A Memory Between Us (37 page)

Jack gave his head a shake. He was on a mission over Berlin with the whole blasted Third Division behind him, and he needed to focus.

He swept the instrument panel. “How’s the formation, Al?”

“A-OK.” Capt. Albert Feldman rode in the tail gunner’s seat to keep the formation in line.

Jack nodded. A milk run over Berlin would look good on his record. While Jack was at Alconbury, Colonel Castle had been promoted to command the Fourth Wing, also based at Bury, and Col. Charles Dougher had been brought in to head the 94th. Jack didn’t know how the change in leadership would affect his future.

Was it wrong to want a promotion? Even in prayer, he couldn’t tease out his motivations. He had to admit he liked recognition, which was pure pride, but he also knew he’d do the job well and enjoy it. No matter what, he didn’t doubt his decision to stay in the Army Air Forces. Next he had to work up the nerve to tell his father.

“Mickey operator to crew. We’re at the target, and she’s a beauty. Ready, Oggie? And now.”

“Bombs away.”

“Double red flares fired,” Marvin said from the radio room.

The plane climbed, relieved of her load. The flares would signal the other planes to drop, and two Skymarker bombs would leave trails of smoke to guide groups further to the rear.

Jack turned the Fort for the Rally Point. “Okay, boys. Who wants to go home?”

Home in Antioch, Walt was now a married man. Yesterday was his wedding, and Jack missed it. Home in Antioch, Ray visited every weekend after his transfer to the Sacramento Air Depot, and he saw a lot of Helen Carlisle.

Ray and Helen? There had to be ten years between them, and Helen was a widow with a little boy. Could be tough.

As tough as Ruth? Jack squinted against the sun coming through the windscreen. Since when had a challenge ever stopped a Novak?

He tapped his thumb on the control wheel. He had to get up to Prestwick and soon. Could he get a pass? He had a new CO, a new squadron, and the invasion could come any day. Most of April, the Eighth had bombed installations in the Pas de Calais area, the obvious invasion site, as well as rail yards to impede German reinforcements.

And Jack wanted a forty-eight-hour pass to see his girl? Fat chance.

His stomach churned. Time was running out. He felt it draining away. After all they’d been through, he could not, he would not let Ruth slip away.

46

Prestwick

Sunday, May 14, 1944

“Come on, Ruth. We can’t wait all day.”

Her head jerked up, and she sloshed coffee onto her metal tray. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep in the breakfast line. For two weeks straight, she’d flown patients to New York. Finally she had a day off for church and laundry, if she could stay awake.

She apologized to Dottie La Rue in line behind her, who replied with a lash-fluttering eye roll.

Ruth sighed and stepped forward in line. While never a confidante, Dottie had been a friend, and Ruth missed the days at Bowman when the nurses liked her. A year ago she’d taken defiant pleasure in keeping people away, but now loneliness carved into her soul.

A year ago.

A year ago today she’d met Jack. She camouflaged another sigh as a yawn. How painful to write bland letters when she longed to empty her heart to him. For his own sake, she had to cut him off, but that didn’t reduce her wretchedness.

The private behind the counter handed her a plate with one pancake.

And sausage.

She held up the plate. “Please take back the sausage, and may I have another pancake?”

The private’s heavy lids suggested he needed sleep as much as Ruth did. “Only two sausages each. Move on.”

“No, I don’t want sausage. I don’t like sausage.”

“This ain’t a restaurant, lady. Move on.”

Dottie nudged her from behind. “For heaven’s sake, take it and move on.”

Norma Carpenter leaned toward the private, with a sly look at Ruth. “Ignore her, Private. We all do. All she does is whine, whine, whine.”

Ruth glared at Norma and walked away with the unwanted plate. She couldn’t afford to make a scene. Despite Norma’s remark, Ruth hadn’t made a complaint for over two months, although Burnsey gave her plenty of reason.

