The Victory Club

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  Always,

  Lucy

  Chapter 4

  Sitting at her dressing table on Sunday morning, Dottie stared at her reflection in the mirror and wondered if she looked as different as she felt.

  I'm pregnant.

  One time. One time she and Greg weakened in their resolve. One time they grew careless and gave in to desire. One time, and now she was alone, unmarried, and going to have a baby.

  Unwed motherhood had become almost common since the war began, but that didn't make Dottie feel better about it happening to her. As Christians, she and Greg were expected to live by a higher, godly standard. They were supposed to rely on the Lord for the strength to avoid giving in to temptation. Obedience was part of their public testimony. And their disobedience?

  She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.

  Why hadn't they joined other young couples from church on New Year's Eve? Why hadn't they understood the dangers they faced that night, alone in his parents' home?

  If only …

  * * *

  Greg turned the key in the lock, and as the door to the darkened house swung open, Dottie giggled nervously.

  "Are you sure your folks won't mind us being here while they're out?" she whispered.

  Greg flicked on the entry hall light. "Of course not." He gave her a wink. "We're not in high school anymore."

  Dottie knew there were other reasons this might not be a good idea, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what they were. And she did so want to be alone with Greg. Since his return from basic training, it seemed they constantly were surrounded by others. His leave was nearly over, and they'd had little time to talk, just the two of them.

  "I'll build a fire," Greg said as he closed the front door, "and then we can pop some popcorn. Why don't you get some ice and pour us a couple of Cokes?"

  "Okay."

  Dottie didn't need to ask where to find the glasses or the bottles of Coca-Cola. She knew the Wallace kitchen almost as well as she knew her own.

  Twenty minutes later, Dottie and Greg sat on the sofa, staring at the crackling fire, their beverage glasses on the coffee table, condensation dripping onto the coasters beneath them. A shared bowl of popcorn rested on Dottie's lap. Greg draped his left arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side.

  Three more days. That was all that was left of Greg's leave. Just three more days, and he would report for duty and be shipped overseas. Shipped off to war.

  "You're doing it again," Greg said softly.

  "Doing what?"

  "Thinking about me leaving."

  She turned to meet his gaze. "How did you know?"

  "I just know. Maybe because I love you so much." He leaned forward and kissed her.

  She didn't want to cry, but she feared she might.

  Greg ended the kiss but shifted his body so he could cradle her face between his hands. "I'm going to be all right, Dottie. I'll be gone a year, maybe two. It isn't forever. When I get back, we'll get married."

  "Oh, Greg." Her heart thundered in her chest. "I wish we'd gotten married this week. I wish we hadn't waited just to please Mom." Despite her resolve, the tears fell from her eyes.

  "Dottie." Greg kissed her cheeks, first one, then the other. When he kissed her mouth again, she tasted the salt of her own tears on his lips. "My beautiful, wonderful, sweet girl."

  Something warm and dangerous coiled in Dottie's abdomen. A need. A longing. She moaned.

  As if in response to the sound in her throat, Greg drew her closer to him, one hand sliding up and down her back as his kisses deepened. Dottie was vaguely aware of the bowl of popcorn falling off her lap and hitting the floor.

  Leave. Leave now.

  But she couldn't leave. She wouldn't listen to that small voice of warning in her head. She had only a few more days with Greg. Only three precious days and he would be gone. She needed to be with him. She wanted to be with him. What could it hurt to spend a few more minutes locked in his embrace? They hadn't done anything wrong before, and there was no reason to think they would do so tonight.

  But for some reason, tonight was different. Tonight the kisses didn't stop. Tonight their resolve evaporated like a mist in the morning sunlight, and they gave in to temptation's enticing pull.

  When their desperate passion was spent, Dottie and Greg knew they'd traded obedience to God for a fleeting moment of pleasure. All that remained was embarrassment and shame. And her tears.

  "I'm sorry, Dottie. I never meant … I didn't know … I'm sorry, Dottie. I'm so sorry."

  * * *

  Why didn't we join the other young couples from church on New Year's Eve? Dottie asked herself again as the memory of that night faded. Oh, how she wished they had.

  "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." That's what Grandma Turley would say if she were still living. Then she would have given Dottie a warm hug and told her God's love would see them through.

  And what was Dottie's mother going to do when she found out? She would scowl and, as she had done before, quote John Adams: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

  This time, Mother was right. Dottie could wish she and Greg hadn't broken their vow of sexual abstinence. She could wish that she weren't pregnant. But wishing wouldn't change a thing. Dottie King was going to have a baby in a little over seven months.

  "Dottie!" her mother called from down the hall. "You'd better hurry up or we'll be late to church."

  "I'm hurrying."

  That was a lie. She wasn't hurrying. She was dragging her feet. The last place she wanted to be this morning was in church. She'd felt guilty enough for the past seven Sundays, even before she knew she carried Greg's baby. Not that where she was made a difference. Christ was with her always. God knew what she'd done, whether she hid in her bedroom or sat in the front pew of the sanctuary.

  O Lord. She lifted the photograph of Greg in his army uniform and pressed it against her chest. We didn't mean to let this happen. We didn't mean to sin. Forgive us our weaknesses and temptations.

