With Every Letter: A Novel

by Sarah Sundin

  And the brooch he’d sent was stunning. She fingered the delicate workmanship. The stones sang of azure skies and turquoise waters, amber sands and olive trees. She didn’t know when or where she’d wear it, but she knew one thing—she was glad she’d never mentioned the flight nursing program.

  He worked on airfields. Only twenty-five flight nurses belonged to her squadron. If they flew into his airfield, he’d identify Mellie. That could never happen. They both needed anonymity.

  But dozens of hospitals and hundreds of nurses had gone to North Africa. If she described her nursing duties in a general manner, he’d think she worked on the wards.

  “‘O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.’” Georgie’s smooth alto and Rose’s rough voice bounced into the railroad car.

  The curtains on Mellie’s compartment flew open, and the two nurses peeked in.

  “Come on, Mellie-bird.” Georgie tugged one of Mellie’s braids. “We need your voice. We’re caroling up and down the aisles.”

  Mellie laughed. “In our nightgowns?”

  Rose flipped a bright red scarf over her shoulder. “Christmas ain’t over till we say so.”

  “Let’s straighten up, and out we go.” Georgie picked up the letters strewn over Mellie’s blanket. “Mm, more letters from Ernest. That boy sure thinks a lot of you. And look at you, memorizing his every word. Why, I think you’re sweet on him.”

  Blood rose to Mellie’s cheeks, and she stacked the letters in her stationery box. “It’s not like that. I just enjoy his correspondence.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Georgie winked at Rose, then pulled Mellie’s arm. “Come on. Let’s spread holiday cheer.”

  “You have enough for the entire train.” Mellie kicked off her blanket, and her scrapbook tumbled to the floor. She’d forgotten she had it out.

  “Ooh, a scrapbook.” Georgie picked it up. “May I?”

  All the blood that had risen to her cheeks drained right out. In second grade, she’d shown the scrapbook to Louise Fairchild from her class. Louise made fun of her. The next day in school, the teasing was worse than ever. How could she blame them? Who wouldn’t laugh at someone who only had paper friends?

  Her flesh-and-blood friends frowned at her, confused. Friendship required openness and trust and the risk of rejection. If she shut them out, the curtain would drop and separate them once again.

  Mellie gazed at the well-worn scrapbook. If she wanted to move beyond paper, she had to take that risk, over and over again. “I don’t show it to anyone but Papa. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Embarrassing?” Rose said.

  “It’s rather odd.” Mellie tucked in her feet to sit cross-legged. “Please sit down. I’ll show you.”

  Georgie’s eyes widened, and she and Rose climbed onto Mellie’s bed. The curtain fell in place, a false promise of privacy. But no other nurses were in the car.

  Mellie set the book in her lap and traced the lines of the word Memories, which had once been gold. “These are pictures of my childhood friends.”

  “Doesn’t sound odd to me.” Rose tugged her nightgown over her knees.

  Mellie drew a long breath. “My father and I were in the Philippines when I was little. My grandma was concerned because I didn’t have anyone to play with, so she started this scrapbook for me.”

  She opened the book. “She cut out pictures of little girls from magazines and wrote stories beneath each one. ‘Caroline and Philomela play jacks together.’ ‘Mary and Philomela go to the cinema and share a bag of popcorn.’ ‘Edna and Philomela play jump rope and hopscotch on a sunny day.’”

  “That’s very sweet,” Georgie said.

  Rose lifted one eyebrow. “What’s embarrassing about that?”

  Mellie turned another page. “Papa and I came back to California when I was six. I was so excited to make real friends. On the first day of school, Papa braided my hair, and I wore my prettiest dress from the Philippines. It was bright red with a long skirt and wide sleeves and a little capelet and lots of embroidery. I loved it. But the American girls all wore short drop-waist dresses and had their hair bobbed below their ears. They called me monkey girl.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Oh dear,” Georgie said. “Children can be cruel.”

  Mellie nodded, her neck stiff. “Once again, I had no one to play with. So I added to the scrapbook and wrote my own stories.”

  “You must have had some friends,” Rose said.

