Velma was working late in the drugstore one Friday night—there had been an impromptu dance amongst the high school kids. She didn’t mind that the owner had asked her to serve and to clean up afterwards. Velma had planned on going to the movies that evening instead, but she’d already seen those newsreels about the widespread bombing in Japan—and still those people fought on.
By then, the world had heard of the camps the Nazis had made to hold the Jews and others that were so cruelly abused. They had heard about the Holocaust too, and prayed that Joe would not find anything like that. She thought of America’s camps for the Japanese and was thankful that they weren’t quite the same . . . she hoped.
In the back room of the drugstore counter, she was elbows-deep in dishwater when someone came through the front door. She had turned the sign to ‘Closed,’ but hadn’t yet locked it, and so sighed at the bother. Drying her hands, she rushed out to do so, when there stood a soldier on crutches.
The drugstore lights had been turned off, though the streetlights were now on again too because people no longer obeyed the blackout—she could only see the outline of his form.
She said, “Can I get you something, Marine? We’re closed, but it’s on the house. Welcome home.”Ó
It was deadly silent for a moment.
Suddenly, Velma felt frightened and took a step back.
She was here all alone, and—
With difficulty, he came closer, and she realized that he wasn’t able to harm her. In fact, he could barely stand on his own.
Then he spoke very low, “Don’t you know me, Vel?”
Oh, yes, she did.
“Oh my God! Joe!”
She rushed over, nearly knocked him over. She made him sit down and would have sat on his lap if she didn’t think it would hurt him again.
In between kisses, she babbled, “What happened? Oh, it’s so good to see you. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I must look a mess.”
“I wanted to surprise you, our folks helped with that, and the minister too. And forget about how you look, Vel, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years.”
~~~
The Japanese camps were closed, and many came home to find their farms had been taken over by others. Some went to the cities instead, while others didn’t know what to do. They came to the law firm in hopes of suing to get their property back, but the old lawyers didn’t know quite what to do either.
There was talk about how some of the Japanese sons had served in the military in Europe. Many of them came from Hawaii, and Joe told her about that: The 442nd Regimental Combat Team fought in Italy, southern France and Germany. They were the most decorated infantry regiment of that size and strength in the history of the US Army then, including eight Presidential Unit Citations and twenty-one members awarded the Medal of Honor.
Joe said, “They are Nisei, Vel—that means of Japanese descent, but born in America. They are Americans, but they were labeled as enemy aliens because of their families and so were not subject to the military draft, because they weren’t trusted. But FDR signed special orders, and those men volunteered—even some from the camps. Imagine that, we put them in camps, and still they fought for us. They were called the Purple Heart Battalion because they had so many casualties.”
“You respect them, even though you fought the Japanese.”
“We fought a foreign country. The Nisei aren’t foreigners, they are Americans—they proved that with their blood, and I respect that.”
Velma cried, but told what she knew about those who had come back after being in the camps. Not many got their farmland back. Some started businesses in the town, and a few made a go of it . . . most didn’t.
Many of the other military men, like Joe, who had served and survived, came home again—but they were different men than the boys who had left. They joined the Eagles and the VFW, and other groups where women were not allowed in. The women who had worked in their places were expected to go back to housework instead.
Some had difficulty adjusting—both the men, and the women.
Joe went to college on the GI Bill. As soon as they could buy a house, they meant to start a family. Their parents didn’t want to wait that long—they pooled their money and along with Velma’s sizable savings from years of war and investment, they were able to buy a nice house—picket fence and garden patch and apple tree in the backyard.
The first baby came quickly, but the little guy died within a few days of being born. They had named it Joseph Jr., and Velma was amazed at how strong Joe had become.
Of course, he had seen plenty of death—but this was his child.
Velma spoke to the minister, but he said, “He has to cope in his own way. You are young yet; there will be plenty more. God has a plan, and now Joe Jr. is beside Our Lord in Heaven. Be thankful of that, and think of how many other children weren’t saved in the war.”
She wasn’t thankful though, but learned to hide it. She got pregnant again, and this time they named their son Hank—Henry Joseph—after Joe’s friend in the Marines who hadn’t made it back. He was a healthy boy, with hair like Joe’s and eyes like Velma and her father.
But also like her father, Joe didn’t speak of the war much. He mentioned a few of his friends now and again, but she learned not to pursue it. More times than not, those friends were dead.
At night, Joe had nightmares and sometimes woke up screaming. It was too much—between the baby’s needs and Joe’s restless nights—Velma finally quit her job, which had only been part-time by then. Their mothers didn’t mind spending time with their grandchild, so it wasn’t a hardship on anyone of them.
She had only kept the job to help them make ends meet while Joe was in school. The lawyers let her work at home too, and that helped a lot. She loved her life.
