CHAPTER TWO
Fort McClellan - July 1940
Several officers of the 10th regiment congregated around the bus depot. They were heading to different destinations all over the United States.
First Lieutenant Charles Miller looked around him at the throng of soldiers, anticipation gripping him. After intensive training the last six months, seven days a week, they longed for a break. Everyone was looking forward to vacation time, when they could go home to family, rekindle old friendships, make new ones, go to the movies, dance all night to the tunes of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and sleep with their girlfriends.
He was in a hurry to get home, to see his mother, brother and sister. Most of all, he wanted to see Lucy. They'd corresponded throughout his years at the Academy and he had always looked forward to her letters. Lately though, they had become sparse, just titbits of home, the weather, who was in hospital, who was not. Still, he was anxious to be reunited with her. He was itching to get out of uniform knowing that when they returned from vacation, all contact with the outside world would become almost non-existent as most of their operations would be covert.
Charles sported the insignia of his rank, a single silver bar pinned to his cap, with a rhombus-shaped red diamond on his sleeve. He'd been inducted into the regiment of the Fifth Infantry, a division of which he was extra-ordinarily proud because of its long and illustrious history. Sighing happily, he moved to board the shuttle.
"Where are you heading, Lieutenant?" 2nd Lt. Matthew Crowe asked as Charlie hauled his duffel over his shoulder and glared at Matthew.
"As if you didn't know. Home, Crowe, to where the heart is."
"Let me guess - your heart's name is Lucy." Matthew ribbed him playfully, his piercing blue eyes filled with mirth.
"Got that right. See you in a month at Fort McCoy!" Charlie shouted as he got on the bus.
He cast one last glance at his comrades who'd trained with him the past six months. Crowe still looked fresh-faced, a graduate of West Point, like himself. Although two years younger, they had finished in the same year. Crowe looked ready to play war games, "just as soon as the United States decides to throw in their lot with Britain" he'd said after Britain declared war on Germany last year.
Charles moved to the back of the shuttle. Although it would be only twenty minutes to the airport, he wanted to relax undisturbed and mull over the last few years while he'd been away from home.
When he was comfortable in the back row, he closed his eyes, allowing the echoes of their demanding training regime, lack of sleep and extreme physical endurance to seep from his body. He needed to unwind. He needed to think about his future, about war. While America was not yet engaged, he sensed they would be soon, if he believed his brother's last communication with him.
"I don't trust the Japanese, Charlie. I think they're planning a strike against the United States."
"You sound certain, Edward."
"I can tell you they want to protect their territories in East Asia and the Pacific. Something will happen, make no mistake about that."
Charlie had wanted to laugh off his brother's concerns, but the way the United States was training thousands of young officers and had enlisted hundreds of thousands of recruits, he knew they meant to be ready for anything. Besides, Japan had signed treaties with Italy and Germany and fighting had already begun in the European theatre.
Charlie smiled to himself. His four years at West Point had been everything he'd wished for and more. He had graduated after gruelling training, with a . degree cum laude, adding that to his University of Washington's arts degree. He felt badly for his brother. Edward couldn't enlist in the army because he had been crippled by polio in childhood. He had earned a masters degree in international affairs, and had a very sharp mind and intellect.
Edward desired what Charlie had achieved - military academy, rowing glory, full able body. Charles loved Edward and he was sure his brother loved him. But occasionally he could see the regret lurking in Edward's eyes, the mild flash of resentment, the fleeting anger as he looked at his legs in callipers.
When Charlie had returned from the Olympics in Berlin, the entire city had come out to welcome him. He had been feted for a day. His gold medal graced the bookshelf of his room in Detroit. Not long after his return home, he had to leave for West Point, embracing the best four years of his life thus far. He breathed war, read extensively the works about great generals of history, had taken Latin classes at Washington and West Point to acquaint himself with Caesar's Wars, Hannibal, translated texts of the exploits of Napoleon and Alexander the Great.
Charlie patted his top jacket pocket, felt the outline of the small book he always carried.
