Chapter 10 — Eternity
…
Coming inside from the dark night made the light inside seem blinding. I blinked rapidly, adjusting only to find everyone in the room had turned towards the door, trying to see who'd just entered. Of course; just my luck that everyone else had made it on time.
I saw so many familiar faces I hadn't seen in so long, I froze. I didn't know what to say, what to do, whether any of them had found out about my German heritage, whether that would make them treat me any differently.
But my moment of indecision was broken when Alley sauntered up to me, a beer in his hand.
"Well, hey, sweetheart," he said, smiling his most charming smile. "Who are you, who are you here with, and do you have a sister?"
He was hitting on me.
Alley was fucking hitting on me.
And then I realized he didn't recognize me, that none of them recognized me, and that was why nobody had greeted me yet even though everyone was staring at me strangely, like they knew there was something familiar about me but couldn't quite figure out what.
Shit, I'd known I looked different, but that different? Jesus.
"Well, shit, Alley," I drawled, a little amused by the absurdity of the whole situation. "Did the cold in Bastogne affect your memory or something? You don't recognize me?" He blinked at me in confusion as I was speaking and then he started grinning and squinting at me just to make sure he actually recognized me and I was who he thought I was and his ears weren't deceiving him. "I've seen you shit yourself in the snow, man, I thought we'd bonded!"
My last words were cut off and muffled by his shoulder when he wrapped me up in a bear hug, thoroughly mussing my hair, now long enough to brush my shoulders even when it was curled, and almost smearing my makeup.
"Holy shit," he said over my head, somewhat into my hair. "It's Dani! Guys! Dani's here!"
Apparently, Bill hadn't told anyone except George that I was coming. It was his personal prank on everyone, although how it was a prank, I wasn't sure.
When Alley let me go, I was overwhelmed with everyone crowding around and flooding me with hugs and declarations that they'd missed me. Each new face was like a new revelation, a new celebration. There was Tipper, all healed up; there was Lipton, looking remarkably relaxed; there was Roe, happy and smiling, with a pretty girl by his side; there was Spina, sassing me even when he hugged me. And there was Malarkey, stepping forward to greet me too, and he looked much better than the last time I'd seen him, much happier, and he had a pretty brunette with him. And there was George.
He was in the doorway, watching me greet everyone from where he'd been talking to Popeye. Our eyes caught and held and I was frozen for precious seconds. His face was inscrutable and for a moment I felt a twist in my gut, but then I remembered the words he'd written – I promised to wait for you in Germany. I'm waiting still. –and I found myself smiling, grinning at him because finally, finally, we were there.
The only thing I saw before I was pulled away into another hug was his startled expression, his half-hopeful, half-hungry look. But when I looked back to the doorway, he was gone and Popeye was coming to say hi.
I was bewildered for a moment, but tried to focus on greeting Popeye instead of wondering about it, thinking there would be time to sort everything out, and then I saw Bill approaching and grinning at me and I met him halfway, hugging him tightly. He was standing on two feet, even if he was moving a little stiffly, and I guessed he'd gotten an artificial leg. I quickly discovered how much he hated that thing. We chatted — if that's a good word for it, since "chatting" with Bill Guarnere is never just chatting — for a few moments before I thought to ask him where everyone else was.
"Where is everybody?" I asked, and then remembered the person I was looking forward to seeing the most other than George. "Where's Perco?"
"Ah, why would you ever want to see him?" He joked. But he cracked another grin and took my arm and started leading me towards the doorway of the living room that led to the rest of the house. "I think Frank's in the kitchen; he's probably messing with the food or something. Luz is somewhere nearby there too. And everyone else is out back. Come out when you're ready." And he dropped me a wink and left before I could ask him why the hell he'd winked.
Bill knew something I didn't, but that's another story for another time.
Frank was indeed in the kitchen, messing with the food. He was taking a peek at the casseroles in the refrigerator, bent over and completely unsuspecting. For a second, I thought about pranking him, but I figured that might be a shitty reunion after two whole fucking years.
