CHAPTER 7

“A letter from Mack?” Alice-Ann asked, rushing up the stairs behind Maeve.

“Shhh,” Maeve said.

As soon as the girls reached the pink- and white-accented bedroom and Maeve had closed the door, she pulled open the center drawer from her vanity and retrieved the envelope. “For you,” she said, beaming, handing it over as though it were a prize.

When Mack’s handwriting met her eyes, they filled with tears. “Finally.” She dropped into an occasional chair near the window, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet beneath her as she ripped one side of the envelope where Mack had so beautifully penned her name and some other had stamped next to it: Opened By Censor. She frowned. Was nothing sacred?

Alice-Ann blew into the envelope, puffing the paper wide enough for her to extend her fingers and slide out the folded paper.

“I’ll go get us some Co-Colas while you read,” Maeve said. “And maybe a couple of sandwiches?”

Alice-Ann looked up and nodded. “Sounds good.”

“I won’t be long.”

She glanced down at the letter, then back up to her friend. “Take your time.”

As soon as the door closed, she began to read:

Dear Alice-Ann,

How are you, kiddo? I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long. There are a lot of things happening here in the Pacific. More than I can talk about. But what I can, I will.

I have to be honest here because I know I can talk to you about these things. Things I cannot say to my mother or father. Things they would never understand. Especially my father with his feelings about what makes a man a man. Don’t get me wrong. I know what he does there in Bynum is important. If someone has a toothache or a severe stomachache, they’re awful happy to see him standing behind the counter. But I’d like to think what I’m doing right now is even bigger than that. If the Axis powers take over, a toothache or a stomach cramp will be the least of our worries.

Alice-Ann, there are times when I wonder if what I’m seeing and hearing, what I’m smelling and tasting —all of it —sometimes I wonder if these things will ever fade from my memory. I don’t want to upset you, but war is not at all what I thought it would be. I have to be open with you, Alice-Ann. There are times when we fight for our country, but most times we fight just to stay alive. This isn’t Americans fighting the Japs or the Allies fighting the Axis powers. Sometimes this is just good ole Boyd MacKay from Bynum, Georgia, trying to get back home in one piece. This is about my survival as well as yours. I hate to admit it, but sometimes more so.

Okay. I’ve written it. You’ve read it. Now I want you to promise me, little girl, that you’ll forget I said it. You won’t tell Nelson. You won’t tell Irene. You won’t tell Maeve, who is probably only a few feet from you right now, watching you read this.

Alice-Ann shook her head. No, Mack . . . she gives me my privacy. She understands how I feel. That when I read your words, I can barely breathe. That I, too, live for the day you return to Bynum, Georgia. And although I cannot say the words to you in a letter —not yet, anyway —I have dreams that on that day when you return home, I will run into your arms, hold on to you, and never, ever let go.

You won’t breathe a word of this to a single soul.

Now on to better things. I want to tell you about a dream I had.

Alice-Ann’s breath caught and she fingered his bracelet. He, too, had dreams?

Last night I dreamed I was at your kitchen table. Your daddy and Aunt Bess sat at the ends. Nelson and Irene sat on one side and you and I sat on the other. And do you know what Aunt Bess had made me? Special, just for me? One of her pecan pies. Lord have mercy, girl. What I wouldn’t do for one of her pies . . .

The door opened and Maeve entered, carrying two glasses —one in each hand —filled with Coke, both balancing a small sandwich-topped plate on the rim. “Did I give you enough time?”

Alice-Ann folded the letter and shoved it into the envelope. She would read the rest later. After the movie. After returning home and getting ready for bed and drawing the bedcovers up under her arms. “Sure,” she said, standing. She met Maeve halfway across the room.

“Did he report anything important?”

Alice-Ann shook her head as she took her drink and sandwich, then returned to the chair. “Just the usual.”

Maeve set her glass and plate on the bedside table before removing her shoes and sitting cross-legged on the bed. “No undying words of love?”

Alice-Ann felt heat rush to her face. “No.” She bit into the sandwich, choosing not to talk about it, but thinking that Mack had, at least and at best, trusted her with his deepest feelings. And secrets.

And that alone was something to dream upon.

