Dulce et Decorum Est
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
They occasionally caught glimpses of James's wide smile as he stood next to Steve during the newsreels at the cinema. In those moments Winifred's heart would skip a beat and she'd always be thankful he was alive. Every time the postman brought the mail her chest would tighten as she sifted through the few envelopes, expecting the condolence letter that was so commonplace these days. Just yesterday Ruth next door had collapsed on her front stoop when the postman handed her the crisp envelope with the typed address. She didn't even need to open it to know what it would say.
Winnie had helped Ruth up from the stoop and guided her back to the Barnes's kitchen, where she made tea and hugged her and told her over and over that Kenneth had been a good boy, a good friend to James and Steve growing up; Kenneth had done a great service for his country, and Ruth could be proud of him.
None of it made any difference; Kenneth was dead, and James and Steve were still alive. Kenneth had died when his plane crashed in the Alps during a blizzard, just one of a hundred thousand casualties the world would never know. Steve, who'd been like a son to Winifred, was the face of American forces overseas these days, and always by his side was James. The world knew them. The world would never know Kenneth Smith.
There were some days when Winifred felt like Ruth glared daggers through the kitchen window, because Winifred still got letters from James. They were few and far between, but they still arrived, handwritten, envelopes hand-addressed. Winifred knew that her son was still alive. Winnie made Ruth a coffee cake and offered to have Ruth and Samuel over for dinner, but Ruth declined, and Winifred knew that Ruth would be unable to stand seeing the framed family photographs of James in his crisp uniform, or the newspaper clippings she saved in a box, detailing James and Steve's daring escapades.
This is War , Winnie told herself as she dried the dishes, absently staring out across the street to Ruth's brownstone. Our fathers fought and died defending our freedoms. Kenneth did the same. It's the most honorable thing our sons can do, she reasoned. She wouldn't tell Ruth any of this, because what Ruth wanted most of all was for that letter to be gone, for Kenneth to send a scrawled note saying it was a mistake, and he was fine and would be sent home. But mostly Winifred thought those things because she could, because James was still alive, still fighting the good fight, and alongside Captain America, no less.
At night they sat around the table after dinner, listening to the wireless and sipping coffee. They went to bed and slept a little easier, feeling like the world was a little safer. They woke up and John drank his coffee and went to work. The other children… well they weren't really children, were they. But it was so hard to think of the other three as growing up, especially with James gone overseas. She wanted to hold onto them, think of them as children playing in the streets and yards. Someday the war would be over; the first one ended, just after James was born. This one will have to end, too.
She made herself tea and spread plum jam on toast and gazed out into the street. It was a sunny day, though the apartment block made it hard to see the sky. She knew it would be blue, and maybe even cloudless. Spring was working its way toward summer. She may even be able to hang the wash outside today.
A knock on the door made her jump slightly in her chair, and Winifred swallowed. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and her palms suddenly sweaty to make up for it. "Hello, Ruth," she said to herself, rehearsing. "Hello, Ellen," she tried. She ran through her neighbors' names in her mind over and over in the span of moments it took for her to reach the front door.
"Hello… Henry," she said, forcing a smile when she found herself facing the postman. "Letters today?" she asked, even as her chest tightened and her heartbeat was too loud in her ears. Her face felt hard, like pottery. And hot, like pottery left in the sun. She kept smiling and feared her face would crack.
Henry just stood on the stoop. He held one letter. Winifred's gaze swept over it in his hand and it wasn't James's wild scrawling there. It was neat. Small. Efficient and precise. All the things James wasn't.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Barnes," Henry said, stretching out his hand, with that ghostly white envelope, toward her. His hand was shaking. She prayed for a breeze to blow. If a breeze blew the letter from his hand, if she never got the letter, James would still be alive. He would still come home someday and sit down to poached eggs and toast with plum jam. But there was no breeze and Henry still stood there, holding out his shaking hand. He would not look at her, and perhaps that was good, but it was also bad because it meant that this letter truly was what she thought it was, and he would know. Henry had been the bearer of bad news since the start of '42.
"Thank you, Henry," Winifred said after another moment. She let her breath out. A car drove by. Esther Klein's twin girls giggled on the sidewalk just down the way, shooting marbles. There were clouds in the sky after all. The world moved on.
Somehow she was back in the kitchen. Henry went down the street to the Kleins, and the twins shrieked and giggled when he made funny faces at them. The world moved on.
She had dishes to do. Laundry to wash and hang. Dishes first, then she could wash the rags and towels. The world moved on.
Somewhere in the middle of a chipped plate and John's coffee cup the water was cold and Winifred was staring out into the street but seeing nothing. She grabbed a towel and began drying the dishes. If she got them all dry the letter wouldn't be there on the table. If she didn't look at the table the letter would disappear.
Henry passed by her kitchen window on his way back down the street. He paused and looked at the house, and his eyes met Winifred's. Caught, he had the decency to blush, but he also nodded once and tipped his cap.
She swallowed the ball of barbed wire in her throat. Put the dishes away. Yes, that was what had to be done next. She turned to put a plate in the cupboard and her eyes swept over the crisp, white envelope with the neatly typed address on the checkered tablecloth.
The plate fell from her hands and broke on the tiled floor.
The world went on.
Author's Note: This is essentially the envelope that also contains the letter Steve wrote to the Barnes family after Bucky's death, mentioned at the end of "Define Stupid". I'd written this back at the end of the summer as a response/gift fic to WatcherOfWorlds on AO3; but it seemed appropriate to post it here now, as well.