“That feels good. Have I scolded you yet for staying with me?”
Her question surprised a short laugh from him. “Not yet.”
“I must be even sicker than I feel. You shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re too weak to chase me away. I’m staying.”
“I suppose it’s too late anyway. If you weren’t sufficiently exposed to the virus before, you are now. If you get sick, Johan Baker, I’m going to be awfully mad at you.”
“I’ll take my chances, Beautiful.”
She groaned and pushed back her hair. “I know what patients look like when they feel like this. It should be against hospital rules to let you see me when I’m ill.”
Johan laughed softly, glad she had enough energy to make the feeble joke. He lifted one of her hands and touched his lips to it. “Your face is beautiful to me, but even if it weren’t, it wouldn’t matter. It’s your beautiful heart I love.”
Her feverish eyes searched his. “Love?”
He nodded.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “What a nice word.” Tucking his hand against her fever-heated cheek, she fell back asleep.
It didn’t matter that he grew uncomfortable sitting on the hard oak chair with his hand in hers. He wouldn’t remove his hand if a bomb struck. He shifted the rest of his body as best he could time and again the next couple hours, while reading more of Jere’s letters to Lucy and Lucy’s letters to God one-handed.
It wasn’t until morning that Johan thought to call Grace. Lucy answered the telephone. She thanked him for letting the family know about Glorie, assured him that someone would visit if allowed into the wards, and asked him to tell Glorie they were praying for her.
By noon Glorie was coughing up blood.
The tired-looking doctor stepped out from behind the curtain around her bed where he’d been examining her and spoke to the impatiently waiting Johan. His gaze focused over Johan’s shoulder instead of meeting Johan’s own gaze. “Pneumonia’s setting in.”
The fever built. Glorie drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes hallucinating, sometimes moaning in a manner that tore at Johan’s heart. Her medicine was changed to quinine. Terror at the evidence of the flu’s power twisted his insides into painful knots. Johan found it difficult to concentrate on the letters, journal, or Bible.
He bathed her face repeatedly. It seemed to soothe her, and that soothed the aching around his heart a little. He combed her hair, though she remained unconscious of her surroundings, simply because he knew she disliked looking unkempt.
He almost prayed himself out. It was difficult to avoid the temptation to try to make a deal with God, even though he’d seen on the battlefields that such deals seldom appeared to work. He wouldn’t let himself think what life would be like if she didn’t make it.
Hours later, strains of “Silent Night” filtered through the patients’ moaning and coughing and the clatter of dishes from dinner served in bed. The music startled Johan. Carolers were singing in the hallway. It’s Christmas Eve, he remembered. A night for miracles. Would there be any miracles in the hospital tonight?
“Lieutenant Baker?”
“Yes?” Johan rose politely and held out his hand to the tall, slender old man standing with his hat in his hand at the end of the bed.
The older man’s grip was firm. “I’m Jere Cunningham, Glorie’s grandfather.”
“Glorie will be glad to see you. I wasn’t sure family would be allowed in. But, maybe it isn’t safe for you to be here.”
“I’ve had the flu. Besides, it was important to me to see Glorie tonight.” His gaze rested on Glorie’s face.
“She’s sleeping right now.” Johan was thankful she wasn’t tossing and turning. He knew it would hurt her grandfather more to see her in that state.
Jere removed something from his pocket and held out his hand, palm up, toward Johan.
“Why, that’s the pin your wife gave Grace, isn’t it?”
Jere nodded. “Grace died this afternoon.”
Shock muted Johan.
“Her husband, Daniel, died a few hours earlier,” Jere continued, “right after we received the news that Fred, Glorie’s brother, is alive. I guess the good Lord gave us the gift of that news to strengthen us for what came next.”
“We didn’t even know they were sick.” His senses reeled. Bubbly, compassionate Grace, gone. How will I ever tell Glorie?
“When Grace fell ill, she made us promise not to tell Glorie. Grace didn’t want her sister to leave the men here when her nursing skills were so needed.”
“Elisabeth?”
