by Myra Johnson
Apparently he’d have to wait awhile longer for his next pain injection.
“Gil?”
“What?” As soon as the snappish word left his lips, he wanted to snatch it back.
Samuel filled a glass from the water pitcher on the bedside stand and offered it to Gilbert. He took several swallows, relishing the coolness sliding down his throat. Small comfort, but he’d have to take it where he could find it. Memories gnawed at him—craving even a small sip of water as he drifted in and out of consciousness in an artillery-scalded crater, his mouth tasting like the dirt that half-buried him, his own blood staining the ground.
When his hand started to tremble, he thrust the glass at Samuel before he dropped it. His left ear throbbed in time with his pulsing heart. Any moment now, the top of his skull would rip away. Dear God in heaven, help me!
“Take it easy, Gil. Take it easy.” A cool hand eased Gilbert’s tangle of hair off his forehead. A soft chuckle sounded next to his good ear. “Remind me to make an appointment for you with the hospital barber. You’re long overdue for a haircut.”
The friendly chiding helped Gilbert refocus. Shallow breaths gradually deepened. The black mists retreated. “Guess if I’m going home for Christmas, I should at least look presentable, huh?”
“That would be a start.” Relief flickered behind Samuel’s eyes. “You don’t need me to tell you how blessed you are to have so many people who care about you. Let them love you, Gil. That’s all they want to do.”
“I’m not sure I can bear up under such love.”
“You can, Gil. God will give you the strength if you ask Him.” Samuel cleared his throat and sat forward. “In fact, someone who loves you more than life itself is waiting right now to see you.”
Gilbert’s stomach convulsed. “No. Tell her—”
A vision in forest green plaid moved into his line of sight, and his words froze on his lips.
“Tell me yourself, Gilbert Ballard.”
Annemarie! Heaven help him, she was beautiful. While Gilbert floundered for words, fumbled through his muddled brain for some logical argument to send her away again, Samuel rose and offered her his chair.
She sat primly, hands folded in her lap, and pierced him with a determined glare. “But it’ll do you no good, because nothing short of a stampede of wild mustangs will budge me from this spot. And even then, I’d wrap my arms around you and hold on tight to save us both.”
Gilbert shifted his gaze to Samuel. He tried to voice a plea for help—for understanding—but Samuel’s position remained all too clear.
“I’ll check in on you later, Gil.” Sam winked. “Enjoy your visitor.”
She could see it in his eyes, in the way his mouth twitched, in the curling of his fingers around the bedcovers. He didn’t want her here and would send her away in a flash if she didn’t hold her ground.
“I mean it, Gilbert. I’m staying.” Catching Samuel’s reassuring smile as he left the ward, Annemarie allowed his confidence to infuse her. Gilbert must be made to believe she’d never turn away from him. She would wait as long as it took for his body to heal and his spirit to find wholeness once more.
When she reached for his hand, he pulled it away and knotted his fist. “Don’t, Annemarie. I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you since I came home, but I—I’ve changed. I’m not the same man who proposed to you last Christmas.”
“Of course you are, Gilbert, in every way that matters.” She ached to hold him, comfort him, make him believe in her love. But part of her knew he spoke the truth. This was not the Gilbert she remembered, and the sight of him fighting for control—for his dignity—nearly ripped her heart from her chest.
Again she reached for his hand, this time gripping his fist between both palms and refusing to let him pull it free. She could see she’d have to be strong for both of them and swallowed the anxious tears threatening to escape. “I’m not asking for anything more than to stay by your side through this ordeal. The past is behind us, and the future is in God’s hands. All that matters right now is that you are getting the very best care and taking all the time you need to get well.”
Gilbert’s chin lifted imperceptibly. The cords of his neck tightened. Dark, brooding eyes met hers, drifted away, then snapped back with a fierce calm that nearly stopped her heart. A slow smile spread his lips. “I’m glad you feel that way, Annemarie. Your . . . friendship . . . it means the world.”
She faltered, tried to draw air into lungs that seemed to have forgotten their purpose. “Friendship?”
