While We’re Far Apart

by Lynn Austin

  “Come on, just a little peck?” he coaxed.

  “Okay, but here . . .” She pointed to her cheek. Jacky put his hands on her shoulders and moved very close. When he bent his head down and pressed his lips to her cheek, Esther thought her heart might explode. He smelled good up close – like Daddy did when he got dressed up.

  “Happy birthday, Esther,” Jacky murmured before he pulled away again. The place on her cheek where his lips had touched felt like it was on fire. This had been one of the best birthdays in her life. It felt great to be thirteen.

  “Would you like to come in and have some birthday cake with us?” she asked.

  “You having a big party or something?”

  “No, just my brother and Penny and me. And our landlord, Mr. Mendel.”

  He turned away. “No, thanks. Maybe another time. I should get home.”

  In a way, Esther was relieved. She didn’t want anyone to know how she felt about Jacky. And Penny didn’t know that the “friend” Esther had gone to the matinee with was a boy. Besides, Peter didn’t like Jacky, and he might spoil the afternoon for them.

  “Hi, I’m back,” she called as she came in the kitchen door. “Peter . . . ? Where is everyone?”

  “Come upstairs for a minute,” Penny called down to her. “Peter and I want to show you something.”

  Esther still felt like she was floating as she went up to the third floor. When she reached her bedroom, she saw that Peter and Penny had moved the furniture around while she’d been gone. Esther would still sleep in the same room with Peter, but they had rearranged the beds so they weren’t side by side anymore. The toy box had been moved, and Mama’s dressing table and mirror stood in its place with a wrapped birthday present for Esther on top. She couldn’t stop smiling as she gazed at the transformed room. Was the dainty little dressing table really hers now?

  Peter held up his slate. He had written Happy Birthday Esther in colored chalk. “Thanks, Pete,” she said. “And thanks for changing everything around. The room looks . . . it looks wonderful!”

  Peter pulled out the stool to the dressing table and gestured for Esther to sit down and open her present. There was no tag on the gift. “Who is this from?” she asked as she tore off the paper. “Is it from you, Peter?” He shook his head.

  “You’ll see when you open it,” Penny said.

  Esther tore off the last of the wrappings and pulled the lid off the carton. Inside were Mama’s silver comb and mirror set, and her jewelry box.

  “I wrote to your father,” Penny said, “and asked if I could give them to you for your birthday. He said yes! I wrote to him the same day we found your mother’s things, and I was so afraid that the letters wouldn’t get all the way over to England and back in time for your birthday. But they did. Your daddy’s letter arrived yesterday.”

  Esther couldn’t believe her eyes. It was as if Mama herself were here, smiling at Esther, telling her she was no longer a child but a young woman.

  Esther stood and threw her arms around Penny, hugging her tightly.

  CHAPTER 31

  MAY 1944

  PENNY BOARDED THE BUS for work on a beautiful spring morning and saw her friend Roy Fuller saving a seat for her. It struck her all of a sudden that he was a very nice-looking man, clean-cut and wholesome-looking. He was the kind of all-American guy that every mother wanted her daughter to marry.

  “Hey, stranger,” she said as she sat down beside him. “I haven’t seen you around in more than a week. I was wondering what happened to you.”

  “I know. I’ve missed talking with you. I’ve been working odd hours and longer shifts because we’re training our replacements at the Navy Yard. I’m finally being shipped out.”

  “Oh, Roy. That’s what you’ve been hoping for, isn’t it?” She could see that he was thrilled, but Penny hated to think about losing her friend. “I’m sure going to miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, Penny. And Sally is going to miss all the romantic things I’ve been writing to her – or that you’ve been writing to her, I should say.”

  Penny laughed. She still gave Roy a sentence or two every now and then to help him express his love, and he was always grateful. “No, you don’t need me anymore, Roy. I think you’re getting the hang of it. When are you leaving Brooklyn?”

  “In about ten days.”

  “Ten days!” The news devastated her.

  “I’ll be going home to say good-bye to Sally and my family first, then it’s off to war at last.”

  “Oh, Roy.” Tears filled Penny’s eyes. “I want to be happy for you because this is what you’ve wanted for so long, but . . . but I’m going to miss you so much.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it.

  “Yeah. I’ll miss you, too. You’ve been a great friend.” He cleared his throat. He might be a tough marine, but she could see him swallowing hard. She remembered the first time she ever talked to him on this very same bus, how cheerful and generous he’d been as he’d given up his seat for her. Roy had been a good friend to her all these months, encouraging her, cheering for her, giving her advice with Eddie, helping her with the children last Christmas. She hated to see him go overseas, yet she knew he had wanted this deployment ever since he’d enlisted.

  “They won’t tell us exactly where we’re going,” he continued. “But they said we’ll be taking a train to San Diego, then getting shipped out from there.”

  “Will you have to start fighting right away? Just like that?”

  “No, not right away. First they’ll take us somewhere to train for amphibious landings. We have to finish winning back all those little Pacific islands from the Japanese. We’re working our way closer and closer to Japan every day.”

