Marta's Legacy Collection (42 page)

At night, while others slept, she knelt on the end of her bed and looked out the window at the moon and stars and talked to God. Or Papa. She spent hours reading the small, black leather-bound Bible Papa had given her when she started nursing school, writing down Scriptures that promised her a future and hope. When the binding began to give way, she asked for adhesive tape.

It took a while, but she got over being angry with Mama. Mama was just Mama. She had to give up hoping she’d have a relationship with her like Cloe or Rikka. Both her sisters had always had the lion’s share of love. But then, they were lionesses like Mama. Nothing would stop them from going after what they wanted.

Hildie wondered if Mama would ever give her credit for making it on her own.

Jones came to see her. “The secret of longevity, my girl, is getting a chronic illness early in life. I survived the Spanish flu. It made me aware of how fragile our lives are. When you get out of here—and you will—you’re going to take better care of yourself. When you get out of here, you come on back to Merritt. I want you back on my ward.”

Boots wrote often. She had met someone—a patient, this time.

I gave him a back rub one night. One thing led to another. Let’s just say if we’d been caught, I would have lost my job. He says he loves me, Flo. He says he wants to get married. Just thinking about saying “until death” makes me break out in a sweat.

A few weeks later, she wrote again and said she had broken up with him.

I’ve probably made the biggest mistake of my life, but it’s too late now. Some people just aren’t ready to settle down. I think I’m one of them.

Boots took a job in Honolulu.

Surf and sand and plenty of tanned bodies. Oh, my. I think I’m in heaven.

A few weeks later, another letter arrived.

What was I thinking when I took this job? I’ve seen the entire island twice over. A pity I’m not an Army nurse. There are plenty of cute soldiers around. But I can’t stand it. I feel like I’m living on the head of a pin in the middle of the Pacific. Hey. Why would I feel that way? I am! I’m sending résumés to the mainland. Who would’ve guessed I’d become claustrophobic in paradise?

Six months had passed by the time Hildemara received permission to leave. She packed her bags.

“December 1, 1941, is a day of celebration from here forward.” Trip carried her suitcase out to the car. He settled her comfortably in the front seat. When he started to tuck the lap robe around her, she protested. “I’m well. Remember?” He grinned and gave her a firm kiss, the first in eight months.

When he slipped behind the driver’s seat, he leaned over and put his arm around her. “Let’s try that again.” He took her hand and placed it, palm flat, against his chest. She could feel his heart hammering as fast as her own. Eyes black, he caressed her face. “We’d better start making wedding plans now. No more excuses.”

“I can’t think of a single one.”

Six days later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

37

Hildemara married Trip on December 21, 1941. Bernie and Elizabeth came up with Mama. Melvin drove Rikka. They left shortly after the ceremony to take the ferry to San Francisco. Cloe sent her regrets. She had a job with a production company working on another swashbuckler. Tyrone Power, this time. “We’re sewing night and day to get the costumes ready for the shoot. . . .” Bad weather and lack of money kept Trip’s parents in Colorado.

Many of Hildie and Trip’s local church friends attended and gave gifts. The deaconesses put on a wedding reception in the social hall. Everyone talked about the war, and some of the men in the congregation had already signed up for military service. Mama gave the newlyweds a crocheted tablecloth with fifty dollars tucked into the folds. They used it to buy train tickets to Denver.

Trip’s mother and father made Hildemara feel more like a long-lost daughter than an in-law. When asked what she wanted to call them, she rejected Otis and Marg and opted for what Trip called them—Dad and Mom.

“Look out!” Trip laughed. “Dad’s looking for ways to entertain you.”

When he hooked a sleigh to the back of his car, Hildie climbed aboard and sailed down East Moreno to Prospect Lake. In a few short weeks, she learned the rudiments of ice-skating and cross-country skiing.

They had little time alone in the small one-bedroom house. Trip’s bedroom was much like Hildie’s had been, a converted back porch. At least he had snow shutters instead of screen windows. They had no trouble keeping warm.

“We’re going to have to go back to California soon, so you can start medical school.”

