Letters From Home

by Kristina McMorris

  At the base of the hill, amidst the fog and billowing smoke, something moved. Morgan took aim at the figure. About to shoot, he glimpsed the soldier’s face. It was Geronimo!

  The Texan, layered with a hefty supply of ammunition bandoliers, sprang out from an emplacement and raced toward the brewery. He sped through a hailstorm of bullets, head held high, as though granted mystical armor by his Apache ancestors. Morgan watched wide-eyed, almost believing the GI’s invincibility, before a Kraut’s rifle cut him down a few yards from the doorway.

  Morgan scanned the area. Medics must have already had their hands full. There was no one running to help Geronimo, no hero to complete his mission.

  Then Charlie started to rise.

  “Where you goin'?” Morgan shouted, grabbing hold of his brother’s jacket.

  Charlie tried to wrench away. “Somebody’s gotta help.”

  He was right, but it wasn’t going to be Charlie. No matter how much the kid wanted redemption for Mouse.

  “Stay here,” Morgan told him, “I’ll go.”

  “I got it!” he protested, but Morgan yanked him down.

  “I said: Stay. Here.” Morgan didn’t release his grip until Charlie gave half a nod.

  Preparing to reload, Morgan fired his rifle incessantly and emptied his clip. He expelled his fear in a deep puff. As he hugged the loaded weapon to his chest, the heated barrel stung his palm.

  Three …two …one.

  “Cover me!” he said to Charlie, and climbed out.

  A series of shots popped like a John Deere behind Morgan, confirming his brother had taken his order. Thanks to years of racing Charlie home from school through winter drifts, he made his way to the bottom as easily as if the knee-deep snow were only ankle high. His legs were slower than they used to be, but the chatter of machine guns and belching blasts of German “burp guns” were damn good motivators.

  He dropped behind an empty embankment and carved out his three objectives. The first was reaching Geronimo.

  Through the sulfuric air and trodden slush, he ran hunched over toward the fallen GI. A swarm of bullets whizzed this way and that. Adrenaline enabled Morgan to flip Geronimo face-up with little effort. Two fingers pressed to the Southerner’s neck and he knew. A form telegram would soon announce the loss of another good man.

  Morgan felt a stab of grief, but paying his respects would have to wait. Instead, like a vulture, he stripped the ammo off the soldier’s body. With the town’s Allied blockades and maze of tanks, Kraut infantry were about to be streamlined directly past the brewery. There, the rooftop gunners needed all the firepower they could get to maintain control of the village, a stronghold that could bring them one victory closer to home.

  Supplies bundled in his arms, Morgan sprinted into the brewery. He hopped and maneuvered his way up the debris-covered stairwell. On the roof, he found the GIs plugging away with bipod machine guns.

  “I’m out!” one yelled in a panic, his stash depleted.

  Morgan handed the ammo over to a grateful sergeant, then wheeled and headed back down.

  On the homestretch.

  As he emerged from the building, a Panther tank across the road exploded. He grabbed his helmet, hit the ground. Rubble peppered his face. The smell of gasoline was so pungent he could taste it, the fire so hot he nearly forgot it was winter.

  He spat cobblestone particles out of his mouth. A screech that sounded like a banshee’s lifted his head. Flames engulfed the vehicle’s mounted cannon. A Kraut trooper dangled from the turret hatch. An Allied shell had found its mark.

  Ears ringing, Morgan jumped to his feet and blasted his rifle aimlessly while weaving his way to the hill. He cowered down as he stomped up the slope. The nauseating stink of burning flesh was enough to maintain his speed, a tougher trek going up. Halfway to the top, he saw Charlie scurrying to their ditch.

  What the hell was he doing? Get back in the hole! Get back in the hole!

  Morgan intensified his dash. The kid was exposing his position like a new recruit at basic. Or worse, a daredevil with something to prove. After the battle, Charlie was going to get an earful.

  Tat-tat-tat! Tat-tat-tat! Staccato fire flared up above. Morgan flattened on the ground. His cheek stung against the frigid floor. At a break in the firing, he resumed his plod upward.

