Twenty-Eight

IT WASN’T UNTIL LOTTIE was standing at the edge of the water that she realized she hadn’t gone to the repair hangar after she left Eugene, but walked in a fog of confusion and hurt and guilt through the maze of runways and base buildings to the water. There wasn’t a beach to speak of at Pearl Harbor, but she’d managed to find a quiet spot of shore, anyway, a little strip where the water of the bay sloshed quietly against the concrete footings of the building behind her.

But with the harbor in front of her, the nondescript buildings behind her quickly faded from her mind, replaced by her own thoughts and memories.

They were overwhelming.

Eugene hadn’t said a word to her in reproach, but she had plenty of that for herself. It had all seemed like such an interesting game to her, hadn’t it, playing at being at war? And for a while, she’d been able to pretend she wasn’t just a selfish princess. Because what kind of princess would ever get her hands dirty fixing greasy, busted engines?

But that hadn’t been war, Lottie realized now. War wasn’t being the only woman in a workshop full of men. It was the absence of all those men who had once crowded her shop. It was not knowing when many of them would ever come back, and knowing some of them never would. It was Eugene, trying to smile through the pain of a wound that would never heal, no matter how long he waited.

And Luke. What if she’d made it harder for him to do his job, instead of easier? What if she’d been a distraction, instead of a help? The sickening question of which plane he’d been in when it went down came to her. Had it been one she worked on? Was she sure her work had been good? What if she was part of the reason he was gone? What if she had cost the lives of any other men, men whose names she didn’t even know?

She looked out at the sparkling water, wishing she could cry, but although her heart twisted in her chest and she found it hard to take a full breath, her eyes were bone dry.

Something in her tugged her back to Eugene: the part that always wanted to return to the familiarity of their long friendship. But even though her thoughts were raw and fractured, she knew that wasn’t the answer. He’d be kind to her, and he’d talk with her as long as she wanted. But in the end, nothing he’d said would change. She knew him well enough to know that. She even knew that he was right. She couldn’t give him her heart, because she didn’t even know it herself.

What she wanted to go back to, she realized, was something that was gone forever now—the life she had left behind when she walked out her door on the morning before their wedding. She wanted to go back to a world where he still had both of his legs. She wanted to go back to a world where he was the best and safest person she had ever known.

Even more than that, she wanted to go back to a world where she hadn’t lost or hurt them—not Luke, not Eugene, not anyone else.

She couldn’t turn time back and take back everything she’d said and done, she thought. But she could at least quit now, before she hurt anyone else.

And all the dreams she’d had, all that fire in her belly about wanting to change the world or be part of something—it all sounded just like nonsense to her now, a child’s wish that didn’t mean anything in the cold light of day, against the harsh backdrop of war.

Her mind flashed back on the time that Luke had tried to tell her about the realities of war and the ways it might change her. She’d thought she was helping him remember the good in life, helping him somehow by reminding him they couldn’t give up the fight. But now she realized she was the one who should have been listening to him all along. Nobody could change any of this. And anyone who tried would just end up like her—worn down and lost.

God, she prayed as the waves danced toward the horizon and splashed against the concrete she stood on. Please forgive me for everything. Please forgive me for my arrogance, my vanity. There’s so much I thought I knew about the world, but I’m learning that there’s so much I don’t understand. Please keep me from doing any more harm. Please help me.

Tears began to run down her face. Gratefully, she wiped them away, feeling some of the tightness in her shoulders and pressure in her chest leak out of her along with them.

And when they were gone, her decision became clear.

I’m going home.

She started back toward the women’s barracks. As she passed the turnoff to the repair hangar, her thoughts flitted briefly to the men, who should all already have been there.

They might wonder where she was for a few minutes. But that wouldn’t stop them from diving into the work. Who was she to have believed anyone needed her?

When she got back to the women’s barracks, it was deserted. Everyone else was already out, at their posts.

Lottie pulled her bag out from under her bed and began to pack. It didn’t take long; most of her personal effects were already stored neatly in her Navy-issue satchel.

When she was finished, she slung the bag over her shoulder and looked around at the rows of empty beds.

Maybe the Navy would come after her if she went AWOL. Or maybe no one would even notice.

