As the McCawley family pulls up to the hotel on the harbor Rafe and Evelyn start to cry.
" What's wrong? The hotel isn't that bad!" joked there son
" Rafe, can you see it?"
" I can see it alright, and smell it and feel it." answered her husband
" What are you seeing and smelling and feeling?" asked the inquisitive Danny
" Everything" his parents said at the same instant in time
After unpacking and eating dinner at the small restaurant that the hotel owned, Rafe confronted his wife.
" Do you thing we did the right thing?"
" I hope and pray so," said a crying Evelyn " This is bringing it all back I mean the part that you weren't here for. We drove past the café that Danny had our first date of sorts. The beach were we used to spend our free days is 100 yards out the door. Then at sunset I felt like I was back in his plane. That's why I needed the coat. Danny smuggled me on to his plane with it. That was when…" by this time Evelyn was sharking and sobbing in Rafe's arms.
" Shhh… it's going to be fine. We're going to get through this together"
" I love you"
"I
love you too. Now let's go to bed. It's nearly one. Tomorrow you can show me
anything that you want to."
" OK, that sounds good."
That night both Evelyn and Rafe's dreams were filled with flashbacks to 1941. They both felt guilt, heartache, and joy. An hour before dawn Rafe gets Evelyn put to see the sun rise.
"Wake up, love I've got a breakfast picnic packed and ready to go.'
" Rafe McCawley, the hopeless romantic. Two things, first give me five minutes to get ready and second what about Danny?"
" I left him a note, come on get ready"
Rafe took Evelyn up on to a cliff overlooking the harbor. When Evelyn opened the basket she was shocked with the great surprise that it contained. Two origami cranes, just like the ones that Rafe had made all those years ago.
" The cranes! You remembered!"
" How could I have ever forgotten, Lieutenant?"
" I don't know, Captain," giggled Evelyn
As the couple watched the sun come up they talked like it was still 1941. It was like nothing ever happened and they were still 25.
" Don't worry about it, I promise never to leave you again"
" I have an idea Rafe!"
" What my I ask is this idea of yours?"
" Do you want to go in a ship? I mean like what we did in New York the night before you left."
" Tonight at eight we sail!"
"Oh, Rafe!"
When Danny woke up that morning on one was in the hotel room. Then he saw the note on the mirror.
" ' Danny- We have gone out for the day. Feel free to go around town, be back at six for dinner. –Mom and Dad' Huh. Oh well. It will be fun any way, so now where do I want to go? I guess I'll go down to the hospital were Mom worked and take a look around."
As Danny walks to the hospital he tries to envision the town as it was in '41. Before he knows it he has reached the front door to the hospital. When Danny goes in he can feel his heart drop. This is his past. When he gets in the door a receptionist gasps and covers her mouth. Being the professional that she is the receptionist puts her self back together.
" How may I direct you sir?" she asks
" Ummm…" Danny looks at her nameplate " Mrs. Smith, my name is Danny McCawley and my mother was a navy nurse stationed here in 1941. I was wondering if you would let me look around."
" Sure I'll get a nurse to show you around."
" May I ask your name?"
" It's Sandra, Sandra Smith."
" Also may I ask why you had that expression on your face when I waked in?"
" You just look like someone that I used to know"
" Is that someone Danny Walker?"
" Yes! How did you know?"
" I'm his and Evelyn Johnson's son. She married Rafe McCawley"
" Wow! Are they here with you?"
" Yes they are."
" Tell them to drop by soon!"
" I will tell them at dinner tonight."
" Here comes someone now to show you around"
As Danny took the tour of the hospital, he thought about both his fathers and his mother. He cam to the realization that his father Rafe must have loved his mother so hard for so long to marry her even though she was having his best friend's child. It would have all been so different if Danny had lived through the raid. During to tour he saw all the wards, the grounds, and the storage units. Meanwhile Evelyn took Rafe around the city.
"This is the movie theater that Danny and I met up after we though you'd died. And that café over there is where we had our first date of sorts. Oh! See that street post over there?"
"Yea, I see it."
" Well, that is where Red asked Betty to marry him."
" Hey, I hate to be unfeeling but would you mind it very much if I went over to the air field?"
" Go, I don't mind, really I don't. I just want to go and sit on the beach for a while" sighed Evelyn
" I see"
" No, no, no it's not that. I always went there for peace. I was where every day you we re in England to write you letter. Those sunsets I wrote about were sunsets seen from that beach."
"If you say so, but I'll see you tonight at dinner. I love you"
" I love you too"
As Rafe was driving to the base in the beat up rental jeep he made a mental list of all those who would still be there. Before he knew it he had pulled up to Hickem. For what he could remember nothing had really changed.
" Hello? This is Captain Rafe McCawley, US army. Is anyone here?"
"Come in, Captain"
The voice sounded somewhat familiar. However it was deeper and older than he had remembered.
"Goose, is that you?"
"The one and only. Boy you've changed!"
"Well, look who's talking."
"Good point. 18 years does do that to one. How have you been?
"Fine, I guess. Evelyn and Danny are fine. He found his father' things and wanted to come here so here we are. Where is everyone else? I mean us who were in the Doolittle raid.
"Mostly retired, I have a year left on that count. Earl did in '55 of cancer. Umm…. Doolittle is in Washington. That's all I know, I think."
"I saw Red 15 or so years ago. He stayed with us for a week and then left to go to Chicago. Never heard from him since then."
The men talked for the next hour until Rafe had to leave. At six that night the McCawley family were in their hotel room.
"So, Mom, what's a good place to eat around here?" asked an extremely hungry Danny
"There is this little café where me and the girls used to eat."
"Let's go then," decided Rafe
"Oh, that reminds me. When I went to the hospital today I got to talk with this one nurse at the reception desk. She said that she knew both of you. Her name was Sandra."
"Really! First thing tomorrow I'm going down there! What did she look like?" said an excited Evelyn
"She had dark curly hair, glasses, and really red lipstick."
"The lipstick. We all wore it. I marked to the wounded with it…" Evelyn broke off sobbing
"Mom I am so sorry."
"I say that we just stay for dinner tonight and get something at the café in the hotel's lobby."
"Sure" agreed Evelyn
Later that night Evelyn and her husband left to go on a ship. All she told Danny is that were going out to be 'single, in love and 25 again.' Of course, Danny just rolled his eyes and sighed.
Just as 19 years ago Rafe took his love on a cargo platform of an ocean liner.
"Do you remember what we talked about that night?" asked Evelyn
" Not really. I just remember how beautiful you looked in the moonlight and how the platform nearly dumped us into the water."
"You told me that the future wasn't in our hands. You were right. This isn't how we planed out our lives but I'm happy, are you?"
"Happier than I ever thought was possible."
"I have to tell you something."
"What?"
"I'm not sorry about our son. He's the beast thing that has ever happened to me. His father will always have a special place in my heart. I love you so much but I'm just saying that I was going to marry him. Everyday since we've buried him I've gone to his gave to talk to him. Some times it's small talk or about our son, or how we all are doing. Do you understand?"
"I don't think that I can ever totally understand. Let's just sit here and think about us and how it was when we were young."
"I love you, you know."
"Same to you."
When Rafe and Evelyn cam e back to the hotel Danny was asleep.
"He's looking more and more like his father," Observed Rafe
"He does and it breaks my heart."
"He also looks like his gorgeous mother."
"Rafe, maybe when we met…"
"No, you were beautiful then, you're gorgeous now."
Evelyn just smiled and left to kiss her son good night.