A Memory Between Us (4 page)

He groaned in acknowledgment, his jaw slack.

Ruth checked the bottle of plasma flowing into his veins to replace the blood he’d lost. “How’s the pain, Major?”

“Sore.”

She scanned the chart. It had been four hours since his last pain shot. She went to the medication room for a vial of morphine and a sterilized syringe, and then returned to her patient. “You have morphine on order. Let’s not wait until you’re in agony. I’ll give you another dose.”

“I like you,” he said.

Ruth popped the needle in the vial and flipped it upside down. “You do, do you?”

“Uh-huh. You’re kind. I’m gonna marry you.”

How many times had she heard that? Ruth laughed, injected air into the vial, and drew up the contents. “Really, this is all so sudden. Why, we just met. You haven’t even seen my face.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re kind.”

Ruth flicked air bubbles from the syringe. “Marriage is serious. You should go in with eyes wide open.”

Major Novak opened one eye—cornflower blue—and he smiled. “Kind and pretty.”

Oh yeah. He was gorgeous. Not that it mattered. “You’re full of morphine.”

His eye flopped shut, and his smile broadened. “I like morphine. Morphine’s kind.”

The other patients joined in Ruth’s laughter. “You’ve got competition,” Lieutenant Jones said.

Ruth moistened a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol and swabbed a spot on the major’s right hip. “You like morphine, huh?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“All right. Here comes the bride.” She injected the medication and straightened up, chin high. “What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.”

Lieutenant Flanders broke into applause, Lieutenant Jones sang out the wedding march, and Ruth drew the blanket over her new patient’s back. “Congratulations, Major. And thank you for providing our amusement for the day.”

His lips bent in a little smile. “Know something? God loves you.”

Ruth almost dropped the empty syringe. Her mind whipped back to her prayer at the start of her shift. “Excuse me?”

“He does,” he said, voice slurred, eyes closed. “God really, really loves you.”

How could this man know? He couldn’t have heard her pray. She hadn’t spoken out loud, had she? “Why—why did you say that?”

“S’true. Christ died for you. S’all you need to know.”

Ruth tromped back to quarters at the end of the day, blind to the ever-present mud, blind to the rows of Nissen huts marring the manor grounds of Redgrave Park.

Christ died for her? It was all she needed to know?

So that’s it, Lord? That’s the answer to my prayer? About time you answered one. Ma said I could call on you in times of trouble, so why didn’t you heal Pa after he fell? Why did you take both Pa and Ma from me? Why did you let—

Ruth clamped her jaws together. Major Novak was wrong. Christ died for the hospital chaplain with his pristine collar and serene smile, for Ma with her faith through the darkest days, for innocent little Penny Doherty—not for Ten-Penny, and not for Ruth.

A touch on her elbow made her jump.

May Jensen looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Why couldn’t Ruth’s roommate leave her alone? “That’s okay. I, um—”

“Are you all right?” May’s almost colorless eyes probed deep.

“Just a long day.” Ruth feigned a tired smile.

“Looks like you need a good night’s sleep. Going in?” May gestured to Redgrave Hall.

Ruth still couldn’t believe they let a Chicago slum girl live in such a place. A grand, white Georgian façade had been tacked on the front of a Tudor home built in 1545. It had a courtyard and eleven bedrooms—eleven!—and she hadn’t even counted all the rooms downstairs.

Ruth opened the door and hoped May didn’t see the tremble in her hand.

“I’m here to
care
for the men, not
flirt
with them.” Flo Oswald stood in the entry hall by a chipped marble statue, her hands on her square hips, her chest stuck out in a grotesque manner. Half a dozen nurses lounged on chairs nearby.

“Need I remind you, this is a hospital, not the U-S-O.” Flo emphasized the letters with an exaggerated shoulder shimmy.

“That’s just like her,” one of the nurses said through her laughter.

“Someone should tell her to get off her high horse.”

“You just did,” Ruth said.

Half a dozen heads turned to her. Half a dozen jaws dropped. Flo’s chest deflated.

