Phil’s death had hit her mother hard. Serena had been surprised and then shocked when Juanita showed up at her door after Phil’s burial, with the announcement that she did indeed know who Serena’s biological father was, and that he, too, had died within the past year. It had been a bitter pill at the time, but now that she’d had the chance to know Dottie and find out about her family, her resentment toward her mother had lessened.
Serena couldn’t let any other people die before she had a chance to get to know them. What had started as a short trip west to meet Dottie and find out about her biological father had turned into an entrée to a new life.
Dottie had died before they’d had a chance to go through Dottie’s entire life history, but she’d recounted a lot about her stepsons, especially Jonas, over dinners and picnics. Even better, the bond Dottie and Pepé shared had been immediate. Dottie said that Pepé looked just like his grandfather, Dottie’s brother, Todd.
Serena’s biological father.
“Hey, Mom, can we go swimming on Thanksgiving?” Pepé stood next to her at the computer desk, dressed in his Frozen pajamas.
“I don’t know, honey. It’s too cold if you ask me.”
“But they heat the pool at Beyond the Stars.” His eyes were big as he questioned her logic. She giggled.
“Yes, but it’s wintertime, sweetie. It’ll probably be too chilly, so don’t get your hopes up. Besides, you’ll be too busy eating the gobble-gobble!” She tickled his tummy and he shrieked with glee, snuggling into her.
At almost seven years old, his snuggle time with her was limited. Yet it was hard to imagine a day when her little boy would reject her hugs.
She gave his head a kiss and patted his back. “Go brush your teeth and I’ll be right in to read with you.”
“Okay, Mom.”
He darted out of the office and she stared at the computer screen.
BTS, or Beyond the Stars, was the special resort for military Gold Star families to find peace and rediscover themselves after the initial shock and grief of losing a loved one to war had passed.
She and Pepé had been to BTS for a week almost two years ago and it had made a world of difference for both of them. She’d only just found Dottie, and Pepé was still struggling with the fact he’d never see his dad again. The staff of counselors and social workers had been so compassionate with Pepé, and Serena had left with her own batteries recharged. It was where she and Pepé had found the courage to live life on life’s terms.
They were going back for Thanksgiving at the invitation of the owner and director, Val Di Paola, and her husband, Lucas. Located on San Juan Island in the middle of Puget Sound, the resort was magical in its setting.
What it had done for her and Pepé was nothing short of a miracle. The staff had become good friends, almost like an extended family, to them.
Thanksgiving at BTS was going to be wonderful.
CHAPTER FOUR
Moffett Field, California
August 1941
“HENRY!”
Sarah yelled as loudly as she could, knowing that her voice could never carry over the marching band and cheer of the crowd as the aviation graduates marched in front of them to the center of the field.
“Momma, where’s Daddy?” Dottie’s face was screwed up in a scowl. It was hard for her to tell one man from another when they all had crew cuts and wore the same uniform.
Sarah took her little white-gloved hand.
“Here, honey, I’ll help you point to him. He’s in the first row, third over—the tall one.”
“I see him, Momma!” Dottie giggled, and Sarah’s heart swelled at how cute she looked with her blond curls and the red, white and blue beret she’d knitted for her. Shirley Temple didn’t have anything on almost-six-year-old Dottie Forsyth.
“I’m sure you do, sweetie.” Sarah didn’t think Dottie could actually see her father but she wasn’t going to question her now. They hadn’t seen him since he’d left in January, and the day was going to be special; Sarah knew it in her gut.
Her mind drifted as the man in charge of the ceremony talked about courage and honor and duty, and handed out diplomas to each aviator. Henry had told her she’d be the one to pin his wings on, and she couldn’t wait. She also expected that he was going to announce that she and Dottie could travel with him. Move with him and live on an Army post wherever he got sent. He hadn’t said it but she’d read in the paper at the library that a pilot’s family could move as far as here in California or even Hawaii.
Sarah smiled. Henry thought she’d never be willing to leave Whidbey Island again, not after his brief time in Texas in the army, and then his flight training here in California. But she’d realized during their separation that being anywhere with Henry, together as a family, was more important than being in the house she’d grown up in. The house would wait for them. They wouldn’t be gone forever. Henry had missed flying and surely it couldn’t take very long to get it out of his system. Not considering how often the Army had him up in the air.
“Second Lieutenant Henry Forsyth.”
“That’s your daddy!” she whispered in Dottie’s ear while squeezing her hand.
She watched him walk smartly across the small platform and salute the commanding officer before he reached out to receive his diploma. Pride roared in her ears and she couldn’t keep the widest grin of all time off her face.
“Just look at your daddy, Dottie girl.”
“Go, Daddy!” Dottie whisper-shouted the words, always mindful of her manners. Except when she wasn’t, like the day she’d snuck out of the house and played in the puddles left by a storm last week. It’d taken three tubs of water for Sarah to get the dirt out of Dottie’s mud-soaked skirts.
Henry turned toward the audience and Sarah waved. It felt as though her heart would pound right out of her ribs, and it wasn’t because of her tight dress. As soon as he saw them he waved back, his teeth white in the afternoon sun. The day couldn’t be more beautiful.
