Silent Star

by Tracie Peterson

  © 2003 by Tracie Peterson

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a Division of

  Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7073-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

  Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Cover design by Koechel Peterson & Associates

  To all those who serve

  and have served to keep our country free.

  And to those who wait behind at home

  for their loves ones to return.

  Thank you for your sacrifice.

  ONE

  NOVEMBER 1944

  Snow fell in gentle swirls on the streets of Haven, Pennsylvania, as the laughter of children at play echoed on the breeze. Christmas would arrive in a few weeks—weeks of expectation and school programs, weeks of blistering cold and winter pageantry. Anticipation mounted with each passing day, each snowflake.

  For the moment—this one small moment—Andy Gilbert found he could forget about his troubles, forget about the war that raged across the world. The chilling bite of the air invigorated him, and the scent of woodsmoke and pine awakened happy memories of his childhood days.

  He longed to preserve moments like these in time like a perfect apple picked and canned at just the exact second its sweetest flavor could be had. Gazing about, Andy could think of no other place he’d rather live. His mother had often said Haven was God’s kiss upon Pennsylvania. She’d lived there since her birth, had raised her only child and buried her husband there. She’d wanted nothing more out of life than what Haven had to offer.

  Andy had felt much the same. He understood his mother’s love of the town, for in the midst of thousands of people, the quiet community reached out to one another like a large extended family. Mrs. Butler shared baby clothes with Mrs. Lambert, and Mrs. Davis traded pickle recipes with Mrs. Masters. The men who frequented Davis’s Barbershop said there was no better group of folks in the whole world than those who lived right there in Haven.

  Andy agreed. But times had changed, and the people of Haven had changed with it. At least, they had when it came to him.

  “Margaret, come here at once and help me carry these packages,” a woman’s shrill voice sounded. Andy looked up and saw Mrs. Parrish and her daughter Margaret. The woman caught sight of Andy and quickly looked away. Taking hold of her daughter’s arm, she appeared to bolster herself as Andy walked by. Neither woman would acknowledge him.

  Saying nothing, just as he knew she would prefer, Andy limped along the snowy sidewalk. He hunkered into the warmth of his father’s hand-me-down coat. It was hard to believe Pop had been dead for three years now. The same car accident that had left Andy’s left foot lame had taken the life of his father. Andy tried hard to not think about it, just as he used to try hard not to limp. Especially around his mother.

  His mother had off-handedly told him once that his limp was like a constant reminder of the accident and her loss. To Andy, the limp didn’t conjure up memories of his loss. Those memories were with him daily . . . nightly . . . always. A dull ache haunted his every waking moment. He even dreamed of the pain, only to awaken to the reality of it.

  He walked a little slower, nearly dragging his foot now. The end of the day was always the worst, and cold weather made the pain even more pronounced. The doctor had once said to him, “Andy, you’ll never walk without pain, but at least you’re alive. That’s something to be glad about.”

  At first Andy had agreed and seen the blessing of it. At first.

  Then his mother had sat him down to explain that with his father dead, there was no income—no hope of paying the mortgage or the coal bill. So Andy quit school at age fifteen in order to go to work at the only job he could find. The telegraph company was run by his father’s best friend, John Ross. John too had suffered a terrible loss at the death of Andy’s father. When he heard that Andy was looking for work, John made the decision to take a chance on the crippled boy.

  “I owe it to your father to give you a chance,” John Ross had told him. “Don’t let either one of us down.”

  Andy, ever eager to please, had quickly proven that he had the energy and spirit to get the job done. He’d been at work only two months, however, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the world turned upside down.

  The 28th Infantry Division, a National Guard Unit from Pennsylvania, had been called into service the previous February for one year of active duty. Now those men, many of whom Andy knew personally, were caught up in a world war, answering the call for citizen soldiers. Day after day, month after month, and year after year, Andy had watched the government telegrams come in. They came in following the ebb and flow of battles across the Pacific and European Theaters. He’d seen the names of people who were dear friends, knowing the news would be heartbreaking.

  Now, three years later, Andy wished he’d never agreed to deliver telegrams—never walked through John Ross’s door. The money might have kept them from losing the house, but the price of this job had cost him his heart—his soul.

  The wind picked up and blew hard against him. Ahead on the snowy walk, Andy spotted Mr. and Mrs. Harrison from over on Fourth Street. They’d lost two boys to the war. Joseph, who was a year older than Andy, had been aboard the Arizona when the Japanese had sent it to the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Matthew, two years Joseph’s senior, had disappeared somewhere over France when the bomber on which he held the tail-gunner position had been blown up by enemy fire. There was no body to confirm the death, but there was also no hope of survivors.