"Hey, Frank," I said, forcing my voice to be casual, but my grin betrayed me.
He straightened with a start, still banging his head on the top of the fridge in his start.
"Goddamn it, Dani!" He said, wincing and putting a hand to the back of his head. "Haven't you learned yet not to surprise a man when he has to take a piss?" What needing to take a piss had to do with anything, I didn't get a chance to ask him before he was reaching out to me for a hug and I was meeting him halfway, just as I'd done with Bill.
If I'd had any doubt that Frank sincerely liked me as a person, despite how much I'd teased him and pranked him and annoyed him during our time in the ranks, I couldn't have any such thoughts anymore after the tight, tight hug he gave me that night.
"Come on, come on, let's get you a drink," he said, and opened a beer for me and was holding it out to me, but then his eyes wandered to over my shoulder.
I turned to see what he was looking at as I was taking the bottle, the glass cold against my hand, and I realized George was standing there, sipping on a beer. And this time he smiled at me; not one of his trademark Luz smiles, with the full dimples and impish mischief, but a smaller, tighter smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
He was afraid of what I'd say, I thought. Afraid of my reaction. Dreading it.
I'd never seen him nervous to speak to me. And again, I froze for a moment, but then he raised the drink he had in his hand in a joke toast and flashed me a smile that was more like himself, more like the George I knew.
"Well, hey, Dani," he said, like we hadn't just made eye contact across a room, like he hadn't written me his best attempt at a love letter, like it hadn't been two years since we'd seen each other, but two days instead. "Long time no see."
And I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous this situation was.
"No shit," I said, and finally there was his dimple and he was grinning at me and we reached for each other at the same time and then I was in his arms again and he was hugging me so fucking tightly I could barely breathe. I could hear the conspicuously loud beating of my heart thudding and rushing and pounding in my ears.
Frank, behind me, muttered something about "Jesus Christ, I thought you guys would be married by now, but no, someone had to be an idiot," and then the reality of it crashed around us again and we pulled apart and George and I were staring at each other again, our smiles dying.
His eyes were soft, like I'd hoped they be, watching me carefully. And for a moment, I flashed back to a dimly lit room with a John Wayne movie playing on a projector, talking to George in mumbles about how a guy never looked at a girl like that.
"Can I talk to you?" He asked, voice low, almost a whisper. His breath brushed my face, carrying with it the scent of beer and a recent smoke.
I nodded and let him lead me out of the room and down the hallway. There were only a few guys in the living room now; most of them had ventured outside to the back yard. He was looking for somewhere private and quiet though, and so he led me into the bathroom – of all places – and he flicked on the lights and closed the door behind us and faced me.
"Dani, I–" he started to say, and paused, trying to find the words, but I stopped him.
"George," I said, and it seemed like I couldn't stop smiling, because for the first time it seemed real; that he was sorry, that he had been looking for me, that he still loved me. This hesitant man in front of me was not one I knew, but I thought that might change soon enough. "George."
And I couldn't say anything else, couldn't think of the words, couldn't think of anything at all but him and how he was there in front of me, and so I closed the distance between us and found his lips with mine.
My hands were pressed between us, pressed against his stomach, and I felt him shudder at my touch before his arms came around me and pulled me into him. He was more careful then than he had been those years ago. His kiss felt more like a question than an answer to my own and I let my lips press against his softly, once, twice, three times, his mouth gentle against mine, and I grazed his bottom lip with my teeth as I pulled away.
And suddenly, there were the words.
"George," I said, smoothing my hand up his chest and into the hair at the nape of his neck, looking into his eyes so he knew it was true, smiling so he'd remember who we were, who we used to be. "I forgive you."
He hugged me then, even more tightly than he had before, and buried his head in my shoulder, in the curve of my neck.
"Jesus Christ, Dani," he said, and then he was mumbling how fucking sorry he was, how fucking sorry, and his lips were moving against my skin, and all I could really do was cling to him, make sure he was real and solid and there.
"It's my fault too," I told him. "I said things I didn't mean too. And I didn't tell you the full truth. I should've told you the whole fucking truth, right when you started asking about Geoff, or even when we were in basic."