  The crest of the hill only a few yards away, he raised his head, and froze at the sight. They were darker than black, colder than night: the penetrating eyes of a stone-faced Kraut. In the enemy’s hand, a submachine gun glinted its barrel. A barrel pointed straight at Morgan.

  Instinct took charge, pitching Morgan backward. As he tumbled down the hill, he felt a stabbing in his left leg, like prongs of a red-hot pitchfork. His velocity slowed until he landed on his side at the bottom, dazed, empty-handed. He squeezed several blinks to clear his vision.

  His M1! Where was his M1?

  The butt of his rifle peeked out from the snow—yet it lay no closer than a tank’s length away. Fear boiled in his chest. He prepared to leap for his weapon, just as the memory of an Irishman’s voice returned.

  Body flat. Eyes down. Don’t move.

  Breath held, he remained still as a corpse.

  Crunch …crunch …

  The faint sound of the enemy’s boots intensified. The bear drew nearer.

  Morgan prayed the trooper’s desire to salvage ammo would prevent him from spattering more bullets at his motionless form. Not betting on it, he inched his right hand toward the Luger in his belt, half pinned under his hip.

  Crunch …crunch …

  Then the sound stopped. The Kraut was reloading his gun.

  Go! Go! Go!

  In a continuous move, Morgan arched, swung the pistol forward, and fired in succession. The trooper jerked from the impact and slammed onto his back. Blood oozing over the snow confirmed the match was over.

  Within seconds, a thought clawed Morgan’s mind: The trooper had gotten past the GIs up above. Which meant …

  Charlie.

  Morgan fumbled to stand. The throbbing in his leg told him a pair of bullets had pierced his flesh. Pushing down a groan, he once more clambered up the slanted path.

  “Charlie!” he screamed against the blasts. “Charlie! Where are you?”

  Atop the hill’s plateau, he spotted the back of his brother’s body, draped over the side of their ditch thirty feet away. The air went numb. The battle ceased. No tanks, no artillery, no pain from his wounds. Nothing but Charlie’s inert form, and sheer terror propelling Morgan forward.

  At the edge of their embankment, he dropped his pistol and fell to his knees. A sharpness surged through his leg. A confirmation of reality.

  “Charlie,” he said, tugging him upward. He cradled his brother’s head on his lap. “Can you hear me?”

  Don’t be dead. He couldn’t be dead.

  Charlie struggled to open his eyes, and their gazes met.

  A sigh shot from Morgan’s mouth. “Thank God.” He cupped his brother’s chin with a tremorous hand. “You’re gonna be all right, you hear? You’re gonna be all right.”

  Morgan snapped his head up to call for help, but the bazookamen appeared as lifeless as the SS trooper lying on the ground nearby. No one was there to save them. They were on their own. As they’d always been.

  “Medic! I need a medic!” Morgan bellowed toward the village, praying someone could hear him. His attention flew back to his brother. Blood was dripping from the corner of Charlie’s mouth. “Hang on. We’re gonna get you help. You’re gonna make it. Just hang on.”

  Morgan had to do something, anything, to keep him alive till a doc arrived. He ripped open his brother’s jacket. His shirt was soaked red, holes torn from the fabric over his chest. Morgan pressed down with stacked hands, trying to dam the flow. But blood seeped between his fingers. It wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t stop!

  “Medic!” Morgan’s head was pounding. “Man down! I need help up here!”

  The blanket. He could use his blanket.
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  Keeping one hand on Charlie’s chest, he grabbed the wool bundle from their ditch. He scrunched the fabric into a ball and held it firm to the wounds. “Please …please …” He begged the fibers to resist the outpouring of his brother’s life.

  Charlie weakly grasped Morgan’s fingers with a shivering hand. He was trying to say something through his labored gasps. Morgan lowered his ear toward his mouth. “What is it, buddy?” He tightened his hold on his brother’s hand, wanting to squeeze away the pain.

  “It’s okay,” Charlie wheezed. “It’s okay.” His breath spread hot over Morgan’s cheek, burned his skin with words that sounded too much like good-bye.

  “Don’t you dare give up,” Morgan commanded. “You got me?

  We’re gonna get you outta here.” Nose running, eyes tearing, he shouted again. “Medic!”

