table. Even then, Olivia hadn't given her sister the attention she'd wanted, but had kept looking down, absently pushing peas around her plate. But now she couldn't ignore Grace any longer.

Olivia nodded.

“What happened?” Grace demanded. “And don't you dare leave anything out!”

So Olivia recounted the whole story, beginning with Billy's arrival at the hardware store and ending when she watched him on his way back to work.

“And you had no idea it was coming?” Grace asked.

“Not a clue.”

Olivia had spent the whole day asking herself the same question, searching back over the last couple of weeks for something that should have given away Billy's intentions, but she'd come up empty. There hadn't been any uncomfortable silences between them, no unexpected phone calls or awkward embraces, not even a stare that had lingered a little too long. Try as she might, she couldn't find anything to indicate that he had been about to propose.