She only knew one thing: she had to get out of here before she did any more harm—to herself or anyone else.

But as she walked down the aisle, to the exit door, someone threw it open. The bright Hawaii morning light that poured inside was so strong that Lottie actually threw up her arm to shield her eyes.

Then the door thudded shut, and Lottie lifted her chin again, planning to give whoever it was a quick nod before she passed her by and made her escape.

“Where are you going?” Maggie demanded.

As the sting of the sun left Lottie’s eyes, they focused enough to recognize that Maggie’s eyes were full of tears.

With all they’d been through together, even the tough days at basic training, she’d almost never seen Maggie shed a tear. In fact, Maggie had been the one who told Lottie not to let her own tears show.

Lottie’s heart grew even heavier at the sight. Had she already hurt another one of the people she cared about, before she even managed to get herself off the base?

A host of explanations and excuses leapt into her head, a jumble of words to make Maggie understand that it wasn’t her fault and that Lottie had to do what she was doing, even if it would be hard to go and be separated from her.

But before she could say any of them, Maggie broke out in a sob and wrapped Lottie in a hug.

Startled, Lottie leaned in and returned the hug.

“I can’t do it,” Maggie said as she shuddered with tears. “I can’t do it anymore. It’s too much. I just can’t.”

Slowly, it dawned on Lottie that Maggie didn’t know anything about what Lottie was about to do. Something had happened to Maggie. Something that, judging from Maggie’s reaction, sounded awful.

“Maggie,” Lottie said. “What happened?”

Maggie pulled away from Lottie, but she didn’t do anything to stop the tears rolling down her face, and her voice was still high and tight with emotion.

“Those men,” she said.

Lottie felt a burst of protective ire rise up in her. If someone had been bothering Maggie so badly they’d reduced her to this point, they were going to hear about it from Lottie.

But as Maggie went on, it became clear that she was worried about the men she was talking about, whoever they were—not angry at them.

“It’s too awful,” Maggie said. “Everything about this war has been awful, but this is too awful. Those poor men. They did so much—and—”

She dissolved into tears again as Lottie led her to a nearby bed, where the two of them sat down, with Lottie’s arm around Maggie.

“I don’t understand,” Lottie said gently.

Maggie took a deep breath.

“There are men from the battle at Iwo Jima lost at sea,” she said. “I just got the word of it in the comms office. We’ve been getting updates ever since I went in this morning. And they’re awful.”

“What happened?” Lottie asked, steeling herself for the worst.

“They were captured in the fighting, but they managed to escape,” Maggie said. “I think they must have been shot down, but when they got free, they found a Japanese boat that had been damaged in the fight and took it over. They managed to get back into US waters, living on the rations on board. But now the engine’s died, and they’ve been drifting for days. All the food’s gone, and they’re almost out of water. But the radio’s still working. They’ve been signaling ever since they took the boat last week, and they just finally caught an Allied pilot on a flyover.”

“But that’s good,” Lottie said. “They survived.”

Maggie shook her head, tears filling her eyes again. “But they won’t,” she said. “They’ve drifted too far. They’re too far from our ships. It’ll be days before anyone can reach them by sea. And we can’t do a rescue by air that far out to sea.

“The pilot kept circling so he could stay in touch with them,” she said, her face crumpling. “But he couldn’t land. And they’re so far out that eventually he had to head back to base, so he didn’t run out of fuel himself.”

Lottie took a deep breath as the horror of the situation sank in for her: Men who had survived so much and fought so hard to do it. The joy of finally raising a friendly voice on the radio. And then the bitter disappointment that, for some of them, help still couldn’t come in time.

“Some of them are wounded,” Maggie said. “Bad. Without food, without water—who knows if they’ll even be alive tonight?”

She squeezed Lottie’s hand.

“They came so far,” she said before dissolving into tears. Lottie gently put her hand on Maggie’s back and rubbed it comfortingly.

Then Maggie looked up, and a thought that hadn’t yet crossed her mind finally surfaced.

“Lottie,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

But Lottie shook her head.

Because all of a sudden, she wasn’t leaving anymore.

Maggie couldn’t see any way to save those stranded men.

But Lottie did.