In Love and War

by Natalie Brock

  “You don’t need a splint. Your leg’s not broken. It’s just your ankle. And it’s just a sprain.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” The strength in Alexander’s voice returned.

  “Because, I checked for broken bones. That’s what I was doing before you started yelling at me out in the field.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m certain it’s broken.”

  Kay sighed a deep sigh. “Well Dr. Fielding, if you’d like another opinion, we can call the hospital and they’ll send someone -- in a few weeks. But by then your ankle will have healed.”

  Alexander squirmed and looked up at the ceiling. “Do whatever it is you need to do.”

  “Are you in any pain?” Kay asked as she slowly removed Alexander’s boot and sock.

  “Well, what the hell do you think?” Alexander snapped. “Of course I’m in pain!”

  Kay let Alexander’s boot drop to the floor. “Well, in my professional opinion, the pain won’t kill you,” Kay said, trying to sound as detached as she could. “But your nasty attitude just might. Good night.” She turned and left the room without giving him further attention, medical or otherwise.

  Chapter 36

  Michael led Cathy into the Conference Hall. The auditorium was packed to the rafters with people, so he took her hand to make sure they didn’t get separated. He looked up and down the rows for a space where the two of them could sit. Finally he found a spot in the very last row and the two of them took their seats side by side.

  “What are we doing here?” Cathy looked at Michael like he was crazy. “I thought you were giving me another lesson tonight, but this place is anything but private.”

  Michael smiled knowingly at the thought of giving Cathy more kissing lessons. “Oh you’re gonna get a lesson alright, Miss Lang. Just not the kind you think.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re here to see a movie,” he explained. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Cathy. “Remember when you were asking me to teach you how to flirt? If you watch closely, you’ll learn everything you want to know about flirting from the expert.”

  Cathy was getting annoyed with Michael’s cryptic explanations. She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s clear as mud. What are you talking about, Michael?”

  “Shhh,” he said, stroking her hair soothingly. “I’m talking about Scarlett O’Hara. You told me you’ve read the book -- Gone With the Wind. Right? Well, now you’re going to see the movie. Watch and learn.”

  Cathy’s scowl morphed into a smile. Michael put his arm around her and pulled her closer as they turned their attention to the movie screen. She contentedly rested her head on his shoulder, excited to see the movie.

  The lights dimmed and there were cat calls and whistles from various parts of the audience as Tara’s Theme began to play.

  Meanwhile, David and Mary had just arrived and were looking for seats too. David did a double-take when he spotted Cathy in the back row. Seeing her made his heart skip a beat and he found it hard to take his eyes off her.

  As the lights went low, David turned his attention back to Mary. He suddenly remembered that she once told him she was enamored with Michael, and although David and Michael never actually met, he heard plenty about the resident practical jokester, and he was pretty sure that’s who Cathy was sitting with. So he put his hands on Mary’s shoulders and quickly turned her to face the other direction as they walked toward the front of the auditorium and continued searching for seats.

  “Scarlett! Look at me! I've loved you more than I've ever loved any woman and I've waited for you longer than I've ever waited for any woman. Here's a soldier of the South who loves you, Scarlett. Wants to feel your arms around him, wants to carry the memory of your kisses into battle with him.”

  -- Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

  Chapter 37

  James transferred Kay’s baggage to an upstairs bedroom. Her new quarters were fairly austere, with just a chest of drawers, no mirror, and the most comfortable feather bed she’d ever slept in. But instead of feeling comfortable, she felt guilty.

  She thought about Mary, and Sal, and David and all the other doctors and nurses at the 1044th’s medical unit. They were sleeping on hard cots with barely enough room for one person, and here she was in a plush king-size bed on a sprawling English country estate. If there was such a thing as the lap of luxury, this had to be it.

  But Kay wasn’t a happy camper. Being at Merrifield was anything but merry and only served to prove that money didn’t buy happiness. No, Kay thought to herself, Sir Alexander Fielding was living proof of that fact.

  Kay switched on a lamp by her bedside. She looked at the pendulum clock on the wall. Just past 1:00 a.m.

  She felt awful that she abandoned Alexander without treating him, even though he was rude to her. She couldn’t help but wonder how her patient was doing, so she got out of bed, put on her robe and went downstairs.

  She slowly and quietly opened the door to the guest bedroom -- the room her patient was sleeping in. He was right where she left him, one boot off, one boot on.

  She opened the medical bag that she left on the dresser and took out a bottle of aspirin. She poured a glass of water from the pitcher James had prepared, and she set it down on the nightstand. She proceeded to wrap Alexander’s ankle in a gauze bandage. He involuntarily kicked his foot and woke up with a start.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Kay said sincerely.

  “What time is it? Where am I?” Alexander asked groggily.