  “Nope.” She raised a limp smile. “I was too American in Asia, too Asian in America. So I stopped trying and kept to myself. I read and drew. I had imaginary adventures with my paper friends. But I never had someone to play jacks or hopscotch or jump rope with.”

  Georgie’s eyes misted over. “You poor thing. That’s so sad.”

  Mellie rolled her eyes. “It’s just plain odd.”

  “Not everyone’s like those girls,” Rose said in a soft voice. “You just needed to reach out to the right sort of girls.”

  “That’s what—that’s what I’m doing now.” Mellie blinked and passed the scrapbook.

  Georgie lay the scrapbook on the bed between her and Rose, and sent Mellie a tiny smile filled with compassion and gratitude.

  Mellie’s throat tightened—not a lump but a rock—and her eyes watered. “Please. I want you to look at it.”

  Rose and Georgie turned the pages carefully. They smiled and commented and asked questions. With kindness. Toward the middle of the book, they shared laughter with Mellie about childish misspellings and her more outlandish tales.

  Warmth filled Mellie’s soul. So this was friendship—the pain of ripping open one’s heart rewarded with intimacy and understanding. This was what she’d longed for all her life and never known.

  Rose paused and inclined her head. “This one’s different.”

  “A boy,” Georgie said. “No name, no story. He looks so sad. Heartbreaking.”

  Mellie sucked in her breath. Oh dear. The children she prayed for. Louise Fairchild said the pictures were disgusting. Mellie’s hand stretched toward the album to protect the vulnerable.

  Georgie and Rose looked at Mellie expectantly. They could be trusted to feel compassion for these poor children. They were the right sort.

  Her breath returned in a soft stream. “Do you remember that horrible story of MacGilliver the Killiver?”

  “Of course,” Rose said. “Jump-rope rhyme.”

  “That’s his son.”

  “He had a son?” Georgie said.

  “I felt sorry for him, how everyone hated his father. I cut out the picture because I thought he needed a friend. Someone to pray for him.”

  “I wonder what happened to him,” Georgie said.

  Rose shook her head. “With that background, he’s probably in jail or aiming for it.”

  “I don’t think so.” Mellie gazed at the picture. “Look at that sweet face. And his mother—see how she protects him? With the Lord, anything’s possible.”

  West Palm Beach, Florida

  January 1, 1943

  “It’s impossible, Mellie.” Rose pointed to a crowd of soldiers in bathing trunks heaving coconuts at palm trees. “If they can’t do it, neither can you.”

  “Coconuts take skill, not force.” Mellie shook the hairy fruit, and the milk sloshed inside. Nice and ripe. She crossed the warm sand to the group of soldiers. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Do any of you have a pocketknife?”

  One of the men sized her up. “Honey, you think you can open that with a pocketknife?”

  Something squirmed inside her. Dealing with men was easier wearing a nurse’s uniform than a bathing suit. She’d pretend she wore the white dress and cap. “This is just the first step. Do you have a knife?”

  “Sure do. I was a Boy Scout. I’m always prepared.” He squared his scrawny shoulders and grinned at her.

  She gave him her new partial smile. “Well . . . ?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned over a jumble of clothing on the sand, pulled out a Swiss army knife, and han
ded it to her. “Can I have something sweet in exchange?”

  Mellie tucked the coconut under her arm and concentrated on the knife. Was he making a pass at her? He must have been trapped on base for months without a female in sight.

  “Coconut’s sweet,” Rose said. “And that’s all you’ll get.”

  “Ah, you’re killing me. Three cute little things and I can’t even get a kiss.”

  More men gathered around the nurses.

  Mellie found the three “eyes” in one end of the coconut. Cute? What would Ernest think if he saw her?

  How could she let herself think that way? Ernest would never see her. And if he did, he’d be nice to her but nothing more.

  Mellie plunged the knife into an eye, three times, then pried out the triangular wedge. She tipped up the coconut, and the milk dripped into her mouth. Oh, she hadn’t tasted the rich sweetness for over a year.

  “You can drink it?” Georgie said.