But Joe still had another year of college, so he started working in a car body shop in the evenings. He came home late—too exhausted to dream. He got up early to study and usually made coffee and breakfast. More often than not, she’d find him sleeping in his easy chair with the baby in his arms.
Some mornings, she would tiptoe in and just watch—crying at the sweetness of her two men being there together, safe and sound.
Thankfully, Joe was offered a job before he even graduated, and he went right to work the day after he did. The years went by with their son growing ‘like a weed,’ his grandparents would say, but no other children came.
The house had four bedrooms, and Velma still cleaned everyone, hoping that she would hear more good news about being in the ‘family way.’
She never did, but the family was quite happy, and they settled into a routine though the world began to rumble with discontent again.
The Soviets were expanding and the Cold War began—thankfully, no troops were sent to fight anywhere . . . then. Communists took over China in 1949, and threatened the Korean Peninsula. In the spring of 1950, war had begun again.
Joe just shook his head as other young men in town marched off to war again.
Neither of them seemed to notice when the war ended—their darling boy had died during that time. Polio, they called it. It was a long and painful end for him. Neither Joe nor Velma had heard of it before, but everyone said now that it was an epidemic.
Every time after, whenever she saw someone in leg braces or worse, she thought of her boy.
Every time she saw kids in the playground or the park, she thought of her boy.
No, she thought of her boys.
Velma and Joe didn’t speak of it much, and their families didn’t mention it either. But Velma sometimes went to the cemetery to visit their graves during the day when Joe was at work. She didn’t want him to know how much it still hurt her.
Sometimes, fresh flowers were already there. Maybe it was him, or one of the grandparents. Other graves too had been attended, mostly the new ones from the last wars. Korea had also sent back flag-draped coffins, though not as many as the war before.
Velma dreaded
the next one, but in some ways, she was relieved that her sons would not have to see it . . . would not be called away to serve like Joe had. They were in Heaven, and she hoped they could see her still, hear her still. She loved them as much now as she ever did.
But Velma also saw the sadness in her husband, and wished she had not failed him after all he’d been through. They had planned on a big family—four or five kids, surely. Now they had none.
She spoke to the minister about it.
He said, “You are not the only family who has lost sons, these have been troubled times with the wars and that cursed disease. I know there is no consolation for that except the comfort the Lord might give you, my dear, and I am a poor substitute. But did you ever think there are also children who have lost parents?”
“Reverend?”
He said, “I think I should talk to both you and Joe together.”
They arranged a time, and when she went to the door when the bell rang, the Reverend was there with one of the lawyers—one of her former employers.
~~~
She thought Joe might be skeptical, but turns out that she was the one who was frightened. She spoke to her mother, and her mother-in-law too, and both the women were quite supportive. They also told her she looked peaked, and that she should go to the doctor.
“You need your strength, dear.”
While it’s true that she’d been feeling a bit tired and fussy lately, she put that down to grief and disappointment that just didn’t seem to go away.
Her mother insisted though, and said, “You might have iron that’s low. He can give you a tonic, and you’ll feel like a new woman, I promise.”
Her mother-in-law said, “Now dear, given how many families have suffered in the last ten years—millions of people dead in war and the Holocaust and the epidemic—surely there must be enough love left in the rest of us. We have to try to make it better for those who remain, and that’s why we were spared, don’t you think?”
The older women might have just come out and say: You are letting your husband down.
Velma didn’t need to be reminded. She just didn’t quite know what to do about it. On the way home, she cried again—she’d been doing that a lot lately.
The next week, Velma and Joe went to the orphanage. Oh, they didn’t call them that anymore, but that’s what they were. This was called the Sunny Day Home for Children. It wasn’t as lovely as it sounded—it was a decrepit old brick house that had once been a home of a robber baron, who had killed himself when the stock market crashed in 1929.
Since then it had sat idle in probate and dispute until all the heirs disputing it were also gone.
The lawyers knew of the crumbling estate, and being friends with the minister, they had seen to the charitable society getting the place and starting the home.
The Reverend thought it best for them to go on their own, but he called ahead and explained. The woman who met them at the door was quite nice, and Velma and Joe held hands as they came into the parlor, waiting for the children to gather for them.
Joe said, “Oh, don’t make them to do that. Why don’t we wander and see how they act on their own.”
The woman was skeptical, but he said, “Don’t worry, we haven’t roasted any children in months.”
Velma gasped, but the woman laughed.
She said, “Do what you must.” Then she was gone.
He smiled and pointed in one direction, saying, “You go that way, Vel, I’ll go this, and I’ll meet you out back. Good luck.”Ó
Then he kissed her forehead and was also gone.
She sighed.
Velma started wandering through the rooms. There were little girls playing in a few small groups. Some small boys who were too young to go outside and play on their own were making a fort out of Lincoln logs—at least, they were trying too.
She smiled and watched them for a while, then went to the next room. It seemed to have once been a dining room, but anything nice had been replaced with a serviceably large table—cheap and a bit battered. There were plenty of folding chairs, and doilies everywhere.
