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Jennifer’s first birthday came and went, and Christmas passed without Meg being able to visit. She set out the photos Vera had sent each month and lined them up, touching the face of her daughter in the most recent one.
A hand settled on her shoulder before Gerry slid onto the bench, leaned over and plucked the photo from Meg’s hand. ‘Let me look at my niece.’ Angling the photo to the light, she looked at Meg, then at her daughter. ‘She’s beautiful, Meg. She has your face, but her eyes—are they like Seamus’s?’
The air force in all their wisdom had transferred Gerry from the unit a few months earlier and transferred her back a week ago. She brimmed with good cheer to be working with Meg again.
‘I’m thinking she’ll look grand in a dress made from that sprigged muslin I had Aunt Vera send up to me.’
‘You do know you spoil her rotten, don’t you?’
‘That’s what aunts are for, even if we’re not blood relatives. Have you written to your family about her yet?’
Every time someone mentioned Meg’s family, her stomach clenched. She shook her head. Secrets had a way of growing bigger and bigger until the truth was no longer an option. ‘The longer I leave it, the harder it gets. I can’t imagine turning up on their doorstep, unmarried and holding my daughter’s hand.’ It was surprisingly easy and deceptively hard to write to her parents, and her letters were brief and formal, odd bits about her daily work that might pass censorship, yet hardly the words of a loving daughter missing her family.
‘They could surprise you.’
‘And the war could be over tomorrow, but that won’t happen either.’
‘Pity Doc hasn’t had another leave since that flying visit after you returned to duty.’ A soft elbow nudged Meg. ‘It’s been over a year since Seamus died. Why haven’t you agreed to marry him?’
Meg returned the photo of Jennifer to the line-up. One year of her daughter’s life in photos she’d not been there for. The loss of all those shared moments was like a physical ache in her heart. ‘Two reasons: I don’t know if I love him, and he hasn’t asked me again.’ Not that she’d share that with anyone else, but it surprised her in odd moments when she thought of Geoffrey. Had he changed his mind, or was he waiting for the war to end?
‘Hmm, didn’t you tell me he said he’d be there for you if the worst happened and Seamus didn’t come home?’
Meg nodded. ‘As you said, he hasn’t had another leave.’
But he could have written and asked me.
‘Besides, I’m not sure I’d cope with a second wartime engagement. I’m not sure I want to be married to anyone. Maybe he senses that.’
‘What’s changed? I thought you at least liked him a lot, even if you don’t love him.’ Gerry rested her head on her hand and fixed her gaze on Meg’s face.
‘There was a time before Jennifer’s birth and before Seamus was killed when I wondered if I had feelings for Geoffrey. Maybe I do. I just don’t know. You say it’s been over a year since Seamus died, but— I feel like I’m still living in the shadows.’
‘What do you mean? Like you haven’t moved on?’
Meg shook her head slowly. ‘Like I can’t love another man and still be true to Seamus’s memory.’ And yet, the arrival of Geoffrey’s letters brightened her day, and she found herself wondering sometimes what life with him might be like.
And there was that almost kiss on the Strand. Would things have been different if that had happened?
A sigh from Gerry brought Meg back to the present. ‘Okay. I won’t ask about him again. It’s grand working together again. We make a great team. Have you given any thought to what you’ll do after the war? Where you might go with Jennifer?’
Pushed into the deepest recesses of her mind, Meg had firmly refused to think about the future. Living one day at a time was as much energy as she could expend when there was so much to do in the present. ‘Not Sydney, but otherwise, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll look for a position in Brisbane.’
Gerry squealed with delight. ‘Yes! We can live with Aunt Vera and work together. That would be something special, wouldn’t it?’
‘Indeed.’ Meg would enjoy that, and Jennifer wouldn’t have to leave the one person who’d been a constant in her life. Vera was so attached to Jennifer, Meg was certain she’d be in favour of keeping all her girls together if asked. ‘Just—don’t say anything yet.’
In case Geoffrey proposes again. In case I say yes.
‘I won’t.’ Gerry tipped her watch, pinned upside down to her apron, and jumped to her feet. ‘I’m back on duty in thirty seconds. Mustn’t let down the head nurse by being late.’
Meg laughed. ‘I’ll see you in two hours when I come on duty,’ she told Gerry’s back. She turned to the photos of her daughter, marvelling at how much she had grown in the fourteen months since her birth. Her life had passed so quickly, especially when Meg’s leaves had been few and far between, and the train trip south, so long.
Brushing a thumb across her daughter’s image, Meg thought about Gerry’s comment. Did Jennifer have her father’s eyes? Already she found it difficult to recall Seamus’s face in much detail. Were his eyes blue or bluey-grey? His smile—that lingered still in her memory, and the way his eyes had crinkled when he laughed. But for the rest—Seamus was blurring and disintegrating like a morning mist. One day he would be little more than his name and a beautiful memory of the brief hours they had spent together.
Eventually and inevitably, she would lose the detail of the man she had loved and lost and remember only the idea of him.
Yet one more loss, one more person this war had stolen from her. And soon, she would have to tell Gerry they were parting again, if only for a while. Taking out the letter from HQ, she reread their acceptance of her request to transfer to the newly forming 1MAETU. The idea of working as a nurse in the first Medical Air Evacuation Transport Unit filled her with pleasure and a sense of pushing forward and breaking another boundary around her sex.
That’s one of the few good things to come out of this war, she thought. Breaking boundaries.
And Jennifer.
Always Jennifer.