"Yeah," he said, pulling back to look at me, and again he was uncharacteristically serious, his eyes dark. "Maybe. But you didn't accuse me of being a kraut spy."
"Maybe," I said, echoing him. "But I still said things that were unforgivable."
He smiled then, reaching up to touch my cheek gently, although it seemed to have no purpose behind it.
"I'm not sure you know the definition of unforgivable. I forgave you for that when I woke up and you were gone." It was somewhat comforting, knowing he could still find some humor at my expense, and at the expense of our situation, but then his mouth twisted again, and his smile was gone once more. "But–"
I stopped him where he was, knowing where he was going.
"It's been two fucking years, George," I said. "And I forgave you for that shit show a year and eleven months ago. It's in the past, if you want it to be. We can forget all about it." He paused, seeming like he was about to argue with me about how I shouldn't forgive him so easily, but I cut him off again. "I'm in love with you, George Luz. If you cheating at Grab Fanny can't ruin that, nothing really can, right?" And at that proclamation, he finally smiled properly, beaming down at me, his dimple showing and deepening.
It felt like the sun had come out.
"You're in love with me, huh?" He was the happiest I thought I'd ever seen him, and then suddenly he was back to being himself. "Well, I guess I can't really blame you – I am irresistible, after all." And then it seemed like my duty to smack him on the arm and properly inform him he was being an asshole, but he just laughed at me, just like he'd used to. But then, once again, his smile faded and he was serious again, even though I could tell by the crinkle at the corner of his eyes that he was happy again, that he was finally starting to realize the same thing I was.
It was real.
"I've been looking for you this entire time, you know," he said, his voice a little husky, winding his arms around my waist and drawing me closer. "I just couldn't seem to find any sassy women named Dani Shoemaker. I did date one really irritating Danielle though. I thought maybe you were wearing a disguise, but no luck. What the hell is your name again, anyway? It seems I've forgotten it."
And then I started laughing at him and he was laughing with me again, his eyes twinkling down at me and I was just so fucking happy that we were okay again and I was back in his arms and my fingers found the nape of his neck and I pulled him down to me. Our lips met and for a second we both stopped moving. We both knew that this was important, that we were on the brink of something, tipping over slowly, about to fall. And then I deliberately pressed my lips to his and his breath came out in a long slow breath as his arms wrapped around me to pull me against him again.
The only way I know how to describe it is like it was a sigh of relief — like coming home.
And then he kissed me; it felt like he was breathing me in, exploring me, memorizing the feel and taste of me. Just in case maybe this was a dream.
And then the door burst open and we turned startled, half-dazed gazes to Frank Perconte, who was doing an odd dance in place, jumping up and down but his feet weren't leaving the floor.
"Jesus Christ, this is where you guys went? The bathroom?"
"Goddamn it, Frank, you still need to work on your timing," I told him, laughing despite myself, but then George was telling me to ignore Frank, to fucking ignore him, he didn't fucking matter, let him fucking watch, just fuck it all, and then he was turning my chin to meet his gaze again and leaning down to claim my lips again and I was lost.
Frank, somewhere in the background, complained, "I have to take a piss, guys – couldn't you go into a room that doesn't have a toilet or something?"
…
And then suddenly the world was back to the way it was supposed to be.
George was back to cracking jokes and being the life of the party and I was back to being the sarcastic wiseass, and we kept getting dragged away from each other to come talk to different groups of people, but we would always find each other again. George would bring me a beer or I would come up and hug him from behind. At one point, Smokey Gordon asked us why the fuck we weren't married yet and we just kind of laughed at him without answering; there was still a little bit of lingering awkwardness on the subject, but I had a feeling it would wear away with time.
Bill found me again at some point directly after this.
"I'm guessing by how happy Luz looks that you guys worked everything out, huh?" He smiled rather smugly, evidently pleased with himself.
I couldn't find the willpower to be upset with him in any way for his well-intentioned and very mild meddling. Instead, I thanked him and hugged him, which he didn't seem to be expecting, since he got characteristically gruff as I pulled away.