  She closed her eyes and remembered their parting at the train depot on the third of January. Dressed in his uniform, looking both handsome and far too serious, Greg wiped the tears from her cheeks, then drew her into the circle of his arms and whispered in her ear, "If we confess our sins to Him, He's faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. That's what He's promised, Dottie. It may not feel like it now, but He forgave us the instant we asked Him to."

  She believed that. Really she did.

  "Can you forgive me, Dottie?" he'd asked, not for the first time. "I'm so sorry. It was my fault, not yours. I love you, you know. I love you so much."

  Of course she could forgive Greg. She had forgiven him. She loved him, and she knew what happened on New Year's Eve was not his fault alone. She had a mind and a will of her own. She'd known what was right and what was wrong. She could have listened to the voice of warning, but she chose not to.

  She looked at her reflection again. Yes, she'd forgiven Greg, and she believed God had forgiven them both. But forgiving herself was proving to be another, more difficult matter.

  Dottie set Greg's photograph on the dressing table, rose from the stool, and went to her closet. She shed the robe she wore over her slip, then replaced it with a dress that was the same shade of brown as her hair and eyes. Now if only she had a pair of stockings, she might feel better. But silk hose were a luxury few could find. The material was needed by the military for parachutes.

  As Dottie slid her bare feet into a pair of brown pumps, she wondered if one of those silk parachutes was harnessed onto Greg's back at that very moment. Could he be falling from some great height toward earth, only to land in a foreign, hostile country?

  O God, what if he dies? What if he never lives to know he's going to be a father?

  "Dorothea Ruth King, will you come on?" />
  "Coming, Mother. Coming."

  * * *

  For as far back as Dottie remembered, the King family had occupied the fourth pew, center aisle, in the sanctuary of East Boise Community Church. Not her father, of course, but the rest of the family—mother, son, and daughter. Every Sunday, no matter the weather or the season, they'd walked the four blocks to church, the three of them.

  In this church, one Sunday evening, Dottie first heard God speaking to her heart, and she went forward to accept Christ during the altar call. In this church she learned to love the Bible, developing a hunger for the Word that was never sated. In this church she came to understand how much God loved her and what pleasure He took when she worshiped and praised Him. And it was here that she met Greg.

  Father, I know You've forgiven me. I know You've forgiven us both. But I … I need to tell You again how sorry I am. We never meant to fail You, Lord.

  She stared at the round, stained-glass window above the altar, not hearing the sermon, too lost in her own world to listen.

  She needed to tell her mother about the baby, but she wanted Greg to know first. Maybe the army would let him come home long enough to marry her.

  No, they wouldn't. She was on her own. She would have to live with the choice she'd made and do the best she could for herself and her child.

  Until Greg comes home. Please, God. Let him live through the war and come home to us.

  The congregation rose for the closing prayer. Dottie followed suit a heartbeat later, but not before her mother gave her a stern glance.

  She's going to be disappointed in me.

  Dottie hated to upset her mother. Margo King expected the absolute best from her children—just as she did from herself—and it was hard for Dottie not to fail when the bar was set so high. The King children were told repeatedly that they were examples to the world. They weren't to fight. They were always to be kind and polite. They weren't to get dirty or misbehave. They were to get good grades.

  The world was watching. God was watching. They were to be perfect as He is perfect. Their mother told them so again and again.

  When Clark and Dottie were younger, Margo had pounded into their heads the opportunities college could afford them. "You'll need to do well so you can get scholarships," she'd told them. "Study hard. Don't throw your lives away. Be everything God created you to be."

  Dottie imagined the look of disappointment in her mother's eyes when she learned about the pregnancy. You threw your life away, Dottie, is what that look would say. You threw it away.

  "Amen," the congregation said in unison.

  Dottie opened her eyes, feeling all the more guilty and miserable because she hadn't listened to the prayer.

  Three weeks. I'll give the mails another three weeks. Then I'll have to tell her.

  Chapter 5

  Penelope set the platter that held the pot roast in the center of the table, then walked to the living room, where her husband read the newspaper while their children played on the sofa. Today was like every other Sunday, and the staleness of the routine made her want to scream.

  "Dinner's ready, Stuart. Children, go wash your hands."

  Her son and daughter were quick to obey, hopping off the couch and hurrying down the hallway. Moments later, she heard Alan telling Evelyn to stand on the step stool so she wouldn't splash water all over the bathroom floor.

  "Smells good, Pen." Stuart sat at the head of the table. "We'd better enjoy it while we can. Meat's going to get more scarce."

  In a bored voice, she answered, "That's what they say." What did she care anyway? She hated shopping and she hated cooking, with or without meat shortages.

  The children scurried into the dining room, hands still damp. Penelope helped Evelyn onto her chair.

  "Did you get the new rationing book yet?" Stuart reached for the bowl of mixed vegetables.

  "Not yet." Penelope sat on the chair at the opposite end of the table. "This week."

  "I hope our soldiers actually get those steaks we can't buy anymore."

  If you were in the army, you could find out for yourself.