“How long have we known each other? Twenty years, if it’s a day.” He closed his eyes for a moment, the corners crinkling as if he winced from pain. A strained laugh tore from his throat. “Remember in grade school how they used to tease us? Everyone just assumed we’d get married someday.”
Annemarie forced a titter. “I remember.” Dear God, he’s breaking it off!
“And we played right along, didn’t we?” Gilbert eased his hand from her grip and gently tucked her fingers into his palm. “It’s all right, Annemarie. I won’t hold you to promises made in haste. We both went a little crazy last year. But don’t blame yourself. Lots of couples jumped into engagements—even foolish marriages—when Wilson declared war and started sending troops off to France.”
She stared at their entwined hands, her engagement ring mocking her. A single tear slipped down her cheek, fell to her lap, stained her skirt a darker shade of green. “Foolishness. It would seem so, wouldn’t it, when so many of those men were destined never to return?”
“It’s good we waited, didn’t rush into anything permanent.” His firm nod belied the merest tremor in his voice. He barely concealed it with another of his rakish grins.
Why don’t I believe you, Gilbert Ballard? And why, after months of anticipating this moment, was she so unwilling to accept the bald truth, that his feelings for her had dimmed during the time they’d been apart? As if the horrors of war weren’t enough, a year was a long time for sweethearts to be separated.
She slid her hands into her lap. Her spine ached with the effort to hold her body erect, when all she wanted to do was crumble at Gilbert’s bedside and plead with him to say he loved her, would always love her, and that their future wasn’t disintegrating before her eyes. With shaking fingers she tugged off her engagement ring and thrust it into Gilbert’s hand. “This was your grandmother’s. You’ll want to keep it for—for—”
A sob began deep within her chest. She pressed a fist against her lips to hold it in, but it escaped as a burst of near hysterical laughter. She popped up from the chair. “Oh my, I must go. Mama’s waiting for me so we can decorate the tree, and I still have shopping to do, and—”
Please, Lord, tell me this isn’t happening. Let me wake up and find this has all been a horrid nightmare!
But the stoic set of Gilbert’s mouth, the coolness in his hooded hazel eyes, told her it was all real. “Good-bye, Annemarie. Thanks for understanding.”
“Yes. Good-bye.” She prayed she’d make it past the door before she fell apart completely.
11
Gilbert Ballard, have you completely lost your mind?” Half an hour, forty-five minutes at most—that’s all the time Samuel had taken to look in on a couple of patients after leaving Annemarie alone with Gilbert.
Apparently, it was plenty of time for Gilbert to make the biggest mistake of his life. Annemarie’s visit was supposed to change everything, make Gilbert see how stupidly selfish he was being in pushing her away.
Everything had changed, all right, and not the way Samuel had hoped. By the time he returned to the ward, Annemarie had gone. A nurse said she’d flown by so fast she’d forgotten the coat she’d left on a waiting-area chair.
Gilbert tugged the blanket up around his chest and rolled away, his eyes glazing in the dazed look another dose of morphine always brought. “Lea’ me alone. Wanna sleep.”
Clawing the hair at his temple, Samuel wished he could give himself permission to u
se a few of the swear words in Gilbert’s repertoire. “You’re a blasted fool, that’s what you are. How could you do this to her? How could you do this to yourself?”
Staring at Gilbert’s back, he fingered the tiny gold cross pinned to his collar. Fat lot of good he was at this chaplaincy business. He’d managed to ensure not one but two broken hearts this Christmas, because judging from Gilbert’s blubbery, drug-induced snores, the idiot had just cried himself to sleep.
No, the only idiot in this room was Samuel. He should have known Gilbert was still too weak, too fragile to think and act rationally. The best he could hope for now was with the passage of time Gilbert would come to regret his decision and realize how much he loved and needed Annemarie, how much she loved and needed him.