Ruth fixed a cold stare on the group, raised a thin smile, and brushed past them through the door to the sweeping staircase.

May followed, oblivious to being ignored. “Did you really say that? About the hospital and the USO?”

Ruth turned on the stairs and looked down to May’s bright eyes. “Yes, that’s a direct quote.”

May’s face crumpled in laughter. “Good for you. I’m here to do the Lord’s work, and it bothers me when girls treat this place like a matchmaking service. It makes all of us look bad.”

Ruth allowed herself to smile. May was the only woman who still pursued a friendship with her, despite many rebuffs. Although May’s persistence annoyed her, Ruth admired her work ethic.

Upstairs in the room they shared with four other nurses, Ruth reclined on her cot and pulled out pen and paper.

May sat on her cot next to Ruth’s, took off her cap, and smoothed her pale hair. “What are you doing tonight?”

Ruth raised her pen. “Letters.”

“Listen, I know you prefer to keep to yourself, but Kate and Rosa and I are going into Bury St. Edmunds tonight to catch a movie. It doesn’t matter what’s playing—anything to get away from the hospital for a while. Would you like to come along?”

Although May was plain, even homely, her smile had an engaging glow. How long had it been since Ruth had a friend? Ten years. Ten long years. A soft yearning pulled at her heart. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to talk to and laugh with? Someone she could trust?

No. Every time she trusted someone she got burned. Besides, while the other nurses had money to play with, Ruth had a family to support. Her aunts and uncles had opened their homes for the orphaned Doherty children, but they couldn’t afford to feed and clothe them.

Ruth looked down at the blank paper. “I’m sorry, but no. I’m behind in my correspondence.”

“That’s right. You have a large family, don’t you? Well, maybe another time.”

Ruth put pen to paper. “Maybe not,” she whispered.

4

May 25, 1943

“Please, Lieutenant? I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

“I’m sure you would, but as I’ve told you before, I don’t date.”

Jack blinked. The ward came into focus sideways until Jack righted it in his mind. Morning, and after seven if Lieutenant Doherty was there. It had to be Tuesday, since she took every other Sunday and Monday off. The days mushed together, but one way to keep track was by the nurses’ shifts and how they changed the atmosphere. Lieutenant Oswald worked nights, and everyone pretended to sleep to avoid her flirting. When Lieutenant Jensen covered daytime breaks, she brought calm and hope. But Lieutenant Doherty’s cheerful competence made her everyone’s favorite.

“Then let’s skip the dating and get married.”

Jack grumbled. “Leave her alone, Jones.”

“Ah, come on. I’m just having fun.”

“Don’t forget, I can handle myself.” Lieutenant Doherty crossed the aisle and came to his side. “How are you feeling this morning, Major?”

“Much better.” Jack rolled over, winced at the pain in his rear end, and flopped back onto his stomach. “Except when I do something stupid like that.”

She chuckled and pulled down the blanket. “Be patient. You’ll be sitting up in no time. Now, let me take a look at those wounds.”

Jack rested his chin on the pillow so he wouldn’t have to watch her work. “Of all the foolish places to get shot. How am I supposed to tell my grandkids? My brother lost his arm, but at least that’s honorable.”

“Oh my. How’d that happen?”

“Shot by a Focke-Wulf 190 over Bremen. He flew a B-17 with the 306th.”

“Really? We had patients from that group when I was stationed at Diddington.”

“Come to think of it, he had pneumonia this winter. Maybe you met him—Walter Novak.” Jack glanced over his shoulder, but the sight of the pretty nurse dressing his rump unnerved him. He turned back.

“Walter Novak. That sounds familiar. Does he look like you?”

Jack chuckled. “Not a bit, other than the black hair, the build. Nice fellow. He never would have made a pass at you.”

“Hmm.” The snip of scissors on tape told him she was almost done. “Yes, I remember him. Shy, but very pleasant. How’s he doing?”

“Going home soon, but I’m worried about him. He’s blue. Lost his arm, can’t fly, and the girl he loves is marrying someone else.”

