A Memory Between Us (23 page)

Her head wagged. The mist transformed into white darts aimed at her eyes, her soul.

“Oh, that’s right. They paid you. Why didn’t you tell me? You want money? I’ve got money. Here.” He thrust his fist into his pocket, his face dark and getting darker.

“No.” Not money, anything but money.

“Here, I owe you. Two kisses. I stole two kisses. Yeah, with you it really is stealing. Why didn’t you tell me, huh?” He jabbed at the change in his palm. “A dime. A dime. Here, two dimes.”

Jack hurled black coins into the black grass in front of her.

A black knife sliced into her heart. She cried out and stumbled back.

“What kind of a girl does such a thing? What kind of a girl even thinks of such a thing? How old were you anyway?”

“Thir—teen.” The word cost too much. Blackness settled thick about her and shot pain through her head.

“Thirteen? Thirteen? You should have been playing—I don’t know—hopscotch or something, not—not—how could you?”

Ruth moaned. Her legs buckled. She slumped down to her knees and dropped her head. Her breath raced.

“Virtuous?” He spat it out. “A virtuous woman doesn’t sell kisses.”

Each word plunged a knife into her body and spirit.

“A virtuous woman keeps herself for the man she loves.”

Crushed her with the burden of who she was.

“A virtuous woman doesn’t sell her body for a dollar.”

“What?” Ruth raised her head. Blackness throbbed at the edge of her vision. “I—I never.”

Jack stood dark in all the darkness. “You deny it?”

“The—the lessons—I did that. But not—not—”

“He called you Dollar Doherty.” He sounded as if he had something vile in his mouth.

Not as vile as the memory. Six lessons a day had been her rule—no more, no less—and for safety, every boy stayed the whole hour, even when his lesson was over. But that day Bud Lewis from her tenement and two of his friends from the meat-packing plant had chased off the boys.

Bud waved a dollar bill in her face. “So, Ten-Penny, what’s a dollar get me?”

A great nauseating tremble ran through her body, but she managed to speak. “One ten-minute lesson and ninety cents change.”

But that didn’t stop them. Nothing and no one could stop them. Afterward, three horrid dollar bills had rained down on her ruined body.

Ruth’s fingers dug into the grass. “Oh no, Jack. No, it’s not what you think.”

“Tell me. What should I think?”

She collapsed over her knees. She’d never spoken the word, never even formed it in her thoughts. “I was—I was—raped.” The word tore a bilious path through her throat and out her mouth.

Jack stood silent and still before her for a while. “Yeah?” His voice lost its hard edge but not its chill.

She pressed fists to her eyes. “I was fifteen. The alley. There were three of them.” She grabbed the knife implanted in her soul, took it in her own hand, and if she cut deep enough, everything would spill out, and maybe she’d die and get it over with. “They were big, strong. I couldn’t get away, couldn’t stop them, and they raped me, over and over and over, all three of them, and they wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t get away, and over and over and over.” Her chest heaved out long, low sobs.

No sound or motion from the man before her, the man who once thought he loved her, but he hadn’t known what she was.

Ruth’s sobs deepened. Her hands slid over her slippery eyes. “Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.” He disappeared into the fog.

27

Ruth clenched grass in her fists, watered it with her tears, and tore it out by the roots.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and she clamped off her sobs. She couldn’t let anyone else see her like this.

“Ruth? Ruth!” May dropped to her knees and put her hand on Ruth’s back. “Oh my goodness. What happened?”

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

“Oh dear. I knew I didn’t like Jack’s tone. That’s why I stayed around. He sounded so angry, and then I heard you—oh my goodness. What happened?”

“Leave me alone.” She grabbed fresh handfuls of grass. She liked the ripping sound.

“Oh no. Did he—did he hit you?”

She shook her head, and the grass in her fists brushed her forehead.

“What did he do?”

“He said the truth, that’s all. Now, go away.”

“The truth?” May sounded so naïve, Ruth wanted to blast her with the truth and drive her away forever.

She pressed her face into her fists and spewed out the truth, all of it, in a voice that sounded foreign, childlike, and disembodied. She cut even deeper now, a strange pleasure, like lancing a boil, releasing the pressure, spraying it all over May, poisoning her, infecting her, shocking her.

Then the pain of the surgery hit.