Just as she meant to move on, Velma spotted the window seat, and then the girl. She wasn’t large, nor was she small. She had short dark hair—straight and shiny—and round glasses too. It occurred to Velma then that the girl wasn’t so young as she was thin.
The girl must have been 8, 9 or 10—Velma was no judge of these things, though she thought that maybe she ought to be. The girl still hadn’t noticed her, because her nose was buried in a book. It wasn’t a picture book or something for children either—not really. It was old and a bit tattered, and something well used.
Velma took a step closer. The girl glanced up, but immediately got back to the book.
“Interesting story?” Velma managed.
“It’s kind of creepy.”
“What’s it called?”
“The Mysterious Island.”
“Jules Verne?”
“Of course.”
Velma loved the author and had read everything that she could get when she first discovered him at the age of 9 or 10.
She said, “Have you read much of him?”
“The old man who lived here before us had lots of him—Jules Verne, I mean. My father liked to read the stories when we were kids.”
“Your father? Where are your parents now?” she asked gently.
“Killed in a car crash, it was very sad. I had to take care of my brother then, but I didn’t do a very good job.”
“Don’t you have other family, child?”
“My name is June, and now I don’t. We had a grandmother, but she died in the camp. I was just a baby then. Mama said she died of shame.”
“Your family is Japanese?”
Stupid question, Velma scolded herself.
“My mother was, and my grandmother too. My father was half-Japanese, half-German. His Papa was a Merchant Marine, that’s how he met Soba, whose father was Samurai. They were forbidden to marry, so they came to America, so they could.”
“Soba, is that your grandmother?”
The girl only nodded, then studied Velma for a moment. She then got up and said, “I have to go see that my brother is doing okay. Sometimes he gets into trouble.”
“Is he older then?”
“No, he’s younger, but only by a couple of years.”
“I only had older brothers. It’s lucky—”
The little girl turned around quickly then.
“No, it’s not. That’s why nobody will take us—they never want two. And they won’t take my brother because of me. I’d let them, if he could have a real home, I mean.”
Velma swallowed back her emotion, but said the obvious, “They don’t want to split up your family.”
June sighed, as if she was tired of the subject. It sounded well beyond her years, but also like the little girl was used to it.
Velma said, “May I follow you out?”
“If you want.”
“What’s your brother’s name?”
As they came outside, the sun was shining now. The backyard was full of boys—all ages and sizes. They were playing baseball, though the teams were larger than usual, with many more outfielders.
Suddenly, the boys started to cheer, and Velma saw Joe sliding toward home plate, but he didn’t quite make it, as just about all of them nearby piled on top of him.
Velma hadn’t heard him laugh like that since before the war. She sighed, and it came out shaky. Tears were threatening, and she didn’t know why she was so emotional lately. She ran into the house and tried to find a powder room.
Velma had just finished throwing up again when someone tapped on the door. She thought it might be Joe or even that nice lady who had first met them, but it was June. She had a clean hand towel too.
“That’s very thoughtful, June.”
The little girl was grinning, and then she said, “My brother made him out.”
“Excuse me?”
“My brothe
r is the catcher, and he made your husband out.”
Velma found herself chuckling at that.
She felt better now, and she knew what she wanted to do. It was true: Moms just know.
She said, “Shall we go back and watch the game.”
Outside, Joe was dusty and a little sweaty. He said, “Vel, met Joey, he’s a great catcher, I think he might play for the Yankees some day.”
Joey was clearly a little Japanese boy no more than seven. She knew the age for sure because that’s all Hank had grown to be. She could tell by the size of the clothes, and the shoes, and the little arms and the teeth in his grin.
Velma felt heat wash over, and she sat down heavily on the back steps.
“You okay, Vel?”
Joe came over. The little girl stared at him.
Joe said, “Hello, who’s this?”
“This is June, she’s Joey’s older sister. I know we didn’t talk about it before but—”
“We talked about a bunch of kids, Vel.”
“You wouldn’t mind—”
“Two? No, I think it’s—”
Without thinking, Velma blurted, “But you fought the Japanese.”
He touched her cheek, tenderly. “The war is over, Vel.”
~~~
By the next week, they had finished the paperwork, and signed everything, and went to get their kids. They would foster for a year, and if everything was satisfactory, they could adopt June and Joey.
Just as they came home, Velma ran into the house to the ringing telephone. It was the doctor’s office.
“I’ve been trying to reach you, Velma. The test results of the are in.”
“What test?”
“My dear, you’re pregnant. You’re going to have another baby.”
Velma started laughing as she hung up the phone, not wondering at all about the startled response on the other end.
Joe said, “What’s up, Vel? Something funny?”
She dropped to her knees and hugged June and Joey, as they both squirmed, but not enough to get away—they were giggling.
A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts Page 28
