The Lieutenant's Nurse

by Sara Ackerman

  Then the horrible truth dawned on her.

  The bruise under her eye wasn’t quite as black as the woman’s had been, but it was bad enough. A plum color that seeped into her face, blending in with the fresh sunburn on her cheeks. The wound had been stuck to her pillow when she first woke, but she managed to break free without causing any more damage.

  She spent more time than usual fussing with her hair and makeup, and put on a pair of slacks and an emerald blouse that brought out the green in her eyes. She suddenly wished she had more clothes to choose from. Despite the bruise and swelling, she felt clearheaded, ready to get upstairs and force-feed herself and hopefully run into Clark. She was now more determined than ever to put on a few pounds and plump up.

  There was also the question of what had been so important last night that the radio officer sought out Clark to talk radio something or other. Clark’s words about war were now stamped in her mind.

  As soon as she entered the dining room, heads turned. Word of her injury and fainting had probably spread around the ship like a bad case of smallpox.

  “Eva, over here!”

  At the far left of the room, Sasha and Bree were both waving her over. She wasn’t quite in the mood for small talk, but went to join them anyway. Something about their accents was so cheery, and it was refreshing to be around happy people for a change.

  “All things considered you’re looking bright,” Sasha said.

  “Thank you, I think I’m going to live.”

  Bree laughed. “You had us worried yesterday, all splayed out on the deck like a rag doll.”

  “One good thing about fainting is that all self-consciousness goes out the window,” she said, forcing a smile on one side of her face. Heavens, had she been exposed for half the deck to see? In that skirt, too!

  Sasha leaned in and hushed her voice. “You know, Clark seems pretty buttoned up. But yesterday I thought he might have a fit when he hit you.”

  Bree took a sip of an orange drink in a champagne glass. “You ask me, he has a thing for you.”

  Eva shrugged it off. “I’m sure he just felt responsible. Anyone would have done the same.”

  “And the flowers?” Sasha said.

  How could they possibly know about the flowers?

  “An apology.”

  “Or an excuse to get into your room?” Bree said.

  “He’s married, you guys, remember?”

  Eva took a big bite of her strawberry waffle so she wouldn’t have to discuss this anymore. After the incident back home, she was wary of people overly interested in her business. Too many run-ins with ladies like Thelma and Mable Duffy, the two spinster sisters who owned the general store and were always spreading rumors the way other people spread birdseed on a summer’s day. You couldn’t kill a fly without them knowing. In fact, before the newspapers got wind of the Hollowcreek General Hospital story, Thelma and Mable were already eyeing Eva like she was a murderer.

  Sasha continued, “I would mention your boy in Honolulu, so Clark doesn’t get his heart broken.”

  “I have a feeling the wife is no longer in the picture,” said Bree, nodding.

  “Why would he be wearing a ring, then?” Eva asked.

  “You should ask him,” the twins said in unison.

  Maybe she would, when the timing was right. And speaking of timing, every time Eva had thought to bring up Billy with Clark, something had gotten in the way. Really, she meant to. The truth of the matter was, Clark was on her mind an awful lot. At least half the time. Maybe more, if she was 100 percent honest.

  * * *

  Out on the veranda, with the hot Pacific sun beating down, a crowd had gathered for a day at the races. Of all the absurd things aboard this vessel, a felt racetrack had been laid out with six wooden horses and riders, about a foot tall. Hollering men were lined up several rows thick, and ladies lounged in chairs sipping on tall blue and pink drinks.

  “What a spectacle,” Eva said to Bree.

  “Come on, let’s place a bet.”

  All this gambling was not her way, but with her bingo winnings, Eva had a few dollars to spare.

  “How does it work?” she asked.

  Sasha pointed to a man in a white blazer. “When he throws the dice, one represents the horse, the other, how many spaces the horse moves forward.”

  Bree went and grabbed race cards and handed her one. There were six races, including the Pacific Coast Steeplechase, the Missouri Thoroughbred Mile and the Hawaii Handicap, with horses called Vacation Time, Hula Lassie, Aloha Malihini, Little Brown Gal, Orchid Lei and Kamaaina. Tickets were fifty cents to place a bet.

  “Do you know what kamaaina means?” Eva asked, wondering how to pronounce the funny-looking word.

  “You need lessons in Hawaiian, and fast. It’s what they call a person born and raised in Hawaii.”

  “Or how about malihini?”

  She was likely butchering that one, too.

  “Someone new to Hawaii.”

  “I think I’ll get a ticket for that one. Aloha Malihini.”

  All the hooting and hollering was contagious, and Eva found herself rooting for Golden Gait in the first race, who Bree had picked. But Sunset Strip won out in the end. She hadn’t imagined wooden horse racing could be so fun, and, boy, people took it seriously. Her race was the fourth race, and when she looked at her watch, she realized that one o’clock was rapidly approaching. Clark had left in such a hurry last night that they hadn’t solidified their plans, but she wanted to show up just in case. Show Boat took the next race, with a narrow lead over Blue Grass.

  At about three minutes to one, she told Bree, “I have to go.”

