Platform Four: A Legacy Falls Romance

by Eden Butler

  I sent the letter the next morning, on the way to Mossey’s to have Mama dressed for the service. We buried her in Founder’s Park, just alongside the fence line next to Papa, where the shoreline glittered in the sunrise. She would have loved the white crepe myrtles showering over the site and the smell of pink roses that wove in and out of the metal fencing.

  It was a thought that kept me from being overwhelmed. At least, until the next month when someone came in answer to my letter.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dear Ada,

  If I were there, with you, just the two of us on our own, no amount of prying mothers, well natured uncles or cousins would keep me from kissing you. Over and over until we were both breathless like and desperate to never stop. That’s a promise I’ll give you when I see you again—to never stop kissing you.

  From Garreth to Ada, 1944

  Halloween ribbons clashed with the wild streamers of red, white and blue that collected all around Legacy Falls. Fall had come in warm, soothing colors despite the decorations reminiscent of the Fourth of July, making us aware of the changing of seasons but allowing us to remember how long the war had lingered or how quickly the end appeared when it finally, blessedly came.

  Joe’s general store displayed pumpkins and gourds, some the size of a small dog, all surrounded the small bales of hay that Geraldine, Joe’s wife, had arranged at the front of the store. I bypassed them, as I did most things that might tempt me, same I had every day for the past two months, drifting away from the Pleasant Street station towards home. I still came to the station each afternoon to wait at Platform Four, watching as the new trains arrived with their load of passengers, many of which still included injured soldiers and their families. The war had indeed ended, but all its survivors had yet to return. My hope lingered, even though the letter I’d written the night my mother died went without response. I still hoped, secure in the faith that Garreth was well, and until I knew otherwise, I’d make that journey every day, waiting on that platform until the last train unloaded its passengers at three in the afternoon.

  “Oh, Ada Mae,” Geraldine called, waving me over as I crossed the block and moved along in front of the general store. Edwin Lewis had exchanged his shaved ice stand for hot cocoa and was roasting nuts under a warming lamp, though the temperatures didn’t seem quite cold enough for them. “You mind passing something along to Mattie?”

  “I don’t mind, Gerry. Sure.” Joe’s wife was a little on the thick side with wispy hair that curled around the back of her neck and held flecks of gray and gold. Often, she reminded me of Mama’s friends who were too old for congregating at Wilson’s Pub down on Fourth Street but who still could drink any man under the table given half the chance. Gerry was older, like Joe, but there was a spark in her eyes that promised mischief and made her seem much younger.

  “It’s that broach he wanted for his girl. The ruby one with the gold inlay?”

  “Oh, it’s in?” I forgot my disappointment for a moment, taking the small wrapped package from Gerry as she offered it. Mattie had taken up with Hannah Gregor, a girl I’d gone to high school with who had spent much of her free time at the VFW volunteering since she’d not only lost both her brothers in the war, but her family’s farm due to her aging father’s heart attack. When Hannah refused to pity Mattie over his lost leg, got plain snippy with him when he complained about not being able to dance, Hannah put my cousin in line with a few choice curse words and a healthy bout of yelling. He’d been smitten ever since.

  The next night Mattie had brought over Billie Holiday’s newest ’45 to listen to in the front room of her parents’ rent house and convinced her to go on a date with him. He told me she took her time agreeing, but even that he mentioned with a smile.

  “Think he’ll marry her?” Gerry asked, nodding at the package as I stowed it in my handbag.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” My shrug did little to satisfy the older woman. “This is for her birthday. He wanted something nice.”

  “Well, that cost him a pretty penny. I hope she’s worth it.” Gerry didn’t mean anything by the comment; I knew that even without her good-natured wink.

  “She is,” I told her, waving a goodbye before I turned away from the store and the owner’s wife as she watched me walk toward the farm.