She scanned the nurses’ mess, glad May was away on a flight. Schedule conflicts and fatigue provided excuses, but sometimes May couldn’t be avoided, and conversation was strained. How Ruth ached for the former openness of their friendship.

Off to the side, Ruth found an unoccupied table and sat with her back to the room. She couldn’t get through the morning on a single pancake.

That left the sausage.

She stared down the enemy. Tendrils of steam wafted into her nose.

Ruth could almost see Pa stride through the apartment door with a rope of sausage held high, could almost feel the joy as she jumped up and down with Ellen and Harold. Rich German sausages, succulent Polish sausages, Italian sausages full of garlic and spice—they made any meal savory. Ruth would sop up every bit of grease with her bread or boiled potatoes.

Since that day in the alley, even the smell nauseated her.

Yet today her stomach lay tranquil. Hungry, but tranquil.

Ruth poked a link with her fork. It didn’t bite back. She pressed in the tines, tension released with a pop, and four rivulets of juice trickled to her plate.

She glanced around. Some women talked and laughed, some chewed in silence. No one looked her way. No one knew what a victory it would be.

Ruth took a deep sniff, and her mouth watered. She missed the taste, longed for the taste. Quickly she sliced, shoveled a piece into her mouth, and chewed.

Yes, she was still in Prestwick, not a Chicago alley. She swallowed. No nausea, no white spots before her eyes, only her tongue slipping around the inside of her mouth, begging for more.

She took another bite, another, and finished both sausages with strange euphoria. One more area of her life healed.
Thank you, Lord. I never even asked you to take this away.

No, she’d prayed for God to take away her aversion to kissing. She never said one word about sausage. Maybe he got her prayers mixed up.

Or maybe …

Ruth swallowed the lump of pancake in her mouth and took a swig of coffee. “Breathe in, breathe out,” she whispered. “In, out. In, out. Keep it slow. Don’t think.”

Jack stood outside the Nissen hut chapel and burrowed his hands in the pockets of his flight jacket. Prestwick served as the trans-Atlantic hub because it had the lowest incidence of fog in the United Kingdom.

Except today. He walked in a circle to keep warm. Perhaps he should have slipped into the pew beside Ruth to surprise her, but the closing hymn already played.

Under His wings, oh, what precious enjoyment!
There will I hide till life’s trials are o’er;
Sheltered, protected, no evil can harm me,
Resting in Jesus, I’m safe evermore.

Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
Safely abide forever.

Jack stood back from the door. Ruth came out first in her olive drab dress uniform, her Bible in hand. When she saw him, joy flashed on her face. Then she abruptly glanced away.

In that moment, Jack heard the roaring of tempestuous waters, yet he had to go on, had to walk to the brink of that dark river, up to the woman he loved. “Hi there.”

Ruth’s gaze darted up to him, then away. “I’m surprised to see you.”

“It’s been a long time. Six weeks.”

“Oh? That long?”

Slapped Jack’s breath away, like falling into ice water. “Talked the new CO into a forty-eight-hour pass.”

Ruth frowned. “Oh dear. You wasted all your time on travel.”

“Visiting you is never a waste of time.” He gave her a tender smile, but she looked past his right shoulder.

“Today it is. I haven’t had a day off in weeks, and I have chores. Can’t spare any time.”

That ice water seeped in and made his voice as cool as hers. “Half an hour.”

Her frown deepened. “I guess so.”

“We’ll go for a walk. No more than half an hour, I promise.”

Ruth nodded, still with a frown, and walked several feet from his side. “I’m sorry you came all the way up here.”

“I was worried about you. Your letters—”

“I’ve been busy. Evac flights every day. I haven’t had time to do laundry, much less write letters.”

Jack had been busy too, busier than ever with preinvasion missions and a new squadron to organize, but he wrote her daily. “You haven’t mentioned—well, I know what things are like and—”

“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

A wave crashed over his head. Ruth hadn’t talked like that in ages. Groping for reeds along the shore, Jack pulled a narrow box from his pocket. “I brought you an anniversary present.”