  “It’s about 1:30 in the morning. You’re in my bedroom. I mean, you’re sleeping down here in the guest bedroom because your ankle is sprained and you can’t manage the stairs. Does it hurt?”

  “If I say ‘yes,’ will you bite my head off again?”

  Kay chuckled. “I won’t bite yours if you don’t bite mine. ... Here, take this.” She helped Alexander sit up a bit and gave him two aspirin. “That should help reduce the pain and swelling. It should also let you sleep.”

  “If my nurse didn’t wake me up in the middle of the night, that would help also,” Alexander said jokingly. His tone of voice was surprisingly friendly, even sweet.

  “I’m a doctor, not a nurse,” Kay said, almost like a mantra. “In the morning, I’ll prepare a foot soak with epsom salts. It will help bring down the swelling. Good night, Sir Fielding.”

  “Good night. Good night Miss Nolan.”

  As Kay climbed the stairs back to her room, she couldn’t help but smile. Finally, a pleasant interaction with Alexander.

  Chapter 38

  What now? Why couldn’t she sleep? She attended to her patient’s needs and she was lying in maybe the most comfortable bed she’d been in, in her whole life and yet she couldn’t fall asleep. Something was unnerving her.

  Every time she closed her eyes, she would seem them. The haunting grey eyes that looked at her in the darkness of the guest bedroom downstairs. The same eyes that looked so devastated when Group Captain Welles was dying. The eyes that pleaded with her for help when his horse threw him and he couldn’t get up on his own.

  Despite the venom that came out of his mouth so often, there was something terribly sad and haunting about Alexander Fielding. In the dim light of the guest room downstairs, something about the look on his face reminded her of the way Stewart would look at her when he held her after making love -- a feeling so warm and comforting.

  Kay pulled the blanket aside and got out of bed. She ran her hands through her wavy blond hair as she paced the upstairs bedroom. No, she thought to herself, this isn’t right. She can’t be attracted to Sir Fielding. In her heart, she was still married to Stewart Nolan and even though he had been dead for three years ....

  “Three years,” Kay said softly, letting the weight of those words sink in. Three years was a lifetime. She couldn’t even imagine being with anyone other than Stewart, and yet here she was, finding herself wanting another man, the first man since Stewart. />
  Kay sat down on the opposite side of the bed to contemplate this epiphany. She saw a book on the bottom shelf of the nightstand and picked it up. “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. “Good,” she murmured. “This is exactly what I need to help me sleep. A depressing Russian epic.”

  She sprawled across the bed on her stomach, crossed her legs at her ankles and opened the book. Hmmm. What’s this? A few loose pieces of paper slid out of the book and onto the bed. Kay put the book aside to examine the papers. There were several news clippings and some letters.

  One of the news clips from 1941 was a picture of Alexander. He was wearing his Royal Air Force uniform. “Handsome,” Kay thought, as she touched the his picture with her index finger. Alexander was actually smiling in the photograph, making it one of the few times she’d seen a smile on his face.

  Another clip was an article from February 1942 about a squadron under Alexander’s command that was shot down by the Japanese. Sixteen men lost their lives. The next clip showed King George presenting Alexander with a medal for bravery under fire. Kay noticed that Alexander wasn’t smiling in that photo.

  And the last clip was an editorial written by some General criticizing Alexander’s actions in the war and claiming that Alexander’s negligence is what led to the deaths of the other airmen.

  Kay suddenly looked up from the clippings and looked around the room. Why was this book with the news clips here in the upstairs guest bedroom? Something about this was very strange. Her heart started pounding quickly as she set the papers aside. She got off the bed and went to the closet. She turned the knob and opened the closet door. “Oh my god.” She put her hand over her mouth when she saw Alexander’s clothing hanging in the closet. She thought she was in just another guest room, but it wasn’t. For some reason, she felt extremely agitated when she realized she was sleeping in Alexander’s bed.

  Chapter 39

  The next morning after breakfast, Michael and Cathy were lying on the grass in the wooded area that had become their private little sanctuary. Nestled between the first and second rows of apple trees, Michael carved a marking on one of the trees so that they could always find their way back to their spot. It was a carving of their initials, “M & C” inside a heart.

  Each day, they managed to set aside at least an hour during which they spent part of the time “practicing” kissing and part of the time jabbering about everything under the sun.

  Michael was about to lose himself if he kissed Cathy even one more time, so he rolled away onto his back, and he took several deep breaths. Cathy laughed a little.

  He turned his head to look at her. “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

  “You,” Cathy said, still giggling.

  Michael pointed his finger at her. “Now cut that out,” he said jokingly as she took hold of his finger.

  “I thought you said you could kiss me forever.”

  Michael slid his index finger from her grip and laced all his fingers with hers. “I could, but sometimes ... sometimes it gets really intense.” He looked at her very seriously. “You’re an incredible kisser, Cathy.”

  “Thanks to my teacher,” Cathy smiled.

  “Uh uh. I can’t take credit. Some things just can’t be taught and ...” Michael’s body was telling him it was time to change the subject and talk about something safer. “So ... what’s it like in Missouri?” Michael asked Cathy.

  “You mean Misery.”

  “Huh?”

  Cathy rolled onto her side to face Michael. She leaned her ear on her open palm and he continued to hold her other hand. “Some people pronounce it Missouri. I pronounce it Misery. The Show Me state. They have nothing to show me, that’s for sure. That’s the reason I signed up for my job here. I absolutely hated living there.”

  “What happened to there’s no place like home?”

  “Yeah right,” Cathy rolled her eyes. “That’s just a line from the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy may think there’s no place like home, but not me. I never want to go back to St. Louis. I much prefer it here.”

  “Wow, I don’t know anyone who likes being here better than home. I can’t wait to get back home to Morgantown,” Michael said almost wistfully. “I miss my family.”

  “That’s because you have a family. I have no idea what that’s like.”

  Michael looked at Cathy and brought her hand to his lips. “I’ll be your family.”

  Cathy smiled. “You’re sweet. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family. I always wondered what it would be like to have an older brother. How old are you anyway, Michael?”

  The word “brother” cut Michael like a knife. The way he felt about her was the farthest thing from brotherly. “I’m 22. Why?”

  “Hmmm. You’re only about a year older than me, but ... you seem so much more worldly.”

  “Worldly? Worldly how?”

  “You know what I mean. I’m talking about being experienced ... you know ... with the opposite sex.”

  “Oh. Well, yeah. I guess maybe I have some experience there. But I’m sure you’re more experienced than I am in other ways.”

  “Seriously? Like what ways?”

  “Well, you’ve read way more books than me. From what you’ve told me, you were a better student than me.”

  “True, but you can only learn so much from books. It’s real life experiences that count. Like ... Michael? Have you ever been in love?”

  He looked at her and wondered how she could ask him a question like that. And how he should answer. “Um. A couple times. Why do you ask?”

  “You know why,” she answered defensively. “I just wonder if what I’m feeling for David is the real thing.”

  Michael released Cathy’s hand and sat up on the grass, his carefree mood gone, his irritation rising. How could she still be stuck on David when Michael was the one she’d been kissing just moments before, the man she’s been spending so much time with? “If you have to ask, then it’s probably not the real thing. You hardly know him, Cathy.”

  Cathy sat up too. “Then how do you know? How do you know when it’s really love?”

  “You just do. It’s like ... it’s like ... you think about her all the time. You can’t think about anything else. When you’re sleeping, and when you wake up. And when you’re not with her, you want her so much, you physically ache.” He looked at Cathy intently and wondered why she couldn’t read his mind. “And even when she is with you, it’s still not enough. You always want more. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Not really.” She pulled at a blade of grass before meeting Michael’s eyes. “Tell me about the girl back home you were in love with. What was her name?”

  “My first love? Um. Her name was Betty.”

  “Betty. Sounds like a dessert. Apple Brown Betty. Ha ha. ... Sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun. It’s a pretty name.”

  “She was a pretty girl.” Michael wasn’t happy with the way this conversation was going, but Cathy was like a dog with a bone when she was on a fact-finding mission.

  “What happened?”

  “Well ... I knew Betty from the time we were kids. A group of us used to hang out together and, when we got a little older, it was just the two of us, and we got engaged.”

  “You were engaged? You never told me that.”

  “I didn’t? I guess it’s because ... she broke up with me.”

  “She did? Why?”

  Michael swallowed hard. “She met someone she liked better.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible,” Cathy said.

  Michael looked at Cathy and he was speechless. Every once in a while, she said something so guileless, something that made him feel like he still had a shot with her.

  Cathy continued with her line of questioning. “Do you still feel bad about it?”

  Michael shrugged. “I guess so. I mean sometimes. But it was a long time ago and I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes I think the only reason we were even engaged is because everyone expected us t
o get married, you know? Our families seemed to assume we would.”

  “Just your families, not you?”

  Michael was getting more and more uncomfortable with Cathy’s line of questioning. Betty was ancient history. “I really don’t want to talk about Betty anymore.”

  “Oh. Okay. ... Let’s see. You said you’d been in love more than once. Who was the other girl?”

  Michael looked into Cathy’s eyes and hesitated. This was the question he was afraid she would ask, and yet he knew she would. His heart started beating rapidly and he made a split second decision to throw caution to the wind. So he told her the truth. “Her name was ... her name is ... Cathy.”