by Eden Butler
“I’ve only just let myself realize that you’re about to leave and that maybe I won’t ever…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, worried how it would make me sound. Worried that Garreth might find me overdramatic and silly. After all, he wasn’t mine at all. For all I knew, he dallied around with girls at every stop along the way, and I was just another air-headed bimbo to make eyes at him to pass the time. Why should I care if I never saw him again? But, dammit, I did.
“And who says we won’t ever see each other again?” My stomach swirled and twisted when he smiled at me, when the grip on my fingers tightened. “There are pages and pages of blank spaces to fill, love, and years and years of information to be discovered between the two of us.”
I moved to open my mouth to speak, but found myself breathless when he tilted his head down to gaze at me. Finally, I stammered, “But you’ll be at war, training and fighting and doing all manner of things…”
“It’s not all blood and battle, love. We won’t be fighting every waking moment. Besides,” here he paused, inching so close that his shoulder touched mine. “If I were half dead on the cold French ground somewhere I’d make time to write you a letter.”
Garreth’s features had softened and when he leaned still closer, letting one hand brush against my cheek, moving his thumb over the high arch of my cheekbone. I felt the subtle trace of a callous as he moved it. It didn’t hurt. Maybe it did. I couldn’t recall, not with how silent the world became just then, how still the moment made us.
He wanted to kiss me. I saw it in his eyes. And oh, I wanted him to kiss me. The expression on his face had me wishing I didn’t care about propriety or the epic level of gossip one kiss from this soldier would mean for me. Wishing that the entire world would disappear, for just one moment, just enough time for one soft, stolen kiss. Wishing for that with all my heart.
But, my mama cared a lot about what others thought and she had raised me to be a lady who didn’t do such things as kiss a stranger in the broad day light with townsfolk and nosy old gossipers running around every corner. And then the train whistle sounded, the one that signaled his departure.
Garreth moved his hand away from my face and he knitted his eyebrows together as the whistle faded. It had been a lovely day. We’d talked and laughed and got on so well I’d nearly forgotten that I didn’t know him; that he’d be saying goodbye for months, maybe years. Maybe forever.
Garreth helped me to my feet and led me down the platform, holding my hand like our fingers were meant to be locked together. Around us the crowd huddled near the platform and the steam from the train’s engine began to billow, thickening the air. Still he didn’t release my hand and I didn’t bother to ask him to. I wanted the security his touch offered. I didn’t want it to end. As he moved towards the tracks, I went with him.
Just three feet from the train, he stopped, pulling me to him and speaking softly, too low for curious ears. “Will you write to me, Miss Ada?”
“I…” another whistle sounded and Nelson began calling the departure time. With each bellow of his voice, my heart beat further up my throat. Garreth waited, staring, every wish he made settling into the soft lines around his eyes. “Of course I will, though you’ll have to write me first.” I curled my fingers tighter in his. “But Legacy Falls is a small town. You need only write my name, Ada Mae Mills, and Legacy Falls and I’ll get your letters. Don’t doubt it.” My eyes sought his.
He nodded, glancing over his shoulder once when the final boarding call came. “I’ll start a letter to you tonight. I promise.” Without hesitating, Garreth lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles, eyes closing as if committing the smell of my skin to memory. And then moved my hand to his chest, holding it against his beating heart. “You asked me,” he whispered, even with the sounds of the voices and the engines and Nelson sounding the “All aboard!”, “if I was scared.” My heart caught in my throat. “I am, Miss Ada. Terrified.” And then he pulled away from me, waving off Nelson when the man told him to board, and stepping on to the train as it began to move. I followed along the platform, focusing on the beautiful soldier gripping tight to the train railing. He continued to call out to me, as if we were the only two on that platform, the only ones being torn apart. “I’ve never been so scared in my life, Miss Mills. But maybe…maybe your letters will give me the strength I need to turn my back to the fear.”