"Nah, don't thank me," he said. "What did I even do?"
But we both knew what he'd done, so I didn't bother answering that question.
The reunion was supposed to last for the entire weekend. We were up until early that morning catching up with everybody else, trading stories, reminiscing about the good and not-so-good old days alike. When the first couple of guys finally started saying goodnight and trickling out, going off to their hotel rooms for the night, George found me and asked me if I'd made plans for where I was staying for the night.
I hadn't. I'd even forgotten to ask Bill for recommendations on local hotels.
"Spend the night with me?" He asked.
"Um, George, I'm not that kind of girl," I said, trying to play faux-coy, but my smile gave me away. "You at least need to take me out to dinner first. I'm a real lady."
"Oh, excuse me," he replied. "My mistake. I think I've got a snack in my car that you can eat on the way there."
"Wow, so sophisticated," I deadpanned. "You sure know how to show a woman a good time." But once again, I was given away by the way my hand sought out his, by the way I let my fingers intertwine with his and then stay there.
He'd driven from Rhode Island to Philadelphia for the reunion and his car was parked outside in a long line of other cars. We were among the first to leave for the night, although a few had left before us. He opened the car door for me and I made some remark about "Look at you, being all gentlemanly," as I slid into the car and then he closed the car door for me with an exaggerated extravagant flourish.
The car ride was comfortably silent. It was nice to have him there again, so nice that we didn't even have to talk. He would look over at me every so often and just smile at me and then turn his attention back to driving.
I don't think I'd ever seen him so happy before.
When we got to the hotel, he took my bag from me and carried it inside for me. I stood next to him while he checked into his room and then we went up the stairs to the second level where his room was. I caught him looking at me a few times, sneaking glances as though to make sure I was there, just as he'd been the entire night whenever we'd gotten separated by our friends.
"You look like you could use a shower," he said; I just nodded, flopping onto the bed wearily. "I'd ask if you'd like me to join you," he added, wiggling his eyebrows, "but it's a bit tight quarters in there."
"Just how I like it," I replied, but he just smiled and gave me a hand up.
I showered first and then he showered. When he came out, I was lying on the bed — there was only one queen-sized bed because he'd only needed one when he'd made the reservation — and he was smiling at me again and his hair was wet and he said something about how I looked "real good" draped on a bed waiting for him.
He crawled into the bed next to me, moving close to me, but not close enough to hold me.
"Hey," he said, smiling. The bedside lamp behind him gave him a glow, a backdrop of angelic light. "Tell me everything that's happened since I saw you last."
"Well," I said, "I think you saw me right before you got in the shower, so not much has really happened. I brushed my hair and washed my face, but other than that, it's been a pretty uneventful fifteen minutes."
He smiled, but didn't say anything in reply. After a pause, I started telling him. About Christina and Teddy and Joe, about how happy I'd been to see him, but backtracking, also about how I'd been lost when I hadn't known what name to sign, how I didn't know how to be a civilian again when I'd found myself in the army, found myself pushing through the shit to prove Sobel wrong, found myself by his side playing pranks, found myself praying in foxholes in foreign countries.
I'd known I was strong after everything I'd seen during the war; I just didn't know if that same person existed outside of the war too.
"She does," he said, and his eyes were on me, intent and focused. "You're the same person you've always been. You just don't need to go by a different name now."
I paused to absorb what he was saying, but also wondering how to tell him that I didn't know which name he was talking about, Delvina or Dani, and then he spoke again.
"What's your last name?"
I was a bit confused by the question. It felt like something he should've known.
"Warren," I said.
"You never told me," was all he said as explanation, and then I realized he was right. I'd told him my first name in that shitty bar in basic, but never my last name.
"Delvina Warren," he said, and then he reached for me. And it didn't matter that he hadn't told me his side yet, that I didn't know what had happened to him after the war yet; I knew those things would come with more time, that we had plenty of time now to tell those stories and to hear them, that he had chosen to hear mine tonight but to tell his another time.