  Andy watched the Harrisons as they caught sight of him. They moved quickly and quietly to the opposite side of the street. There was no holiday wave or friendly greeting. They walked on, heads down, holding on to each other as if Andy had some power to pull them apart—or to steal their next son in line, Bobby, who served with the 28th.

  Unshed tears welled in Andy’s eyes and crusted as ice on his lashes. Every day it was the same. Every day people looked the other way when Andy came into their midst. War news was never good news. Even in victorious battles for the Americans and their allies there was always a long list of wounded and dead. Telegrams were sent out daily to inform people of the death of their sons and husbands and fathers. Andy was the bearer of bad tidings—the Grim Reaper of Haven, Pennsylvania. No one could bear to talk to him or even look at him for more than a passing glance. To offer more might well invite his attention, and that in turn might bring the news of death.

  To people who only years earlier had called him friend, he was dreaded as surely as sickness and war. He was the unspeakable fear that walked the streets of their town. They wished him obliterated as surely as they wished an end to the war.

  Andy struggled to force the negative thoughts from his mind, but nothing in his life could inspire him to take on the spirit of the coming
holidays. Thanksgiving would soon be celebrated, but Andy felt no thanks.

  He fingered the hole in his pocket, the tattered edges catching against his torn gloves. He wondered how a person might go about sewing such a thing. His mother could have done the job, but she was gone now—“passed on to glory,” as the pastor had told him at her grave. She’d gone and left Andy completely alone without the knowledge of how to do a great many things. Important things. Necessary things.

  Cooking was a complete mystery to him. Andy still couldn’t do much more than open a can of beans and heat them on the stove. He would often look at the little collection of spices his mother had owned and contemplate what she must have done with such things. The same was true of flour and soda, vinegar and cornstarch. How were such things put together to create edible concoctions?

  Andy crossed Main Street at Ninth and made his way another two blocks to the house on Chester Street that he called home. He’d made the last payment on the house two weeks before his mother’s death. The place belonged to him now, free and clear. Yet somehow it didn’t offer him near the comfort he’d thought it would.

  Darkness greeted him as Andy opened the back door. A rush of stale air only marginally warmer than the air outside hit him as he walked into the house. Shivering, he turned on the lights and immediately went downstairs to the coal bin. There wasn’t much left. He’d have to remember to order his coal rations. He picked up the scuttle and quickly scraped up the last of the coal. Taking it upstairs, Andy thought of how his mother would have had supper waiting for him, the house toasty warm. She would have asked him how his day went and commiserated with him on the sorrow he’d had to deliver.

  Pausing for a moment to look at the empty chair where she would have sat to share supper with him, Andy mourned her loss all over again. The doctor said it was a cancer—probably something she’d carried around inside her for a long, long time. She’d faded away, right before his very eyes, until suddenly she was no longer there at all.

  “These things can’t be helped,” the doctor told Andy. “We just don’t know much about sickness like this. We don’t know how to treat it—to cure it. All we can do is make her comfortable.”

  But they hadn’t even accomplished that. Andy’s mother had died in pain, praying for an end so that she could go home to be with her husband.

  Shaking off the memory, Andy fed the stove and worked to get a fire going. If he did it just right, the fire would last well into the night and keep him warm until morning. The secret was to use just the right amount of coal—not too much at a time, but not too little either. He’d learned quickly that there was a real knack for such things.

  It wasn’t until an hour later that Andy finally took off his coat and changed out of his uniform. He inspected the outfit for stains, gave it a quick sniff, and decided it was good enough to wear at least another day. He hung the shirt up and draped the trousers across the ladder-back chair in his bedroom before pulling on his flannel shirt and a pair of old wool trousers that had belonged to his father. Stepping from his room, the last thing he did was to take up a well-worn sweater from the back of the door. The house would never be so warm that he wouldn’t need that added layer.

  Andy put water on to boil and put an egg in the pan. He remembered seeing his mother do this on more than one occasion, but he never knew exactly how long to keep the egg in the water. He was too ashamed to ask his mother’s good friend Harriet, so he generally let the egg boil for at least half an hour. It always seemed to be done by then—a little rubbery, but nevertheless edible. He’d thought about cutting back on the time, but fear of the unknown kept him fixed at the thirty-minute mark.

  While the egg boiled, he sliced the last of the bread. Arranging it in a pan, he toasted it atop the stove. His stomach rumbled loudly as the aroma touched his senses. Leaving the slices browning, he poured himself a glass of milk and drank half of it before heading back to turn the toast. It was the last of the milk, the last of the bread. Pretty much the last of everything.

  He was resolved not to feel sorry for himself, but his willpower was also running in short supply. With his meal finally ready to eat, Andy sat down to the kitchen table and switched on the radio. A soft, velvetlike melody spilled into the room, offering a soothing background for his meal. Andy thought about praying but decided otherwise, just as he had every other night since his mother’s death. Why bother? God wasn’t listening.