I felt the small tickle of tears in the corners of my eyes and I nodded to Garreth, a silent acknowledgement. He stood up straight then, moving into the train when the porter lifted the steps and to a place where he could lower the window, hanging his head and one shoulder through the opening. I walked alongside the train as it began to move, so slowly at first, slowly enough that we could almost touch, that we could still see only each other. We should not be carrying on so; but it was as though the distance ahead was too great for us to worry about what anyone else might be thinking.
As the train began to pick up speed, he called out again, needing reassurance as the distance between us began to lengthen. “So you'll write to me, Miss Ada? You promise?”
And right there in the Legacy Falls train station, in front of anyone who cared to see, I shed tears for a man I did not know and for the adventure I knew he didn’t want to take. “I promise, Garreth. I promise I’ll write. I promise.”
With that small promise, the very least I could do, his smile widened and I could see even from where I stood that his shoulders relaxed as he leaned even further out of the window. I watched that smile and the sparkling blue of his eyes as the train left the station, waving until I couldn’t make out his face anymore. That’s when the waiting began.
CHAPTER THREE
Miss Ada,
There is a brook a thousand meters from my father’s home. It’s cool and thick with loads of wee fish that swim beneath the water, skimming the surface. It’s a lovely place and sets my chest tight to think on it. I’ve been away from that place a long time and most nights I find I can’t keep it from my thoughts. But speaking with you, listening to your voice, seeing that wide, beautiful smile, has driven the homesick feeling from me. You have replaced that small place back in Ireland, though I’m at a loss to know why. Only, I reckon, that there are just some folks that we meet that impact us in ways we cannot name. Not directly. Not for me. Whatever the reason, now I am not tortured by the nights and the emptiness I feel when I try to get my rest. Now there is you.
From Garreth to Ada, 1943
Mama had heard the gossip before I crossed the front door threshold that afternoon. I entered the farmhouse and smiled for half a second when the scent of baking corn muffins and glazed ham hit my nostrils. Apple pie, of course, would be desert, as was customary when ripe apples had fallen too soon to the ground. I’d barely managed to set my purse on the kitchen table when she came through the back door, arms full of fresh eggs. The nod she gave me was curt and when she looked at me with one black eyebrow lifted, I knew the news that I’d been seen with a stranger at the station had beaten me home.
“Ada Mae…”
“Oh, Mama, please don’t let’s argue.” My tone was sharp and I hurried to keep the bite from my words. “Supper smells delicious and we’ve had another letter from Mattie.” I tapped the yellow envelope in the front pocket of my dress as I helped my mother put eggs in the wire bowl on top of the kitchen counter.
“I’ve been told a few things, young lady.” It was if she hadn't heard me at all, so I ignored her in turn, which had her frowning even deeper. The expression made her look much older than her fifty years, but I supposed that being sick didn’t help to keep her young-looking. Still, the grumpy frown seemed a bit much. “Who is this stranger?”
“A soldier, Mama. He fixed my trolley tire when it busted off. His name is Garreth and he was helpful.”
“Garreth.” She said his name like it was a filthy word. “And what did this Garreth expect in return?”
“Lord, Mama. Nothing at all.” The small dishtowel on th
e edge of the sink was damp when I grabbed it, idly wiping down the wood countertops as my mother watched me, eyes tight and scrutinizing. “I gave him some of the baked goods and cigarettes I couldn’t sell in exchange for his help in fixing the tire.”
“You didn’t sell anything?”
“Mama, the trolley toppled over. I couldn’t sell anything.”
She could cut me in half with the smallest head shake, like the one she gave just then, as though my explanation, my small kindness, had been silly and simple. “Well, regardless, I think it’s unseemly you walking all over town today with a man you don’t know from Adam.”
It was an old argument. I’d manned the trolley since I was eighteen, meeting all sorts of strange folk from every place imaginable. True, I’d never taken any of them beyond the station, certainly never gave anyone a personal tour of our nothing small town, and I was sure Mama knew that. More than likely, though, it wasn’t news of my impromptu tour that had her so flustered, it was that I hadn’t cared who saw me or not.