He kissed me, once, twice, and then paused to look at me and smooth some hair behind my ear, impossibly gentle.
"I missed your dimples," I said. "How they appear right when your smile starts." I reached out and touched his cheek where I knew it would form; he smiled under my finger and sure enough, there it was. "And the callouses on your hands." And I reached for his hands, smoothing my fingers over his knuckles, over the back of his hand, over his fingertips. "And the way you smell right after a shower. And your warmth and your voice." And then I leaned forward to capture his lips with mine, to feel him relax and forget himself, to bite his bottom lip ever so gently, to feel his reluctance to let me pull away to say one last thing. "And your mouth," I whispered against him.
He smiled, his grin stretching wide and brilliant.
"You know," he said. "You're a lot nicer after I don't talk to you for two years. Maybe I should try it more often–" And then he was laughing at me because I'd automatically smacked him on his arm almost as a reflex and he always seemed to think it was so damn funny when I smacked him. "Why are you so abusive to me?" He asked me, mock-pouting. "But seriously though," he said after he'd finished having his laugh. "Let's never do that whole not talking for two years thing again, yeah?"
"I guess I can agree to that," I said, and then randomly remembered the one question I'd had after reading his letter. "Hey, George?"
"Hey, Dani?" He replied, mocking me a little, but his corresponding smile was worth it.
"When you wrote me that letter, why'd you say 'Come back to me, Delvina'? Why not just Dani?"
He'd never called me that name before. I was a little surprised he'd even spelled it right.
He was quiet for a long moment, serious again, like he seemed to be every time we spoke about the time when we hadn't been talking, when we couldn't find each other.
"When I knew you, you were just Dani," he said, pausing again before finding his words slowly, slowly. "But I felt like saying 'Come back, Dani,' wouldn't have – it didn't quite mean what I wanted it to."
When he didn't say anything more, I pressed, "And what did you want it to mean?"
"I wanted you to know that I knew I didn't know all of you and I still wanted you." He wasn't meeting my eyes. He shrugged as best as he could lying in bed, eyes focused somewhere near the sheets covering my abdomen. "I didn't even know your last name, for Christ's sake. Perco told me a bit about your gramps and your cousin, but I'm guessing there's plenty you didn't tell him. I just wanted to say that the unknown didn't matter."
He lapsed into silence. And I, in my typical fashion, didn't know what to say, so I laid there quietly with him, trying to figure out what to say so that he would know I understood in some way.
"I was afraid it would be different between us," I finally confessed. "The entire time I was trying to get in touch with you all that time, I was fucking terrified. Of how it might be awkward because it'd been so long since we'd seen each other – that things would've changed, you know? I didn't want to still be in love with you and you already be moved on and have some pretty girl on your arm. I thought maybe… maybe you'd stopped loving me."
It was enough.
"Me, have a pretty girl on my arm?" He asked, his smile spreading slowly across his lips, lighting up his eyes just like back when we'd been in basic. "Well, my date canceled for this weekend and then I tried to pay a hooker who actually might've been kind of cute if she'd had a bath—"
"You're such an asshole," I told him, but I was grinning just because it really was just like George to make a joke about paying a prostitute to be his date in the middle of a serious conversation.
"But seriously though," he said, but he was still smiling, so he couldn't have been that serious, no matter what he said. "I had one booked and everything. She even told me I didn't need to pay her, since, you know, I'm so irresistible–"
"Shut up, George," I said, laughing despite myself.
"Okay, okay, shutting up," he said, still grinning, even though he and I both knew him shutting up was, as always, highly unlikely.
For once, though, he didn't say anything else. He just reached over and smoothed my hair away from my face, his fingers weaving through the strands slowly, the palm of his hand brushing my cheek. And then he pulled me to him and he kissed me slowly, closing his eyes and tasting me, moving his lips against mine in a deliberately languid way, and I was finally able to kiss him fully and lose myself in him the way I'd wanted to.