The following morning Alice-Ann slept in later than usual. When her eyes fluttered open, she peered around the room, dabbed in light that had escaped around the corners of the blackout curtains. She knew without looking at the clock on her bedside table that she’d missed breakfast with the family. Papa would be none too happy; that much was for certain. And she could just imagine Aunt Bess’s sarcasm when she finally went downstairs. “Well, good afternoon,” she’d say, in spite of the fact that the sun still hung in the morning sky. The cows would have been milked, food prepared and eaten, and the dishes would have already been washed and put away.

She’d offer to gather the eggs for penitence, and not only for sleeping in.

Alice-Ann stretched beneath the thick melon blossoms quilt Aunt Bess had finished for her only that month, and the dried-in-the-fresh-air linens, smiling. Then, flipping onto her stomach, she retrieved the letter kept in hiding beneath her pillow. This was her reason for sleeping in so late. After she’d returned home, she’d read Mack’s letter again and again until the wee hours of the morning, searching for clues . . . for hidden meanings . . . for the lines within the lines, wondering what Mack might write if every letter wasn’t read by the censors before finding its way to her.

Opening it again, she squinted against the shadows to read the words for the umpteenth time since receiving the letter a day earlier, her breath catching as it had the night before when she’d come to the final paragraphs.

Alice-Ann, we’re being moved to the island of Emirau here in the South Pacific within the next little while. Not sure exactly when, but soon. My squadron will be made up of ██████​█████​██████​█████​██████​█████​█████████████, both land based and seaplanes, and I’ll ██████​█████​██████​█████​█████████████, little girl.

Alice-Ann squeezed her eyes shut as a chill ran down her arms. One she knew hadn’t come from the icy air of her bedroom. Something about this place called Emirau, about words sliced out by the censors, didn’t sit well with her.

A light tap came to the door. “Alice?” her aunt called from the other side.

Alice-Ann shoved the letter under her pillow and turned onto her back. “Yes’m?”

The door creaked open and natural light from the hallway fully illuminated her bedroom. “Are you planning to sleep the day away?” Not exactly the line she’d expected, but . . .

Alice-Ann glanced at the clock for the first time that morning. Eight thirty. She sat up and reached for the bathrobe draped across the foot of her bed. “Gracious. I had no idea.” She shoved her arms into the sleeves. “I guess I was more tired than I realized. I know I’ve missed breakfast.”

“You’ve missed quite a bit more than that.” Aunt Bess walked into the room, jerked back the blackout curtains, and then sat at the foot of the bed, her hip pressed against the wrought-iron footboard, which formed indentations in the floral housedress and flesh.

Alice-Ann remained still, hoping Aunt Bess wouldn’t realize she was concealing a letter from Mack. One move . . . or one crinkle of the paper . . . “Oh?” she said, her voice a little louder than she’d intended it to be. “What did I miss exactly?”

“Nelson and Irene told your papa and me this morning that another Branch will be entering this home soon enough.”

A moment passed before Alice-Ann fully understood. “Irene is —she’s —”

“Mm-hmm. Expecting sometime in June. Lord help us when this house is filled with a baby crying and cooing and toddling about.” Aunt Bess’s words sounded harsh, but Alice-Ann could hear the excitement binding them together.

She smiled. The idea of a baby in the house came as a thrilling bit of news, one she couldn’t wait to tell Mack about. She’d write to him that very afternoon.

And maybe one day . . . one day . . . she and Mack would have such an announcement to share with Aunt Bess and Papa themselves.

Sunday morning the family gathered around the breakfast table, each dressed in their Sunday best. Alice-Ann couldn’t help but notice that her father had a new glow about him, an excitement that a new life would come into the family soon. His happiness was exceeded only by Nelson’s, but Irene looked a little green around the gills. Alice-Ann had heard tell of morning sickness, and for sure, Irene had not been up for breakfast over the past few weeks, but that hadn’t been so unusual either.

“Roberta Kerr is singing a solo in church this morning,” Aunt Bess reported over the rim of her coffee cup. She inhaled before taking a sip, something she’d done since July when coffee had been released from the rationing list.

Alice-Ann crooked her finger in the handle of her own cup and brought it to her lips, then blew across the creamy surface. “I sure do love to hear Miss Roberta sing.”