Well, there was nothing more to be done here, at least until Gilbert’s drugs wore off and Samuel could try again to talk some sense into him. In the meantime, the least Samuel could do was apologize to Annemarie and try to assuage her broken heart. He shoved through the doors at the end of the ward, retrieved Annemarie’s coat, and raced downstairs. Seeing no sign of her in the lobby, he hurried out the main doors and down to the promenade.
The clang of a streetcar along Central Avenue drew his attention. He reached the curb in time to see a woman in forest green climb aboard just before the streetcar lurched forward.
Out of breath, furious with both himself and Gilbert, Samuel heaved a despairing sigh. How could he be so utterly stupid?
The answer stabbed him like a bayonet. Because keeping Gilbert and Annemarie together was the only way Samuel could keep his own heart intact.
He hugged the folds of Annemarie’s wool coat to his chest. A delicate scent lingered, a poignant mixture of roses and mothballs. Barely a week had passed since he’d first met Annemarie, and yet he felt as if he’d known her a lifetime. She was everything Gilbert had described and so much more—beauty, grace, intelligence, artistry. She deserved better than this, better than Gilbert’s rejection, better than Samuel’s ineptitude.
He must find her at once and somehow make amends.
Mary McClarney peeled off her mask and gown and stuffed them into a hamper. Of all the duties Mrs. Daley could have reassigned her to, why did it have to be tending Spanish flu patients in the isolation ward?
Punishment, no doubt. Mary’s just reward for letting herself get too emotionally attached to a patient.
As if Lieutenant Ballard even knew her name—much less, cared.
She went to the sink and scrubbed her hands, using a stiff brush to scour nail beds, knuckles, and every crack and crevice where invisible influenza germs might hide. Even though deterrents and home remedies remained unproven, Mary had faithfully tried anything that sounded the least bit likely to ensure staying healthy herself and prevent the spread of this vicious disease to her mother. Camphor balls, doses of turpentine-laced sugar, onions by the bushel cooked into every recipe imaginable.
She had to laugh. She must reek to high heaven. Was it any wonder she’d yet to find a beau?
Another nurse barged into the dressing area, ripped off her mask, and flung it into the hamper. Bursting into tears, she sank onto a bench and covered her face with her hands. “Such a horrid, vile, merciless disease! I can’t do this anymore!”
Mary’s first impulse was to rush to the poor girl’s side and comfort her. Even more important, to get her out of her contaminated gown and over to the sink for a thorough hand-washing. But common sense prevailed, and Mary held her ground on the far side of the room.
“There now—Lois, isn’t it? It’s hard, I know, but have a care for your own health, or you’ll be no good to anyone. Wash up real good now, and let’s go have a cup of tea. We could both use a few minutes away from the ward.”
Lois lowered her hands and gaped at them as if seeing them for the first time. “Oh my. Oh my!” She leapt to her feet and yanked off her gown, then staggered to the sink and scrubbed her hands furiously, then leaned over to wash her face with equal vigor. “I can’t get sick, I can’t!”
“Aye, so we must take every precaution.” Mary handed the girl a clean towel. “How long have you been assigned to this ward?”
“Two weeks, five days, and”—Lois patted droplets from her cheeks and chin before checking the watch pinned to her smock—“three hours, twenty-four minutes.”
Mary’s eyes widened. “Indeed?”
“Today’s your first day, isn’t it?” With a caustic laugh, Lois tossed the towel into the hamper and started for the exit. “Just you wait until you watch your first patient nearly drown in his own body fluids. Then see if you aren’t counting the minutes until you get reassigned.”
In the nurses’ lounge, Mary heated a kettle of water and then poured them each a cup of tea. They sat across from each other at a small table and sipped in silence for several minutes. A pallor had settled over Lois, her face devoid of any expression beyond utter fatigue. Mary had been nursing long enough to know that letting oneself get run down only increased the chance of succumbing to illness. As long as she worked the isolation ward, she’d have to be even more diligent about taking care of herself.
This meant she couldn’t afford another sleepless night like the one she’d just had—all for worrying over the handsome lieutenant.
At long last, Lois stretched out one leg and eased her back. “Guess I haven’t thanked you for bringing me to my senses back there. I try not to let it get to me, but in all my years of nursing I’ve never seen anything like the Spanish influenza.”