He took his time memorizing me, biting my lip gently, lipping my earlobe, scattering kisses on my skin as he slowly exposed more and more of it, savoring me just as I luxuriated in him, cherishing the feeling and movement of each other, the contact of skin on skin, our two bodies finally, finally joining and becoming one again.
"I never stopped loving you," he whispered afterwards, when we were spent and quiet and simply laying there in the company of each other and I was just about to drift off to sleep but his voice brought me back from the brink. "I've never stopped loving you," he repeated, and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
We fell asleep still impossibly entwined, holding each other in the light of the dawning sun.
I was the first to wake up the next day, the sun of early afternoon slanting across the bed — we'd gone to sleep around four o'clock in the morning — and I didn't move because I had absolutely no reason to. He was there and I was there and I was impossibly happy right where I was, wrapped up in his arms while he slept.
…
He proposed at the end of the reunion, when we were all gathered together for the last time that weekend. He said he had to make an announcement and then he got down on one knee — to the hooting and hollering of everyone around — and asked me to hurry up and say I would marry him so he could get the fuck off the floor.
Sweet and romantic as ever.
But he was watching me like he was worried about what my answer would be, like he wasn't entirely sure. I have no idea how he could've thought I would reject him. I'd learned my lesson about trying to live without George Luz.
"Well, as far as I'm concerned, you can stay down there for a couple of hours," I told him, but I was smiling and almost crying and fuck it. "Yes, you dumbass, I'll marry you," I said, and then the guys were all wolf-whistling and telling us it was about damn time.
And — to be honest — it kind of was.
I was finally engaged to George Luz. And even though thinking about spending the entirety of my life from that point on with someone else would be a terrifying thought no matter the context or the person I'd chosen to undertake such an enormous journey with, it was also exhilarating because it was George and it was me and we were together again and we were getting fucking married.
It was excruciatingly difficult to board the train back to San Francisco. George drove me to the station and then waited with me. We were quiet. I knew I was going to see him again — obviously — but we were still holding hands perhaps a little too tightly, clutching to each other almost desperately. Sometimes his thumb would stroke the back of my hand and I'd look over at him and he'd smile at me, a small, tight attempt at reassurance that everything was going to be okay, that the time apart would pass quickly.
It was somehow even harder to leave him that time, probably because I knew how much it hurt to be without him and I also knew how happy I was with him there with me.
I don't know. It was just hard. I almost missed my train because we took a little too long saying goodbye. It was like we were making up for not saying goodbye the first time by making sure to do things properly the second time.
I don't remember what he said to me in that train station when the call to board came, but I remember how it felt to have him so close, holding me, burying his face in my neck and breathing me in one last time, mumbling words against my cheek and then against my lips, keeping me in the circle of his arms until the last possible second.
I boarded the train right before one of the stewards closed the door on me, settling in my seat and looking back at George as the train started moving, his mouth still pink from the last of our kisses. I stayed pressed to the window until he'd passed out of sight and then I sat back and tried to breathe.
…
He called me at least once a week. We would've done it every night if we could've, but calling each other cost money and it was already expensive doing it as often as we did. We wrote each other letters constantly too, to tide us over until the phone calls every week, but it still wasn't quite the same. I looked forward to those phone calls desperately. I could've been having the shittiest day, but hearing his voice on the other end of the line was always enough to make everything okay.
During one of those phone calls, he told me that there was more to the story that I didn't know, that he hadn't magically decided to ignore the evidence of me being a kraut spy just because he was madly in love with me, that he thought I should know everything about what had happened.
"Go on then," I said. "This sounds like a fascinating story."
He told me that we technically owed it all to Perc, that he was the one who'd straightened George out after I'd left, that Perc had told him I was gone and George had said something along the lines of "Good riddance," and Perc had demanded to know what the fuck had happened between us that would make George such an asshole.
"That's exactly what he said," George insisted when I started laughing at him. "I swear. Perc got a little sassy on me."
"He's so very eloquent when he wants to be, isn't he," I said, grinning. I could see it all happening in my head: George still half-drunk and Perc short as he was, glaring up at George and waving a finger at him.
