The Bungalow (22 page)

“No thanks necessary,” he said, smiling. “But you might help a fellow find a new shirt.”

“Oh,” Kitty said, smiling, “but doesn’t my baby look lovely in this shade of green?”

Westry grinned, helping himself to a white medical coat, probably one of Dr. Livingston’s, hanging on a hook beside the bed.

“It suits you,” I said, winking.

We all looked toward the door when we heard the knob turn. Nurse Hildebrand walked in, startled at the sight of Westry in a white coat.

“And you are?”

“Westry Green, ma’am,” he said. “I was just getting these two—I mean, these three—settled, before going on my way.”

“I can take it from here, solider,” she said briskly. “And you can return the coat once you’ve washed and pressed it.”

Westry nodded, and walked toward the door. “Good night, ladies,” he said, sending a final grin my way.

“Good night,” I said. I couldn’t help but notice something unsettled in Kitty’s eyes as Westry walked out.

“Anne, Kitty, are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said. “The baby is healthy. She needs to be cleaned up, though. They both do.”

Nurse Hildebrand nodded and pulled a basin from the closet. “Anne, you’ll give the child her first bath.”

“Of course,” I said, taking the baby from Kitty’s arms.

“I will phone the Mayhews and ask them to come,” Nurse Hildebrand continued. “You can swaddle her in this spare sheet when you’re finished. They’ll have clothes and blankets for her at their home.”

Kitty shook her head. “The Mayhews?”

“The couple who is taking your child,” she replied.

Terror appeared on Kitty’s face. “But it’s so soon,” she said. “I—I . . .”

“It’s what you wanted, Kitty. And it’s what has to be done,” Nurse Hildebrand said without emotion. “You can’t keep a child here. This is the right choice for her, for you. The sooner you let go, the easier it will be.”

Kitty watched despondently as I bathed her little girl, lathering her tiny head with soap and gently wiping the suds away with a washcloth.

“Her name is Adella,” Kitty muttered.

“You can’t name her, dear,” Nurse Hildebrand retorted. “The Mayhews will have their own name.”

“I don’t care!” Kitty snapped, looking away. “To me she will always be Adella.”

I rinsed the remaining soap bubbles off the child’s delicate skin before lifting her out of the basin and into a towel. Once she was dry, I carefully swaddled her in a sheet, as Nurse Hildebrand had instructed, then tucked the tiny package into Kitty’s arms.

“No,” she said, turning away, choking back tears. “I can’t hold her. If I hold her, I won’t be able to let her go. Can’t you see that, Anne?” Kitty began to cry, but it wasn’t the same sort of cry I’d heard from her in years past. This was sorrow that emanated from someplace very deep.

I swallowed hard, trying to stay strong for Kitty’s sake, and walked the baby outside the room. I waited there for some time, until a couple, maybe in their early thirties, appeared in the hallway. Kitty’s muffled sobbing seeped through the closed door.

Nurse Hildebrand indicated the couple and nodded. “John and Evelyn Mayhew,” she said, forcing a smile. “They’ll take the baby now.”

The couple looked kind, and I could see by the woman’s eager smile that she would welcome the child with love. She stroked the baby’s head. “She must be hungry,” she said, retrieving her from my arms. “We have a bottle waiting in the car.” Nurse Hildebrand watched quietly, perhaps even proudly, as the new mother bonded with “her” child.

“Adella is her name,” I said quietly, on Kitty’s behalf.

“It’s a beautiful name,” she said, “but we’ve chosen another. I will put it in her birth records, though, so it will always be a part of her history.”

I nodded and stepped back as the couple thanked Nurse Hildebrand and left, an instant family of three.

“I’m going to go to Kitty now,” I said, reaching for the doorknob.

“Anne, wait,” Nurse Hildebrand said, “not yet. Please, I’d like to have a word with her first.”

I wasn’t sure what she had in mind, but the seriousness in her face told me to oblige. I waited outside the door for what felt like an eternity.
What is she doing in there? What’s she saying to Kitty?

I pressed my ear against the door, and heard Nurse Hildebrand say something startling. “I was in your situation once.” The words shocked me, and I jumped back when the doorknob began to turn.

When the door opened, Kitty emerged with dry eyes and a blank, emotionless expression I’d never seen on her face before.

N
urse Hildebrand excused me from my duties at the infirmary so I could care for Kitty in the days that followed. I stayed in the room and kept her company, though I think she would have preferred to be alone.

“How about a game of cards?” I suggested, reaching for the deck in my bedside table.

“No,” Kitty said. “Thanks, but I’d rather not.”

I brought her meals and tried to interest her in magazines. Liz, believing that Kitty was still recovering from an illness, stopped by to deliver the two latest issues of
Vogue
, but Kitty just set them on her bed, preferring to stare at the wall ahead rather than the latest fashions.

I knew I couldn’t fix things for her. She had to wade through this on her own, which is why I excused myself two days after the birth for a beach walk and a visit to the bungalow. I craved a change of scenery, and Kitty needed to be alone.

Westry was there, just as I’d hoped he’d be, napping on the bed as the afternoon sun streamed in.

“Hi,” I whispered, nestling my body on the bed beside him. He opened his eyes and smiled warmly at me, pulling me closer.

“I bet you didn’t know that you were sleeping in the presence of a masterpiece,” I said, grinning.

Westry ran his finger along my face and marveled. “I’ve known it since the day you stepped foot in this place. You are the world’s greatest work of art.”

I smiled and shook my head. “No, silly. Not me, the painting.” I reached for the painting under the bed. “It’s a
Gauguin
.”