Mama sometimes forgot that I wasn’t the wide eyed, pigtailed twelve year tagging along after Aunt Julia at the station when she manned the snack trolley. It didn’t matter that I’d finished high school at the top of my class. It didn’t matter that I’d been awarded several scholarships to State, though Mama’s illness had pushed back my using those scholarships. To her I’d always be in need of direction; as though only she could keep me grounded.
“I don’t need you telling me my business, Mama. I am nearly twenty-one.”
“Exactly my point. Twenty-one and no serious engagements.” She had to have known that her words hit home when I stopped wiping off the countertop, and she pressed on. “If you aren’t careful, you carry on the way you are and no man will have you, not even Deacon Smith.”
Lord in Heaven the woman was always talking about Deacon. It didn’t matter to her that he was ten years older than me or that we had never had a real conversation in our lives, no matter how often Mama dragged him to our dinner table. And to anyone with eyes to see, it was obvious that Deacon wasn’t remotely interested in me. As a wife, maybe, but not as a person. But there was no explaining this to my pig-headed mother. She only saw Deacon as the last remaining single man not off fighting in the war, which in her book meant that he was a perfect fit for her wander-lusting daughter. If I were settled with Deacon, my mother believed, then I’d plant roots deep in Legacy Falls and never leave once. Deep down, I knew that Mama was like this because she was scared about abandoning me if her illness got worse; she desperately wanted to make sure I’d be taken care of when she was gone. Still, that didn’t mean I’d settle for Deacon just to make her happy.
“Speaking of Deacon,” Mama said, drawing herself up as though to rise above our argument, “I’ve asked him to dinner.”
“Mama!”
“He likes you, Ada Mae. What’s so wrong with that?”
“No ma’am, it’s not me he likes. He’s after our orchard and wants to sell it off bit by bit if I was ever stupid enough to agree to marry him.”
“You shouldn’t say such things.” Mama took the dishtowel I had forgotten I was holding and snapped it sharply over the sink to free it of any excess crumbs before turning to open the oven door and inspect the piping hot ham that was baking there. With her back still to me, she said, “You mess around and you’ll end up like your Aunt Julia, running all over, chasing her man, and her with no children or a home to speak of.”
“Mama…she’s serving the country.” I jumped a little when my mother let the oven door slam shut.
“Oh, she’s doing her part alright, but look where it’s gotten her. Her man is off in France and she’s stuck in Italy. Serves her right.”
Mama had never agreed with her younger sister’s decision to become a Camp Follower, tagging along after her husband Ray from one town to another as he trained before finally being shipped off overseas.
Admittedly, it hadn't been easy for Aunt Julia. Her letters spoke of there never being enough lodging in those small towns to allow for any kind of privacy, and sometimes she only got to see Ray for a half hour at a time. She’d wait hours and hours to meet up with him at the train or bus station, maybe make it into town and wait at a diner or bar until her husband was finally able to make it off base. But as the war escalated, leaves became even shorter, sometimes non-existent. It had been Julia’s intention to join up with the Army Nurse Corps in the hopes that both she and Ray would at least end up on the same continent at the same time.
But then Ray joined the paratroopers and landed in France while the nurse corps had Julia in Italy. According to her last letter she’d not had any word from Ray for nearly three months, a fact that Mama always discussed with a frustrating tone of smugness in her voice.
I sighed. There was no point arguing with her. She’d not relent about Deacon and I’d never cotton up to him no matter how she wheedled. It was a practiced routine—her wishing that I’d just give in already and say yes to Deacon if he ever plucked up the courage to ask me to marry him; me staunchly refusing to even consider him as a husband.
Mama went on fussing to herself, saying her prayers and oaths to God so loud that I figured she did no praying at all; the Lord wouldn’t want to hear that language and so I knew everything she said was for my benefit. I tuned her out, leaving the kitchen and heading for the back porch, pulling out Mattie’s letter as I walked through the door.