  As Penelope watched, Stuart dished food onto the children's plates and cut their meat into small bites.

  If only you were in the army, maybe I could breathe again. If only you'd go away.

  When did this happen to her? When did the predominant emotions she felt for Stuart become resentment and anger? She'd loved him when they married. At least she thought she'd loved him. She was all of eighteen, her groom nineteen, and anxious to get out from under her father's roof. The newlyweds didn't have two nickels to rub together, but they knew how to have a good time on what they did have. The arrival of the children put an end to those carefree days.

  Then came the war.

  "Don't worry, Pen," Stuart had said when they first learned of the attack by the Japanese. "I won't sign up just yet, and it'll take a while for the draft to get around to me. I'll be here to take care of you and the kids as long as I can. Americans'll lick the enemy in a hurry. You'll see. I may never have to go."

  A few days later, he fell from a ladder in the garage. The complaints of back pain began that night, and he went to see the doctor the next day. Soon thereafter, he quit his job on the advice of his physician because he supposedly wasn't able to perform physical labor.

  Only afterward did Penelope suspect he was lying. At first, she was as fooled as everyone else. But when she learned the maximum draft age for married men was twenty-six, she saw through the subterfuge. Stuart was just shy of his twenty-fifth birthday when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Another year and he would be safe. Unless the government raised the draft age, in which case heaven only knew how long he would continue his charade, sitting at home in his easy chair while she worked to keep food on the table.

  Some days, she despised him.

  Penelope focused her attention on the children and didn't speak to Stuart through the rest of the meal. When dinner was over, he returned to the living room while Penelope settled the children in their room for an afternoon nap. She sat on the bed between them, her back against the headboard, and read to them from Grimm's Fairy Tales until they slept.

  With the book now closed on her lap, she turned her gaze out the window. A tree, barren of leaves, stood in the small backyard of their rental home. How like that tree she felt. Cold. Barren. Lifeless in the midst of a gloomy winter. She was only twenty-five. She shouldn't have to live a life of drudgery. She wanted to go to parties, to stay up all night if she chose. She wanted to buy things for herself instead of worrying about bills to pay.

  It isn't fair. It just isn't fair.

  She released a long, feeling-sorry-for-herself sigh.

  At least her job at Gowen Field was a good one. And because she, Lucy, Margo, and Dottie rode the bus together every workday, the four women had formed a close bond over the past year.

  Penelope sighed again.

  They were friends, yes, but she sometimes felt like an interloper. The others each had a loved one in uniform, which set Penelope apart because she didn't. Oh, they never said anything to her face, but she was sure they must think it awful to have a coward for a husband. Plus they talked about God in a way she didn't understand, and that made her feel different and uncomfortable.

  Oh, how she hated the way things were in her life. If only they could be different.

  Chapter 6

  Margo sat beside the living-room window, using the last rays of afternoon sunlight for her mending. She wouldn't turn on the lamp until absolutely forced to. No point paying good money for light when the Lord provided it free.

  She happened to glance up just as Frances Ballard approached the front door. "Dottie," she called. "Frances is here."

  Dottie entered the living room seconds before the bell rang. As soon as it did, she pulled open the door. "Hi, Frances."

  "Hi, Dot. Hello, Mrs. King."

  Margo smiled at the young woman. "Hello, Frances. We haven't seen you in a while."

 
; "I know. I've been kind of busy." Frances looked at Dottie. Lowering her voice to a near whisper, she said, "I need to talk to you."

  "Sure. Come on to my room. Excuse us, Mom."

  Margo nodded as she returned her attention to the mending in her lap. Whispering between them, the two young women disappeared into Dottie's room.

  For the first time in a week, Margo felt a measure of peace. It was like old times, having Frances here, whispering and giggling with Dottie. Margo could half believe that at any moment Clark would enter through the back door, stomping his feet on the rug and calling, "I'm home, Mom."

  The short-lived peace vanished, and tears stung her eyes. Clark wouldn't come through that back door. Her son was on the opposite side of the globe, fighting a ruthless enemy, and Margo was terrified for him. Was this the time God would require payment for the sins of her youth?

  The light from the window was gone, dusk having settled over the valley. It mattered not, for Margo ceased to think about her mending. Instead her thoughts traveled back in time, back to another war, and to the foolish sixteen-year-old girl she'd been in the spring of 1917.

  * * *

  Bart King was the most handsome young man Margo Coffman ever laid eyes on. Four years her senior, he had chestnut-colored hair that was thick and slightly wavy. His brown eyes were flecked with gold and seemed to light up when he looked at her. His smile took her breath away. A man in uniform, he seemed sophisticated, worldly, exciting—everything Margo was not. She lost her heart to him almost the instant her best friend, Daphne, introduced them to each other.

  Two months later, on a warm May night, Bart spirited her away from a party at Daphne's house. "I'll be called up soon," he whispered in her ear as they sat on a blanket beneath the stars. "I'll be going off to the war and may never see you again. I could die over in Europe. Lots of our boys already have." He kissed her, not the usual sweet touch of his lips upon hers, but a kiss that seared and demanded.