Westry sat up quickly, looking at the canvas with fresh eyes. “You’re serious?”

I nodded.

He shook his head in disbelief. “I always thought it had to be done by one of the Postimpressionists, but more likely by a younger, lesser-known painter, or maybe the apprentice of one. But God, Gauguin? How can you be sure?”

“An old woman on the island told me,” I said, smiling proudly.

Westry sat down on the bed next to me for a closer look. “It’s not signed,” he said.

“Maybe he didn’t sign his work early on.”

“You could be right about that,” he conceded. “Monet did the same.”

I nodded. “And look at those brush strokes.”

“You could get lost in this painting,” Westry said, still marveling at the treasure in his hands.

“What will we do with it?” I asked, smoothing Westry’s rumpled shirt.

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t leave it here,” I said, “when the war’s over, when we’re gone. I couldn’t bear to think of the painting swallowed up by a tidal wave.”

Westry agreed. “Or deteriorating in the humid air. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long out here in the elements.”

I hung the painting back up on the little hook, and sighed. “Or maybe it’s meant to stay right here.” I looked at the canvas for a moment before turning back to Westry. “There’s something else I need to tell you. Something about this bungalow.”

“What is it?”

“The old woman, Tita, she warned me about this place. She said that all who step foot inside live with some sort of curse.”

Westry grinned. “And you believed her voodoo?”

“Well, it frightened me, I will admit.”

“Anne, remember what we talked about, the first day we met? You told me you believed that life is about free will.” He stroked my hair lightly. “Your life will be rich and blessed and filled with love because of what you make it.”

I tucked my hand in his. “You’re right.”

“Besides,” he continued, “look at all the good that has come from these four walls. Our love has grown. A baby has been born. And we may have discovered one of the greatest artistic finds in our century. Is that what the old woman calls a
curse
?”

As we sat together listening to the waves roll onto the shore, I said a silent prayer.
God, please let him be right.

Time was growing scarce now; we all knew that. May had blown through like a fierce storm, and Kitty and I would be leaving the island in mid-June, at the same time that Westry and the other men would ship off for another tour of duty—this time in Europe. As a result, I could almost hear the ticktock of a clock in the distance, a constant reminder that the world we’d come to know was hurtling toward an abrupt end.

I’d have to face Gerard. Kitty would have to leave her daughter’s birthplace. How could we return to Seattle such changed women? How could we even pretend to resume our old roles in that foreign place we once called home?

“I think I’m going to stay,” Kitty announced one morning in the mess hall in early June. “Nurse Hildebrand could use the help. Besides, no one’s waiting for me in Seattle.”

She hadn’t meant it as a jab, but her words, and the long pause that followed, pierced. It was true. Gerard would be waiting. He was due home in June.

I wondered about Kitty’s motivation to stay. So unlike the woman who had stepped off the plane the very first day on the island, she had become a shell of her former self. Vacant. Distant. Lost. She devoted herself to work, and spent every spare minute in the infirmary.

“I just don’t understand,” I said to her between bites of boiled egg. “Don’t you miss home? Don’t you want to leave this island after . . . after everything?”

She glanced out the window toward the lush, emerald hillside in the distance. Just as memories would forever anchor my heart to this place, I suspected that Kitty would always feel that a piece of her was here too.

She forced a smile. “I thought I’d want to leave when the time came,” she said. “But now, well, I’m just not ready.”

I nodded.

“These past months have sure turned out differently for us,” she said, her voice thick with regret. “But you’ve met the most marvelous man. To think that you found him out here in the middle of a war.”

As if on cue, Westry waved from the other side of the mess hall. Then, in a breach of protocol, he approached our table. “Well if it isn’t the two most lovely women on the island,” he said, a cloth napkin still dangling from his collar. “How are you, darling?” he said to me, as I pulled the napkin free and handed it to him.

“Wonderful,” I replied. “I missed you in the bungalow this morning.” It felt strange to speak openly about our secret, but it didn’t matter now that Kitty had been there herself, and besides, there weren’t any other diners at the table.

“Westry,” Kitty said, perking up. I didn’t like how she batted her eyelashes at him. “I found some stray floorboards in a closet in the infirmary. I thought they might work to fix that creak in the bungalow’s floor.”

My cheeks burned.
How could Kitty think it’s her place to talk to Westry about the bungalow? And how in heaven’s name does she know, or remember, that the floorboards creak?

“Thanks, Kitty,” Westry said, unfazed. “I’ll stop by today and take a look at them.”

“But—” I opened my mouth and then shut it again.

“What is it?” Westry asked.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “I was just going to suggest that we meet at the bungalow later this evening.” I made sure to look directly at Westry, making clear that he was the sole recipient of the invitation.

“I’d love nothing more,” he said. “I’m off at five thirty. Just in time for the sunset.”

“Good,” I said, instantly feeling better.

As Westry turned to leave, Kitty stood up. “If you’d like to come by this afternoon, I’ll be working until eight.” She looked at me awkwardly. “I mean, if you want to see those floorboards.”

Westry nodded noncommittally and walked out of the building.

We ate in silence for a few minutes, until Kitty spoke again. “So, as I was saying, I’ll probably stay on for a few more months, and then who knows?” Her gaze drifted toward the window again. “There’s plenty of opportunity for nurses these days. Maybe I’ll sign up for a post in Europe.”

I watched her mouth open and close and the words pass her lips.
Who is this woman before me?
I searched her eyes, but she looked away. “It’s just that I—”

“I told Nurse Hildebrand I’d help her with the immunizations today,” she said, cutting me off. “I’d better be going.”

“Yes, right, you’d better be going,” I said, but she’d already made her way through the door.