Irene moaned. “Oh, my gracious, Nelson . . . the smell of the coffee . . .” And with that she shoved her chair back, the legs of it scraping against the hardwood floor, and darted from the room.

Alice-Ann’s mouth gaped open as she returned the cup to its saucer, choosing not to take so much as a sip. “I’m sorry, Nelson. I —”

“Nelson,” Papa interrupted, “if you know what’s good for you, Son, you’ll hightail it on up those steps and see what you can do to help.”

Nelson sighed deeply enough that Alice-Ann had to bite back a smile, even as she contemplated the fact that bringing a child into the world might not be worth it if even the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee caused a woman to throw up. Especially considering those long months of rationing.

After her brother left the room, she dared to ask, “Papa, when Mama was expecting Nelson and me, did she get sick?”

At first her father seemed put out by the question. His eye rested on his plate filled with fluffy scrambled eggs, a slab of ham, and slices of buttered toast topped with Aunt Bess’s homemade peach preserves. But then he chuckled as he shoveled his fork beneath the eggs. “With Nelson she did. That woman swore up and down she was go’n die.” He looked across the table at his sister. “Remember that, Bess?”

“I remember. Made me glad I’d never married.”

Alice-Ann frowned. How could not having a baby make a difference when it came to living without the love of a man?

“But with you,” her father continued before she had much time to think about her aunt’s words, “she never had a moment of what some folks call morning sickness or pain in her back or nothing.”

Her father’s memory brought a smile to Alice-Ann. She looped her finger in the cup’s handle again and, this time, took a hearty swallow. If her mother hadn’t been sick with her, then it stood to reason that she wouldn’t be sick either, when her time came.

Of course this was not the kind of thing she would likely write Mack about. But rather something to keep for another day.

Irene had to forgo church, which Alice-Ann thought to be too bad. The one place she enjoyed being the most —other than with her friends —was in the small sanctuary at Oak Grove Baptist Church —nestled, appropriately, in a grove of giant live oaks. The simple wooden structure had been built at the turn of the century by the area’s farming families, erected in the white sand beneath the shade of branches dripping with Spanish moss and bushy dark-green leaves. Oftentimes, in the middle of preaching, the wind caught hold between them and moaned as the reverend spoke from behind the pine pulpit. Alice-Ann had always thought it gave the whole service an even greater spiritual element.

But mostly, during the hot summer months, those shade trees kept the nearly intolerable temperatures tolerable. Even with the windows wide-open and the women giving the handheld fans from Willis Funeral Home a workout, the air inside the church could become both stale and suffocating. Especially during those long, rainless summers that drove the farmers nearly mad with worry and drove their wives to their knees.

Alice-Ann’s memories were filled with those times when drought had struck. Every night of the week she and her family —along with the other members of Oak Grove —drove the dusty path to the church. There they had prayer service, the congregation collectively begging God for the rains to come. A single rumble of thunder, typically a result of the heat, caused tears to fall and amens to rise. But when the rains finally came, the good people gathered again to offer praise.

Praise and long tables of covered dishes. As the prayer and worship filled the soul, the fried chicken and potato salad filled the stomach. But for Alice-Ann —food notwithstanding —she’d always come away from the experience more deeply in love with the Lord, not only for having heard their pleas, but for having placed her in such a community of believers.

Today, on this particular Sunday, Alice-Ann rode in Nelson’s truck as it rambled behind their father’s. Beyond the windshield, the sky had turned dark gray in anticipation of a cold snap Nelson commented on with a frown.

“Pop’s gonna bust something if we have a freeze like they’re expecting.”

Alice-Ann felt a new foreboding, much like the one she’d experienced on Friday evening and all day Saturday when she read Mack’s letter. She wrapped her arms around her middle and pressed her gloved hands to her sides. “Nelson,” she ventured, hoping to change the subject.

“Huh?”

“Are you excited about the baby?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, casting half a smile her way. “Sure I am.”

“Even though it’s making Irene awful sick?”

“Well, I don’t like that part, of course. I’ve never liked seeing Irene sad or sick or any of those things.” Nelson hit a series of ruts along the sides of the narrow Georgia red clay road leading to the church, rattling Alice-Ann even more than she already was.