  “But the Japs aren’t giving up without a fight. It says in the news that most Japanese soldiers would rather die fighting than surrender alive.”

  “That’s true. They’re putting up a terrible fight. But once we land on the island of Okinawa, we’ll have a foothold on real Japanese territory for the first time. From there, we can establish an air base for bombing runs on Tokyo.”

  He talked bravely, but Penny felt afraid for him. His job would be much more dangerous than Eddie’s was, and she worried about Eddie constantly. “The Marines always do the hardest fighting,” she said.

  “Seems that way. But we get a lot of help. First come the air strikes from carrier-based planes. Then the navy bombards the enemy with all they’ve got. Once they’ve softened up the place, the Marines can go ashore and do the land-based fighting. That’s how we’re taking back the Solomon Islands and Tarawa and all those other places.”

  Penny shuddered, remembering the fearsome casualties from all those battles. “I would be so worried about you if I were Sally. You’re her fiancé!”

  “She doesn’t know yet that I’m being deployed. I want to tell her in person. Maybe she’ll finally be proud of me for what I’m doing.”

  “It’s not fair to talk like that, Roy. Everybody has a part to play in fighting this war, whether it’s making sure the jeeps and ambulances keep running like Eddie does, or fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, or guarding an important shipyard so the navy will have new boats to use. You should be proud of what you’ve done.”

  “Thanks.” But Penny could see that he wasn’t convinced.

  She said good-bye and got off at the bus station to begin her day. It had become a smooth routine – punching the time clock, climbing behind the wheel, driving her daily bus route. She could hardly remember what her life had been like before she’d started driving. Penny enjoyed her work and liked getting to know some of the regular passengers on her route. But all day long she couldn’t stop thinking about Roy and how he would head off to fight soon. He was a good man. He had become a good friend, all because she had put aside her fear and talked to a stranger. Now she wondered if she would ever see him again. This war had disrupted everyone’s life, in good ways and in sad ways. Would it ever end?

  At the end of her shift, P
enny steered the bus around the last corner and into the parking lot behind the bus station. “End of the line, folks,” she announced. “Have a nice evening.” Friday at last. She had the weekend off from work.

  She saw Sheila inside the station and felt a little sad that her friend had acted cool ever since the night of the USO dance, not saying much more than hello and good-bye as they passed each other at the time clock. It had been nice having a girlfriend, even if they didn’t have much in common. And now her friend Roy was going away, too.

  Penny had just punched the time clock and was heading toward the door when she saw her father. He sat in the hallway between the public part of the station and the employees’ back rooms, perched on a chair that wasn’t usually there. His cane lay across his lap as he stared out toward the ticket booth where she used to work. Both he and the chair looked so out of place that she had to walk a little closer to make sure it was really him. In all the years that she had worked for the bus company, he had never come to the station before. What was he doing here?

  Suddenly it hit her – Eddie! Something terrible must have happened to Eddie. Her body went limp with fear.

  “Dad!” she yelled. He turned and saw her for the first time. She stumbled toward him, her legs as shaky as a newborn calf’s. “Dad, what’s wrong? What are you doing here?”

  “Penny?” He tried to stand and sank onto the chair again. He looked her up and down, and she saw his shock as he stared at her uniform pants. His mouth opened and closed but he couldn’t speak. Penny gripped his shoulders, wanting to shake him.

  “Dad, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” He found his voice as anger took control. “I came to the bus station where my daughter sells tickets because I needed to talk to her – but the man tells me that she no longer works here. She hasn’t worked here since last fall, he says. She’s a bus driver, of all things. A bus driver! I argued with him. He must be thinking of a different person. My daughter doesn’t know how to drive a bus. . . . But here you are. And look at you! In men’s clothes!”

  Penny’s stomach churned with dread and guilt. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner, but – ”

  “How could you lie to us all this time?”

  “I’m sorry but – ” She stopped. Why should she feel guilty for not mentioning her new job when her father had been lying her entire life? She wanted to accuse him in return and shout, How could you lie to me all this time? And she realized that the real reason why she hadn’t told her parents about her job was because of her outrage at learning she’d been adopted. She was furious with them for never telling her. She nearly blurted out the truth, but stopped in time.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said instead. “I knew you would worry.”

  “I have to learn what my daughter does for a living from a perfect stranger?”

  Penny listened to him rant on and on as he aired his grievances for everyone in the bus station to hear, and again she felt the urge to shake him. She needed to know why he was here.

  “Did something happen, Dad? Tell me why you came here.”

  “Mrs. Shaffer from next door needs you.”

  Penny pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from crying out. For a moment she thought she might be sick. Eddie had told her that if anything happened to him, the army would contact his mother. And Mrs. Shaffer would go next door to tell Penny’s parents.

  “Why does she need me?”

  Her father didn’t offer any more information, probably to punish her. He was furious with her. She took his arm and pulled him to his feet. They needed to go home right now. She was desperate to start walking. Her father hobbled so slowly with his cane that Penny longed to leave him behind and run all the way home. She gripped his arm to steady him, wishing she could carry him piggyback the way Roy had carried Peter.