Hildie combed her fingers through Trip’s thick brown hair. His parents had gone off to visit friends, leaving them alone for the day. They had spent all morning in bed, not having to worry about making a sound.

Trip took her hand and kissed it. “I joined up, Hildie.”

Her heart froze. “What did you say?”

“I went to the recruiter’s office on Monday and signed the papers.”

She yanked her hand free and sat up. “Oh, Trip. Tell me you didn’t! We’ve only been married three weeks!” Everything had worked together to keep them apart for so long: Papa’s illness, then hers, and now he signed up to go off and fight a war? How could he?

“It’s cold.” Trip pulled her down again, swinging his leg across hers to hold her there. “Every able-bodied man is joining up. How can I not do my part?”

“So you join up without even saying a word about it? I’m your wife!”

“Hildie . . .”

“Let me up!”

He did. She pulled her robe on and went into the house, standing near the potbelly stove. She’d have to crawl inside to thaw the chill inside her. Trip came in, closing the door behind him. He stood behind her, running his hands up and down her arms. “I should have told you. I’m sorry I didn’t. I was afraid I’d let you talk me out of it.”

She shook his hands off and faced him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Is this the way our marriage is going to be? You make life-changing decisions and tell me later?” Something else struck her. “Your parents knew, didn’t they? That’s why they left us alone today.” She closed her eyes. “That’s why Mom went to bed early last night and Dad looked so grim.”

“Our country needs soldiers. The recruiter thinks I’ll end up a medic with my premed background and the time I spent working in a hospital. I can be of service.”

He clutched her face, his own agonized. “I can’t stay here safe and happy, making love to you every chance I get, while others risk their lives for our freedom. This is a fight for America’s survival, Hildie, not a little skirmish in a foreign country somewhere we’ve never heard of.”

She felt her body shaking in reaction. She had read the newspapers, too. If the Japanese invaded California and Germany overran Europe, the whole world would be at war. “You’re right. I’ll enlist, too. Jones said a year ago the Army would need nurses.”

He let go of her, his face flaming. “Over my dead body! You’re not enlisting in the Army!”

She laughed in disbelief. “It’s all right for you, but not for me. I have more training than you do, Trip. Don’t expect me to sit home and wait when my husband could be among the wounded!”

“I want you safe from harm!”

“And I wanted the same for you, but you did as you pleased. And now I agree. Our country needs us.”

“No . . .” He put his head in his hands and turned away.

Hildie put her hand on his back. “If it means our freedom, shouldn’t we all be part of it?”

He turned to her, face pale. “Don’t do anything yet. Promise me. We’ll pray about it.”

“Did you?”

“Yes!”
He cupped her face. “I’ve been praying since December 7 about what to do.”

“And never included me.”

Trip winced. “I won’t do it again. Listen to me, please. One of us joining right now is enough. Give it a little time and we’ll pray and see what God wants for you.”

Everything moved faster than either expected.

Trip received his orders, and Hildie followed him to Camp Barkeley, Texas, and then to Fort Riley, Kansas, and then on to Fort Lewis, Washington. She lived in boardinghouses while he lived in the barracks. When he had a day’s leave, they stayed in her room, hungry for one another. Tens of thousands of Navy men and Marines headed for the South Pacific to fight the Japanese while the Army geared up to invade Europe. Trip received orders for Officer Candidate School.

“You can’t come this time, Hildie. I won’t be able to see you, and I don’t want you living among strangers. I want you to go home.”

Which home? Where? She didn’t know whether to go back to work at Merritt, where she would be surrounded by friends, or to Colorado Springs and live with Mom and Dad, or home to Murietta and Mama, if Mama would allow. No place would feel like home without Trip. She would stay in Tacoma until she could figure out what to do.

Trip dressed in his uniform while she sat on the end of the bed in the dressing gown Cloe had made. He leaned down and kissed her. “Maybe God will answer my prayers by then.” He brushed his fingers against her cheek and went out the door.

She didn’t have to ask what he meant, though he had never spoken his prayer aloud. He wanted her pregnant. He didn’t just want a child; he wanted her ineligible to join the military.

