Chapter 21
April 1943
“That’ll be a dollar forty with the oil, Miz Eva.”
I dug the coins out of my purse while Mr. Cheevers, his lips pursed with distaste, tried vainly to wipe his hands clean on a red flannel oil rag. With most of the men gone to war, Mr. Cheevers had to pump gas himself instead of hiring boys to do it, and though he’d owned the filling station for as long as I could remember, it was plain he still hated the smell of gasoline on his hands. Not that he’d ever complain. Everybody had to do their part. When we thought of our sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, so far from home, maybe in danger, maybe even ...
Well, in those days that was a sentence we never allowed ourselves to finish, not even in our minds. Let’s just say that Mr. Cheevers would have pumped gas twenty-four hours a day for the rest of his life if it could have brought the war to an end even one hour sooner. That’s why I’d planted more wheat and corn than ever that year. Ruby and I and a few high school boys too young for the draft were working the fields by ourselves.
“Where you off to today, Miz Eva?”
“Ellen Carson’s house,” I said. “Thought I’d drop off a gelatin and see if there is anything I can do. Maybe help with the children.”
“Oh.” The old man clucked his tongue sympathetically. “I heard about that. Too bad for her with all those little ones.”
“Mr. Cheevers”—I smiled sweetly—“I don’t suppose you could sell me an extra gallon next time? I wouldn’t ask, but it’s my mama’s birthday in three weeks; she’ll be seventy. I’ve been saving up sugar coupons for a month to make her a cake, and I want to drive up to the lake for a picnic.”
Cheevers twisted up his nose and rubbed it with the back of his hand, whether in thought or annoyance I couldn’t say for sure. “Now, Miz Eva. That wouldn’t be right. You got an “A” sticker, and that entitles you to four gallons of gas. Wouldn’t be right for me to sell you more and not do the same for everybody.” He frowned as though scolding a child caught hoarding cookies instead of passing the plate. “No, I couldn’t sell you an extra gallon. But”—he smiled—“I’ll be happy to give you one out of my own ration.”
“Oh no, Mr. Cheevers. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t. I’m volunteering. Shoot, I don’t need it anyways. I live right up the road, and the only place me and the missus ever goes is to our daughter Louella’s on Sunday for dinner, and we walk there. After one of Louella’s Sunday dinners I need the exercise anyways.” I blushed and continued protesting, embarrassed by his generosity, but Mr. Cheevers paid no attention.
“Here,” he said, “you might as well take it now. I’ll put it in a can for you. Tell your mama it was from me and the missus and we hope she has a happy birthday. Maybe you’d better take two. Wouldn’t do to have you running out on the way home.”
I assured him that one gallon would do just fine, but he wouldn’t hear of me not taking a second, so I thanked him and said I’d save him a piece of the cake.
“Don’t mention it. Say, how’s Morgan doing? I saw in the paper where he’d made lieutenant.” I nodded and grinned with pride. “Well, that’s fine.” He beamed at me. “How’s he like it over there in the Pacific? Lots of pretty girls, I’ll bet.”
“Probably, but he never writes me about them,” I said knowingly. “Some things you don’t share with your mother. Mostly he says it’s hot and sticky. He puts on a clean shirt in the morning and it’s a wet rag by lunchtime. Funny, we never figured on him getting sent to there. When I think about Ruby and Mama and me, sending him off with all those pairs of wool socks and then him going to the tropics, it makes me laugh. He must have thought we’d lost our minds, trying to bundle him up like a three-year-old going out in a blizzard.”
The old man laughed, showing a mouthful of straight white teeth—which made me realize he wasn’t old at all. Only a decade older than me. I’d forgotten how young he’d seemed only a year ago, before the news had come that his only son had been blown apart by a hand grenade at El Alamein. Just one year before, he’d been young, with an optimistic bounce in his step and fingernails that were always trimmed and clean. Now his feet dragged and his nails looked ragged and stained.
“My missus did the same thing with Wally,” Mr. Cheevers said, nodding sagely, “and then off they shipped him to Africa. Warm clothes was the last thing he needed. Of course, seems like no matter where you are or what you’re doing, a fellow can find a way to complain about the weather. Wally was the same. Always complaining about the heat.” We both smiled indulgently at the dissatisfac-tions of youth. “He didn’t mention a thing about girls. You know, I was in Paris during the first war, and I remember how beautiful those French girls were. Pretty, pretty girls,” he mused. “I hope Wally met up with a girl like that before he died. He didn’t get much time, but I hope he took advantage of what he had. He deserved at least one nice memory.”