  “Mm-hmm. It’s wonderful. And it’s good for sore throats too.” Mellie handed her the coconut.

  Georgie lifted the fruit. Some of the milk splashed into her mouth, some onto her chin. She made a funny face and wiped her chin. “That’s . . . different.”

  The men laughed.

  “My turn.” Rose took a swig and wrinkled her nose. “At least I can say I tried it.”

  “Can I? It’s my knife.” The soldier tried some and squinted at the sky. “Sweet. Not as sweet as a kiss though.”

  No doubt about it—wartime made men act strangely. Mellie glanced at Georgie and Rose and gave them a quick shrug.

  They giggled. Mellie had managed to communicate in their language, and she smiled.

  “All gone.” A stocky soldier tossed the coconut up and down like a baseball. “You didn’t get it open, dolly.”

  “That’s next.” She took it back and walked to a picket fence separating the beach from the road. She turned the coconut so the hole faced down, raised it high, and impaled it on a picket. A firm twist, and the fruit split into neat halves.

  “Well, I’ll be,” the skinny soldier said. “Cute and clever too.”

  Mellie handed him a coconut half. “Use your knife to carve out the fruit. It’s tasty.” Most of them had probably never eaten fresh coconut before.

  The men produced more knives and cut the coconut into bite-sized chunks. Others followed Mellie’s example and split coconuts on pickets, the milk spurting out. The laughing crowd pressed in on Mellie. She took a handful of chunks and retreated to her beach towel, where she lay down on her stomach.

  The warm, humid air caressed her bare legs and arms, the sound of breaking waves soothed her ears, and the crisp, moist fruit filled her mind with memories. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine Papa’s voice.

  Feminine laughter approached, and a fine spray of sand landed on her calf. Mellie lifted her foot and shook off the sand.

  “Oops. Sorry.” Rose stretched out on her towel. “That was quite a demonstration.”

  Sweat dribbled down the back of Mellie’s neck. If only she could free her hair, but that would lead to a tangled, sandy mess. “The benefit of an odd upbringing is knowing odd things.”

  “That odd thing almost got you a date,” Georgie said from her towel next to Rose. “You just needed to smile more.”

  Mellie knew better than to let her full smile loose. Her smile earned her the nickname Monkey Girl. “I’m not looking for a date.”

  “Of course not. Your heart belongs to Ernest.” Rose batted her eyelashes.

  Mellie laughed and swatted her gently on the arm. The teasing felt even warmer than the sun. “And yours belongs to that Louisville flyboy.”

  Georgie rested her chin on her folded arms. “Speaking of hearts, who’s got Vera’s? She talks about dates, but I never see her with a man.”

  “I think it’s some withered old man with gobs of dough.” Rose tilted back her head, and the breeze lifted her hair.

  Mellie ran her fingers under her braids along her damp skull. Long hair had drawbacks. “Perhaps she’s just private.”

  “Well, she’s not private.” Georgie pointed her chin toward Kay, who strolled down the beach in a two-piece swimsuit. Three handsome men scrambled for position at her side. “I think she’s holding auditions. We’ve only been here a week.”

  The gossip twisted Mellie’s insides. She had to change the subject. “We won’t be here long. Once we get our personnel and equipment, we’ll ship out.”

  “In the meantime, Kay’s got them lined up.” Rose rested her chin in her hands. “The boys get what they want from her.”

  Kay turned and laughed at something one of the men said, her shoulders back, her chest lifted, and she swiveled her hip just so. She didn’t have the shapeliest figure, but she knew how to use it.

  “I don’t think so,” Mellie said. “I think she’s filling some need bigger than one man can fill.”

  “So she needs seven.”

  “She needs the Lord,” Georgie said. “But she runs like a thoroughbred when you mention Jesus.”

  Mellie studied the redhead, who stopped and gazed out at the ocean, oblivious to the men at her side. Despite her social skills, Kay was less open than Mellie.

  Was that how Ernest came across? Friendly but superficial? Yet inside he was so deep and fascinating.

  Warmth drew her eyelids shut and turned up the corners of her mouth. She was the only person who knew that part of him.