  Then he felt Charlie’s body relax.

  Morgan looked into his eyes, tired eyes that were slowly closing. He nudged his brother’s shoulder with a brisk shake. “Come on, kid, stay with me.” A flutter of Charlie’s eyelids sparked Morgan’s hope, told him his brother was fighting. “That’s it. Open ‘em up. Look at me, look at me.”

  Another strained flutter and his lids drooped shut.

  “Charlie,” he said, clenching his brother’s jacket collar. “Stay awake, goddamn it! You hear me? I said stay awake!” But Charlie’s head drifted to the side in degrees, his soul slipping away. He yielded his final breath, left only a shell.

  Horror torched everything Morgan possessed, his body and mind, the air in his lungs. “Charlie, no!” He shook his brother without restraint. “No! Don’t you do this to me! Don’t you leave me here alone, goddamn it!”

  Morgan squeezed his eyes shut. This couldn’t be happening. This was just a dream. A nightmare.

  “Wake me up,” he urged Charlie in a whisper. “Wake. Me. Up.”

  Yet he wasn’t asleep.

  And this was real.

  “Charlie, no. No.” Morgan pulled his brother’s face to his chest. He rocked him forward and back, just as their mother had done to soothe them to sleep as children. This time, though, her sweet baby boy would never awaken.

  Morgan pressed his cheek to Charlie’s temple, sobbing with his entire body. Sobbing so hard he felt he might explode. How he wished he could burst into nothing, disappear into the space where his brother had been taken. Where everyone in the McClain family now dwelled but him. “Please,” he choked out. “Don’t go, Charlie. Please don’t leave me.”

  Then a loud roar rang out from the heavens and the world turned to black.

  24

  December 24, 1944

  Lincoln Park

  Chicago, Illinois

  Panic bloomed in Liz’s chest. She strove for traction, running backward in place. Her arms fluttered in a frenzy until her tailbone pounded the ice, shooting pain up her back. Obviously, Sonja Henie made fancy spins seem much easier than they were.

  Dalton’s blades scraped as he braked beside Liz and knelt on one knee. “Are you all right?” he asked, touching her shoulder.

  What a spectacle she must have been: graceful as a swan, before a bump in the surface transformed her into a turkey, flapping away uselessly. “You mean, other than my doomed skating career?”

  He smiled above his plaid scarf, his nose stained pink from the morning chill. Shaking his head, he offered his gloved hand. “Come on, twinkle toes. Time for a break.”

  She wrung his fingers and coat sleeve to pull herself upright. Guided by prudence, she didn’t let go until they’d coasted to the edge of the frozen lagoon, where she recalled the value of solid ground.

  Fluffy snow blanketed an empty park bench. He cleared space for them with a swipe of his arm. Once they’d settled, he grabbed his thermos from under the seat and poured her a lidful of hot chocolate. She held the cup to her chin and warmed her face with the sweet, milky steam. Heat moved through her mittens, thawing her palms. As she took a sip, a little boy wobbled past on shoe skates, a pillow three-quarters his size strapped around his hind end.

  “Now, that,” she told Dalton, “is the way I’m doing it next time.”

  He laughed, his familiar youthful laugh. How she wished she could store that sound in a jar, like the butterfly she’d caught as a child, releasing it into the open when the need arose. Then again, there was no use holding on to something that wasn’t hers to keep.

  Together they downed their cocoa while watching the show go by. They took turns commenting on skaters of every age and size, all gliding counterclockwise in their bundled wool. In the eye of the whirlpool, a polished pair danced effortlessly to a song of giggles from rosy-faced children.

  The melody relaxed Liz all the way down to her bruised behind. She was still smiling when a man several yards off the lagoon drew her focus. The father, she presumed, lifted his little girl to reach a snowman’s head and helped her place the rock eyes, an old derby hat, a carrot nose. What a wondrous time in life that had been, believing in flying reindeer and enchanted elves.

  Liz must have been seven when she first voiced her doubts about Santa Claus’s existence. On the playground, a precocious schoolgirl had taken great pleasure in exposing the gift-giving conspiracy.