“The flu didn’t strike her hard. She’s already getting past it. Getting past the other will be the fight.” Jere sighed deeply. “Almost losing our grandson in the war, losing Grace … I had to come see Glorie. Not to hit her with the hard news, just to sit with her awhile and pray for her.”
Johan understood that to the depth of his bones. He indicated the straight-backed oak chair that had been his home the last two days. “Won’t you sit here, Sir?”
Johan retreated a few feet away to give Jere privacy. He watched the older man take Glorie’s hand and knew he was talking to her heart-to-heart, though not out loud.
He wanted to tell Jere he’d learned so much from his letters, written during a different war. He recalled what Jere wrote near the beginning of that war, when he joined the Union army. “I can’t support the South, but neither will I fight against the South. I told the officer in charge, ‘I am strong and can obey orders. I can be a litter bearer and help bind up wounds. But my beliefs will not allow me to bear arms.’ ”
Johan had learned about that war in school, but he hadn’t understood it was about people choosing sides against their own families and friends. He hadn’t realized that other people had faced the kinds of choices German-Americans had in the Great War. Now he knew it wasn’t about choosing who you’ll be against; it was knowing what you are for, as Glorie had reminded him. Glorie, Grace, Lucy, and Jere all chose to be for healing, even in the middle of war.
I choose healing, too, Johan thought.
Healing of a different sort. President Wilson had a plan for a new kind of world with an organization to help nations choose to live in peace instead of war: the League of Nations. It seemed to Johan something the King of Peace would like. That’s what I want to do, help the world live in peace. He’d try going into politics. Maybe be an ambassador one day or, better yet, part of that League if it became a reality. Wherever he ended up, he wanted Glorie beside him.
Jere left before Glorie awoke.
Johan was sitting beside the bed, turning the lamp pin over and over in his hand, when dawn’s first light filtered through the windows and Glorie opened her eyes. Joy leaped in Johan’s chest when he saw that her gaze was clear and true, without the haze of fever. “You had company,” Johan greeted her return to the waking world. “Family. You have good news. Fred is alive.”
Even the fever couldn’t keep the joy light from her eyes. “What happened to him? Is he home?”
“He’s staying in Europe with the occupation troops for now. He was injured in the last battle and found unconscious. Who knows why the news didn’t get back to your family. He’s fine now.”
“What a wonderful Christmas present.”
“Yes.” He waited until a round of coughing passed. “Grace wanted you to have this.” He placed the pin in her hand.
“Why, it’s the pin Grandmother Lucy gave her.”
“Yes. Florence Nightingale’s lamp. A symbol of healing.”
“How nice of her to lend it to me.” Another round of coughing racked her.
Johan cradled her hand, kissed her palm beside the pin, and said yet another silent prayer. When she was stronger, he’d tell her about Grace and Daniel. “Will you marry me, Glorie? As soon as you’re well?”
“Yes, oh yes, my love.” The glow in her eyes lit his heart. “But, would you mind very much if we wait until Fred is home? I want all my family a
t our wedding.”
“Of course we’ll wait for Fred.”
Glorie yawned and blinked. “I suppose it’s awfully poor etiquette for a girl to fall asleep when she’s just received a marriage proposal, but I don’t think I can stay … awake … any …” Her eyes closed. Her hand went limp in his.
Fear struggled within him. The fever seemed to have broken, but it would take awhile to recover from the pneumonia. He remembered God’s rainbows and made himself concentrate on the future he hoped he and Glorie would share, man and wife, raising Elisabeth, and working together for healing in the world.
Johan continued to pray and hold fast to his dreams of the future during the anxious days which followed. When Glorie showed definite signs of improvement, he teased, “It wasn’t the fever talking when you promised to marry me, was it?”
Her lashes lowered against still-pale cheeks, then rose to reveal green eyes sparkling with love. “I thought perhaps I’d hallucinated your proposal. I couldn’t ask without being immodest.”
He chuckled and drew her into his embrace, rejoicing inside at the gift of this woman’s love. At the sound of a nurse’s voice nearby, he released Glorie reluctantly. She leaned back against the pillows, smiling in the January sunshine. “I’m so happy. It hardly seems possible the war is over, Fred is alive, and you and I found each other here.”