“I’m sure he did,” I said. “He was such a good-looking boy.”
“Smart, too,” his father agreed. He looked around at the peeling paint on the station front and the pile of old tires that nobody had time to haul away or even stack straight and added, “Wally would have made something of this place. I was going to retire and give it all to him when he got back. Don’t know who I’m saving it for now.” He shrugged. “Who’d buy it? Takes a young fella to keep up with a business. ’Nother year of this war and there won’t be no young fellas left.” Without thinking, he blew his nose on the smelly oil rag and then looked stricken as the odor reminded him it wasn’t a handkerchief—at about the same moment he realized what he’d just said to a woman with a son away at war.
“I’m sorry, Miz Eva. Don’t listen to me. I just ... Well, I just miss Wally still. Makes me forgetful. Seems like I can’t get away from it. No matter how I try to keep it in. I’m sorry. I just want this damned war to be over before we lose any more of our boys.”
“So do I, Mr. Cheevers. I’m just sorry it wasn’t over soon enough for Wally,” I said sincerely.
Cheevers sniffed and nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I do. Does me good just to hear somebody say his name sometimes. Seems like nobody will ever talk about him straight out anymore. Like he never existed. I know they’re trying to spare my feelings, but it’s too late for that, ain’t it.”
I shook my head in agreement, and Cheevers forced a brave smile back to his face.
“Anyways, you give your mama our regards. Hope she has a happy birthday.”
“Thank you again for the gas, Mr. Cheevers.”
The dust boiled up behind the car as I drove toward town. In the rearview mirror I could see Wally’s father standing next to the gas pump, unconsciously rubbing his hands together, staring upward as though what he was looking for might be coming straight at him out of the shimmering heat of a summer sky.
Despite the heat, a shiver ran up my spine, and I drove a little faster.
The aspic salad I’d made for Ellen Carson was beginning to melt by the time I reached her front door. I was annoyed at myself for not taking the heat into account when I’d decided what to bring, but it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t imagine she’d feel like eating anything.
Word had spread quickly about Ellen’s husband, Jim, being captured and sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. The rumors that circulated about how the Japanese treated captured Americans were pretty grim. Ellen would no doubt be imagining the worst, and who was to say her fears weren’t well founded? I wasn’t sure what I’d say when I saw her, but maybe knowing people cared enough to stop by would be comforting. At least the children, who were too young to understand what was going on, would enjoy the way the gelatin jiggled on their spoons.
I turned the bell twice. No one answered. Maybe no one was home. I thought for a moment of leaving the salad on the front porch with a note, but if I did that, Ellen might come home to a bowl of peaches and cherries puddling in pool of globby liquid. Just as I was turning to leave, the door opened to reveal Paul, wearing an apron over his shirt and clerical collar and balancing two-year-old Alice Carson on his left hip. I blushed in embarrassment and surprise at seeing him after so long, but it was impossible not to smile at the picture he made.
“Am I speaking to the lady of the house?” I asked seriously, and he smiled self-consciously. I was so glad to see him.
“You’ve caught me out of uniform, I’m afraid,” he said, sheepishly holding out the embroidered edge of the clearly feminine apron. “Ellen was feeling tired with so many visitors stopping by. I told her to take a nap and I’d watch the children. The older ones are playing in the backyard, but as long as I was here I thought Alice and I could do the washing up.”
“That was thoughtful of you. Not many men would have thought of it.”
“Entirely selfish, I assure you. I long to be of some real use, but I fear that most of the time I’m just in the way. When you think of it, at times like these waking up to clean dishes is probably more consoling than listening to all the sermons I could preach. Anyway, it’s something.”
It was awkward with just the two of us. We had seen each other at church, of course, but that was all. A few of months after our conversation at the wedding, he had gotten word that his brother had been arrested and shot as a member of the Dutch Resistance. Nils was the last family member Paul had in the world; it broke my heart to think how alone he must have felt. I wrote him a sincere letter of sympathy, hoping to console him and break the ice that had formed between us, but the stilted, formal note of thanks he’d sent back let me know that my overtures were unwelcome. Once or twice he stopped by the house to bring mama a precious bag of coffee or some flowers, but he always came when he knew I would be gone and left before I returned. I couldn’t blame him. Why would he want to see me? I’d been so cruel.
Without thinking, I blurted out, “I’ve missed you,” and blushed a deep red, realizing it was true.