She flung a hand over her eyes and prayed God’s protection on her husband. If the slight morning nausea the last few days was any indication, God might have already answered Trip’s prayer. They might have something to celebrate rather than spending every moment worrying about what the future could hold. The future could hold a child! Then again, she might just be feeling sick at the thought of what could happen to Trip.

Hildemara waited another month before making an appointment. The doctor confirmed she was pregnant. Proud to be carrying Trip’s child, she sat with her hand resting on her abdomen during the long bus ride back to the apartment.

She would go home to Murietta. She didn’t want to add to Trip’s worries, and her husband wouldn’t want her living alone with a baby on the way.
God has settled it, Trip. You’re going to be a daddy. I’m going home to Mama. . . .
Mama’s first grandchild! Perhaps Mama would even be happy enough to crow about it.

Rikka had gone home to see Melvin before he headed off to Marine Corps boot camp and then gone back to San Francisco. She had quit full-time classes at the California School of Fine Arts, preferring to pick and choose what she studied. She had found a job as a waitress in a fancy restaurant and loved everything about living in San Francisco. She claimed she loved Melvin, but she had no intention of becoming a farmer’s wife in Murietta. It remained to be seen whether romance or a lust for life would win out. With Rikka’s eyes fixed on city life, Hildemara assumed there would be plenty of room for her and a new baby.

Only a fool assumes.

38

1942

Hildie left her trunk and suitcase at the train station and walked home. Thinking to surprise Mama, she knocked at the front door. She didn’t know the woman who opened it.

She stood gaping. “Who are you?”

“I’d be asking you the same question.”

“I’m Hildemara Arundel.”

“I don’t know no Arundels.”

“Waltert. My mother is Marta Waltert.”

“Oh.” Her face cleared and she pushed the screen door open. “Come in, please. Your mama don’t live here no more. She lives out back in the cottage.” She put her hand under Hildie’s arm. “Here. You set yourself down. You look a little peaked.”

“Who are you?”

“Donna Martin.” She patted Hildie’s shoulder, poured her a glass of lemonade, and said she’d go get her mother.

A moment later, Mama raced in the back door. “What are you doing here, Hildemara?”

“Trip’s gone to OCS. He said I couldn’t go with him. I wanted to come home!” She burst into tears.

“Come on.” Mama hauled her up, apologized to Donna Martin for the intrusion, and pushed Hildie out the back door, down the steps, and along the path to the cottage. She opened the side door into the kitchen. “It’s too bad you didn’t think to write first, instead of just showing up on the front doorstep.”

“I thought I’d be welcome.” Hildemara wiped her face. “I should’ve known better.” She looked around. “You’re living here? Where are Bernie and Elizabeth?”

Mama poured another glass of lemonade and plunked it in front of Hildie on the small kitchen table. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Mama!”

Mama sat and folded her hands on the table. “Hitch and Donna Martin are sharecropping the place. They’ve got four children. I don’t need much room, so I gave them the big house. They’ll be more comfortable there, room to spread instead of living in a tent-house like we did.”

“And Bernie and Elizabeth?”

“The government came and took the Musashis away. Bernie and Elizabeth moved over to their place.”

“Took them away? Where?”

“To an assembly center in Pomona. We’ve heard rumors they’re going to be sent to some internment camp in Wyoming, of all places. We sent blankets and coats a week back. Hope they get them. The government seems to think every Jap is a spy these days. I’m surprised a bus hasn’t come after me and the rest of the Jerries and Wops around here, sending us all to some godforsaken camp in Death Valley.” She raised her hands and shook her head. “People go crazy when a war starts. They let fear run wild. Anyway, Hitch and Donna are good, hardworking people. Papa spoke highly of Hitch. They came out when Oklahoma turned to dust, and they’ve had a hard time ever since they arrived in California. I know how that feels. Hitch knows farming and ranching, so I hired him to run the place. That’s how Papa and I started when we came to California. Sharecroppers. Do you remember those days living by the irrigation ditch and in that tent-house Papa built? I’ll treat the Martins better than we were treated, I can promise you that.”