George told me that he'd told Perc that I was a kraut spy and laid out all of the evidence for him and then Perc had basically torn him a new one, chewed him out for being such a fucking nincompoop. (George insisted that's the exact term Perc used.) And that's when Perc had told him — about my family, about my grandfather and how I'd had to stay with him, about my cousin dying in Holland.
Perky Perc to the rescue of mine and George's relationship.
"Jesus Christ, Dani, when he told me all of that — I felt like the biggest fucking dumbass in the whole world." He sighed, his breath blowing staticky over the line. "I'm so fucking sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am."
I murmured something about how it was okay, how we'd established that it was okay, that he didn't have to worry about it anymore, that it was in the past, and then I waited for him to continue, because I knew he wasn't done yet.
"And I didn't want to believe him," he said quietly. "I started waving the letter around and asking why the hell she — you — would carry around a letter written in German and then Perc said it was from your cousin and I still didn't want to believe him and then Liebgott grabbed it and said he would put an end to the whole fucking idiocy and then he read it out loud and—" George broke off and took a deep breath. "I was such an idiot, Dan. Such a fucking idiot."
"We both were, George," I said. "We always have been and we probably always will be."
We didn't want to wait long to get married so we picked a date pretty quickly and we set on a Saturday afternoon in two months' time. We ended up deciding to get married in San Francisco and then get all of my stuff moved to Rhode Island, where he was. I didn't have anything important in California except Joe and Christina and obviously they understood me leaving. George had his whole family in Rhode Island. There was no way I was asking him to leave his family.
We invited practically the entire company, but other than that it was pretty small. It didn't make sense for the wedding to be a big deal like the weddings you'd see in the newspapers. It seemed unnecessarily stressful. I already knew I was going to be happy to marry George, no matter what kind of flowers decorated the church or what we had to eat at the reception or where we had the reception, for that matter.
I would've worn my mother's wedding dress if I'd had it but, since I didn't, I enlisted Joe to go dress shopping with me instead. He wasn't exactly happy about it, but it wasn't like it took me an entire week like he seemed to think I did. I wasn't too picky about the dress. As long as I could walk and I felt pretty in it, I was okay. I ended up getting one that was white and long with a boated scoop neck and some lacing on the bodice.
I tried on three other ones before I found that one and each one I tried on, I trotted out in front of Joe, who was sitting outside the dressing rooms with the most hilarious expression of pure boredom on his face.
"Enjoying yourself?" I asked him at one point, and his only response was to flick me off and tell me to go try on another ugly dress.
He'd been in a bad mood ever since Lucy — the blonde — had disappeared or left or whatever had happened. Sometimes it was worse, sometimes it was okay. Sometimes I could cheer him up for a couple of days, but then we would go maybe three or four days without seeing each other and then he would have that look in his eyes like he'd realized he didn't like being alone, didn't like being without her in particular.
I knew what that looked like simply because I'd felt it myself and I'd seen it reflecting back at me in the mirror almost every day for two years.
But I couldn't fix Joe's life for him, so I just left him to himself most of the time and didn't try to talk about it unless he brought it up, which was rare and often inopportune. He'd always had fucking marvelous timing.
We were walking back to where he'd parked the cab after I'd picked a dress and I asked him if he wanted to be my maid of honor.
He didn't take kindly to that.
"The fuck?" He said indignantly. "Do I look like a woman to you?"
It was probably accidental, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way he'd happened to gesture at his chest — or lack thereof — when he'd said that.
"But seriously, Joe," I said, ignoring his protests and pressing on. "You're coming to the wedding, right?"
He mumbled something about how he'd "come and even fucking walk me down the aisle if he fucking had to as long as I didn't put him in a fucking pink dress or some shit."
His words, not mine.
I was counting down the days, I was so excited. George was coming down a week before the wedding — our version of a honeymoon — and "helping me pack my things." I'm not sure how much packing we actually did, since it seemed like most of our time was spent that week doing… various other things. Mostly in bed.
We were just so blissfully happy to be back together.
