For Love and Country

by Candace Waters

  It was so much easier than coming to terms with the fact that he was really gone.

  But over the course of the week, the gnawing pain of not knowing, and the pang of hope, became more and more unbearable. Finally, this morning, Lottie had caught Maggie in the barracks as the women were milling around, all getting ready to go to work.

  “Can you check for me again?” Lottie had asked. “Just one more time?”

  “Check what?” Maggie had asked.

  The question of where Luke was, and how he was, had been so central in Lottie’s mind all this time that she could hardly believe it wasn’t the first thing everyone else was thinking of too. Or that Maggie, at least, could have had any question about what she was talking about.

  “Luke,” Lottie had said. “Can you find out where he is?”

  “Luke,” Maggie had repeated.

  “Captain Woodward,” Lottie had said.

  Maggie’s eyes had suddenly widened in understanding—then softened with a pity that Lottie didn’t like.

  “Sure,” Maggie had said gently, buttoning up her jacket. “I’ll check again.”

  But she hadn’t found anything.

  Lottie glanced around the ward, as if the answers she was looking for might be somewhere nearby. Everything looked just the same as it always had. And yet, everything felt different.

  “Well,” Lottie said, “we can check again. Maybe by next week they’ll know something more. Maybe—”

  “Lottie,” Maggie said. She kept her voice low, but by the tone, Lottie could tell she had something serious to say. She met her friend’s eyes. And when she did, something Lottie saw in them made Maggie glance away.

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “I’ll check again if you want me to. I’ll check as much as you want. But I have to tell you, I look at these lists all day long. And on the casualty lists from Iwo Jima, missing doesn’t mean missing. I haven’t seen a single missing man recovered alive. If their status ever changes, it only ever changes to deceased.” She reached for Lottie’s hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, honey,” she said. “But I don’t want to be the one who doesn’t tell you. If he’s listed missing…” She took a deep breath. “He’s gone.”

  Lottie had tried to tell herself, over and over again, that she had to face up to the fact that Luke might never come back. But telling herself that in her own mind was different from listening to someone else say it aloud. Somehow, that made it real—not just a thought that she could change or chase away, like any other thought.

  And she was stunned by the wave of emotion that washed over her at the fact that Luke was really gone. All the small, familiar ways that her heart had been opening to Eugene during his convalescence were suddenly swept away by the power of her feelings for Luke.

  Luke, whom she had never even kissed. Luke, who believed in her more than anyone she’d ever known. And whom she would never see again.

  She thought back to their last conversation.

  It’s my last night…

  She would take back so many of the things she said that night. And she would say so many things she hadn’t.

  Tears sprang into her eyes. Maggie drew her into an awkward hug, the basin with the bandages caught between their bellies.

  But as the two of them drew back, Lottie heard her name. One of the other WAVES, a woman she didn’t know, was striding down the row of beds. “Palmer,” she called urgently. “Lottie Palmer.”

  Lottie’s first thought was that something must have happened to Eugene as well. Her heart lurched as if the ground under her feet had just given way.

  “I’m here,” she said. “That’s me. What’s happened?”

  “He’s taken a turn for the worse,” the woman said. “He’s asking for you.”

  Panic rose inside her. She couldn’t handle another loss today. Maggie squeezed Lottie’s hand as Lottie turned to follow the woman through the ward, toward Eugene’s bed.

  But just before they got there, the woman turned down a nearby aisle.

  It wasn’t until she was standing at the foot of his bed, and Ben smiled up at her, that Lottie realized who the woman had been leading her to.

  “Ben,” she said, sinking down at his bedside.

  The soldier from Detroit gave her the same beatific smile he’d given her the first day they met.

  “I been waiting for you,” Ben said.

  “Oh yeah?” Lottie said, smiling. “Are you going to take me out for a walk?”

  Ben smiled again. “Maybe later,” he said. His eyes drifted across her face, then focused on something behind her, something she knew wasn’t actually there. “Maybe you can meet me there.”