"Caesar's Gallic Wars. A useful learning tool," Edward had called it. "You learn anything from it?"
Charlie could have sworn there was an acid tone to his brother's voice, but he'd dismissed it. He wanted to cut Edward slack, as long as he contained his sarcasm. Then it was all Charlie could do not to get mad at his brother.
He rocked to attention when he realised they'd reached the airport. He'd be home in three hours if it was a smooth, incident free flight.
The flight attendant smiled at him. He recognised the look and nodded curtly. The few times the boys had been on the town in uniform, they'd been constantly ogled - women smiling sweetly, hoping to be noticed, hoping to be bedded. Men in uniform... What was it with women these days?
On an impulse, he reached for his duffel and retrieved a small batch of letters. Some were from his mother, others from Edward and Winonah, his sister.
He flicked through them and found Lucy's latest letter to him. He opened it and made sure the passenger next to him couldn't see what he was reading.
"Dear Charlie,
How are you? I heard you received a commendation at West Point for saving a fellow cadet from drowning. That is so you, you know, always ready to jump to the rescue of the helpless.
Charlie thought how stupid Emlyn Steinbeck had been that day. Fool cadet got into West Point on the strength of his three star general father, a hero of WWI. The son was not fighter material. He shrugged. All sorts were represented at West Point, even overseas students and sons-of-generals who would themselves rise to the top based on nothing but someone else's reputation.
I am doing fine. Had my eyes tested in June, now I have to wear spectacles all the time. Good thing, that. I was seeing double every time I looked at you and Edward. You are so much alike in physical appearance. I know you know that Edward has taken a new posting as History professor at the University of Michigan. Just thought I had to say it too! He's only twenty eight years old, one of the youngest! Aren't we all proud of him?
Again, as in the first time Charlie read Lucy's letter, he sensed a certain pride for his brother and a flutter of disquiet. Why should Lucy not feel that way too? Everyone at home was proud of Edward's achievements. He remembered how he and Edward had loved reading from a very early age, encouraged by their father who told them, "I want my children to be educated, not stupid. That's that!"
He thought of Lucy, of the corn coloured hair that glinted when caught in the sun's rays, of the tender smile, of beautiful blue eyes. He had loved her since he first saw her when still in high school. She was two years younger, but she stood out. He'd fallen for Lucy hook, line and sinker. When he brought her home to meet his family, they'd all loved her immediately. She was kind, generous, sparky and she loved him back. After that Lucy had visited their home often, as much as he visited her home.
During his years at West Point she'd written frequently. Her letters were buoyant, full of promise, full of the flush of youthful love. He had not slept with her, though he knew that would change soon. As soon as she said "Yes, I'll marry you, Charlie Miller." He had respected her person, felt that that kind of intimacy to be part of that respect.
I miss you. I hope to see you soon before I forget what you look like! Please don't make me miss you too much! Did you know Edward took me to Lake St. Clair? He taught me to row. We took your old boat down by the lake. I can understand your fascination with rowing, both of you! Even though Edward wears callipers, it doesn't stop him from using his upper body strength. I enjoyed rowing. I told Eddie I'd like to do it more often."
Eddie? No one called his brother "Eddie". Their father hated pet names, or shortening their names. "God gave you those names. Keep them intact! That's that!" he'd always bellowed when someone called him "Charlie" or "Chuck". Charlie felt the cold grip of fear again, though why he felt like that, he didn't want to entertain.
"I'd better get home and marry Lucy straight away," he muttered to himself as he closed the letter and carefully slid it back in its envelope.
He opened another letter.
"Dear Charlie,
I don't think your mother is well at all. Please hurry home. I think she misses you terribly. If you ask me, I think she loves you best. Is it because you always knew how to massage her back whenever she had a headache?
Why didn't Edward write to tell him that Mama was sick? He'd have rushed home as soon as possible. He could always catch up once back at the barracks.
Yeah, I was the only one she trusted to massage her back, he thought.
Did you know Edward gave me a lovely pair of earrings for my birthday? I love them. They fit beautifully with my new dress. I wore the dress and earrings when I went to church. Edward said it looked lovely.