“So you’re living here.”

“Yes. It suits me. The Martins will have the place looking as neat and tended as Papa did when he was well.”

Hildie bristled. “Bernie did a good job.”

“Yes. Bernie did a good job; I’m not saying he didn’t. He’ll do a good job across the street, too.”

“I could help.”

“Not here, you can’t. What, now that you’ve come home you think I’ll put the Martins out so you can move in and play farmer? No. The cottage has only one bedroom, Hildemara, and I’m not sharing it. I don’t need you down here on the farm.”

Hildemara’s mouth trembled. “Did you ever think I might need you?”

Mama put her hands over Hildie’s and held them tightly. “No, you don’t. You’ve been standing on your own two feet for a while now.” She took her hands away. “Go on back to Merritt, back to work, back to your friends! Time will pass faster that way.”

So much for being welcomed home. “I can’t go back to work.”

“Why not?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Mama sat back in her chair. “Oh. Well, that changes things.” She smiled, her eyes glowing softly. “You and Elizabeth will have a lot to talk about. Go on over. They’ll be glad to see you. And there’s plenty of room at the Musashis’. He built a dormitory for the girls, remember?”

Mama went with her. “Look what the cat dragged in!”

How like Mama to say it that way.

Bernie strode across the yard, grabbed Hildie, and flung her around, her feet swinging. She laughed for the first time in weeks. “Put me down, Bernie!”

“Careful, Bernhard. Your sister’s expecting a baby.”

Bernie set Hildie down. “Holy cow! How far along?”

“Three months.” She watched Mama head back across the street. Hildie could almost imagine her brushing off her hands, having settled things so quickly.

“Elizabeth’s six months along. She’s still sick as a dog every morning. I thought she wrote to you. Letter probably got lost with all your moving hither and yon, following that man of yours.” He put his arm around her and steered her toward the Musashis’ house. “She’s going to be over the moon when she sees you. She’s been lonely.”

Bernie stopped, looking grim. “I’d better warn you now, in case you might want to change your mind about staying here. We’ve had rocks thrown through the windows. Old Man Hutchinson called me a Jap lover yesterday. I can understand, I guess. His son was killed at Pearl Harbor, but try telling him the Musashis had nothing to do with it. People see Jap spies behind every bush, and a few German ones, too. Do you understand what I’m saying, Hildie?”

“Yes.” Fear made fools of some people.

Elizabeth turned from the kitchen sink as Bernie and Hildie came in the door. Hildemara gave her a long, considering look.
Miracles do happen,
she told herself. Hildie hoped this pregnancy was one of them.

“Hildie.” Elizabeth spoke softly. “I’m so glad you’re home.” They embraced.

When Hildie searched Elizabeth’s eyes, her friend blushed and looked away. Hildie wanted to weep.

Bernie took Hildie back to the train station in Mama’s Model T to collect her luggage. He had to muscle the trunk into the backseat. “You have more stuff than the last time you came home!”

“Mrs. Henderson, my landlady, had a sale before I left Tacoma. She’s putting the house up for sale and moving in with her daughter. I helped her bring boxes down from her attic and price everything. You wouldn’t believe how much stuff she’d accumulated over the years. She had things left behind by boarders, and her husband had a store. He sold all kinds of things, including china. Her attic was packed! She gave me twelve different place settings from his store displays: Royal Doulton, Wedgwood, Spode, and Villeroy and Boch. She gave me some linen tablecloths, too. We can use everything if you and Elizabeth would like.”

“We’ll store your trunk in the barn. Keep all those nice things for when you and Trip set up housekeeping. Elizabeth packed all of the Musashis’ dishes and kitchenwares. We’re using our own.”

Bernie seemed to have less security than she did. “What are you going to do when the Musashis come back?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

With the Martins living in the big house and sharecropping the farm, it seemed Bernie had been done out of a home and a job. “Whose idea was it to move over to the Musashis’?”

“Mama and I both had a brainstorm at the same time. It hit me the day I saw the Musashis walking to town with one suitcase apiece. Didn’t seem right.”