  The house seemed huge and so very silent as Andy ate his supper. He thought of how small he’d thought the house only three or four years ago. He remembered asking his dad why they couldn’t move so that he could have a big bedroom like his friend Ray. His father had laughed, saying most boys his age would have just been glad to have a room of their own—some would have even coveted a bed of their own. Andy knew that was true enough. He remembered when the Harrison boys had slept three to a bed. It was one of the reasons Matthew went into the service. He’d joked that he could finally have his own bunk. And now he was gone.

  When he finished his meager meal, Andy quietly washed the dishes, rinsed out the milk bottle, and then checked the stove one last time. He switched off the kitchen light and walked through the pitch-blackness to his bedroom just down the hall. The utter silence of the house held him captive, and he paused for a moment and closed his eyes against the darkness. It was like being entombed alive. The darkness . . . the stillness . . . the cold.

  Minutes later he lay in his bed, the same darkness and silence as his companions. He thought of his mother and father. They’d worked all of their lives to make this house a home. To make it their own. Now they were gone, leaving Andy and the house as awkward companions.

  “I miss them so much,” he whispered, breaking the stillness.

  He might have borne their absence easier had he friends who rallied round to ensure that he not grow too lonely. But most of his boyhood friends had gone to fight. It was the patriotic thing to do, after all. But Andy’s classification was 4-F, thanks to his unpatriotic lame foot. And because of his job and the gloom that seemed to surround him, even the families he’d known all of his life wanted very little to do with him.

  He was reminded of an event that had happened only two days earlier when he’d passed by a mother and her two children. He’d been walking to work, the snow making it impossible to bicycle. When the woman noticed him, she quickly grabbed her children by the hand and pulled them close, almost as if Andy could take their lives in a glance. He’d heard the smaller child ask his mother if Andy was the boogeyman. He hadn’t heard her reply, but the look in her eyes as he’d passed by made her thoughts clear.

  He was the boogeyman.

  ****

  The next day Andy awoke to a frosty chill, the temperature suggesting the fire had most likely gone out early in the night. He snuggled down into the quilts, having no reason to hurry his rising. There was no more coal, so until the delivery truck could bring it around, Andy would just have to bundle up and make do. Staying in bed a little longer than usual was far too tempting on this cold morning.

  Sundays were always hard and this Sunday was no exception. When his mother had been alive the routine had been simple: They would attend church services together at the Eleventh Street Methodist Church and then come home to enjoy a quiet day. Then she’d gotten sick, and with each passing week her frailty had increased with the pain.

  After a month, maybe two, she’d been unable to get out of bed to go anywhere. When that happened, Andy had stopped going to church, choosing instead to sit by her side throughout most of the day. The pastor, a young man named Bailey who seemed ill at ease with sickness, had come to visit on many occasions, but he was never any comfort, and Andy finally suggested he not return. He hadn’t seen Bailey again until the funeral.

  Andy’s mother hadn’t even realized that the man had stopped coming. Her days blended one into the other as the doctor strived to keep ahead of her pain with his limited variety of medications.

  With his mother gon
e, Sunday seemed strange . . . almost foreign. It was good to have the day to himself, but there was also an awkwardness about it. He liked to read the newspaper and see what was happening in the war, but at the same time he dreaded it. There were a few books in the house, but Andy had reread those so many times he knew them practically by heart. During the summer he toyed with a small garden in the backyard. His own little victory garden, he called it. He was a poor farmer, however. He’d managed nothing more than a few potatoes and onions and a handful of very scrawny beets.

  So spending his time was often a simple matter of listening to the radio and napping. He’d grown old before his time—weary from the weight of responsibility and no one with whom to share it.

  Yawning and stretching as best he could under the covers, Andy forced himself to sit up. For the first time in a long month of Sundays, he actually had a purpose.

  He decided to forego trying to figure out anything for breakfast. Instead, he dressed warmly and took up a saw that hung in the mudroom. In his backyard, a large pine tree offered shade in the summer and the hope of springtime green in the winter.

  Carefully, Andy trimmed branches from the pine. He only needed a few. Gathering the pieces in his arms, Andy took them to the kitchen table. For the rest of the morning he worked to fashion a wreath for his mother and father’s grave. The project gave him a feeling of accomplishment and passed the time in a bearable way.

  Outside and across the alley, Andy heard the laughter of the neighborhood children at play. A quick glance at his watch showed the hour to be after one. Church was out and lunch was over. No doubt the kids were building forts and snowmen. They would probably play all afternoon. Andy envied their happiness—their ability to keep thoughts of war from overshadowing the beauty around them.

  As he walked through the neighborhoods toward the cemetery, Andy could see the bustle of activities going on in the houses that he passed. Families were gathered for a day of rest—making plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas, enjoying their time together.