  Legacy Falls hadn’t changed all that much. There was more traffic, more men now that most of those who could had returned to their families and homes. I side stepped a reuniting couple as they met on the sidewalk; the man jumping from the cab before it came to a full stop to leap from the cab to gather his girl in his arms, and refused to acknowledge the small pang that rose unbidden in my chest.

  The man swung her around, and then bent to kiss her with his hands on her face, muffling the loud squeak of joy that left her when he kissed her hard. The ache in my heart intensified, despite my best efforts to ignore it. It wasn’t their fault that they were happy when I was mired in despair. It wasn’t even mine, but as I continued toward the farm, forgetting the kissing couple, I couldn’t help but feel a small smart of jealousy bubbling in my stomach.

  Everyone, it seemed, was happy or at least getting that way. Uncle Bleu had determined not to sell the orchard and Mattie’s return had invigorated my uncle, giving him the resolve he seemed to need to turn the place around. That enthusiasm doubled when Hannah offered to lend a hand working in the orchard. Uncle Bleu agreed, eagerly and Mattie was all too happy to spend his days side by side with his girl.

  Mattie got stronger every day, learning how to best function with the loss of his leg and the aid of Hannah who was never too far from the farmhouse. Mattie had taken less and less bourbon since Hannah had started coming around and wasn’t prone to spending too much time fretting over what he’d been through.

  They were healing, all of them, and I guessed that with the turn of the season and the approaching new year, there would be more healing, more happiness and lots and lots of new Legacy Falls residents.

  And it hurt to realize I wouldn’t be as happy as the rest of them. Or that my healing had not even begun.

  For months I waited at the station. Almost every day. But I’d also sent for information on admission at State, even though I was sure that I’d waited too long to accept my scholarship. To my surprise, they said they would let me start up in the Winter semester. Until that time, I still waited at the station, looking over every crowd, every face, every uniform, wondering if that day would be the one that would end my waiting.

  It never came. Days and days went forward. Weeks turned to months until I found myself feeling stupid and foolish and damn near desperate.

  Until that day when I found myself walking towards home with Mattie’s gift for Hannah in my handbag not really thinking of anything at all except for who I might see the next day at the station—maybe a captain, perhaps another reuniting couple or a father who’d not seen his children for five years. It was the who, the potential of what tomorrow might bring that kept me distracted from the loss that festered deep inside me. But you cannot ignore the truth, not forever, and not when it stands right in front of you dressed in a fine, sharp pea coat. Not one that smiles with a warm, but mildly sad gesture. One that reminds you of another smile that you’d fallen in love with just a couple years before.

  Emma McGinnis-Ricks met me just as I approached the front gate of our property, sliding out from behind the wheel of a black sedan. Her face was so like Garreth’s, her smile just as impossibly gentle and kind; her eyes dancing with something that reminded me of Sunday sermons and songs my mother sang when I was little.

  She didn’t need to announce herself. I knew that face. Garreth had mentioned his sister often, and she looked so much like him that I would have known her anywhere. When I approached, a little shakily, she noticed the steady tremble in my bottom lip and the clouding tears that wetted my eyes, and reached out to take my hand.

  “Oh, Ada. I feel I know you, don’t I? From all the letters.” Her grip tightened around my finger
s. “Shall we sit and speak for a while?”

  Her accent wasn’t as pronounced as Garreth’s. There was a lighter lilt that reminded me that she had married a man from New Orleans, one Garreth had told me talked so fast he might has not have been speaking English at all.

  Emma joined me on the front porch swing and didn’t complain when I sat straight and still, when I looked out onto the front lawn, and she moved her gaze from my profile to the yard as well, so as not to make me feel like I was being scrutinized. She was kind, just like he had been. “My brother cared a great deal for you,” she said softly. I nodded, only capable of a quick jerky movement that she seemed to understand. “He’s been missing a while now.” Another nod and I closed my eyes, uncaring that Emma could see the tears that fell from between my lashes. “His C.O., eh, commanding officer was a friend of my husband’s.” In way of explaining, Emma held out a small storage box that I hadn't noticed before, extending it to me. “He had Garreth’s things sent once all the units had left Germany. He didn’t think we’d want his personal things left in some foreign storage facility, should he never be…” I sat there, numb, unable to think, barely able to breathe, and realizing that I was struggling, she placed the box on the space between us.

