Navy Christmas. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ when he asked.”

      “You know that would never have worked for me, Sarah. I have to be in the air. Plus the extra money I’ve pulled in hasn’t hurt, has it? I’ll be making more money in the Army Air Corps.”

      She knew it was true. He’d learned to work as a crop-duster in his early teens beside his daddy and older brother back in Texas. During the dust bowl years, Henry had gone west and found work flying crop dusters up and down the coast, from California to Washington. She’d met him by chance on the dance floor at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup. Lucky for her he’d been on a break from flying and in search of some fun.

      He’d been so handsome, his face all lit up by the lights from the amusement games of chance. Each booth had bright white bulbs that glowed yellow at night. The night felt soft—the sun took longer to set in midsummer, and it had been so warm on the mainland, far away from Whidbey. Papa had taken their entire family off the island for the whole day. He’d used all the money they’d made from selling milk and told Mama “more money will come in. The kids need to see there’s more to the world than Whidbey Island.”

      They hadn’t counted on their youngest daughter, only fifteen, falling in love with a complete stranger. A stranger who showed up on Whidbey Island six months later to woo her. He caught flights up and down the west coast, arriving on Whidbey every few months.

      Sarah had been a senior in school the last year they’d dated and hoped to go to college some day. History had always fascinated her. She planned to work a few years after high school and save enough money for classes. But love won out—she and Henry had made a baby one night under the apple tree in Papa’s orchard. On the quilt her grandmother had hand-stitched for her hope chest. She’d snuck it out of the cedar box Papa had built, knowing the night was going to be cold. Knowing she wanted Henry to kiss her again and again.

      “You’re a good husband, Henry. And a good father. That’s why I don’t want you to go.” She wasn’t manipulating him; she meant it. He’d made enough money for them to live very comfortably on the land her father had given them, including the small cottage they lived in. He promised her the farmhouse once her siblings were married off, when he and Mama were ready to switch and take the cottage. Papa believed the farmhouse should always be for a growing family, and he wanted to keep it in Forsyth hands.

      Henry made sure she got her dream. Well, as much as she could, being a new mother and all. He helped her take correspondence courses so she could work at the town library as a clerk. He went to night school, hoping to one day have a four-year degree. They’d done well so far.

      Sarah loved books, stories, facts, history. And if the accounts of World War I that she’d recently read were any indication, she might never see Henry again.

      “Henry, remember hearing about how hard the Great War was on our families?”

      His expression softened, and for the first time since he told her he was going to fly for the Army Air Corps he looked doubtful.

      “Yes.” His grandfather had died in the trenches at Ypres, and her father’s older brother had come back shell-shocked and never quite recovered his original wits.

      “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, honey.” She walked up to him and threw her arms around him. He held back for just a split second and she knew.

      He’d already started to make the mental preparations to go. He had to. He was a man who loved his country and wasn’t going to let some crazy dictators around the world ruin it.

      Sarah laid her head on his chest and listened for his heartbeat. It was the one thing that could soothe her. When she’d started her labor with Dottie all she’d wanted was to rest on her side, her ear to Henry’s chest, the steady thump-thump taking her thoughts away from the excruciating pain.

      “Sarah. I love you so much, darling.” He raised his hand to her hair and stroked it away from her face.

      “I know you do, Henry.” She raised her lips to his and they shared the kiss that a couple does before a long separation. Deep, loving and warm. Never enough.

      “I’ll help you pack later, after I get Dottie to bed.”

      “I don’t need to take much. They’re giving me a whole new wardrobe!”

      He tried to amuse her, to crack lighthearted lines here and there while they gathered his few personal items and stacked them neatly in the small duffel the Army recruiter had given him.

      “How long before you ship out?”

      “I’ll probably get through the flight training pretty fast, and then be out there before the end of the year.”

      “Where’s ‘there’?”

      “Somewhere in the Pacific.”

      His expression was as neutral as stone and she knew it pained him to leave her, to leave Dottie. She also saw the pilot’s anticipation simmering in his eyes. Henry was gearing up for a fight, for the war they likely faced. Her heart squeezed with longing as she acknowledged, at least to herself, that it could indeed be the fight of his life.

      * * *

      HENRY HADN’T TOLD Sarah everything. He couldn’t worry her. Besides, he would come back—he was the best pilot he knew, and nowhere did he feel more at ease than in a cockpit.

      The recruiter had been slicker than any of the politicians he’d had occasion to ferry from town to town when his crop-dusting jobs had petered out midwinter. But Henry saw past the Army haircut and the quick talk. He saw a chance to really make a difference, to maybe even have a career that he could bring Sarah and Dottie along on.

      Sarah never wanted to leave Whidbey; he knew that. Yet with a little time and some persuasion from him, he thought she’d be willing to move. The recruiter had said he could get stationed in Hawaii! Why wouldn’t Sarah want to join him there, to have Dottie run on hot sand instead of freezing wet grass most of the summer? “I’ll send you my paychecks as soon as I get them. My pilot training is going to be at Moffett Field, in California. I’ll be an aviation cadet, enlisted, because of my high school diploma. But I’ll become an officer if I can, Sarah.” He watched her long fingers hover over his freshly pressed undershirts, her lips wobbly as she tried not to cry.

      Dear, sweet Sarah. She was tough as nails one minute, a complete cream puff the next. It was part of what he loved about her.

      “That’s not necessary.”

      “Sure it is. You can save it all, or use it to buy yourself a pretty dress.”

      She threw down his one pair of pajamas and propped her hands on her hips as she faced him.

      “I don’t need a pretty dress, Henry. And I can make enough off the farm and my library position to support Dottie and me just fine. But I don’t give a darn about any of it. I want you to come back safe, do you hear me?”

      He stared into her green eyes and knew he’d come back. He didn’t have a choice; they were meant to be together.

      She’d said “come back.” So she’d accepted that he needed to do this; he needed to go.

      Unlike the reaction he’d expected, her capitulation didn’t make him feel jubilant. The reality of the months, possibly years, apart made his chest feel as it there СКАЧАТЬ