Joe let Esther tend to his wound. Her touch was healing, and her very presence was a salve to his soul. Though with that came shame, deeper than perhaps he’d ever experienced before. It was different from Saipan.
Esther broke the silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have wanted Daisy living here if you knew this? The rope was working.” He flinched as she cleaned his wound.
“How can you say it was working? Look at your ankle.”
“I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about not hurting my daughter and destroying my home.” Joe knew she wouldn’t understand. How could she?
Esther finished bandaging his wound, and he suddenly realized he was shirtless. Neither of them was in the state of dress they were used to. She was wearing a simple nightgown, and while it swelled around her and hid the curves, it was thin and almost revealing. Her hair was held back in a thin white cotton bonnet, neatly tied under her chin. He wanted to take the covering off her and pull the pins from her bun so he could see her once again with her hair cascading down her back.
“When did the nightmares start?” she asked gently.
He bit his lip. Should he tell her the whole story? Did he really want to relive it again?
Esther sat with his ankle in her lap. He relinquished himself to her touch. She looked up at him and kept her eyes on him. Her face was pure and breathtaking. He remembered the way she’d put her hand through his hair and touched his bare skin and shivered at the thought of it.
With deep breaths and with slow and careful words, he told her about his time in Saipan and the night that he let his squad down.
“So you left your squad?” Esther asked. “I don’t understand everything in the military, but I know it wasn’t your fault that so many men were killed.”
“Yes, it was,” he insisted.
He told her about losing his temper the following morning and hitting Sergeant Barker, and about the humiliation of being transferred and losing a stripe.
“It was only a few weeks later that we got word that my entire platoon was annihilated.”
“What?”
“Almost all of them were killed. The few who weren’t lost limbs or may as well be dead.”
“And this causes your nightmares?”
Caused them. Tormented him. It was like the rope on the bed. The memories of that night tied him forever to the belief that he’d failed and that he should’ve died along with his men.
“I shouldn’t be here. I should’ve died with my men. I never should’ve come home.”
Esther shook her head. “You’re wrong, Joe.”
“I’m not wrong. And look at what it’s caused.” He threw his hands up in the air. “I could’ve really hurt you. I could’ve killed you.”
“Joe, listen to me.” Esther moved his ankle gently onto the floor and knelt next to him, taking his hands. “God spared you. Believe that instead of believing that you’re going to hurt me or Daisy.”
Joe shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
“But I do. We have both had a lot of loss. I have had to believe that God has a plan in all the hurt and pain. How else could I have gone on?”
Joe looked at her and put his hand on her cheek. Tears welled up in her eyes. She believed what she said. She believed that God had a plan for all of his heartache.
“But were you happy?”
Esther furrowed her brow and her lips pursed into a small frown. He wanted to kiss away the pain that he could see sewn through her face. His thumb caressed her beneath her eye, wiping tears away.
“I don’t think I knew real happiness—until Daisy.” As she spoke, her face twitched with anguish and honesty. She inhaled several times and looked down. He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “And, now you’ve made me feel things that . . .”
“Esther.” His voice brushed smoothly against his throat. He didn’t know how to say what he was feeling. He didn’t know how to tell her that he wasn’t the same person who had loved Irene. He was a different man now—because of losing his wife, the war, Daisy’s deafness—because of Esther. She was the one he thought about when he woke and when he fell asleep. He wasn’t sure when it had begun, but he knew it would never end.
There was silence for several minutes. Then the clock on the wall chimed four o’clock.
Esther broke the silence. “You should get some rest.”
Joe smiled at her words. She was always taking care of everyone around her, even him.
“I can’t unless I know you and Daisy are safe at your house, and I can’t ask you to leave in the middle of the night like this. It’s not safe for you both to be here. I’ll go—somewhere—so can you sleep here.”
Esther shook her head. “No.”
“But I might hurt you. I will. I know it. The rope is too small to tie again.”
“I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” Esther’s eyes were velvety soft as she gazed into his. She gently pushed him to lie on the bed, but he didn’t stay down.
What was she doing? She pulled the rest of the rope off of the bed and threw it on the floor.
“You don’t need this anymore.”
“I don’t understand, Esther.”
“You’re not dangerous, Joe, and I’m going to prove it to you.” She moved next to the bed on the floor and put her head on the mattress, next to his pillow.
“No, Esther.” His face twitched. “I could hurt you. I could really hurt you. And this isn’t right. I don’t want to put you in this type of position. What if someone finds out you stayed here alone with me?”
“This is between me and you, not the church.”
He couldn’t believe she’d just said that.
“I’m not afraid of you. You are not dangerous. I’m staying right here. You don’t even need to touch me.” Esther nestled in.
Didn’t she know how much he wanted to touch her? How much he wanted to kiss her? How having her that close in the quiet of the night made him want all of her? Didn’t she understand what she did to him?
“I can’t, Esther. You don’t understand—”
“I trust you.” She patted his space on the bed. She yawned and repeated her words in a whisper. “I trust you.”
Her eyes fluttered, and her even breathing told him that she was falling asleep. What if she wasn’t right? What if he had another fit and he hurt her? He’d told her why he was tormented. She believed in him. She trusted him by putting herself in a position that could go wrong in so many ways for them both.
He sat for a long time and watched her sleep. Her eyelashes rested gently on her fair cheeks. Her pink lips full and perfect. A quiet sigh escaped her mouth. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, as light as a feather. A light smile played over her lips for a split second.
“I love you,” he whispered, and he meant it.
Then he put his head down on the pillow next to Esther and let himself fall asleep.