  When she went still and quiet, I finally looked at her, realizing how stupid, how rude it was for me to think only of my own loss, the ridiculous notion that Garreth being missing would impact me worse than her. There were tears on her face as well. Of course there would be. She loved him, too.

  “These are for you,” she said, wiping her face dry with the back of her hand, and then placing it on top of the box. “They are all the letters you wrote him. I just couldn’t bear mailing them. I had to see you for myself. And, please forgive me, but I had to meet the woman my brother loved so well. I…” she moved her shoulders, dipping her eyes down as though she were a little ashamed, “I read them, you see.”

  For a moment I watched her, not really sure what to make of her small embarrassment or the face that looked so like the one I’d spent endless night committing to memory. But then I closed my eyes, needing to hear the whole of it.

  “Tell me,” I said. Simple, needful, but I took Emma’s hand and linked my fingers with hers, hoping to absorb some of the strength that seemed tor radiate from within her.

  “There isn’t much,” she explained, withdrawing a yellow piece of paper from her purse. “Mack, Garreth’s CO, told my husband there had been an ambush. Something about a farm and a root cellar full of waiting Germans. The unit got scattered into the woods and no one has seen Garreth since then.” She hurried to cross herself and I picked up hints of a prayers in the mutters she made.

  It was similar to the telegram Farrah had gotten. The same logo across the top, the same precise font, the same curt explanation that was no explanation at all.

  THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR BROTHER, FIRST LEIUTENANT GARRETH M. MCGINNIS HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE TWO APRIL OVER GERMANY. IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED.

  Just like that, Garreth had been dismissed. Just like that, the small thread of hope I had clung to diminished until I barely felt it there at all.

  “I know you must be imaginings so many things, Ada.” Emma’s voice was soft, her words carefully chosen; I knew a warning was coming from her. “I’ve prayed so hard for months and months. I’ve prayed for me and for Garreth and for you, to be sure.” She squeezed my fingers and they trembled against my palm. “Don’t go imagining things that won’t come ‘round. Though I know you want to believe desperately, just…just don’t. He’d want…Garreth would want you to live your life, love. Do that. For him.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Dear Ada,

  I think that there is no man on God’s green earth that has waited or wanted a woman such as I’ve wanted you. To see your smile, to hold your lovely face between my fingers, Jaysus, Miss Ada, how that would be such a dream for me. A dream made real the moment I leave this bloody country. The moment I kiss you, finally, love.

  From Garreth McGinnis, 1945

  I would have loved to call Emma my sister. It was a thought that came to me without real reason as Mattie and Hannah loaded my luggage onto the train. For the first time in my life, I was leaving the station, not waving goodbye to someone else boarding. Emma had stayed the weekend and by the time her train came, I’d decided that despite Garreth’s absence, Emma would be my friend, if not my sister.

  “You have a snack? Something to drink?”

  Mattie laughed at Hannah’s question, head shaking as he nodded to my bag. “Funny, don’t you think, darlin’, how my sweet cousin here cooked the snacks for the trolley and now she’s off for an adventure of her own.” I let him tip my chin, winking at me like we were kids again. “You nervous, cousin?”

  “Not so much,” I said, though it was only a half truth. I was nervous leaving Legacy Falls, but not for the reason most people thought they knew. If Garreth came back, it would be to an empty platform. The thought of disappointing him was tearing me apart.

  “You know, sweetheart, if he shows…” Hannah shook her head, hair bouncing a bit in her eyes when I looked behind her, not sure if I wanted to hear my cousin’s fiancé tell me once again not to give up. Even with Emma’s encouragement both Hannah and Mattie thought I was being a little impulsive, taking my spot at Sate so soon after the war. But then, I knew some of that reserve was because neither of them really wanted me to leave. Garreth was an excuse they used to keep me home.