“Good,” Paul answered seriously. “I had hoped you would.”
His face looked so stern that I couldn’t help but laugh. “You always say just what you think, don’t you?”
“It is a flaw of mine.”
“Maybe that’s what I’ve missed about you.”
“Well, it’s something at least,” he said, shifting Alice to a more comfortable position on his hip. “Why don’t you come in out of the heat? There are people who say I make a really wonderful glass of iced tea. You could have one, and after you leave it would give you something else to miss about me. Besides, one more moment out in this heat and we’ll be able to drink whatever you’ve got in there,” he nodded toward my bowl, squinting doubtfully at the melting gelatin.
“It looks pretty awful, doesn’t it?” I sighed, examining my ruined salad.
“Yes,” he conceded. “Maybe if we put it in the icebox, it will resurrect itself. Come on in.” He held open the screen door and stepped aside to let me pass.
Ellen’s icebox was already stuffed with casseroles and cakes. Obviously I was not the first to drop by with condolences. I wedged my dish in with the others. The kitchen was cool and tidy. Newly washed glasses sat on the counter in sparkling rows. Paul had lined them up like columns of shiny soldiers. He saw me looking at them.
“Too fussy, I know,” Paul said as he sat Baby Alice down at the table with a bowl of gelatin and a spoon. “I hate to admit it, but I’ve started lining up my spice bottles in alphabetical order. The rigidity of old age.”
“You’re just organized,” I reasoned. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Most of life is so unpredictable, it’s nice to know exactly where the cinnamon is when you want it. There isn’t much else we can count on.”
“Especially in times like these,” he agreed, rubbing his tired face with his hand, as though trying to rub out the lines of worry written there. “Sometimes,” he admitted, “I think I can’t go on, that if I have to bury one more mother’s son or comfort one more widow I will just give up, take a walk out of town, and keep walking until I reach a place where they’ve never heard of war.”
“But you’d never do that,” I assured him.
“No.” He sighed as he stirred a cloud of sugar into a pitcher of tea. “I only fantasize about it. As little as I have to offer, people look to me for answers. They think I know so much more than I really do. I can’t let them down, so I just mumble my little prayers and hold their hands. I do what I can and rely on God for the rest, but I can’t help wishing He’d made me more equal to the task.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“To begin with,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d like to be a better speaker, or a more agile one. I think too much. People want answers, but for me, every answer begets ten more questions. I’d also like to be more spontaneous. Then maybe I’d be have the courage to stop dreaming about things and just do them.”
“Such as what? Walking out of town and never coming back?” I teased.
“Oh, but that’s not really a dream, more an indulgence. Lately, I have a favorite story I tell myself.” He stopped stirring the tea and closed his eyes, as though conjuring a vision in his mind. “I dress up in a suit, shoes very shiny and hair neatly combed, then I walk to your house and rap my knuckles firmly on the door. You answer, looking surprised to see me and without a moment’s hesitation I say something like, ‘Eva, you are a fool. You say you don’t love me, and for a long time I believed it. At first I was embarrassed and I kept my distance. Then I was angry. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the truth. You said you didn’t love me, but that isn’t quite right, is it?’” He opened his eyes again and looked at me directly, pulling me into the scene, making the dream real.
“‘You don’t know if you love me or not because you’ve never given me a chance. You’re afraid that if I got too close you might find out if you really do care for me, and that terrifies you. I don’t completely understand why. I don’t think you do, either, but I know Lindbergh is part of it. To hell with him. He’s not here. I am, and I’m not giving up. I’m coming to your house every week to call, whether you want me to or not, until you know me well enough to tell me truthfully whether you could love me.’”
His face was flushed, and his voice was strong, filling the room, demanding an answer. Baby Alice sat transfixed as he spoke, as though he were an actor in a play, her spoon frozen midway between the bowl and her mouth.
I was as drawn in as Alice. Twin flames of uncertainty and pleasure rose inside me. I was surprised to realize that pleasure was the stronger of the two.
Paul paused for a moment, and his breathing became more settled. “That’s what I would say,” he continued gently, “if I were the heroic, noble orator I’d like to be, but I’m not. Instead, I’ve been waiting, hoping that somehow we’d run across each other in a private moment. I’m not eloquent, Eva, or heroic, but if you’ll give me a chance, you might come to care for me as I do you.” He straightened his shoulders and spoke in a formal, measured voice. “Miss Eva, may I come to call?”