A moan worked its way out. What had she done? She’d lost Jack and now she’d lose May. Would May tell the others, the chief? This was a serious morals violation. What could be worse than selling one’s affections repeatedly? She’d lose her position at Bowman, her commission in the Army Nurse Corps, and her nursing license. Wouldn’t it be ironic if what she had done to feed her family stripped away her ability to provide for them?

Oh Lord, no. Please
. But why did she bother praying? Every time she prayed, God did the opposite to spite her, to punish her. She’d never finish paying for her sins, never.

“There, there. That’s better now, isn’t it?” May spoke in cooing tones and stroked Ruth’s back.

Ruth opened her eyes and looked into the grass and dirt. Then she unfolded herself to sitting and tried to focus her blurry eyes on May.

“Oh, Ruth. Now I understand.” Trails shimmered down May’s cheeks.

Ruth ran the back of her fist across her eyes and stared harder. “Understand?”

“I knew it had to be more than the loss of your parents. You carry so much shame. Now I understand.”

Where was the disgust and indignation? “How could you understand?”

May wiped her cheeks. “I often wondered what I’d do if—well, if the orphanage closed, or if I did something awful and they threw me out, if I had to take care of myself. You never know what you’d do.”

“You wouldn’t do what I did.”

“Of course not. I’m not pretty.” She gave a faint smile. “But I understand.”

“How could you?” Ruth stared at her in all her pale purity. “What I did was wrong, don’t you see? It was immoral. I played with the boys’ emotions, took advantage of them.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t justify what those men did to you.”

This was nonsense, went against everything she knew about her sin and her punishment. “I asked for it. I led them to believe I was easy, and—”

“No.” May’s eyes flashed. “They’re the criminals. Yes, you put yourself in a dangerous situation, but they committed the crime, not you.”

Ruth glanced around the grass-floored dome in the fog, a soft-walled prison. “Not a crime, a sin. A morals violation. My job. Oh, my job.”

“Honey, don’t worry. I’d never say anything. It’s in the past. You live an upstanding life now.”

A glint in the grass drew Ruth’s gaze. Jack’s dimes. Her chest collapsed. “Jack.”

“Never mind him.” May’s voice chilled. “Not after how he treated you.”

He treated her as she deserved, but would he turn her in? He was a man of integrity, an officer, a pastor. Was it his duty to report her violation? Would he consider her family and how she supported them?

“I wish we didn’t have to wait two weeks before leaving for Kentucky.”

Ruth blinked away the haze in her eyes. “We?”

May gave a twitching little smile. “I received my letter this morning. I was accepted.”

“Accepted? I didn’t know you applied.”

“I never said anything, because I didn’t think they’d take me. For one thing, I had to stuff myself to meet the weight requirement.”

“But—but why?”

May shrugged. “Same reasons as you. I applied when you did, before the boys went to Tunisia. Things were going too well with Charlie, and I wanted to get away.”

Ruth understood that sentiment. “But after Tunisia?”

“Charlie and I decided we wouldn’t be any different than most couples nowadays, separated by thousands of miles. Geography can’t divide us—it still can’t. Besides, you need me more than Charlie does.”

“Me?” A flame sparked in her chest. “Need you? I don’t need a friend. Look what friendship’s gotten me.” She lifted her fists, grass still clenched inside, and flung it away.

“You do need friends.”

“No. No, I never did.” She pushed herself to standing, her legs numb. “I don’t need anyone. No one.”

“Ruth—”

“You hear me? No one.” She tottered away and cringed from the electric jolts in her legs. “I don’t need anyone, and I certainly don’t need you, May Jensen.”

“Maybe—maybe I need you.”

The tremor in May’s voice shocked Ruth more than her prickling legs. She turned around. “What?”

May’s face turned a deep pink and contracted. “Did you ever consider for one moment that maybe I need a friend?”

“You?” Ruth swept her arm in the direction of Redgrave Hall. “You have friends, lots of friends. You had plenty of friends before me.”

“But I want you for a friend. I don’t know why. Goodness knows you’ve been cold to me, prickly, often downright rude.” May crossed her arms, and her face buckled.

Ruth’s face buckled too. “Why me?”

“I don’t know.” May swiped at her eyes. “I thought you’d understand, not just cold and hunger, but loneliness and—and ostracism and having too much care on your shoulders. Understand fear and—and grief.” Her voice cracked. She pressed her hand over her eyes.

