Why, oh why hadn’t she gotten his name? She could have kicked herself for letting him leave the hall without at least telling her that. She could still think about him, imagine that they’d gotten another dance, but it would have been easier, somehow, if she knew his name.
To everyone else, Grace waved off any teasing that hinted at her being whisked off her feet, but truthfully, she was flattered. Out of the whole room, he had wanted to dance with her. Not Linda, not any of the other girls, just her. She’d felt the belle of the ball in that moment, swept up in the magic of the night.
Realistically, she told herself, it was probably good that he was from away. He hadn’t talked much, and she had no idea what she would say if she ever met him again.
The excitement of the dance was eclipsed by Harry’s arrival the next day. Tommy went to pick him up at the railway station in Musquodoboit Harbour, and when he poked his head through the door Grace practically flew to him.
“Hey, Gracie!” He was laughing, his arms around her. “You’re gonna choke me! Get off!”
“Never!” she replied. “I’m gonna hang on and they’ll never be able to take you again.”
He pried her off. “Happy Christmas, baby sister.”
“Best present of all, big brother. I’m so glad you’re here!”
The family crowded around, hugging and peppering him with questions and exclamations. He laughed at all the attention and answered what he could, but Grace could see the exhaustion in his eyes. She hoped he’d have time to rest.
“How will they ever manage without you?” Linda gushed, her dark red lips drawn into a pout.
Linda had conveniently dropped by the house, saying she wanted to talk to Grace about something or other, but Grace knew she had ulterior motives. Linda had had a mad crush on Harry for years, but he’d married Beth, his high school sweetheart. Then Beth—and the couple’s only baby—had died in childbirth six years ago, just about breaking him. Harry had always been a shy sort, hiding his scars, keeping his damaged eye from view, and grief had made it all worse. Linda had kept a respectful distance, but she never let Harry forget she was available.
Today, Harry didn’t seem to mind Linda’s advances. “Well, I just don’t know,” he replied, deadpan. “How will the Canadian Merchant Navy stay afloat without their one-eyed sailor?”
Linda’s pout deepened to feigned concern. “Without you there, the Germans will run amuck all over the place!”
“Linda, you know what you need?”
“What’s that?”
“A dance.”
That was perhaps the first time Grace had ever seen her friend speechless, and it made her laugh out loud. Harry held out a hand, then whirled a stunned but elated Linda around the living room, dancing to Glenn Miller’s “A String of Pearls.”
“What do you think?” her mother asked Grace, appearing at her side.
“They are adorable together. Harry never says anything, and Linda never stops talking.”
Harry was to stay until just after Christmas, and during those few days he was home, the family settled into an almost familiar pattern. As Grace dusted the living room one afternoon, humming a Christmas song to herself, she dared to dream that things might someday return to what they were before. But Norman’s portrait, so lovingly painted by their mother so many years ago, stared back at her from across the room.
“It will never be normal,” she quietly reminded herself.
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she heard a muffled boom in the distance. She rushed to the window, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The sky was blue, the snow undisturbed. Then she noticed a cloud of black smoke rising over the far inlet.
The telephone rang just as two RCAF planes roared by, shaking the windows. She leaped back, stunned. What on earth were they doing out here? She picked up the receiver, still watching their smooth flight over the water.
“Hello?”
“Grace!” It was Linda, and her voice sang with excitement. “Did you hear that? Did you hear the explosion?”
“I did! What’s going on?!”
“You’re not gonna believe it.”
“Try me.”
“There was a U-boat out there.”
“What?”
“A German submarine! By Borgles Island.”
“Oh, come on.”
“It’s true! The boys at the logging camp out by Debaie’s Cove spotted it yesterday, and they called to report it.”
“What? We have Nazis here, and you didn’t think to tell me until now?”
“They told me I wasn’t allowed to say a word. You know, ‘loose lips sink ships’ and all that.”
It didn’t make sense. “Linda, why would a U-boat go there? It’s just a boring little island with nothing to it. Not even the stupid Nazis would want it.”
“For spying!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
“Grace, I’m telling you. That noise you just heard? Well, that was our plane blowing up the sub!”
Ever since the start of the war people living along the shore had seen things in the distance: flares in the sky, planes, ships of all sizes, but this was something completely different. Debaie’s Cove was only ten miles from Grace’s home.
When Harry walked quietly into the room, she pointed out the window at the smoke. Covering the telephone mouthpiece, she whispered, “Did you see that?”
He leaned slightly to the side to get a better view, then turned away without a word. That was odd. She’d expected him to at least react.
“But what about the men inside the sub?” she asked her friend, still watching Harry. “They’re all dead?”
Linda paused. “I wouldn’t think you’d have a thought to spare for them, Grace. They’re Nazis. They’re killers, remember? Don’t worry about them.”
Linda was right, of course. What she should be worried about was that the Germans had been so close, and she should be glad they had been thwarted. Except . . . she couldn’t help feeling sick at the thought of their sudden, violent deaths. Was this really what war was like? Did her brothers see this sort of thing all the time? Worse, was it possible that they might sometimes cause it? She looked at Harry, still apparently unconcerned by the event, and wondered how he could live that way. Yes, that bomb had killed a boatload of Nazis—Nazis who had no place slinking around near her home!—but still . . . death was death, no matter which side they fought for.