“Thanks for taking me in, Bernie.”

Bernie gave her a droll look. “You think I’d leave my pregnant sister without a roof over her head?”

“Mama would.”

He gave her an irritated glance. “What a thing to say.”

She felt ashamed and defensive. “I didn’t know anything about the Martins. Last I heard, you were running the place.”

“Things change.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “I cried when I saw the Musashis leave. Mama got mad as all get-out. She said it wasn’t right. She wrote letters and called anyone who’d listen. She drove all the way to Sacramento to talk to someone in government. They wanted to know where
she
came from. We decided to keep the Musashi farm running. If the taxes don’t get paid, they’ll lose the place. Me and Mama and Elizabeth decided this was the best way to handle things right now. The Martins are good people, Hildie. They’ll take care of the place like it’s their own, and Mama’s comfortable in the cottage.”

While Bernie carried her trunk into the barn, Hildemara took her suitcase inside the house. Elizabeth had set the table. She glanced over her shoulder at Hildie and turned back to the stove.

“Something smells wonderful.”

“Stew.” Elizabeth’s voice sounded choked.

Elizabeth hardly said anything through dinner. Bernie talked about the work that needed doing. Hildie talked about moving from place to place, following Trip. “No place at the inn for OCS.” She shrugged, trying not to think about how many months it might be before she saw Trip again.

“I tried to enlist.” Bernie tossed his napkin on the table. “I’m strong as a horse, but they wouldn’t take me. I had two strikes against me before I walked in the door. I’m an only son and a farmer. Then again, maybe there’s another reason they don’t want me. Bernhard Waltert isn’t exactly an American name, is it?” He got up. “I’ve got work to do.”

Hildie looked from the closing door to Elizabeth with her hangdog expression. “Are things really that bad?”

“Someone called him a coward the last time he went to town.”

Hildie stacked Bernie’s dish on top of hers and began to clear the table. “Idiots!”

“I can do the dishes, Hildie.”

“I want to do my part while I’m living here. You cooked. I’ll do the dishes.”

Elizabeth sat with her head down. “You know, don’t you?”

Hildie stood at the sink and closed her eyes. She wanted to pretend she didn’t understand. Drying her hands, she came back and sat at the table. Elizabeth couldn’t look her in the face. “Who’s the father?”

Elizabeth’s shoulders jerked as though she’d been struck. “I love him, you know.”

Hildie’s heart sank. She wanted to grab Elizabeth and shake her. “Who?”

Elizabeth looked up, eyes wide, mouth trembling. “Bernie. I love Bernie!” Her voice broke. She covered her face.

“Does he know?”

“How did you?”

Hildie lied. “The look on your face when I came in the door, the way you couldn’t look me in the eyes. Does Bernie know?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “He knows something’s wrong.” She wiped tears away. “He doesn’t understand why I cry all the time. The doctor told him it had to do with hormones.” She looked up, afraid. “Are you going to tell him?”

“I’m not going to be the one to tell my brother something that will rip the heart right out of him. It’s your secret, Elizabeth, not mine.” Still, she had to know. “You didn’t say who the father is.”

“Eddie Rinckel.”

Bernie’s best friend? “Oh, Elizabeth.” Hildie stood up and moved away from her. “How could you?” She felt sick. She wanted to slap Elizabeth, scream at her.

“Do you hate me?”

Hildie closed her eyes. “Yes. I think I do.” Trembling, she went back to the sink to do the dishes. Elizabeth got up quietly and went into the bedroom she shared with Bernie.

Later, lying in bed, listening to the night sounds, Hildemara cried.

Suddenly Bernie threw open her door. “Fire! Come on. I need help!”

Hildie grabbed her robe and ran. Elizabeth worked beside Bernie. The Martins, all six of them, and Mama in her nightgown, came with shovels. It took an hour, but they managed to beat out and smother the blaze that had started in the alfalfa field.

Mama tossed her long braid back over her shoulder and wiped soot on the front of her nightgown. “We need another dog.” Dash had died while Hildemara was in nursing school.

Bernie gave a cynical laugh. “Make that two, Mama.”