He was a hero, Clara. In life and in death.
He was also a loving son.
I couldn’t save Danny. But I have to try to save his parents from suffering more than the immense anguish they’ll feel at his death. The enclosed letter is to them. I’ve written about Danny’s life since they last saw him, the good things, the memories that will make them smile. The jokes he told. The poker face he didn’t have. The way he spoke of them. They need to know his anger was gone. And that he believed, long before he died, that theirs was, too.
Will you see that my letter gets to Danny’s parents? I don’t have their address. The army will, of course, but it will reach them more quickly if I send it to you. His mother teaches school in Cedar Rapids. Her name is Rose. And his father, Daniel, is a dairy farmer. Danny’s last name, as I’m sure you remember, is Small.
I love you, Clara. Please know that without the slightest doubt. And never doubt, either, your support of my decision to go to war.
It was the right decision, my love. I’m where I need to be, doing what I need to do. For our children, and our children’s children.
I’m going to see our babies, Clara. And their babies. I will return, my Clara, to you. It’s more than a hope, or a wish, or a dream. It’s a belief, deep inside. I don’t know why we’re meant to be the lucky ones, only that we are.
I’m already the luckiest man on earth, because of you.
I love you,
Charles
Elizabeth and Nick didn’t touch during those sunny days. Just as Charles and Clara hadn’t touched at the beginning of their love. But the air they breathed was warmed by the sun, and by each other.
Elizabeth was breathing some of that air, holding on to it, when, just hours before Nick was going to call the clinic, Gram spoke the words she and Nick had been hoping to hear.
“Maybe I should see someone about my eyes.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said with impressive calm.
“There might not be anything that can be done.”
“But it’s worth finding out.”
“I guess so. I suppose the next step would be to make an appointment. One of the perks of living in a town with a state-of-the-art medical center is that there’s likely to be a good ophthalmologist close by.”
“There are several. All terrific. But Nick’s arranged for you to see the one he felt you’d like the best. You have an appointment with her at eleven tomorrow.”
“He’s a lovely young man, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth whispered. “He is.”
Nine
Clara’s cataracts were “ripe,” the doctor said. That was good. From a surgical perspective, they were ready to be removed. And, Dr. Diana Hathaway added, Clara was very likely to benefit from the surgery.
The standard of care, to which the Harvard-trained ophthalmologist resolutely adhered, was to operate on one eye at a time. Assuming the outcome was positive and complications hadn’t occurred, surgery on the other would be deferred to a later date.
Typically, she liked to do the surgery three weeks following the initial evaluation. That gave the patient an opportunity to prepare, and to have the physical and lab exams that were prudent before anesthesia.
Dr. Hathaway had an opening in three weeks. She’d hold it for Clara, unless…It turned out there was a last-minute cancellation, a patient with the flu. The surgery had been scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. The internist, whom Clara hadn’t seen for far too long, since before Charles’s stroke, could examine her today, and labs could be done immediately.
“Let’s do it,” Clara said.
“I really like your drawings of the orchard.”
Elizabeth looked from her clenched fists to the calm face from which the improbable words had come.
She and Nick were in the surgical waiting area. They weren’t alone, but whoever had arranged the furnishings had done so as if each group of chairs was a private island. Their two chairs were angled so that they faced each other and no one else.
“You do not. But,” she said, “as a ploy to distract me from worrying about Gram, it was pretty good.”
“It might have been a ploy, but it was also the truth. I’ve been thinking they’d make nice labels for the apple butter jars. The company needs a logo. What better than seasons of the orchard, as drawn by Clara’s granddaughter?”
“They were drawn by an eight-year-old.”
“Who was passionate about the apple trees. I really like the drawings, Elizabeth. The winter one, especially.”
He seemed on the verge of saying something else. Whether he’d thought better of it, or simply sensed the approach of Diana Hathaway, Elizabeth would never know.
Dr. Hathaway wore scrubs, a white coat, surgical booties and a smile.
“She’s in recovery. The surgery went fine.”
“No problems?”
“None. She should be awake within the hour, and, once she’s steady on her feet, she’ll be ready to go home. As I mentioned yesterday, her eye needs to remain covered until I see her tomorrow afternoon, and to the extent it’s possible, keeping both eyes closed is best. It will be possible, I think. It’ll be dark by the time you get her home, and since she may not have slept terribly well last night, she should be able to sleep.”
“I think we all will,” Nick said.
He didn’t touch the dark circles beneath Elizabeth’s eyes. But the worry in his voice was a gentle caress.
Elizabeth tucked Gram into bed while Nick waited downstairs.