  Bree frowned. “What about your ticket?”

  “You take it.”

  “Where on earth do you have to be?”

  “I made plans.”

  A look of knowing. “With who?”

  “Lieutenant Spencer promised to teach me a little Japanese as repayment for the tennis ball.” She hoped she wasn’t as transparent as she felt. For there was a certain amount of giddiness at the idea of sitting with him alone in the lounge.

  Bree just shook her head.

  * * *

  The lounge was empty. Which made sense, considering the shocking blue of the sky and that half the ship was at the horse races. Clark probably had other matters to attend to, but Eva sat down and waited anyway. Being outside in the sun insulted the slice on her face and she was feeling a bit moody. Homesickness seemed a whole lot worse when you knew you might not be going back. Life had up and flipped 180 degrees, and it filled her with a dense longing. For the familiar sound of creek water running over rocks, the copse of pine trees on her favorite trail, the delight of Ruby’s laughter.

  Meeting Clark in this state was probably not a good idea, and she stood to leave.

  At that same moment, he appeared next to her chair. “Konnichiwa,” he said. Then, seeing her face, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  Her skin stretched when she smiled, but she made an effort. “Yes, I’m fine. Konnichiwa to you, too.” The words sounded silly coming from her mouth. Learning Japanese. What had she been thinking?

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, but I got sidetracked with a bit of work,” he said.

  “Anything to do with last night?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer, instead pulled up another lounge chair. His eyes looked bleary and his shirt was wrinkled.

  “You look lovely in green, have I mentioned that?” he said instead.

  “Oh, I forgot, you’re not supposed to talk about it.”

  “He just wanted a second opinion.”

  Eva had been numb as of late, but ever since hearing the captain mention submarines that first night at dinner, and now Clark’s mention of war, thoughts of Japanese torpedoes were surfacing more than they should. “Are there sub
marines nearby?”

  “Nothing to concern yourself about,” he said.

  He looked toward the carpet, as if it were suddenly the most interesting thing aboard the ship.

  “Would you be able to tell me if there were?” she asked.

  His face grew serious and he met her gaze. “If I thought you were in immediate danger, I would tell you.”

  They sat there, neither one looking away, for more than a few seconds. He swallowed hard. She tapped her foot. Hawaiian steel guitar music played in the background. And the danger was not from any submarine.

  While he was teaching her basic words like onegaishimasu and hai and arigatou in Japanese—“please,” “yes” and “thank you”—she was having a hard time concentrating on anything other than his well-formed arms as he scribbled out words, and how the corners of his mouth curled up when he laughed. He was patient, too, and happy to repeat things over and over again. A quality she admired in people, and one she was short on herself.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go see the horse races? They’re a riot,” she said, feeling bad for keeping him from the action.

  “I’ve been back and forth a few times on this ship, so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. It’s nice to have some downtime, too, since we’ve been working overtime lately,” he said, leaning back and eyeing her. “I don’t mean to pry, but you seemed so sad when I walked up. Did something happen?”

  His tenderness touched her. And yet to bring up Ruby and life back home would be pulling a whole netful of troubles on board this ship. But he seemed so earnest in his wanting to know that she gave in.

  “It’s my little sister, Ruby. She came down with polio earlier this month and I feel awful for leaving her behind. I’m her one and only. The thing was, I had already committed to the army and we need the money for her treatment.”

  At her words, he leaned closer. Enough so she could smell mint on his breath. “What about your folks?”

  “They’ve both passed on.”

  That was another bundle of woes to leave for another time.

  “Will Ruby recover?”

  “You never know. In some, the paralysis clears up all the way, while others end up like the president with mostly useless limbs.”

  She pictured Ruby lying there in that cold hospital bed with her legs like two fallen branches in the snow, a look of terror pressed onto her face. I will get better, won’t I, Evelyn? Tell me I will. The truth was, only God knew. A sob formed under Eva’s ribs and she tried to hold it all in.

  Clark surprised her by volunteering, “I know what it’s like to have to leave someone.”

  Eva felt her lungs constrict at the hollow tone his voice suddenly took on. She had a feeling that whatever he was going to tell her had broken him at one time.

  He paused for a moment before continuing. “My wife, Beth, was pregnant when we lived in Japan. Orders had me go to China for a couple of weeks. She was having a difficult pregnancy. I tried to get out of it, but they said I was needed.” He fiddled with a string on his shirt, as though remembering. “She died before I could get back.”

  His words burned a hole right through her. When Bree and Sasha had mentioned they had a feeling he was no longer married, this was not what she had expected. She touched his hand, but would have rather wrapped her arms around him and siphoned out the hurt.

  What could she say? “Oh, Clark...”

  “They live inside you, you know?”

  “I do know. But that...that is devastating.”

  He seemed to want to get it off his chest. “For the first year, I moved around like a man with no soul. Just a body going through motions of eating, sleeping, working. What keeps a person going after something like that is a mystery to me.”

  Something she had witnessed over the years, to be sure. “People say it’s God, but I like to think we each have our own fire burning deep inside of us, one that’s almost impossible to extinguish,” Eva said.

