Letters From Home. Kristina McMorris

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СКАЧАТЬ effective strategy, as it turned out. At one point, he’d been suckered along with the rest of them. Like a kid awaiting a parade, he too had lined the road to welcome the tarpaulin-covered convoy. No one seemed to mind that the front line was the next scheduled stop.

      Over winding roads, their truck had bumped and groaned. They’d snuck through the black of night with taped-over head-lights, getaway cars preparing for a heist. By the time they unloaded in Brezolles, Morgan was certain the torturous hours of marching or waiting for action would surely rival those spent in combat.

      The theory didn’t last.

      In three-foot-deep foxholes, he and Charlie had dueled trapped members of the German Panzer army, closing the Falaise Pocket like a tube of toothpaste. Though tens of thousands of Kraut soldiers had been captured, a hefty number escaped through the gap. Both a success and a failure. The essence of war.

      The battles were far from over, but the amount of bloodshed Morgan had already witnessed could soak the earth to its core. He’d learned there was no limit to how violently men and their machines could deconstruct the human anatomy. How desensitized people could become. How barbaric it all was.

      Now, studying the dirt road cutting through the meadow, the road they’d be tackling at daylight, he feared what other lessons war had in store for them.

      “Charlie,” Morgan said in a loud whisper. Unable to sleep, he wanted someone to talk to. He tapped his brother’s shoulder. The kid didn’t move. Not even a break in the rhythm of his heavy breaths.

      How was it that he rested so peacefully?

      Maybe in Charlie’s dreams they were somewhere far away. A safer time, safer place, where the air brimmed with warmth and the lullabies of crickets. They were kids back in their dad’s Iowa fields, dozing out in the open, naming shapes made of stars in the sky. A sky that offered them promises, futures as limitless as the universe.

      A sky that lied.

      Chapter 7

       Late August 1944 Chicago, Illinois

      The gilding of the room amplified the stiff formality at Liz’s table. In the corner, a string quartet played Rachmaninoff over silverware clinking on fine china. A tuxedoed host at the entrance relieved a woman of her fur stole while waiters slipped in and out of the kitchen that smelled of grilled steak and spices. Diners nodded and murmured and lobbed laughter back and forth like a tennis ball in a never-ending match.

      “All done here, miss?” The waiter gestured with his upturned hand, the movement as groomed as his mustache.

      Liz opened her mouth to decline, but Dalton replied for her. “We both are, thank you.”

      Why on earth did he choose a place as fancy as this if he wanted to eat at drive-in restaurant speed? Had she known he was in a hurry, she would have bypassed the vegetables and savored the marmalade chicken first.

      Liz pressed up a smile as the waiter retrieved their plates. The distraction of eating gone, she bounced her leg under the tablecloth, keeping time with the drumming awkwardness.

      Dalton took a long drink of red wine. Tabletop candlelight traveled through his crystal glass and cast severe shadows across his face. With the chiseling of his features, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine him draped in a toga, orating before the Roman Senate in another lifetime.

      “Was your steak all right?” she asked, attempting conversation.

      “Come again?”

      “You only ate half your dinner. Was something wrong with it?”

      “It was fine. I just had a late lunch.” He offered a lean smile, then popped his second Rolaids of the evening into his mouth. If it weren’t for knowing heartburn ran in his family, she might suspect she was the cause of his indigestion.

      Sipping her lemon-wedged ice water, she glanced to her side. A middle-aged couple, necks adorned in a bow tie and pearls, sat silently at the next table. Engrossed in their meals, they sliced, chewed, and dabbed their mouths with white linen napkins. They had to have been married fifteen, twenty years. No children, Liz guessed. Just a small, yippy lapdog waiting at home. The woman would knit next to the radio while her husband read the paper before they retired to opposite sides of the bed.

      Liz tried not to stare, but she had exchanged so few words with Dalton over dinner she began to feel as though they had more in common with the neighboring couple than each other.

      Dalton drained his glass and contributed to their small talk, finally. “Did you end up with all the classes you wanted?”

      “For the most part. I was hoping to take the one on Yeats, but it was still full.”

      “That’s great.” He glanced over his shoulder.

      Had he heard a word she’d said?

      “Dalton, I said I didn’t get into the class.”

      “Oh, right. Sorry. I’m just looking for our waiter.”

      She hoped he was planning to ask for the bill rather than the dessert menu.

      “Dalton Harris, how the heck ahh you?” A deep male voice encroached on their table.

      Dalton shot to his feet, accepted a handshake. “Mr. Bernstein, it’s a pleasure to see you.”

      A swath of the man’s slicked gray hair fell over his temple as he slapped a palm on Dalton’s shoulder. He reeked of cigar smoke and old Boston money, and the button closing his pin-striped suit jacket appeared ready to launch should he laugh too hard.

      “Did you just arrive?” Dalton asked.

      “Just finished up. Dinner meeting, you know. All hobnobbing and politics. Not a romantic evening like yours.” He motioned his double chin in Liz’s direction.

      “Please,” Dalton said, “allow me to introduce my girlfriend, Elizabeth Stephens.”

      Mr. Bernstein gave her hand a cordial peck. “Nice to meet you, missy.”

      “Thank you, sir.”

      “Her father is Professor Emmett Stephens,” Dalton pointed out, “a recent transfer from Northwestern to Georgetown.”

      “Ah, yes. I believe my son, Warren, took one of his classes way back when. History, was it?”

      “Classical literature,” Liz replied, then risked a peek into Dalton’s eyes to make sure correcting the gentleman was acceptable, an act she immediately regretted. When had seeking his permission become a reflex?

      “Literature. Of course,” Mr. Bernstein said. “Well, no time for amusing folk tales anymore. Right, Dalton? Not with law school keeping you as busy as it does my own boy these days.”

      Amusing folk tales? Liz’s jaw coiled closed, and thankfully so. She was feeling less and less inclined to refrain from slinging retorts labeled “brash” by the charm school Julia had attended.

      Dalton folded his arms, wholly absorbed. “Warren is in his second year at Harvard now, isn’t he, sir? And already published in the СКАЧАТЬ