  The woman who had brought Lottie to Ben’s bedside leaned over to whisper in her ear. “The doctor said he doesn’t have long,” she said.

  At this, something stubborn rose in Lottie. She couldn’t do anything about losing Luke, or about Eugene’s leg. But Ben was right here, in front of her. Close enough that she could hold his hand in hers. And she didn’t plan to let him slip away, too. Not today.

  As the woman had been speaking to her, Ben’s eyes had closed.

  “Don’t you dare leave, Ben,” Lottie said. “I just got here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “That’s nice,” Ben murmured with a smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  But as he finished speaking, something started to feel strange about his expression. It was the kind of smile that could easily appear on a face and disappear just as quickly. But on Ben’s face, it just stayed.

  It only took her a moment to realize he was no longer breathing.

  “Ben!” Lottie cried.

  The men on either side of her glanced over from their own beds.

  Behind her, the nurse who had brought Lottie over put her hand on Lottie’s shoulder.

  Lottie broke into tears.

  The nurse knelt beside her and gently pulled Lottie’s hands from Ben’s. “Not here,” she said, her voice low. “Not here. The other men.”

  At a tug from the other woman, Lottie rose in a fog, obediently following her until they reached the door of the ward.

  The other woman pushed it open, letting a gust of hibiscus-scented sea air sweep over them.

  “Take a walk,” she said. “Come back when you’re ready.”

  Blindly, Lottie stepped outside and began to walk. She crossed the entire base, to the perimeter gate, but she didn’t stop there. Nodding at the guard, she walked out into the darkness, hugging the coastline, gazing out over the dark water that churned in the choppy ocean beyond, and thinking about all the things that lay under and beyond it.

  For a long time, it was as if she were walking through a world she’d never seen before. Nothing looked familiar to her, not even the coast. She felt as if she might have even landed on some other planet, one she’d never seen before.

  Then, suddenly, she knew exactly where she was.

  The curve of the land against the sea felt like home.

  But why did it suddenly seem so familiar?

  Looking around, Lottie saw the little club at the edge of the cove where the WAVES and seamen had spent so many raucous nights. And the curve of the beach below, where she and Luke had run into each other.

  Without hesitating, she made her way down the beach and along the damp shore to the cove.

  It was foolish, but she couldn’t help looking up to the twisted hunk of metal she’d first found Luke sitting on and down to the shore, in case he’d beaten her there again, as he had before.

  But there was no sign of him.

  Lottie took a deep breath and walked up to the spot where she’d found him before, in the shadow of the busted wreck from the attack on the island.

  She knelt in the sand and pulled something out of her pocket: the O-ring he had given her from that engine in San Diego, which she had carried with her ever since.

  It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing she had of his.

  This war had alrea
dy taken so much from her. She couldn’t let it take her spirit as well.

  God, she prayed. I don’t know how to let him go. Please help me find the strength. Please help us all.

  Kneeling beside a large rock, almost the shape of a gravestone, she dug up a few handfuls of sand, until she reached more sand that was damp and hard-packed. She dropped the O-ring in.

  It was something real she could do, here and now, to mark the pain that twisted in her chest, something that wouldn’t slip through her hands the way Ben’s spirit had even though she was sitting right beside him. The way Luke had always seemed to slip away from her whenever they got close.

  She suddenly understood why she’d been pushing her emotions away for so long. The longing for Luke was so strong she thought it might split her in two. And when it receded for a moment, everything else rushed in—the exhaustion and worry about the shop, and a deep fear that she wouldn’t be able to hold it together there, not even for a minute longer. Missing her mother and father, and the twist of guilt and sorrow at the thought that she’d caused them so much pain, after all they’d done for her. And an ache over Eugene and the things that could never be restored—his leg, and the innocent love they’d shared from their childhood, which seemed so far away now.