More tears trickled down Ruth’s cheeks. “I—I do. Oh, May, I’m sorry.”

She lowered her hand to reveal eyes as red as Ruth’s had to be. Unlike Ruth’s hard, brittle shell, May’s was soft and resilient, but underneath lay someone as vulnerable as Ruth, someone who needed a friend.

Just as Ruth did.

She stared at the wet, grassy mess on her hands. “Someone better warn the School of Air Evacuation to make way for two poor little orphan girls.”

28

Bury St. Edmunds Airfield

Saturday, November 20, 1943

Jack studied the men who stood at attention before his desk at Squadron Headquarters. Fresh from the Combat Crew Replacement Center, the four lieutenants and six sergeants hailed from cities and farms and small towns all over the U.S. The youngest were eighteen, the oldest was twenty-two. Some looked eager, some tough, one looked terrified.

Jack leaned his forearms on his desk and lifted a smile he hoped would instill enthusiasm. This got harder every day. He’d lost his touch this month, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

“Well, boys, you’ve come at an exciting time for the Eighth Air Force. We’re able to dispatch over five hundred bombers on each mission. A year ago we could barely send up a hundred.” Of course, losses ran high as ever.

He stood and pressed his fingertips to the desk. “Now we have Pathfinder Force aircraft in each combat wing with radar so we can bomb through the clouds.” When the fool equipment worked.

“With P-38 Lightnings now in the theater, we have escort for a hundred miles farther.” At least the brass learned the lesson of Schweinfurt and no longer sent them on deep penetrations without escort. This limited target selection, but then the weather had been too lousy to fly anyway.

Jack hefted up another smile. “This squadron’s always been a family. Even though we’ve grown from nine crews to twelve, we’re still a family.” He hated the words while still in his mouth. He’d never told his men that before because they’d figured it out for themselves. If he had to convince them, it wasn’t true anymore.

He dismissed the men, returned to his desk, and dropped his head into his hands.
Lord, three more missions. Let me finish this tour so I can take a furlough. Christmas at home, Mom’s cooking, Grandpa’s farm, and I’ll be back to normal.

“Hiya, Novak.” Joe Winchell entered his office, took a seat, and propped his feet on the desk.

Jack shuffled some papers to look busy. “Hi, Winch.”

The new intelligence officer watched in silence for a moment. “A little scotch would do you a lot of good.”

Jack rolled his eyes. The thought had occurred to him many times in the past month. Oblivion sounded good, but it wouldn’t bring back Charlie or the other men, wouldn’t give him that promotion, and wouldn’t erase Ruth’s dirty little secret.

“How ’bout a dame? I know a lot of girls in town. Muster up one of your old smiles and you’re in.”

“Last thing I need is a girl.” He needed to stay away from women until fire no longer lured him.

He stuffed papers in the stapler and pounded it harder than necessary. Twice. Yeah, he’d found that ring around Ruth’s heart, but it wasn’t gold, it was iron pyrite—fool’s gold—and he was the fool.

“I know what you need.”

“Winch.” Jack speared him with his gaze. “All I need is a furlough. Meanwhile …”

Winchell held up his hands. “Roger and out.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“Hmm. Furlough in sunny California. Just the kind of weather—”

“I told you I’d take her.” Sahara Sue wasn’t doing well in England, and Jack—he still couldn’t believe he’d agreed—would take the tranquilized donkey on a cargo plane, then a train, to Grandpa’s farm.

Winchell put his feet down, leaned over the desk, and turned a paper so he could read it. “‘Memorandum 36: Mud Control’?”

Jack groaned. “Goes out tomorrow. According to Lt. Col. Jefferson Babcock Jr., the greatest threat to the 94th Bombardment Group is neither flak nor fighters, but mud.”

“Mud?” Winchell laughed and scanned the memo. “He wants to outlaw mud? In England? In November? He’s got to be kidding.”

“I wish he were. Look at the new regulations to reduce mud on the base. Ridiculous. He actually expects us to sweep the highways.”

“The men will hate this. It’s—”

“I know.” Jack cut him off before the profanity. “The kind of baloney that makes men hate military life and disrespect authority.”

“What are you going to do?”