  “Self-preservation, maybe?”

  “Yes, but even more profound.”

  “Could be. I am slowly coming around,” he said.

  “How long had you been together?”

  “Four years. We met back home and I brought her over there to Japan a year later. She hated being so far from her family, and so when she became pregnant, she struggled with it even more. Japan was not where she wanted to raise our child. But what could I do?”

  “That must have been a tough position to be in,” Eva said.

  “You can say that again, and then when I had to go to China. I feel like it was all my fault.”

  Eva knew that feeling. “Blaming is a waste of time. Nobody knows what the future holds, and of course if you had, you would have done things differently.”

  “But I knew she was miserable.”

  “We can only be responsible for ourselves,” Eva said, while thinking how ironic it was that here she was, dishing out advice she herself couldn’t even follow.

  She felt pinned to the chair, the way Clark was looking at her. How did Japanese lessons turn into something like this? A mingling of wounds. And yet she felt all the better for it.

  He sighed. “Time is really the only thing that has helped.”

  “Give yourself credit for being resilient, not everyone is, you know. From the outside looking in, I’d say you’ve done well for yourself—you have important work, you are personable and make friends easily, and I’ve seen you enjoying yourself aboard this ship,” she said, leaving out the charming and magnetic part.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  Her mind went to Ruby. “You seem like a fighter. And you know, if there’s one thing about my sister, she is, too. As much as I worry, I also have a feeling that she’ll be fine no matter what. She’s the kind of person who turns a tragedy upside down and makes it into a blessing.”

  “My kind of gal,” he said.

  “You would love her. Everyone does.”

  She wanted him to meet Ruby one day. But would she even see him again after arriving in Honolulu? It seemed unlikely.

  “I plan on bringing her out here next year,” she said.

  Clark got quiet. There was a vein above his left temple throbbing with blood. She sensed he wanted to ask her something, but instead he excused himself and said he’d be right back. In the time that he was gone, she sank back in the rattan chair, closed her eyes and pictured Billy. Had Billy ever made her feel like this?

  The first time they had met had been a surprise encounter, planned and orchestrated by her father. For someone who spent his whole life putting people back together, her father’s interest in guns seemed a strange fascination. But he held the belief that the better prepared one was, the less likely trouble was to come knocking. And all that time out in the sticks tending to patients required him to leave his family alone frequently. So he made sure Evelyn and Ruby could load and fire and clean their weapons like any good sharpshooter. At the ripe old age of eight.

  On that first day with Billy, Evelyn had been home over the Christmas weekend when her father asked if she wouldn’t mind packing a picnic lunch for his old doctor friend Herman and him, as they had planned a morning of target practice down by the creek.

  “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to show you off a bit,” he had told her.

  She laughed. “Show me off?”

  “I told him you could shoot an apple from two hundred yards away.”

  “Why waste a good apple?”

  His face grew stern, but he had a twinkle in his eye. “Haven’t you learned to do as you’re told, my dear?”

  Evelyn replied, “Not yet.”

  He chuckled. “That’s my girl.”

  As it turned out, Herman was not alone that morning. As the sun played hide-and-seek behind the bare trees, spilling light through the cracks, he showed up at the door with his
son, Billy. Evelyn was the first one there to greet them, and she felt as though she had swallowed a toad when introductions were made. She knew right away what her father was up to. Both men removed their hats, and Billy did a once-over and then did not take his eyes from hers.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Evelyn. My father told me you were brilliant, but he failed to mention beautiful, too,” he said.

  Evelyn went fiery-hot pink in the cheeks. The nerve of her father to catch her off guard like this. “I assure you, the pleasure is mine, sirs.”

  It didn’t take long before she knew all about him, too. Between both fathers, neither Billy nor Evelyn could get a word out edgewise. Billy was at the top of his class at the Naval Academy. Evelyn studied at the Mayo Clinic. Billy has an assignment at Pearl Harbor. Evelyn can shoot a mouse from a galloping horse.

  “Dad, come on, you know I don’t shoot live targets,” she said, desperate to stop the escalating brag session.

  Billy had the kind of good looks that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd but grew on you—pale hair, pale face, eyes the color of burnt caramel. Right away, her father made it clear that he liked him because he was smart and driven, and in order to survive in this new world, people had to be driven. She could tell he was the kind of guy used to getting what he wanted, and initially she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But he was witty and could talk medicine and believed in women doctors, and despite herself, she found she was intrigued.

  At the end of the blustery and frigid day, Billy had helped her light a fire and they sat and talked late into the night, long after their fathers had retired. One thing led to another and before she knew it, they were a full-fledged item. Weeks turned into months, and though Billy had to return to Annapolis, he visited when he could. Theirs was an intermittent love affair, made more passionate by the long absences between togetherness.

  Billy had big plans for himself in the navy, so when it came time for him to leave for Hawaii, he didn’t bat an eye. Evelyn was ready to say goodbye and continue on her own path, but he wanted to keep the relationship going. He wrote her like crazy, sending gushy letters about how much he loved her, which turned her insides to pudding. She thought he was sweet.