Page 82 of Soaring Sweethearts

The doctor frowned and said, “Absolutely not. You can’t travel like this.”

He could and he would. But he could see it was no use fighting in the moment. “Whatever you say, doctor, but please stitch me up before I lose any more blood.”

And so it was that he spent his first night back in civilization in a hospital bed instead of Constance’s arms or even his own hotel room. As he dozed off, he promised himself that he was going to sneak out first thing in the morning, head to the airfield, and catch a flight back to Heller. With luck, he’d be in Brooklyn by dinnertime. And when he saw Constance again, he was going to wrap her in his arms and never let go.

32

Constance’s mother knocked on her bedroom door and called out, “It’s time to get ready for the memorial.”

Constance pulled the covers over her head, wishing she never had to get up again.

“Sweetheart, did you hear me?”

Sweetheart. Jack called her that. And she’d never hear it on his lips again.

Her mother opened the door and carried in a tray. “I know you haven’t had much of an appetite, so I brought you a little bit of everything. Hopefully, there’s something here that you’ll eat.”

Forcing herself to sit up, Constance took the tray and stared down at the bacon, eggs, oatmeal, toast, pineapple, and a blueberry muffin. Her eyes snagged on the pineapple, and she had to blink back tears, remembering the time Jack brought pineapple to win over her mother. Picking up a piece of buttered toast, she nibbled. Everything tasted like cardboard now that Jack was gone, and the toast was the most she could manage.

“There. It’s good to see you eat something. You’re wasting away.”

“I’ll try to eat, Mom. I promise.”

She didn’t want to worry her family. They all worried about her too much already.

“Are you ready for us to put the phone back on the hook? People might call with questions about the memorial.”

After coming home from her ordeal at the airfield, the last thing Constance needed was to jump every time the phone rang. As soon as all the necessary calls were made to arrange for the memorial, she took the phone off the hook and asked the family to leave it that way.

“Let me get through the memorial. If they have questions, they can call the Thompsons.”

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson drove up from Florida as soon as they got the news. His sister and family came out too. All the Thompsons were staying in the house next door. All of them except Jack.

Constance paused with her toast halfway to her mouth and put it back down. She couldn’t do this. It was too much.

“Ann and Rory are downstairs to help you get ready. Can I tell them to come up?”

Every morning, Ann or another war widow came to the house and sat with her while she knitted a sad, lumpen scarf. Millie, Rory, and their friends, Katherine and Gertie, took turns visiting too. Sometimes they persuaded her to take a walk or a drive. Sometimes, they brought her treats to entice her to eat. Ernie brought her a tub of ice cream, but that made her cry so hard that she couldn’t touch food for the rest of the day.

Having company forced Constance through the motions of getting herself ready for the day, even if she didn’t go any farther than the front parlor. It seemed silly to bother with how she looked when the only person whose admiration she’d ever craved would never look at her again. But she did it because she knew she must. Jack wouldn’t have wanted her to give up.

“Let me brush my teeth and put on a dress. I’ll come down to them in a minute.”

“Of course, dear.”

Her mother squeezed her shoulder and left her alone to get dressed. She’d laid out the plain, black cotton dress that she normally wore to funerals at the church. If she’d had any energy at all, she would have gone out and bought something special for Jack’s memorial. He deserved better than her plain old dress, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go shopping.

Her head swam as she went through the motions of dressing herself and getting ready, and she wished she could lie down again, but she had company downstairs. And this was an important day. She’d agonized all week about what she would say. In the end, she’d picked out one of his letters to her to read. It seemed fitting to read his own words as he faced death.

As ready as she could ever be, she trudged down the stairs to the parlor. Ann and Rory stood as she entered and folder her in a hug.

“How are you feeling?” Ann asked.

“Like I wish I could go back to bed and never get up again,” she answered a little too honestly. But she knew by now that they wouldn’t judge. Ann had been through this, and Rory had nearly lost Hank in a terrible accident shortly before they got married. They both understood all too well what she was going through.

“Well, you can’t because we’re taking you shopping,” Rory said. “You need a special dress for this, and I think we can do much better than what you’re wearing. Don’t you agree, Ann?”

“You look lovely in anything, dear, but I agree with Rory. You should get something that is just for him. Honor his memory with something special. It helps with saying goodbye.”