  She needed to know what had happened, but she feared finding out. Eddie would remain alive in her mind until the moment someone spoke the terrible words aloud. With every slow, agonizing step Penny prayed, Oh, God, no. Please, no. Not Eddie, until she couldn’t stand waiting any longer.

  “Why does Mrs. Shaffer need me?” she asked again, trying to keep her voice steady. “Tell me what happened, Dad.”

  “I looked out the front window for the mailman, and I saw the boy coming with a telegram. I know what that means. Everybody knows what it means. So I went to the kitchen and got your mother, and we both went next door.”

  Penny couldn’t breathe. “Who was it, Dad? Who got killed?”

  “The youngest son, Joe.”

  Penny nearly sank to the sidewalk with relief. She knew she shouldn’t feel relieved when Joey Shaffer lay dead on a battlefield somewhere, but she couldn’t help it. God forgive her, but Eddie was still alive.

  Joe, the youngest of the three Shaffer boys, was dead. He had always been so lively, tearing up and down the street on his bicycle, hitting a baseball through the Pattersons’ front window, shooting pebbles at stop signs with his slingshot.

  “That poor woman,” Penny finally managed to say. “Mrs. Shaffer has been so worried about all three of her sons, and now this.”

  “Your mother stayed with her for a while. She helped her call everyone and tell them the news. There is a sister in Queens who is coming to stay with her. . . . But she wants you to tell the children the news.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded, too winded to speak. He had to stop every few yards and catch his breath. It seemed as though they waited forever for the traffic light to change, then it took another eternity to limp across the street.

  How could she tell the children? They worried constantly about their father. To learn that their uncle had been killed would only deepen their fear.

  When Penny and her father finally reached the duplex, she went inside Mrs. Shaffer’s house alone. Penny’s mother had gone home to start supper, leaving Penny to talk to Mrs. Shaffer. The poor woman looked devastated, sitting in her cramped living room in a daze. She was no longer crying, but she looked as though she had been. Penny knelt down in front of her and took her hands.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Shaffer . . . so sorry.”

  “I keep thinking that it must be a mistake,” she said. “Maybe they’ll come back with another telegram and say that it was somebody else’s son who died, not mine.”

  “I can’t imagine how you must feel.” Penny felt at a loss. She had never been through anything like this before. “What can I do? How can I help?”

  “I’ll have to get another banner for the window. I’ll have to hang a gold star . . .” She covered her face with her hands and started weeping. Did she really want Penny to go out and purchase a gold star? Grief caused the mind to think of the strangest things.

  “Can I call someone to stay with you until your family gets here, Mrs. Shaffer?”

  “I should tell the people at my church.”

  “Your church? Which one is that?” She had never known Mrs. Shaffer to go anywhere on Sunday, not even at Christmastime.

  “The church where Eddie and the kids go. I used to belong before my rheumatism got so bad that I couldn’t manage it anymore. I still have friends there from years ago.”

  Penny looked up the number and called the pastor. He would know what to do and what to say to comfort her. Sadly, there had been other young men from the congregation who had died before Joey Shaffer. “I’ll come right over,” he said when Penny told him the news.

  “He’s on his way, Mrs. Shaffer.”

  She stared vacantly into space, gripping the arms of her chair as if the room spun like a carnival ride. “I want you to tell the children for me,” she said. “Esther and Peter need to be told.”

  “Of course.” But Penny had no idea how she was going to do it.

  After the pastor and one of the church deacons arrived, Penny said good-bye and walked to the bus stop, worrying all the way about how the children would react. When the bus she was waiting for pulled up, she was relieved
to see Roy on board. Running into him twice in one day seemed like a miracle.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as she sank down beside him. “Have you been crying?”

  “Something awful has happened. We just found out that Eddie’s youngest brother, Joe, has been killed in action over in Italy.”

  “That’s terrible.” He put his arm around her to comfort her, gently squeezing her shoulder.

  “I’m on my way home to tell the kids that their uncle died, and I have no idea what to say. They had a terrible scare two months ago when Mr. Mendel was rushed to the hospital – and now this, on top of all the other sorrows they’ve faced. Peter already shuts himself off from everybody. Esther worries all the time about her father, obsessing about every news report, and I’m afraid that this will make her worry more than ever. I don’t want to tell them, but they have to know. How do you tell children something like this?”

  “There’s no easy way. It’s going to be hard on them no matter what you say.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “How did you find out that he’d been killed?”

  “My parents live next door to Eddie’s mother – and to make everything worse, my father is mad at me now. I never told him that I drive a bus. He thought I still sold tickets. He found out today when he came to the station to tell me the news, and he’s furious with me. My mother will have a conniption fit when he tells her.”

  “Why would they be angry? They should be proud of you.”

  “You don’t know what they’re like, Roy. They’ve worried about every little thing I’ve done, all my life. They never wanted me to go out into the big bad world with so many strangers. And to make matters worse, my father saw me wearing slacks today. He’s barely speaking to me.”