  14

  Thélepte Airfield

  Tunisia

  January 15, 1943

  Tom could go deaf at Thélepte. The first airstrip had been completed in December, and the P-40 fighter planes and A-20 Havoc light bombers made a constant low-grade roar. But the construction work on the second airstrip rattled his eardrums.

  In the distance, Arab workers gathered rocky soil in baskets and carried it to dump trucks. At the field, a gravel crusher ground the rocks, a dozer spread the gravel, and men from the 908th laid interlocking pierced steel planks on top. A single runway required two thousand tons of PSP, the entire daily capacity of the flimsy North African rail system. But what a difference PSP made—easy to lay and repair, and it didn’t sink into the mud.

  “Good job,” Tom shouted up to Conrad Davis, who drove the dump truck. “You guys might beat Moskovitz’s squad this week.”

  “Nah.” Davis flapped his hand. “We don’t stand a chance.”

  “Sure you do. Just keep up the hard work.”

  “Sure, Gill.” The truck lumbered back to the excavation site.

  Competition served as Tom’s best disciplinary tool, but coming up with weekly rewards for the winning platoon challenged him. Thélepte lay on a semidesert Tunisian plateau within ninety miles of the front, where the Axis and the Allies jabbed at each other from defensive positions. Frequent Luftwaffe bombing raids had driven away most of the villagers—and their produce.

  Tom leaned down and scratched Sesame behind the ears. “What should I offer this week? First choice on sleeping positions in the ravine? First in line for chow? The driest slit trench in the next air raid?”

  Sesame cocked his head to one side and chortled.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think the men want the next rat you catch.” Tom straightened the dog’s harness, a cut-down cartridge belt. He was training Sesame to deliver messages. Maybe it was his imagination, but Sesame stood taller when he wore his working-dog belt.

  Tom checked his watch—1449. At 1500 he had his Friday meeting with Newman and the platoon leaders to review the past week’s work and prepare for the following week. For once, Tom could hold up his head. His platoon had completed most of their work. Quincy and Reed would have little to complain about.

  “Come on, Sesame.” Tom led the dog away from the work site and toward the headquarters dugout. He pulled Annie’s latest letter from inside his Parsons field jacket to read again while he walked.

  My new friendships have made me think more about my mother, and I feel compelled to tell
her story for the first time, even though it’s shameful. The Lord has shown me I need to forgive her, and writing it down should help. Thanks to anonymity—and your kind heart—I feel comfortable telling you.

  My mother was only seventeen when she married my father, and I came a year later. The pressures of motherhood convinced her she’d never lived. She bobbed her hair and neglected my father and me in favor of speakeasies, wild living, and—I’m ashamed to say—other men. When I was two, she was killed in a drunken car accident.

  I believe I’ve forgiven her for that, but the Lord is showing me a new dimension to forgiveness. My mother’s abandonment and death deprived me of an important relationship. So many things can only be passed from mother to daughter. My father tried, bless him, but how could he teach me to dress and style my hair and interact with little girls?

  You probably have a similar situation. For both of us, death severed a crucial relationship, and the remaining parent tried to fill that hole. Your father’s death deprived you of having a man to work alongside and learn manly things from.

  In addition, our parents’ deaths gave us more difficult lives. I’ll never understand or excuse what my mother did, but I must fully forgive her.

  Tom folded the letter and stuck it back inside his jacket. The sun streamed down on the barren plateau, but a sun without heat and chill winds made the Westerners and Southerners grumble.

  Tom was a Pennsylvania boy, not a California boy. Thanks to his father.

  He grimaced. He’d never thought about forgiveness as Annie did. Keeping up a sunny front required shoving away anger and sadness, but resentment ran in a buried river in his soul.

  Dad had abandoned him. He loved booze more than his wife and son. On the day his drinking cost him his job, he came home and smashed the kitchen chairs. In the middle of the night, Mom wakened Tom and hurried him to her sister’s house.

  Dad begged her to come back. Tom heard him at the door, pleading, his voice throaty, and Tom wanted to run to him, to his daddy, but Mom held him back. She loved her son and wanted to protect him.