“Anniversary?” Despite her detached tone, her rapid blinking showed she remembered.

“We met a year ago today. The best year of my life.”

For one second her eyes agreed, but then her gaze skittered away.

“Here.” Jack held out the box.

Ruth hesitated. Then she took the box and opened it.

Now he saw how stupid the gift was. Although his lungs filled with water, he forced a smile. “The scissors reminded me of my time in the hospital. As soon as I heard you snipping tape, I knew you were done, and we could talk. These scissors—they’re antique.”

Ruth traced one finger over the mother-of-pearl on the handles. Her lips parted, and furrows divided her forehead.

“I can’t—I can’t take these.”

“Yeah, I know they’re not for work, but you can use them for mending or something.” He strained for the surface, for air.

“No.” She thrust the box back into his hands. “I can’t take these. You need to stop. Stop trying to fill the holes in my life.”

Lungs full, aching, bursting. “Ruth …”

She shook her head and glanced every which way. “You don’t know when to quit. You’re trying to do God’s job. I need to rely on him, not you. You’re pulling me away from him.”

“I’m not. Don’t you see? I want to help in his work.”

Ruth huffed. “I don’t think the Almighty needs the help of Jack Novak.”

He grimaced. “That’s not what I meant. Sometimes God uses people to do his work and—”

“So now you’re on a mission from God? Would you stop it? Stop it. Stop trying to love me, and stop buying me gifts, and stop visiting, and stop—stop writing me. Stop it. Stop all of it.”

The last reed broke in his hand. “Ruth,” he said in one final gasp.

“No. Stop it. Go home. Leave me alone.” She turned and hurried away, her hand pressed to her forehead.

He could keep kicking and fighting, but it wouldn’t do any good. His hands drooped to his sides, and the little box almost fell.

Jack opened it. Antique scissors? Stupid, stupid, stupid. He stuck his fingers through the inlaid brass handles.

Ruth was only an olive drab blur in the fog. She wanted to sever all ties, and for the first time since he’d met her, he’d do as she wished.

Jack held the scissors in the gray between them and cut with a cold, metallic snip.

47

Monday, June 5, 1944

Sergeant Whitman clawed at the bandages on his charred face. “No! Put it out! Ah! It burns.”

Ruth struggled to grasp his hands. “Wake up, Sergeant. Wake up.”

“It’s just a dream, pal.” Burnsey held down the flailing legs.

“Where is it? Where’s the fire extinguisher? Ah!” A loose fist clocked Ruth in the chin.

She winced and wrestled his arm to the litter. “Please wake up. Everything’s all right.” They weren’t supposed to take psych cases on evacuation flights, but Sergeant Whitman had never been diagnosed with shell shock. No one realized the motion and sounds of flight would awaken memories of the fire in the waist of his B-17 that killed his fellow gunner and left him blinded and scorched over 20 percent of his body.

On the flight from Prestwick to Meeks, his anxiety had increased. After they left Meeks, he’d fallen into fitful sleep, but his nightmare started when they were still two hours from Stephenville.

“Danny! No! The extinguisher’s empty. Lord God, help me.”

Poor Sergeant Whitman. Sgt. Robert Whitman, a hurting little boy. Ruth stroked the curly brown hair protruding from the bandages around his face. “Robert, it’s all right. Bob, Bobby, wake up. You’re having a nightmare. It’s all right, Bobby. It’s all right.”

“No …” he moaned. His body twitched under her weight.

“Ssh. It’s all right, Bobby. It’s only a dream, a bad dream. Please wake up.”

His head turned from side to side. “Mama? Oh no, I’m dead. I’m dead.”

“No, you’re alive. I’m a nurse. We’re flying you home, remember? You’re going home.”

“Oh, the plane. I’ve gotta get off. I can’t stand this. Please, nurse, get me off this plane.”

Ruth kept stroking his hair. “We’ll land in two hours. Did your mama call you Bobby?”

He nodded, then groaned. “Two hours? I can’t make it. Can’t make it.”