Edward. Edward. Edward.
He of the polio and callipers who hated the polio and callipers because they wouldn't let him serve his country in a war he knew America would engage in very soon. The rest of the world was on fire. Why couldn't the US burn along with it and Edward could go and be a hero? That Edward. His brother's name was cropping up in Lucy's letters one too many times!
Oh, let me get home soon!
It was a little overcast when the plane touched down at the airport. Charles was on the tarmac as soon as it was humanly possible, slinging his bag over his shoulder. In the distance he saw a familiar face behind the barricade. Her hair, blonde like their mother's, was caught in a ponytail. He saw her wave and his heartbeat quickened. Home! Almost!
"Charles!"
"Winonah! Good to see you!" Charlie dropped his duffel and grabbed his sister in a big bear hug.
"You're squashing me!" she complained.
"Sorry. I forget you're as tiny as Mama."
He put her down. Her eyes sparkled. Then she spontaneously hugged him again. They stood that way for several minutes then Charlie kissed the top of her head.
"And why the love?"
"Because! Boy, am I happy to see you. Come, the transport is waiting." Winonah pointed to a vehicle. Charlie frowned.
"Since when did you own a vehicle?
"I don't! I borrowed Lansing's car."
"Lansing? Who the hell is Lansing?"
"Boyfriend. Now let's get going!"
Winonah grabbed his free hand and pulled him to the car.
"A Pontiac? Winonah?"
"His dad owns a car dealership. C'mon, slowcoach!"
He dumped his duffel in the back, then stood resolutely at the driver's side.
"What now?" she asked, the dimples forming in her cheeks as she smiled.
"I drive."
"Charlie, I promised Lansing!"
"I'm not getting in."
Winonah hesitated a minute before she relented with a big sigh.
"Please, don't crash the car, okay?"
"Okay!" he barked as he got in the driver's seat and set off for the suburb of Claremont, of the leafy lanes, wide roads and homes with picket fences and wraparound porches.
"Oh, Charlie," Winonah said as she clutched his arm, "we missed you so!"
He mussed her hair, much like he'd done as a kid. "Missed you too, squirt."
"I'm twenty two, in case you haven't noticed."
Charlie looked at her indulgently. "Of course I noticed. I guess your Lansing noticed. Hey, he hurts you, I'll come baring my teeth and using my fists, okay?"
"You'll do no such thing, Chuck!"
"Don't call me Chuck!"
"Charles Anson Miller, if you don't put out the trash now, I'll wallop your behind!" Winonah said in a good imitation of their late father.
They drove a few miles then approached the suburbs. Charlie's heart skipped a beat. Winonah was garrulous, could never stop talking, but the things he wanted to hear from her didn't come. Like their mother who was ill according to Lucy, like how is Edward doing, like how their mother was doing. He decided to dive right in.
"Lucy wrote me to say Mama wasn't so well."
"Just a little heart flutter, Charles."
"I should come home more often," he said absently as he drove through the streets of Claremont and pulled up alongside the kerb in front of their home.
"More often as in once every six months?"
He nodded. During training, home was far away. He had little time to ponder on going home for visits. Missions were covert these days; he had to keep his mouth firmly shut, even if it hurt those closest to him. Still, he felt something was amiss and he couldn't put his finger on it.
Winonah gave him a long, penetrating look.
"There's something you're not telling me, Winonah?"
"Uhm, no! It's nothing. Come, Mama's waiting."
Charlie grabbed his bag from the back seat and followed his sister inside. His room was always still available, one thing his mother had insisted on.
"Mama! I'm home!"
He heard steps coming from the kitchen. His mother, very small of stature, as blonde and blue-eyed as her sons were dark haired and dark eyed, appeared in the passage. His heart skipped a beat. She didn't look dead to him. That was a major relief. Were they lying? He removed his garrison cap and opened his arms.
"Mama!"
Then Charlie scooped her up in a great big bear hug and swung her round. He kissed her, hugged her and swung her round again.
"Put me down, Charles Anson Miller! