The Deepest Sigh

by Naomi Musch

  She paused but didn't turn to look at him. "Goodbye, Lang."

  Now he heaved deep breaths and lowered the ax. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he glanced toward the house where Rilla had cocooned herself. When he hadn't answered her, she had sat there in the car with the children. She was still sitting there when he came back out and wandered to the woodshed to split wood. He walked around the side of the cabin. The car was empty now. He didn't know when she had finally gone inside. He only knew he didn't want to face her. There was no point. She knew the truth. He no longer cared that she knew it was Delia he loved.

  Tomorrow he would get on the train and be gone. He wouldn't have to think about anything to do with Rilla or the farm. Maybe it was good he was going away. Now Rilla could get used to living without him, and Delia could spend the weeks ahead thinking about and accepting what he'd told her. Lang pushed a hand through his hair and marched toward the cabin. He was no longer worried about getting caught in an argument with his wife. The future would play itself out. Time would set things right—as things always should have been.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  June 1918

  Marilla left the children with Delia for the afternoon while she drove to town with the butter and eggs. Local demand for her products had risen, with so many men having gone and so much insistence by the government to keep the family farms producing for the needs of the nation, the country's allies, and the troops. She stopped at Jacob's store first.

  "Well, Marilla, it has been a very long time. I hope you have been well."

  It was hard to feel sad in Jacob's presence. His smile, always warm and welcoming, lifted her out of the doldrums. Just being in town and talking to Jacob was refreshing and made her feel like all of life wasn't as bleak as it appeared. Goodness knew it was good to talk to another human being outside her family. Lang had been gone for almost three weeks, and it appeared there would be no appeal to his application for exemption.

  In the time he had been gone, she had obeyed his request that she not mingle in public, not with the Asian flu still threatening. She hadn't heard of much spread in their northern area, and she couldn't stay cooped up forever. They had thrown away too much cream these past weeks. Marilla had set several chickens with the extra eggs, so before long there would be baby chicks. By fall, she'd have quite a chicken house full. They could use the extra roosters to butcher. Several years had passed since she'd had to deal with that task. This year, it would fall upon her shoulders.

  "I've been fine, Jacob. And you?"

  He raised his hands and looked to each side. "I am hale and hearty as you can see."

  "Have you heard any news about town, how everyone is faring?"

  His face lost some of its joy. "I have heard that there have been flu cases in Milwaukee and the eastern part of the state. A number of deaths."

  She felt the news like insidious fingers stretching toward them. "Oh...how awful."

  "Yes, it is a miserable business, this sickness. News is that the soldiers suffer the worst." He shook his head in dismay and dipped his chin to her. "Be sure to take care of yourself and your children. You did not bring them with you?"

  She shook her head. "I thought it best to leave them with Delia."

  "How are your sister and your family?"

  "Delia misses Theodore."

  He turned to tidy a stack of booklets on his counter. "I am sorry to hear about your husband."

  She took a breath and eased it out, governing her answer. "Lang will be all right. He's good at taking care of himself."

  He continued fiddling with the stack. "Yes, well. I'm glad to hear it."

  "I have some things I need." She held a list in her hand and looked at it. "Flour, lye, sugar, coffee... The usual things." She looked up and found him studying her.

  "I think Lang will be all right, but you... I'm not sure."

  She balked. "What do you mean?"

  He shook his head. "Never mind. I am your friend, Marilla. If you need anything, I hope you will tell me. I received my notice the same day that your husband did. They gave me an exemption because of the needful service I provide to the community. I almost wished I could go."

  "Oh, no, Jacob. Why would you say so?"

  He shrugged and stretched his hands over the counter. "So that people would not doubt my patriotism."

  "Do they bother you still?"

  "Nothing serious. A few eggs. Some yelling. That's all. Boys mostly."

  "Oh, Jacob..."

  "Don't feel sorry for me, Marilla. Just let me help you if I can. Will you do that?"

  She studied him for a moment longer and nodded. Without a word, she handed him the list. She doubted she would need to call upon his help, but his offer filled her with gratitude. Lang had not written since he'd gone. Things had remained hard between them right up to the minute he boarded the train. Thankfully, unlike the time Theo left them, none of her family attended the Monday Lang went away. He kissed her goodbye. It wasn't the kind of farewell kiss the other couples around them shared. There was no clinging, no waving, and there were no tears. Only a brief touch that dissolved on her lips in a moment. She watched him board and take a seat. He didn't look back, so she turned away. Then the tears had come, though she wished they wouldn't.

  That night she had figured things out, and she determined what she must do. She had to think of her children. She would turn back to prayer and be the faithful Christian she had once been...when? Before Langdon came to her father's farm? When she'd been an innocent child? Yes. She'd turn back to God with the simpleness of spirit she had then. She would pray again, and she wouldn't just ask things for herself, but for others. She would pray for her children's father. Maybe one day he'd come home again, and things would be different.

  If only she had the faith to believe it.

  Jacob loaded her car with her things, and she said goodbye. She closed the door and went down the street to retrieve their mail at the post office. She didn't look at it until she was back inside the motor car. She sifted through the letters. Nothing yet from Lang. The last letter, though, caught her attention. It was addressed to Delia, but in an unfamiliar hand.

  Not Theo's.

  She wished she didn't still have to go to Spooner. Delia would be anxious to receive news. Unless... She glanced at the letter on the seat. What if... No!

  Dear God, not Theo...

  She took her time driving all the way to Spooner. The news could wait. Let Delia have this day. Marilla delivered her goods to a market in Spooner, her mind no longer on her and Lang's troubles, but on her sister. Finally, an hour after retrieving the mail, she drove home, but her limbs felt leaden. With each mile, they grew stiffer. She cried again. She prayed more. Her heart constricted when Delia's house came into view.

  They were out in the sun, Delia, Emmett, and Dora. Dora was sitting on the ground, playing with some things of Delia's. Emmett said, "Mama!" Marilla hardly heard him. She held the letter in both hands, her eyes on Delia. Delia smiled her bright sunny smile. The one Lang loved. The one Theo loved. The smile Marilla loved too. She stopped in front of her.

  Delia's lips lost their beautiful bow, and with it, a cloud seemed to move over them both. "What is it, Rilla? What's wrong?"

  Her hands trembled as she held out the letter.

  Delia's face turned to stone as fear raced across it. She took the letter and turned it over, sliding one thin finger under the edge of its seal. She trembled now more than Marilla as she slid two sheets from inside. She frowned and opened the pages.

  Marilla waited, tension shutting off her breath while her sister read. Delia dashed a hand beneath her eyes. Tears oozed out. She looked up at Marilla and down again, wiping away more tears, but there was no stanching the flow. "Oh, Rilla." She dropped her hands to her side, fell into Marilla's arms, and sobbed.

  "Dee...oh, Delia."

  "He's alive."

  Marilla almost didn't catch the words. She whispered hoarsely. "What?"

  "Theo's a
live." Delia's hands shook, making the letter wave as she pushed it toward Marilla. Marilla could not make heads or tails of the writing, only catching phrases that held no meaning, slight endearments, and his name at the end by another signature.

  "What does it mean?"

  Delia dropped onto the stoop and wrapped her arms around her knees. She lay her head against them and wept some more. Interspersed between the tears, she smiled and sniffed. Marilla sat beside her until she was ready to speak.

  "It's from Theo, but his nurse is writing."

  "His nurse?"

  "He's badly wounded." She burst into tears again, and Rilla patted her back. "He—He is coming home, but not right away."

  "When? What happened? Does it say?"

  Delia steadied at last. She read the pages in front of her, more carefully this time, pausing to tell Marilla. "He was wounded at a battle called Cantigny. He—He…" Her face scrunched up again. Marilla rushed indoors and came out with a clean diaper for Delia to use as a hankie. "He's lost his leg, Rilla. It's gone."

  Marilla gasped. His leg! Theo, a cripple? She clasped a hand over her mouth.

  "He's been transferred to a hospital in Great Britain."

  "Oh, Delia!"

  Tears rolled down Delia's cheek afresh. Her words were choked. "He'll come home as soon as he is well enough. It may be several months." They grasped one another. Marilla's own tears rose and burned in her throat and ran down her cheeks as she held her sister. A few minutes passed. Delia whispered into Marilla's embrace. "I don't care if he only has one leg. I'm just so glad he's coming home. I'm just so glad he's alive."

  Marilla was glad too. Satisfaction on varying levels crept through her. Tonight, when the children went to sleep, Marilla intended to write Lang a letter. The time had come to correspond.

  ~~~~~

  July 1918

  "How many times you going to read that letter? Sheesh! Don't you have it memorized by now?" The boy on the ship's bunk above Lang hung over the side so he looked at Lang upside down. His name was Richard, but all the fellows called him Dickie. He said he was twenty, but he didn't look a day over fifteen. Some guys were late bloomers, and Dickie was adamant that he wasn't a liar, just undersized and skinny. Still, Dickie could put away food like a man three times his size. Lang hadn't ever seen anyone eat like that kid.

  Lang turned over on his bunk, ignoring Dickie's teasing.

  "She must be something, that gal of yours. What does she say in that letter anyway? Come on, tell me now. I haven't got a girlfriend. Least you could do is let me know what yours says, let me imagine what it must be like."

  "You just go on imagining, Dickie." Lang grinned, but Dickie couldn't see him. He didn't mind the kid. Dickie had, for some reason beyond Lang's comprehension, attached himself to him back in Texas. He followed him around like a pup. He had gotten Lang smoking again, but Lang figured he'd be able to give it up easily enough.

  Stories came out of Dickie's mouth faster than water from a spigot. He talked about his two older brothers, one already serving, and another who had received an enlistment disqualification because he was hard of hearing. He had one pretty sister named Millie who was eighteen and training to be a nurse so she could join the Red Cross if the war lasted. Dickie had grown up in Michigan where he, his father, and brothers all worked in a paper mill. Lang felt like he knew them all, because of the way Dickie talked about them.

  "Aw, come on, Lang. Just read a little."

  Lang sobered as he studied the letter. There wasn't much of the romance Dickie imagined in the page Rilla had sent. In fact, there was more to dismay him than anything. "First of all, I told you, she isn't my girlfriend, she's my wife. And secondly, we've been married too long for all that romantic stuff anyway. She's only writing to me about the farm and the kids and her sister's husband."

  "What? No sweet, lovey dovey words for her army hero? She talks about her sister's husband? What about her sister? Something wrong with that."

  Lang swallowed. Yes, 'something wrong with that'. She writes of Delia heartbroken that Theo's been wounded, but overjoyed he's alive.

  "Her husband's going home. Lost a leg over where we're headed."

  Dickie whistled. "Gee, Lang, that's tough. Reckon we'll come home in one piece? You know, I knew a fellow once who had a peg leg. Doctor cut his leg off with a hacksaw. Can you imagine that? Tree pinned him in a logging accident, and the doctor had to cut it off to save him from getting gangrene." Dickie flopped back on his bunk, distracted with another story. "I don't think I would be able to handle that. Course..." His voice took on a positive note. "Girls get to acting all sorry for a fellow like that and pay him special attention, don't they?"

  "Your sister tell you that?"

  "She's always saying, 'Oh those poor boys on the front.' So that must be the case."

  Lang smirked, but his eyes went back to the sheet of paper in his hands.

  It's pitiful to think of poor Theo so damaged. They say he'll get fit for a prosthetic of some kind eventually, and he'll have to learn to use it. Of course, we're going to pray him through his recuperation and therapy.

  He folded the letter and put it away. "Maybe they do get sympathy, but don't you get any ideas, kid. They might feel sorry for you at first, but a woman will get tired of being with a cripple. Then she leaves you. So you watch yourself when we get over there. If we get into anything, you just keep your head down. All your other body parts too," Lang added.

  Dickie snickered. "Oh, I don't aim to get torn up. Boy..." He sounded dreamy, and Lang could picture him up there on his bunk with his skinny arms tucked under his head, his gaze on the ceiling a few inches above him, picturing who-knows-what. "I sure hope I can meet some pretty French gals. You know what I heard about them?" Dickie went on to expound on all the stories most men fantasized about when it came to foreign women. Lang believed they were all just that—fantasy—nothing of real substance. What woman could compare to Delia in face or form? She was the only woman who could capture his imagination.

  Lang thought about her while Dickie rambled. So she planned to nurse and comfort Theo back to health. How long would it be before she tired of being a nursemaid to a man who couldn't take care of her anymore? Who couldn't treat her the way a whole man could? How long before he wore her out?

  Lang tucked his hands beneath his head and stared at the bunk above. He believed what he had told Dickie. Delia would tire of taking care of a cripple. She would look at Lang with new eyes and think about what he'd told her. She'd miss a whole man who could take her in his arms. One who could carry her away and—

  The shrill, heart-stopping shriek of the ship's siren cut Delia from his thoughts. The transport's massive structure quivered. Her heavy guns boomed. Dickie leapt from the upper bunk. Lang swung his legs onto the floor. Men filled the space, rushing into the narrow aisle with as little mayhem as possible. Orders cracked over them to get to their life stations and life rafts. They flew to the upper deck. Similar booms sounded from the other ships in the convoy of thirteen transports and nine torpedo boat destroyers, answering in rapid succession. Shells exploded into the water, shooting columns of spray into the air. Lang's heart raced as he looked over at Dickie, licking his lips and watching the ocean. The whole event happened in minutes, but waiting for what was to come took forever. At last, the sound of gunfire ceased, and the signal came that the danger had passed.

  Dickie looked back at Lang. "What do you suppose it was?"

  "Someone spotted a sub up there, waiting for us," another soldier said. "That's what my captain said." There was no further sign, not that Lang could see. They had been trained to expect a submarine attack at any moment, having practiced dozens of times how to launch the lifeboats and escape a sinking ship. This time they had been spared.

  They stood at their stations for an hour, and soon the sun set. A pale moon rose between moving clouds and reflected in the phosphorous-coated waters of the Atlantic. In the quiet distance, the ghostly outlines of the other shi
ps crept along the water. A vision of those days behind Lang, of soft summer nights coming out of the barn with Delia, her laugh echoing over some remark, haunted him. Rilla was there, walking down the road with him in the moonlight, her hand tucked in his, a baby on her hip, another in his arm.

  Lang swallowed, unsure which vision was most real.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  September 1918

  Rilla let go of Emmett's hand and knocked on her sister's door Sunday morning. Delia opened it wearing a starched apron over a simple gingham dress, her face aglow. "This is a surprise. Come in." She bent and scooped up Emmett, giving him a squeeze. "What brings you over to Auntie Dee's, my little man?"

  "Go church." Emmett nodded his blond head by way of explanation.

  Delia shot Rilla a glance.

  Rilla adjusted Dora in her arms. "I can't stay home any longer. I wrote to Lang, but I haven't heard anything. I need some conversation, some fellowship. We'll sit in the back."

  Delia frowned and turned toward the living room.

  Rilla followed. She hadn't forgotten what Lang said about staying home as long as the Asian flu was a risk. Still, that was months ago, and even though danger lurked, she was past caring. She had prepared clean items to bring along to donate for those who had been laid up, and there were things she needed to pray about. Of course, she could pray at home like she did every day in her rocking chair, but the urge to be in church with others, to sense the presence of God in his place of worship, was strong. "No one feeling ill is going to be there. Everyone knows not to go out in such a case."

  "I suppose that's true." Delia conceded, but pursed her lips.

  "I only stopped by to see if I could leave the children with you, just to be cautious."

  "Of course, you can." She set Emmett on the floor and reached for Dora in Rilla's arms. "I'm happy to watch them. I wish there were children here all the time." Her voice turned dreamy as she rubbed noses with Dora.