Staring into her cup, Mary gave her head a sad shake. “And so many still gettin’ sick, just when we hoped the epidemic was over.”
Lois drained the final few sips of her tea. “Sure doesn’t feel like Christmas, does it?”
“Aye, in some ways I must agree.” Mary rubbed the swelling along the left side of her face.
Lois’s gaze turned sympathetic. She reached across the table and patted Mary’s wrist. “Boyfriend lose his temper? You should ditch the creep.”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that.” Rising, Mary collected their empty cups and bustled to the sink to wash them.
“Hey, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Some guys just have no class.”
“I’m telling you, that isn’t what happened.” Briefly she explained about yesterday’s incident with Lieutenant Ballard. “It was my own fault. I should have called over an orderly instead of trying to quiet him myself.”
A knowing smile curled one side of Lois’s mouth. “So that’s why Mrs. Daley sentenced you to the isolation ward.” She braced her hands on her thighs and pushed to her feet with a groan. “Speaking of which, I suppose we’d better get back.”
“Yes, I suppose.” Mary rinsed and dried their cups and set them on a shelf. “Would you mind if I ran a quick errand first? I . . . well, I’m a wee bit concerned about a former patient.”
Lois lifted a brow. “Would it be your handsome lieutenant?”
Mary’s only answer was a single-shoulder shrug and the rosy blush burning her cheeks. Without bothering to fetch her warm woolen nurse’s cape, she dashed along the connecting breezeway and into the main building. After first making sure Mrs. Daley wasn’t on the floor, she donned a mask—as much to hide her features as to avoid the spread of germs—and slipped into Lieutenant Ballard’s ward.
But the lieutenant’s bed was empty, stripped down to the bare mattress. The chart no longer hung from the footboard, and none of the lieutenant’s personal items remained on the bedside table. Standing in the aisle, Mary released a soft moan.
“You looking for the lieutenant?” A rheumatic old soldier in the next bed caught her eye, and she nodded. “They done took him away not an hour ago.”
“Took him away?” Mary’s chest tightened. “Do you know where?”
“Nobody tells me nothing. All’s I know is he had another of them nightmares, woke up yelling and flailing and cursing to beat the band, and the orderlies had him out of here lickety-split.”
Bile rose in Mary’s throat. They’d gone and done it—had him transferred to an asylum somewhere! Even worse than the thought of never seeing him again was the image of such a fine soldier being locked away, all hope of returning to normal life obliterated with one signature on the commitment papers.
She’d seen it happen with her own Da. Mary was only a wee lass when her father’s head was nearly crushed like a melon beneath the hooves of a frightened horse. The wounds healed, but Da was never the same afterward. He’d forget something they’d told him five minutes earlier, lose his temper over trivial upsets, wake screaming from horrid dreams. Mum tended and cared for him with the patience of Job, and Mary had helped as best she could. But when the stress and strain stole Mum’s health, she’d had no choice but to commit Da to an institution. He went to be with his Maker only a few months later.
To this day Mary believed her father had died not of old age or sickness but of loneliness. And it was the memory of those years of struggle that prompted Mary to become a nurse.
She trudged from the ward and sank onto the first chair she came to. Sliding the gauze mask from her face, she bowed her head in prayer. Dear Jesus, wrap Lieutenant Ballard in your gentle arms. Soothe his troubled soul. Restore him to his right mind, and let him bask in Your precious, bounteous peace.
Annemarie closed the lid on an empty ornament box. “The tree is finished, Mama. If there’s nothing else you need me for, I should get to the factory.”
Mama turned from arranging greenery along the mantel and surveyed the room. “I believe that’s everything. Papa chose quite an exquisite tree this year, didn’t he?”
“The best ever, I’m sure.” Annemarie coaxed her lips into a faint smile. It had been easy enough to conceal her heartbreak as long as she stayed busy at her tasks, but now, beneath Mama’s probing gaze, she felt her mask of reserve slipping.