The chickens wandering by the porch made a ruckus as I let the screen door slam shut, compounded when the old rooster took after a hen, feathers flying and dust raising as they tore across the back yard. I paid them no mind as I headed towards the wooden swing that had hung at the corner of the porch for as long as I could remember. The swing had been white once. Now the paint was chipped at the edges and along the seat but the cushion Mama had sewn three summers ago had held up, though the bright red flowers of the fabric were now a faded pink. Dusk was falling in the graceful way it does, and I nestled back against the swing, pulling up my legs to fold them under me as I slipped my cousin’s letter from my front pocket.
Normally I’d read Mattie’s letter out loud to Uncle Bleu since he couldn’t read a lick and Mama would listen as she cleaned the kitchen or sat down to read scripture. Tonight though, Uncle Bleu had gone up to Charlotte to buy fencing for the back field and I was still annoyed that Mama had invited Deacon to supper, so I vowed to savor his letter by myself. Besides, Mattie’s letters as of late had gotten dark, his mood more somber and I decided that reading what he’d written first was best. It would not do to discover bad news or read Mattie’s morose mood while his father and my mother listened.
As always, Mattie had written in tight, precise loops and scrawls that were neat and uniformed; he couldn’t write in cursive so his printed words formed a tight box that did not extend beyond the red margin lines on the paper.
Dear Cousin, he started, and I realized his mood might have improved. He only called me Ada Mae when he was feeling particularly down.
Dear Cousin,
I hope you are fine and that my father and your mama haven’t yet driven you to drink. Don’t worry. If it came to it, I’d do my familial duty and keep the dark secret of your drinking in the quiet all to myself…given the right amount of crisp bills (or steady amount of butter biscuits) you provide.
I know that lately my letters have left you worried. I apologize. The atmosphere here in France reminds me of hurricane season, especially those few seconds when the wind goes all still and quiet, right before the rain starts up and we hunker down in the root cellar to ride out whatever hell breaks down on us. It’s the quiet that seems clearest to me. France has that sense. The small village streets are eerily quiet at night. Even the loudest, most debauched men in my unit have settled a little bit.
Battle is coming. I can feel it. The storm brims on the horizon and even with all the hell I know will soon be at our feet, I still manage a smile, sometimes a laugh. Why wouldn’t I? You’ve always
told me, Cousin, that fretting is no use. What worries come will come whether we fear them or not. I fear for other things, instead. I fear for the men who haven’t made it here yet. I fear the beginning that they’ll have to endure and, most of all, I fear I’ll forget what Aunt Cora’s peach cobbler tastes like or the sound of my father’s voice when he’s had too much whiskey and sings something low and brooding in French. I fear more than anything I’ll never get to see you again or listen to you go on and on about wanting to get away from Legacy Falls.
Ah, but I’m sorry. I’d started this letter cheerful and eager to make you smile. It’s the way of things, I suppose, when you live in the world that’s been forced on us. One day the war will be over and I’ll bury all the things I’ve seen here. One day I’ll be back home telling you not to be in such a hurry to leave our small slice of home.
Please tell my father I miss him and send Aunt Cora my love. Take some for yourself as well, Ada Mae.
All my love,
MW
I’d grown used to Mattie’s rambling letters and the worry that built in each one. Lately, I’d taken notes during a first pass reading, marking out spots to gloss over so that Uncle Bleu would not fret too fiercely, or working it so as to lighten the mood of the letters altogether. Glancing over this letter, though, I frowned at the way that focused, neat scrawl got sloppy toward the end, as though what he meant to say and what he ended up compelled to say could not be reconciled. I wondered what was coming for him and all his fellow soldiers in that small French village. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Garreth’s fear would grow more keen the closer he came to those foreign shores.
With Mattie's letter in mind, I was able to put aside my mother’s meddling and the intrusion of our unwanted dinner guest. I smiled when expected and answered every question Deacon asked of me, but I was barely aware of the food I was eating, and paid scant attention to the conversation that kept my mother and Deacon so engaged. Instead, my thoughts were with my cousin, homesick and worried on the other side of the world, and to the beautiful soldier that would soon be joining him.