“Comfy?”
“Very comfy,” Gram said.
“And sleepy?”
“Getting there. You do not, however, need to stay with me till I drift off.”
“Maybe I want to.”
Gram smiled, and because Elizabeth had been so adamant about it, resisted opening—and winking with—the unpatched eye. “What shall we talk about?”
“Whatever you like, Gram.”
“Well,” Clara said. “I’ve been thinking that if my vision does improve, maybe it is time for me to read Granddad’s letters. I know you could—and would—read them to me. But seeing his handwriting would be nice.”
“You’ll be able to see it. They’re wonderful letters, Gram. He loved you so much.”
“As I loved him.”
“I haven’t read all the letters yet, but Nick says he doesn’t believe Granddad would ever tell you what he saw in battle.”
“Nick’s right.”
“Did that bother you?”
“That he wasn’t sharing everything? I suppose it did at first. But I realized he needed not to tell me.”
“He never talked about what he saw?”
“Never,” Gram said.
“What?” Elizabeth asked softly when Gram’s frowning expression told her there was more.
“I’ve wondered if he talked to Nick. If they talked to each other. There were times, especially after Charles’s stroke, when they’d go to the orchard and stand side by side gazing at the trees. I’d think they weren’t speaking, but maybe they were, in the way men do. One word, when we might have used a thousand. And, on occasion, a solemn nod. They wouldn’t have needed many words, of course. Wouldn’t have needed to explain. They’d both seen the unspeakable.”
“Both?”
Gram’s unpatched eye opened, concerned.
“Both, Gram?”
“Nick hasn’t had a chance to tell you yet.”
Oh yes, he has. Whatever it was Nick hadn’t told her, it wasn’t because he hadn’t had the opportunity to do so. Choice, not chance, determined what he’d shared. A choice Nicholas Lawton had every right to make.
“Tell me what?”
“He spent some time in the military.”
Enough time, Gram had already revealed, to see the unspeakable. “Close your eye,” Elizabeth ordered.
“Not until you stop looking so upset.”
Elizabeth flashed a smile. “How’s that?”
“Unconvincing.”
“I’m fine! So Nick hasn’t mentioned his military service to me. Why should he?”
“My vision may have been problematic, but my hearing hasn’t. Nick cares about you, Elizabeth. And you care about him. Please remember, darling girl, that our men, our soldiers, need to be able not to tell us about their battles. And because we love them, and trust them, we can give them that gift.”
Gram closed her eye then, and moments later drifted off to sleep.
“’Night, dearest Gram,” Elizabeth whispered as she withdrew. “I love you.”
She stood at the top of the staircase, gathering her emotions. So Nick had omitted that key bit of data about his life. So what? He was under no obligation to tell her anything—much less everything.
This was far from a betrayal. Elizabeth knew betrayal—Matthew’s—and had weathered it admirably.
The only trouble was she hadn’t been in love with Matthew….
Nick was outside, in the orchard, standing in the precise spot—perhaps—where he and Granddad had shared in silence as much as in words the secrets of men who went to war.
He smiled as she approached. “How is she?”
“Sleeping.”
Nick’s smile went away. “How are you?”
“How long were you in the military?”
“Twelve and a half years. Elizabeth—”
“You told me you’d always been a handyman.”
“I told you,” he said quietly, “that from the time I was seven, whenever I saw something that needed to be fixed, I wanted to fix it. That’s the reason I became a soldier. I believed I could help make the world a better place. I knew, at least, that I had to try.” He met her eyes. “I didn’t lie to you. And when I told you about the things Charles might have seen in battle, the fear and rage he might have felt, I was talking about myself. I was telling you, Elizabeth, more than I’ve ever told anyone…more than I ever believed I would.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“About my military service? No. There isn’t. And I understand what that means. You didn’t know the man I was before I went to war. You can’t know, as Clara knew about her Charles, that I’d have died before committing—”
“I do know that, Nick!” On faith, she thought. On love. “I do.”
“There is something else I want to tell you.”
Elizabeth shivered, but not from fear about what he’d reveal. She trusted this man. Believed in this man. “Okay.”
“I love you.”
“Nick…”
He shivered, too. Not from fear. Her shining eyes gave him her reply.
Elizabeth saw his joy. His desire.
Then he was touching her, holding her head as he gazed at her, wanting her.
“Nick?”
“I love you.”
As his mouth found hers, her hands curved over his wrists. She tasted his desire, felt his strength. He had the power to crush her…or to protect her with everything he had.
The kiss ended with a sigh, and a promise. There’d be more, so much more.