It passed in a blur: Sarah and Dottie standing next to Henry, Sarah pinning his wings to his uniform, the lovely reception afterward where she met other wives who’d come to see their husbands get their wings, the walk back to the quarters where they had a small room together as a family. Henry didn’t have to stay in the barracks any longer—he was under orders to go to his next duty station.
Which was why, after they’d ensured that Dottie was sound asleep and they made tender, hello-again love, Sarah was puzzled to hear Henry announce that he was resigning from the Army.
“I don’t understand. How can you? You owe them time.”
“I can and I have. The president is making sure the right pilots sign up for this special mission I’ll be part of. I’m working for a civilian, a contractor, who has a flying mission overseas that’ll pay way more than the Army Air Corps, and I’ll get experience I’d never get Stateside. I can always go back to the Army Air Corps after this.”
“Can we still move overseas with you? I thought American civilians weren’t going to Europe anymore, not with the war and all.”
“No, honey, you and Dottie can’t come with me. You knew that, Sarah. I’m headed for the Pacific.”
She bit her bottom lip and couldn’t keep the tears from spilling.
“But you said...you said it would all be okay once we saw each other again, Henry. You said you might be a career man and they’d send us all together to the same places.”
He raised her chin and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Isn’t it good, this time together?” He kissed her.
“How long will you be gone?”
“A year at the most. I ship out to Burma within a week or two, and then I’ll get so many flight hours back-to-back I won’t have to stay that long.”
Doubt weighed down her joy at being with him a
gain.
“You can’t possibly know how long it’ll be, Henry. These past eight months without you have been awful.”
“I know, Sarah, and I can’t thank you enough for being such a wonderful wife, waiting for me, and for being such a good mother to Dottie. She’s so beautiful, Sarah. I hope we get to have more babies together.”
“I do, too.”
“We will, honey, as soon as I get back. Listen, I’m going to be making a lot of money. I want you to save it up for us, and when we get back we can build an addition to the farmhouse. It’ll be the biggest house on Whidbey! And use it for your parents, too, Sarah. They’ve worked hard to be able to give us the place. I want to thank them somehow.”
“Thank them by coming back as soon as you can and making their daughter happy.”
“I will, I promise.”
As they made love, Henry’s hands caressed her as if she were the most precious woman in the world. As if he couldn’t get enough of her. She had no doubt that she was the woman of his dreams. That he loved her beyond measure.
But it wasn’t enough to keep him home.
Mingaladon, Burma
January 1942
THE AIR SIREN woke Henry from a dead sleep. He jumped out of his rack and shoved his socks on before jamming his feet into his flight boots.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Cappy Smith sang out with glee. Cappy was his new best friend since they’d gone through Army Air Corps training together and both left the Army to join Chennault’s Flying Tigers. They all lived for the missions. Mingaladon, Burma, was hot, muggy and tens of thousands of miles from home. Not what any of them had signed on for. They’d volunteered to fight the enemy.
Since last month their enemy in the Pacific was clear: the Japanese.
It still stung that they’d been hit on U.S. territory, in Pearl Harbor.
“Wake up, Henry!”
“I’m up, I’m up!” He zipped up his flight suit on the run. They all slept in their suits when they were on ready alert, prepared to go in an instant. Gravel and jungle compost crunched under his feet as he pounded toward the runway.
Fifteen pilots crowded into the ready room, a makeshift shack near the end of the runway.
They all stopped in shock as they recognized their briefing officer.
General Claire Lee Chennault. Founder of the American Volunteer Group—AVG—that made up the entirety of the Flying Tigers. General Chennault was famous for showing up, unannounced, for briefings just like this one.
The mission had to be crucial.
“You’re launching in five minutes, gentlemen. The Japanese are on their way to take out Rangoon.” Rangoon was a port city crucial to the Allied war effort. Henry and his colleagues were silent. While no mission was ever the same as the last, their past several had been to protect Rangoon. Three of their P-40 Warhawks hadn’t come back in the last mission he’d flown, thanks to the murderous pilots who flew highly maneuverable Ki-43s against them. It was overwhelming to think about the sheer numbers of war machines, both on the water and in the air, that the Japanese had. But one good hit could take an aircraft out. That was Henry’s job and what he had to stay focused on.
He wanted to get in, take out as many of the enemy as possible and get back to base before they even knew what hit them.
The general finished his briefing and within twenty minutes Henry was clawing for altitude in his P-40 Warhawk on Cappy’s wing on the way to Rangoon. It was pitch-dark, but by the time they got there, the morning sun would be their guide to the bombers they’d take down.
Henry didn’t like the transit part of any mission. It allowed too much time to think, even during the short twenty-to thirty-minute run to Rangoon.
He pulled out the photo of Sarah and Dottie that he kept in his front right chest pocket and gave it a quick kiss before turning to the last leg of their ingress.
“Bandits ten o’clock!” Cappy’s voice crackled, and Henry watched him break hard to port to go after the Japanese fighter. Another Ki-43 was headed straight for Henry. He aimed, fired, and knew a bittersweet satisfaction when the aircraft took a hit and started to spin out.