I felt a little embarrassed. It was silly, at my age, to think of opening the door to romance. Then a picture of Mr. Cheevers punctured my thoughts, and I saw him as I’d left him, as though he stood there still, alone and staring into the sky. If I had only remembered how short life is, he seemed to say. How unsure. If I had only realized, what would I have done differently?
But did I love Paul? I had loved Slim completely, instantaneously, helplessly. Our love was large and torrential, a river that swept me along with it, no use resisting or trying to swim in another direction. That was what I knew of love. What I felt for Paul was so different, a cool drink instead of a raging flood, the comfort of a fireside instead of a blazing inferno. Paul was sincere and present and left no doubt as to how he felt about me. He made me laugh and think about things more deeply than I would have alone. This tenderness I felt for Paul, was that really love? I cared for him too much to offer him a counterfeit affection. Then Papa’s voice spoke in my mind, as clearly as it had on that summer night a lifetime before when I’d eavesdropped through the open window. Real love is with someone who’ll be there when the crop fails or your sight grows weak. You can count on it, like the earth under your feet.
That was Paul. How I missed him, his steadiness, his honesty, his humor, and his kind, kind heart. Paul, trying so hard to make things a little better, polishing glasses to comfort a widow, sharing books and time with a fatherless boy, being my friend, seeing more in me than a checkered past and a cane.
Paul’s eyes, so sad, searched my face for an answer. “Please, Eva. I know you don’t love me now, but you like me, don’t you? It’s something to start with. Let’s give it a chance, shall we? Just to see how it works out?”
“Oh, Paul, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “What I’ve put you through. You don’t have to come courting.” I didn’t have to think any longer. The words came pouring from me, without explanation or act of will, and when I spoke them they were as much a surprise to me as they were to Paul. “I don’t need to wait anymore. I love you. Will you marry me?”
Paul’s face was shocked, and he literally stammered, searching for something to say, but before he could, Baby Alice dropped her spoon. It clattered metallically onto the table, spilling bright globs of gelatin everywhere while she clapped her chubby hands together and chortled with laughter.
The noise startled us both. Instinctively, I jumped up to find a rag to clean up the mess, but Paul grabbed my wrist. “Leave it,” he whispered. He pulled me close and kissed me. I kissed him back while the baby giggled merrily, squishing wiggling lumps of gelatin though her finger and rubbing them into her hair as the distant sound of happy children’s games floated in from outside and rested on us like a blessing.
When we stepped back from that first perfect kiss, any remaining doubts popped and vanished like transparent, trifling soap bubbles on a summer breeze. I loved Paul. How simple, how absolute. I wanted us to be married right that minute.
“A justice of the peace could perform the ceremony today,” I babbled. “We could go to the house and you could tell Mama and Ruby while I change into my Sunday dress. You remember, the blue one? It’s a few years old, but it still looks nice. We could drive to Liberal and be married before the sun goes down. Oh, Paul!” I stopped short, suddenly plagued with worry. “What about the deacons? Do you think they’ll let you get married? To me, I mean. There’s bound to be talk about me and Morgan... .” I could feel heat and color rising again in my cheeks.
Paul smiled indulgently and silenced my worries with his lips, kissing me slowly and gently but with a patient intensity that made me feel I might disappear into the perfect curve of his body. Still holding me in his arms, he lifted his lips softly from mine.
“Don’t think so much just now, Eva. We’ll work it out. I’m not letting anything get in our way.” He spoke with such utter confidence it was impossible not to believe him.
“We will drive to the farm and tell your family today,” he continued. “Then we’ll send Morgan a telegram. It wouldn’t be right to go forward without his blessing. I want to marry you as soon as possible, but in front of a minister, not a judge. And you must have a bouquet of flowers and a new dress. A white dress.” He spoke firmly, his eyes square on mine as though to say that no matter what shame people in town might try to heap on my head, any sins I may have committed were long forgiven and truly forgotten. And suddenly, in the time it took for a look to pass between us, something changed inside me forever. I felt forgiven, by Paul, by God, by myself. I smiled, but it was impossible to keep a tear from running down my cheek.
Paul reached out, caught the droplet on his fingertip, and studied it for a moment, as though it were something more precious than a simple teardrop. “Eva, I love you more than my life. We are going to have a beautiful wedding. After waiting for you so long, I want there to be no question but that we are properly joined by God. One flesh, forever.”
He pulled me again into the long arc of his body. Did I have any objections to his plans? I don’t remember. If I did they were forgotten in the warmth of his embrace.