  “If he shows,” I interrupted, watching Hannah’s features relax when I smiled at her, “then send word and I’ll be here in a heartbeat.”

  “We’ll walk you,” Mattie promised, but stopped short when I waved him off.

  Still, he knew me better than most and as he guided Hannah from the platform, Mattie nodded at me, then toward the waiting train. It was a gesture I understood; one that told me how proud he was, how excited for me without uttering a sound.

  The station wasn’t as busy as it had been since the war ended. January had just begun and the holiday travelers where cleared from Legacy Falls by the end of the second week. Now I only spotted a smattering of visitors, most family of townsfolk I’d always seen around New Year and the regular folk coming back from their holiday visits. There was still a crowd; there always would be since Charleston and Atlanta were so close to us. But there were less reuniting couples and even fewer uniforms filtering through the station.

  Since Emma’s visit a few months back, I hadn’t made much of an attempt to stand around Platform Four waiting to see if Garreth would show. Logic and reason were fine things. They told me to work hard to keep myself busy until the day came that Garreth McGinnis was just a sweet memory of a time I spent as a girl. Logic made me understand that romanticizing the war and the bloody business it created, added to the lonesome existence I had lived before I met him. Logic told me that it was pointless to wait for him anymore. He wouldn’t be back. Not ever.

  But damn and blast my logic. It was a fickle thing, to be sure. Those romanticized notions went hand in hand with hope and dreams, with creativity and imagination. I had plenty of each and so it was that hope that dampened the strong, solid demand that logic tried to extract from me.

  Around me, the crowd congregated on the platforms. There were mothers giving last minute instructions to their sons and daughters as they set out for college. There were grandparents kissing their little ones goodbye and the normal crowd that went to and fro, in the working of their day.

  Sarah Miller smiled at me, offered a wave as I passed her and her snack trolley, this one with brand new wheels and a cabinet beneath the main surface. For a moment, it was Sarah’s smile that distracted me from the man standing in front of her, fingers holding tight to a pack of Chesterfields as he nodded to a small wrapped biscuit Sarah kept under the Coleman torch.

  My breath went flat and my heart doubled up as I caught
the profile of Sarah’s customer, and he turned, fedora low over his eyes. But then he lit his cigarette, tipping his hat to Sarah and the embarrassment I felt being so stupid in giving in to a silly hope left my cheeks flaming and I hurried back to my platform eager to get away from the station and the haunting memory of the man I knew would never come back to it.

  Sometimes there are senses we cannot recognize until they are nearly depleted. Sometimes it’s the faintest hint of a cry we do not hear, not with our own ears, but the sound smarts inside us and we wonder where it comes from. A loved one screaming in a nightmare? Maybe it’s those senses, those voices that are the loudest, surest when we are lost. And I was that day, lost, tucking my hair behind my ear in a weak effort to cull my embarrassment at believing Garreth would suddenly emerge after months and months of being gone.

  Whatever it was, I could not move. Not a step. Not an inch. I stood there on the platform ready to board my train and start a life that did not involve the orchard or the snack trolley or anything at all to do with Legacy Falls. Just two steps and I would leave this place forever.

  And then…that sense rose up inside me. It grounded me where I stood.

  “Ada…” a soft voice called from across the platform, and I jerked around, frowning when I spotted Emma’s smile and the small shift of her fingers as she waved at me.

  “Emma,” I said, taking two steps, curious, worried when she did nothing more but continue to smile at me.

  Then my friend stepped back. It took a moment to understand what had happened, to know who stood there. He wore no uniform. No suit, but was just as tall; a handsome man leaning on a cane. His left hand was heavily bandaged, but all the fingers seemed intact and the large gash along his chin and cheek looked pink, but healed.

  It was the most beautiful face I’d ever seen.

  Smiling. Eyes lit bright and blue, there stood my Garreth.