  “That’s preposterous,” Liz’s father had declared of the allegation. “And how sad for that poor girl who doesn’t believe in Santa. It’s a pity she won’t be receiving Christmas presents anymore.”

  Years later, Liz had learned it was her father who stood outside her room that Christmas Eve, jingling a string of bells in the pouring rain. He’d even staged boot prints in a pile of ashes next to their fireplace to reinstate her faith.

  Bells and ashes. How she wished it were that simple to restore her father’s faith in her.

  Apprehension rebounded at the thought of him. “What time is it?” she asked Dalton.

  “We’re not going to be late,” he assured her.

  “I just don’t want to keep him waiting, with the holiday crowds at the station.”

  “And we won’t. I promise.” Dalton’s gaze reflected the usual certitude in his voice. Then, as if to distract her, he reached into his pocket and produced a gift. A tiny box covered in glossy green paper, dashed with a silver bow. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, drat,” she said. “I left yours at home.” When he’d surprised her with an invitation for an outing that morning, it hadn’t occurred to her to bring his present along.

  “There’s no hurry. Technically, Christmas isn’t until tomorrow.”

  Cup and mittens aside, she removed the wrapping with care, reluctant to damage the flawless display. Beneath the lid lay an intricate gold necklace. She dangled the chain in the air, inviting the cloud-filtered light to sparkle on the heart-shaped locket. “Dalton, it’s lovely.”

  “Open it up,” he told her, and smiled.

  Liz used her thumbnail to divide the halves. Two photos had been cut to fit: on the left, a little boy in his Sunday best; on the right, a young girl in a queen’s ruffled collar. She examined their faces, attempting to place them, then realized, “Oh my gosh, they’re us.”

  Her mother had made that costume, sewn every stitch, every frill, for a week. How could Liz have forgotten? She’d adored that outfit. Loved it so much, she had worn the velvety garb whenever and wherever allowed, and only quit once the long strip of buttons in the back no longer reached the holes.

  There were moments, she now recalled, warmhearted moments she’d shared with her mother. As rare and fleeting as they might have been, they had indeed existed.

  “Where did you get these?” Liz asked him.

  “I pulled mine out of an old scrapbook. Your father gave me yours in D.C. last month.”

  She knew the two had met for lunch, along with Dalton’s father, but she’d presumed their exchanges had been limited to politics and academia—not a childhood snapshot her father had surprisingly retained.

  “So what do you think?” Dalton asked, to which she wrapped him wit
h a hug.

  “It’s perfect, just perfect,” she answered. For it was more than a gift of a lost memory, more than a sentimental keepsake. Without knowing, he had provided proof that choosing him had been the right decision. The token, linking their history and families’ blessing, served as tangible affirmation that they were always meant for each other.

  “Let me get that for you.” He leaned back, lifted the necklace from her hand. “This one ought to fit.”

  Smiling, she held up her hair. While he clasped the chain around her neck, she studied the pictures again. “I have to say, we were awfully cute.”

  “You think we were cute, just wait until you see our kids. They’ll be the stars of Chicago.”

  In an instant, the balloon of happiness within her deflated. She first attributed the feeling to the obvious: the strained relationship with her parents, the fear of mimicking the distance with her own children. Then she moved onto the unease of living in high society’s glaring spotlight.

  Neither, however, was the case this time. Rather, what troubled her was the tone of Dalton’s voice, a surety that encompassed even the unpredictable subject of raising a family. Wasn’t there anything that caused him doubts? Anything at all, about his life, his future?

  She replaced her mittens, trying her best not to dwell.

  “Lizzy,” he said with a gentle smile, “I didn’t mean we’d be having babies tomorrow.” He evidently sensed her mood shift. Exposing vulnerability in her letters must have left her careless with her expressions. “I know I jumped ahead on the proposal. But I’m still fine with waiting until our careers are settled to start a family.”

  Oddly, concerns over interrupting her profession hadn’t occurred to her just now. And its mention, somehow, seemed insignificant. “No,” she replied, “it’s not that.”

  A herd of kids trampled past their bench. They launched into a snowball fight several yards away—laughing, chasing, pitching the frosty powder. The epitome of spontaneity, they were too busy living for the moment to worry about spring’s rains that would melt away the magic.