She looked out the window and watched the tangled and naked tree limbs as they passed them by. “Nelson?” she said his name again without looking at him. “Do you think Mack and Carlton and Irene’s brother Frank and all the rest of the folks from Bynum serving in the war will make it back okay?”

Nelson shifted the truck as his foot eased onto the brake. “I reckon. I mean, only God knows for sure, Alice-Ann. Now, what’s made you go and ask a question like that?”

“I’m just wondering. We’ve been pretty lucky here in Bynum, haven’t we.”

She glanced over to see him turning the large steering wheel as he guided the truck to park alongside their daddy’s.

He cut off the engine. “Better not let Aunt Bess hear you talk like that,” he said. “You know how she feels about luck.”

Alice-Ann nodded. Aunt Bess didn’t believe in luck. She believed fully in God’s grace, whether times were good or bad. “Yeah, I know.”

Nelson pulled on the chrome handle and the door popped open. “But I guess I’d have to say we’ve been blessed so far. Two years and no one from Bynum’s had to wear the black armband. I know every night before Irene and me go to sleep, we pray that God will keep smiling down on us, so I guess he is.”

They exited the truck and joined their father and Aunt Bess at the back of the open-style beds. Alice-Ann linked her arm with Aunt Bess’s and pulled her close. “Awful cold,” she said.

Aunt Bess glanced skyward. “Getting that way,” she said, then peered at her watch. “I thought we were a mite late, but I don’t hear the organ music yet, so we must be all right on time.”

“Must be,” Papa said from behind her.

The red-painted front church door opened and Shirley Davis stepped out, handkerchief pressed to her mouth.

“What in the world?” Aunt Bess muttered as the wife of Jesse Davis, owner of the town’s only feed and seed store, strode carefully down the brick steps and then toward them. Miss Shirley was also the chief telephone operator, her voice being the one most folks heard when they picked up the receiver. Aunt Bess had always said that if a secret was to be kept in this town, Miss Shirley was the one to keep it. She made sure the other operators followed the same rule.

“Oh, Bess,” she said, her eyes wet with tears. “Emmitt.” She reached for them with her free hand, coming first to grasp Aunt Bess’s, then Papa’s.

“Woman, what’s got you in such a tizzy?” her father asked, even as Alice-Ann’s breath caught in her throat.

“Philip and LuAnn’s boy —darlin’ Marty —” she said, drawing the words together in such a way, they sounded as though he’d been given the name “Darlin’ Marty” at birth.

“What about him?” Nelson asked, coming around them.

Alice-Ann looked his way, seeing the concern etched in fragmented lines along the face that usually smiled without reason. Both Marty Dibble and his twin sister, Genice, had joined up —Marty with the Navy and Genice with the WAVES —and both had been school chums of Nelson’s. And if memory served her correctly, Genice and Mack had dated a time or two.

“He’s been killed, hon,” she said, blowing her nose as daintily as possible. “Over in the Pacific.”

“Dear Lord,” Aunt Bess whispered, her hand pressing against her heart. “And we’d come so far without a death here in Bynum.”

Nelson took a step back. Then another.

“Everyone’s inside. Of course Philip and LuAnn aren’t here today. They got the news late yesterday afternoon via telegraph. Reverend Parker informed us straightaway this morning.” She shook her head as though repeating the information to anyone who hadn’t heard yet had become her painful duty. “They’re having a moment of prayer, but I felt like I had to come outside . . . get some air . . .” She gasped dramatically. “And then I saw you walking up.”

Alice-Ann’s arm slipped from the warmth of Aunt Bess’s. She joined her brother where he stood on the other side of the truck, leaning against the closed door, one heel on the footboard, smoking a cigarette.

Something he rarely did, except at the end of a hard day or when in distress.

And right now, with all the emotion swarming inside her, Alice-Ann wished she could join him.

“Nelson,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears, which caused her brother’s handsome face to blur in the staring.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Yeah,” he said, his voice barely a croak. He extended his arm, crooked, inviting her to step closer, and she did.

“Mack’s in the Pacific,” she said, her lips pressed against the fraying material of his winter coat. Somehow, even as she said the words, the bracelet felt heavier against her wrist.

“Yeah,” he repeated, his jaws clenched. “I know, Alice-Ann. I know.”