“Cripes, they’re hard to hit!” he shouted into his mike, warning his squadron mates that the Ki-43 was every bit as maneuverable as the general had warned, and a challenge to the AVG. On previous missions the Japanese Ki-21 “Sally” bombers had been unescorted by the Ki-43 fighters and been easier targets.
Henry took out two more fighters, maneuvering to get the enemy bombers in his sights. One was in his line of fire but he needed to close the gap. After a tense five minutes of outshooting a second Ki-43, Henry fired on his first bomber of the mission. It didn’t go down right away, but when his ammo hit its fuel tank, a fiery ball engulfed the aircraft. Henry throttled back and turned to starboard, avoiding the debris of the explosion and coming face-to-face with a second bomber. He had to fly under the belly of the bomber and throttle back before he could line up on the bomber, firing into the cockpit as he raced by the port side of the war bird as it jerked into a nosedive.
“Come on, where are you?” Henry looked for more fighters to take out until the second wave of Japanese bombers showed up.
Thwack.
It was much quieter, stealthier, than Henry would have expected. His bird had been hit, and he watched in horror as smoke from the burning engine began to fill up his cockpit. He’d lost control of his plane, and was headed toward the ocean at deadly speed.
“No!”
He had to get back to Sarah.
The fighter who’d hit him was below him to starboard, obviously not concerned that Henry had a chance at survival. With what little maneuverability he had left in the bird, Henry tilted the wings to give him a chance of hitting the bastard. Henry gritted his teeth and pulled up on his throttle. Nothing.
“Damn it!”
He wasn’t in a dive; that was a small consolation. He’d lost too much altitude to bail out, however. He was going down with the aircraft.
The ocean raced past him and he made out several spots of white sand circling lush green growth on the horizon.
“Aim for the islands,” General Chennault told them during training at this last brief: if they had to go down, land on one of the uninhabited islands that surrounded southern Thailand.
Henry aimed for the one with the widest beach and prayed he’d be able to land without the bird flipping over and trapping him in the cockpit during the inevitable crash landing.
He had minutes until his fate was determined. Seconds, perhaps.
Sarah was going to kill him. If the crash didn’t.
CHAPTER FIVE
Whidbey Island
Thanksgiving Day
JONAS GROANED AS his oldest brother Paul swiped the basketball from his sweaty palms.
“You’re not going to get the house back, bro.” Paul dribbled the ball in the corner where his garage met the driveway. Paul’s know-it-all-attorney smirk irritated Jonas.
“Watch me.” Jonas held up his hands to catch the swift pass Paul attempted to make to Jim, and loped up to the basket to dunk the ball.
“Let it go, man, Paul’s right.” Jim caught the rebound and winked at his girlfriend, Lucy, before he attempted a long shot. Jonas intercepted the ball as it bounced off the rim.
“Stop showing off for your girl, fire-boy.” Jonas loved teasing Jim, the family fireman. Jim had always been fascinated by explosions as a kid—including blowing up their Lego models with firecrackers. The name had stuck when he went to firefighting school.
John, a successful landscaper and closest in age to Jonas, hovered behind Jonas, not allowing him to attempt a basket. Jonas long-bounced the ball to Paul.
Jonas had been back an entire two weeks from deployment, and they were all gathered at Paul’s house for Thanksgiving. He
finally felt as though he was shaking off the last of his jet lag. He’d even made it through his first week at work. He laughed at how good it felt to be with his brothers, all four of them in the same place again. Thanksgiving dinner was going to be brutal when they sat down to the turkey Paul’s wife, Mary, was preparing with John’s wife, Jackie, but Jonas was grateful they were doing it together—all four of them in the same place again.
It was their first holiday season without Dottie.
“Are we sure they got the right person?”
Jonas’s question was as effective as a fire hose as his three brothers froze in their places. No one else had mentioned the arrest, the trial or the sentencing of the mentally imbalanced woman charged with Dottie’s murder. Apparently they didn’t expect him to, either.
“Go help Mary and Jackie in the kitchen, will you, Lucy?” Jim, the second oldest, spoke quietly to his girlfriend.
“Of course.”
They waited until the storm door closed and Lucy was safely out of earshot.
“Why the hell are you asking that now, Jonas?” Paul took over his eldest-brother role.
“Yeah, happy effing Thanksgiving. Pass the gravy.” Jim dribbled the ball.
“Give him a break, he wasn’t here.” John was quick as always to stick up for their little brother.
“Why don’t you all just kiss my ass? I was gone and I only know what you told me, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.”
“That’s because you were at war and didn’t need the distractions. The psycho woman who killed her was deemed mentally ill. Jackie has to diagnose these kinds of folks all the time.” John owned a thriving landscaping business on Whidbey. Jackie was a psychiatrist.
“Does that mean she’s locked up for life?” Jonas hated opening the wound for his brothers, but he had to ask the questions that email, internet searches and long-distance phone calls couldn’t answer for him. He needed to be with them, see their expressions. Needed to know that everything that could be done was done.
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