  For a long time, she knelt there over the O-ring, her tears dropping into the sand. Then finally the shaking in her shoulders subsided.

  She lifted her chin, spread sand over the gift Luke had given her, and stood.

  Looking out at the dark water, she said another wordless prayer—for Luke, for Ben, for herself, and for everything they’d all lost.

  Twenty-Seven

  EUGENE LOOKED UP WHEN she came down the aisle the next morning and grinned.

  But there was a clear question in his eyes, mingled with concern for her.

  “Good morning, Lots,” he said.

  “Hey,” she said, setting down the pieces of toast she’d brought him from the mess hall. The men in the wards were fed reasonably well, but she always liked to bring him anything extra she could. He’d even started to joke that it wasn’t fair for her to bring him extra food, because he couldn’t get around to work it all off—a joke that always made her heart twist with pain, while she tried to smile.

  “I think that strawberries finally went out of season on the mainland,” Lottie said, unfolding the napkin she’d brought the toast in. “We’re back to pineapple marmalade.”

  Eugene’s brow furrowed. “If they’d served me pineapple marmalade at the Ritz last year, I’d have been tickled pink. But I don’t think I’ll ever need another bite of it, after all this.”

  Still, he crunched into the toast with a grateful smile.

  “How are you doing?” Lottie asked, as she did every morning.

  Eugene nodded and took another bite, just as if they were an old couple, seated at opposite ends of a long table, with nothing much else that needed to be said between them, after so many years together.

  But then he gave her a searching glance. “What about you, Lots?” he asked.

  Lottie understood the question—and why he didn’t ask it more directly. He couldn’t have helped but notice that she hadn’t come to visit him last night, as she always had every night since he’d arrived here again. But how could he ask why she hadn’t come? He was in such a vulnerable position, totally dependent on her kindness and friendship. He wouldn’t want to seem like he was complaining that she hadn’t come to visit him. He wouldn’t want to do anything that might drive her farther away.

  “I’m just tired,” she said, trying to give him a smile. “Do you remember the boy I was talking to? The one from Detroit?”

  Eugene nodded. “He wanted to go to work in one of your dad’s factories.”

  “He died last night,” she said, her head bowing as she said it. “We’ve just lost so many people.”

  “And your friend, too,” Eugene said gently.

  Lottie looked up, confused. Did Eugene know something about Maggie? Had something happened to her, as well?

  But when she met Eugene’s eyes, he clarified: “Captain Woodward.”

  Until she heard his name said aloud, Lottie had almost convinced herself that she had been able to bury her feelings for Luke with the O-ring, in the sand on the beach.

  But the wave that crashed over her when Eugene spoke his name was so overwhelming that she actually reeled a bit, even though she was already seated on the side of Eugene’s bed. And it wasn’t just that the wave of sorrow and loss knocked the wind out of her. When the pain finally receded, it left her feeling like it had knocked everything out of her. Her whole heart and even her whole mind felt hollowed out, with nothing left other than a dull ache that she slowly realized pulsed every time her heart did.

  Lottie took his hand and kissed it.

  Eugene’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Lots,” he said, his voice questioning and soft.

  “I’m coming home with you,” Lottie told him. “I decided last night. As soon as you’re well again, we’ll go together.”

  Eugene squeezed her hand gently. As she looked into his eyes, tears sprang into her own. “I want us to be together,” she said. “And we don’t have to have a big wedding, like we’d planned. We’ll go to the justice of the peace on the way home and tell them when we get there.”

  Lottie looked into Eugene’s eyes, realizing that she’d been so overwhelmed with the demands of the war and the shop that she hadn’t really seen anything clearly for—she didn’t know how long.

  And she could see from Eugene’s expression that he hadn’t missed that, the way he never missed anything.

  “Lots,” he said quietly. “I’ve dreamed of hearing you say that. That you wanted to come back.”