The day of the wedding dawned. It was overcast at first but it cleared up around noon. I woke up around seven to George bringing me breakfast in bed and setting the tray of food down on the nightstand next to the bed very carefully and then jumping mostly over me and flopping onto the bed, half of his body landing on me despite his apparent acrobatic abilities.
"Morning, beautiful," he said, somehow managing to pull me into his arms and rolling on top of me despite the initial awkwardness of his landing. "Guess who's getting married today." He grinned down at me, his dimple creasing and deepening, and then gave me a rather sloppy kiss that was still quite enjoyable despite his slightly terrible morning breath.
We'd decided to get married in a chapel down the street from my apartment. He went ahead to the church without me and I stayed at the apartment to get ready before Joe was supposed to pick me up and "escort me" there as well. Christina helped me get ready and then walked me over; she hugged me before we went into the church. Joe was twitching impatiently the whole time.
I walked down the aisle by myself. My palms were sweating and I was practically throttling my bouquet of roses and I hadn't been expecting to be so nervous about it. It was just George and it was just me and it was just George and me. But I was staring down the aisle and George was staring at me and he was smiling at me like I was his whole world and there was his dimple almost winking at me and it suddenly hit me that I had literally nothing to worry about, no reason to be nervous.
My face felt like it split from the width of my smile and my cheeks heated and George's smile only got bigger.
He told me later that when I was making that long walk down the aisle towards him — which actually wasn't really that long but it felt like it took forever — all he could think was that I was his and I was the most glorious thing he'd ever laid eyes on.
Of course, you should probably take that with a grain of salt, since he said that while we were in bed and everything he said in bed should be taken with a grain of salt.
Either way, the wedding itself passed by for me in a blaze of soft brown eyes and long words forced out of the droning reverend's mouth and I was shaking the entire time, but it wasn't from nerves anymore. And then the rings were on, the vows said, and our lips met, softly at first, demurely — like we were supposed to — but then his arms crept around me and, in front of the entire Easy Company group assembled in the pews in front of us, he deepened the kiss and dipped my back into a bend.
…
And this is how far I've gotten; that's all I can tell you for now. The past few years, the years of my married life, have been the happiest I've ever known. And even though sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, convinced that the war is still raging on, he's there to comfort me when I need him to. And on the nights when he wakes up gasping for air, I'm there to comfort him as he needs me to.
Sometimes I still wake up next to him and I look over at him and I can't help but smile because he's there and I'm there and we're happy together, just like we're supposed to be. Sometimes I forget how fortunate I am to have had this chance at happiness and sometimes we fight — like all married couples do — but oftentimes one of us cuts off in the middle of a sentence and walks away, because we know how bad it can be when we don't control our anger, what hurtful things can be said if we aren't careful.
The fights are few and far between and we always make up after a couple of hours of thinking and letting off steam.
I love him more now than I ever have.
We have a son. His name is Steve. George made the joke that since my name is so shitty, we should have children who actually have normal names. He keeps making wisecracks about how we should just name the next one after him, which I might actually do, just to shut him up. And — believe it or not — all our friends call me Del, the same exact nickname that George had made fun of all those years ago in that little shitty bar.
I never thought I'd actually like children, but Steve seems to be the exception. He has his father's big brown eyes and he's rather sassy and he likes to get scrapes on his knees. He thinks they're some kind of war wound. He's proud whenever he gets one. He comes running up to me, calling "Mama, Mama!" And then he'll show me his latest bleeding scrape and then I'll coo over it and kiss him and bandage him up.
He's the best thing I've ever had in my entire life and the thought that I was the one who brought this little darling boy into the world—
It's just unbelievable to me.
George picks me up from work every evening when he gets off and we go home and have dinner together with our son and we're a normal, happy family. It's more than I could've ever hoped or asked for, more than I'd dreamed when I was in the army.
And this isn't where my story ends. I have many more adventures ahead of me — more children, grandchildren, and every day that comes with such challenges. I have many years left to my life, and when my time has petered out and I pass on to be with the comrades who have gone before me, my legacy will be passed on through my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.
My name is Delvina Luz. This is my eternity.