“Oh dear.” Lieutenant Doherty pulled the blanket back in place. “He didn’t take my advice.”

“Advice?”

She sat on the empty cot next to his. “To tell her how he felt. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

Jack rolled onto his right side and raised himself on one elbow, which was uncomfortable but not painful. “I told him the same thing, but he won’t do it. Stubborn Novak pride.”

“Hmm.” She opened the drawer of the bedside table and rearranged supplies. Although her hands never idled, she always listened. “You have two brothers, right? Are all of you like that?”

“More or less. Ray’s the least stubborn. He’s got a true pastor’s heart.”

“Don’t you also? You always make the men behave.”

Jack fiddled with the brown wool blanket. “I don’t know. I’m not a born pastor like Ray. He gets fired up writing sermons. I don’t. I have to work at it. That’s one reason I joined the Air Corps right out of seminary.”

“One reason? What’s the other?” She glanced at him through dark lashes.

Boy, she was swell. He grinned. “Had to fly.”

Her gaze darted back to the drawer. “And after the war? What then?”

After the war? Jack didn’t think much about it, didn’t want to. Although the faces of four dead copilots flashed in his mind, he wouldn’t trade his job with anyone. He’d flown antisubmarine missions with the 7th Bombardment Group from Pearl Harbor, then reconnaissance missions over New Guinea and the Solomons with the 19th Bomb Group in Townsville, Australia, but when his war-weary squadron returned stateside, he rejected a boring training job like Ray had and volunteered for combat again.

“After the war?” Jack sighed. “Maybe I’ll be ready to settle in a cozy little parsonage and write scholarly yet stirring messages.”

“I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.” Her brows drew together as she lined up rolls of gauze. “Your brother Ray—he’s a gentleman too, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.” He shifted his elbow so his arm wouldn’t fall asleep.

“Imagine that—three in one family. I mean, you and your brother are two of a very small number of single men who haven’t made a pass at me. I—well, I appreciate it.” She still shifted things in the drawer although surely it was organized by now.

“You’re welcome.” Jack studied her changed demeanor—not her usual deft blend of friendliness and standoffishness, but rather, she looked small and vulnerable. “It’s got to bother you. Seems as if someone asks you out every day.”

“At least once a day.” She slid the drawer and her confident smile back in place. “Not a week passes without some poor soul declaring his undying love, and my month isn’t complete without a marriage proposal.”

Jack laughed. “Glad I’m above that.”

“Are you? You’ve already proposed.”

“What?” His jaw dropped.

“It’s all right.” Lieutenant Doherty pulled a thermometer from her pocket and popped it in Jack’s open mouth. “It was your first day, and you were heavily drugged.”

“Shorry ’bout dat,” he mumbled around the thermometer. What other stupid things had he said?

“All forgiven.” The sparkle in her eyes told him she meant it.

Lieutenant Doherty wrote on the clipboard while the mercury rose, and Jack glanced around the Nissen hut, which was like a giant tin can sawed in half. Four coal stoves ran down the aisle, with ten beds on each side, only eight of which were occupied. Jack didn’t mind the extra attention.

After Lieutenant Doherty removed the thermometer, Jack took a sip of water to wash away the taste of rubbing alcohol. “Enough about the Novaks. What are the Dohertys like?”

She shook down the thermometer. “I don’t think we have any unifying characteristic, except we all work hard.”

“Your parents must have been exceptional.” She always spoke of them in the past tense, so they must have passed away.

“They were.” Lieutenant Doherty rubbed the edge of the clipboard with her thumb. “Pa worked real hard at the plant until he fell and broke his back in ’32. He hated being an invalid, and it eventually killed him—blood clot in his lung. And Ma truly worked herself to death. She died two years after Pa, right before I graduated from nursing school.”

Jack slid down to rest his cheek on the pillow. “And the kids?”

“Well, I’m the oldest. Three of us are on our own. Ellen’s married with two little ones, and Harold’s in the Navy. The other four are with aunts and uncles, split up, but I had no choice.”