“All answered prayers.” Johan sent up another silent prayer. So far she’d accepted Grace’s absence as a wise precaution in avoiding the flu. He took Glorie’s fingers in his, rubbing his thumbs lightly over the back of her small hands, wishing there were a way to prevent the pain he was about to inflict. Sorrow for her burned within him. “But Grace …”
“What about Grace?” Her green eyes smiled in question.
“God has called Grace and Daniel home.”
Glorie stared at him as if she didn’t comprehend.
“It was the flu. I’m sorry.” His voice cracked on the words. He gathered her into his arms.
She clung to him as he gently rocked her. After a long time she whispered, “Poor Elisabeth. I want to raise her, Johan.”
“Of course we will raise her, Dear. We both love her already.”
Healing tears came. Gradually Glorie’s tense body relaxed against him and she slept. Johan gently lowered her to the pillows. His vision blurred. How like her to be more concerned with Elisabeth’s pain than her own. The realization that Glorie’s love for Elisabeth would help heal Glorie’s own loss brought him peace. And he would be with her every step of the way, from the storm of heartbreak to the rainbow God had promised.
Epilogue
May 8, 1919
Look, a rainbow!”
A collective “Ooooh!” went up from the crowd waiting at the railroad station for the returning Rainbow Division. The spring shower that had made the brilliant colors bridging the sky possible was instantly forgotten.
Glorie squeezed Johan’s arm and met his glowing gaze. Elisabeth was held tight in his other arm. “Uncle Fred will be home in just a few minutes, Elisabeth. Watch for the train.”
“I hope your parents saw that rainbow,” Johan said as he stretched to look over the heads of the crowd. Many people carried flags, making it more difficult for Johan to see. “I guess it’s no surprise that we’ve managed to lose them. There must be forty thousand people here.”
A stranger saw the wound stripes on Johan’s uniform and asked to shake his hand.
A whistle blew.
“Here it comes! Here comes the train, Aunt Glorie!” Elisabeth’s eyes were wide with excitement.
Glorie clung tightly to Johan’s arm as the crowd jostled in anticipation.
The engine chugged into view, draped with rainbow-colored ribbons. An engineer leaned out the window waving an American flag for all he was worth. A sign stretched across one of the cars announced, “Minnesota’s Gopher Gunners.” The crowd let up a roar of welcome.
Everything was tumult and noise. Men in khaki almost fell from the train in their eagerness to find family and friends. A corporal threw his arms around a tiny gray-haired woman. “Ma!” An older man blinked back tears, pounding a private’s shoulder and repeating, “Well done, Son, well done.” Dozens of grinning doughboys shook hands with everyone they met, whether they knew them or not. A burly sergeant stopped beside a woman wearing a black crepe armband, removed his hat, and thanked her.
Tears clouded Glorie’s eyes at the sight of a Red Cross girl in a broad-brimmed hat weaving through the crowd handing soldiers oranges and chocolates, which were accepted with a polite “Thank you, Miss” and stuffed into pockets while the soldiers continued looking for loved ones. Glorie touched a gloved finger to the lamp pin on the lapel of her Army Nurse Corps jacket, a strict violation of the dress code. Then she dashed her tears away. This was a day for rejoicing.
For a split second Glorie saw Fred’s face on the train steps before he dropped into the sea of people. She waved her handkerchief frantically. “Fred! Fred Cunningham!”
“Fwed!” Elisabeth repeated, waving her hands in the air at no one in particular.
Their calls were lost among thousands of other calls.
“Which way?” Johan yelled in Glorie’s ear. They pushed through the crowd in the direction she’d last seen Fred.
Suddenly he was there. “Sis!” His arms enveloped her, sweeping her off her feet. Their exuberant hug knocked her hat askew.
Elisabeth allowed him a brief hug, suddenly shy now that she was face-to-face with him.