  Gratefully, Lottie squeezed his hand. “I’m ready,” she said. She bowed her head. “Maybe I never should have left,” she added.

  Eugene collected both her hands in his own. For a long moment, the two of them just sat like that, together, the way they had a million times before, before their broken engagement, before Eugene’s injury, before anyone had ever even dreamed of this war.

  Then Eugene spoke again. “But I’ve known you all my life, Lottie Palmer,” he said.

  Something in the way he said it made Lottie look up in surprise.

  When she met Eugene’s eyes, they crinkled into his familiar smile. But now that smile was tinged with a pain she hadn’t seen even in all the days that he’d been struggling to recover from losing his leg.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “The life I thought we were going to live,” Eugene said. “The life I wanted to give you: parties, and jet-setting. A house on the lake and a house in Florida, and one in Maine. Chauffeurs, and cars we don’t fix ourselves.” Still smiling, he shook his head. “You aren’t cut out for it. You never were.”

  Lottie opened her mouth to protest, but Eugene raised his eyebrows with a faint smile, and she fell silent.

  “Sometimes I used to think I knew you better than you knew yourself,” Eugene said. “Looking back, I realized maybe I should have seen what happened coming.”

  “But we don’t have to have that kind of life,” Lottie said. “We could do anything we want.”

  “Maybe,” Eugene said. “My life’s certainly going to be different than I’d planned now.”

  Lottie looked down at the place where his missing leg should have been with a pang.

  “But that’s not what I’m worried about,” Eugene said.

  Lottie’s brows drew together. “Then what?” she asked.

  “Lottie,” Eugene said. His tone was so serious that for a moment Lottie thought he might propose to her again. Instead, he said, “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I do!” Lottie exclaimed.

  But then she paused. In that moment, she suddenly knew exactly what Eugene was asking her. And she knew that, in her pause, she had answered the question, without even wanting to. But she still pressed on. “We’ve been through so
much together,” she said. “We know each other so well. There’s no one I care about more than you.”

  Eugene didn’t say anything for a moment. He just watched her, letting what she knew and he knew sink in, for both of them.

  Then he gave her another faint smile. “That’s not enough,” he said. “For me, or for you.”

  “But—” Lottie began.

  “All this, the war,” Eugene said, looking around, “it wasn’t just a whim for you. It was just the beginning. If it hadn’t been the war, it would have been something else. You were built for more than any of us ever knew. More than you do, maybe. And your adventures are just beginning. I don’t want to stand in the way. And I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. You’ll just have to promise to come back and tell me about them now and then, the way you’re always reporting on how you’re whipping those guys into shape down in the repair bay.”

  By now, tears were rolling down Lottie’s cheeks. “I got you into this,” she said. “If it weren’t for me, you might not even be wounded. It’s only right that I take care of you.”

  Eugene raised his eyebrows and shook his head. It was strange, but a look of amusement had come into his eyes. “Lots, I’ve got a lot more to go back to than most guys in this place,” he said. “This isn’t the end for me, either.”

  Lottie wiped at her eyes.

  “And you know something else?” Eugene said.

  Lottie shook her head.

  “I don’t regret a thing,” Eugene told her. “It’s my country. It’s my duty, too. And I’m not sorry I came to fight for it. No matter what happened. And no matter what happens next. All right?”

  Lottie nodded. But in her heart, she felt nothing but a deep, throbbing ache.

  Eugene looked up at the clock high on the ward’s wall.

  “You better get out of here,” he said. “It won’t do if the boss is late.”

  Twenty-Eight

  IT WASN’T UNTIL LOTTIE was standing at the edge of the water that she realized she hadn’t gone to the repair hangar after she left Eugene, but walked in a fog of confusion and hurt and guilt through the maze of runways and base buildings to the water. There wasn’t a beach to speak of at Pearl Harbor, but she’d managed to find a quiet spot of shore, anyway, a little strip where the water of the bay sloshed quietly against the concrete footings of the building behind her.