Grinning, Fred held out his hand to Johan. “You must be the man who won my sister’s heart.” His lower jaw dropped, a shocked look on his face. “Why, it’s … it’s you!”
Mystified, Glorie looked from his face to her fiancé’s. Johan’s face had the same shell-shocked look as Fred’s.
“You!” Johan repeated.
A moment later the men were slapping each other on the back. “I wondered what happened to you,” Fred said, “but I didn’t know your name so couldn’t ask.”
Fred turned to Glorie. “You’ve some man here. A group of us were surprised by a sudden shelling. Gas bombs, you could tell by the sound of them. We headed for a trench, reaching for our gas masks on the way. The area was nothing but mud. I fell, rolled a few feet, stood up, and started forward. I stepped in just the wrong place and found myself up to my knees in mud. I grabbed for my gas mask. Evidently when I fell, the mask hit something sharp, for there was a hole in it.”
He jerked a thumb at Johan. “This soldier sees what’s happened, pulls off his own mask, and shoves it on me. I protested something awful, but caught in the mud like that, I couldn’t get away. He yanked my mask out of my hands. I saw him stuff a handkerchief in the hole in my mask, slip the mask over his head, and take off down the trench as fast as he could away from the cloud of gas that was rolling toward us with the speed of a locomotive.”
Johan shrugged, his face ruddy. “I wasn’t exactly a hero.”
“You are in my book,” Fred declared.
Glorie’s gaze met Johan’s embarrassed one. “In my book, too,” she quipped lightly. A sweet peace washed over her. War and evil weren’t as strong as people thought. Love was stronger. Johan taught her that in helping Fred. The nurses who voluntarily risked their lives to help the wounded proved it, too.
Nothing was as strong as love.
If you would like to read the story of Elisabeth finding love as a nurse during World War II, please see “A Light in the Night” by Janelle Burnham Schneider in A Sentimental Journey Romance Collection—available now.
JOANN A. GROTE lives on the Minnesota prairie which is a setting for many of her stories. Once a full-time CPA, JoAnn now spends most of her time researching and writing. JoAnn has published historical nonfiction books for children and several novels with Barbour Publishing in the Heartsong Presents line as well as the American Adventure and Sisters in Time series for children. Several of her novellas are included in CBA bestselling anthologies by Barbour Publishing. J
oAnn’s love of history developed when she worked at an historical restoration in North Carolina for five years. She enjoys researching and weaving her fictional characters’ lives into historical backgrounds and events. JoAnn believes that readers can receive a message of salvation and encouragement from well-crafted fiction. She captures and addresses the deeper meaning between life and faith.
Dedication
To my grandpa Arnold Bechtel,
my first knight in shining armor,
who taught me what it was to be spoiled!
And to the Highway Community and its members
for keeping me grounded
and for always pursuing God’s Truth in
a place where it’s often hard to find.
And finally, to Colleen Coble
for being my “adult conversation” each day
and helping me hone the writing craft.
Prologue
December 1928
Josephine Mayer looked to her younger sister, afraid that her teary eyes gave the news without words. “It’s done. Father has married her.” Jo tossed the letter aside and hugged her sister.
Claire sniffled on her shoulder. “She stole everything we have, Jo. She took Mother’s wedding gown, the family chest, and now our father.”
“It’s all possessions, Claire, nothing more. Father is not gone; he will return to us.” Jo tried to be stoic for her sister’s sake, but she understood the enormity of their father’s actions. It meant nothing would ever be the same. Adulthood would come much earlier than they had planned.
Claire couldn’t hold her emotions as easily. “Father will be back, but it will never be the same. Marian should have been married in Mother’s gown. Instead she married in gray wool while that creature took the gown. It was our gown,” Claire wailed. “Generations of brides, our legacy, gone. Does that woman have no heart at all?”
“I’m sure she was only doing what she thought would please Father.” Josephine looked to the floor, afraid that her eyes would give away her own struggling emotions. “We just have to remember to keep it to ourselves and not let Grandma Faith know. Her health is far more important than a box with some keepsakes in it.”
The Valiant Hearts Romance Collection Page 58
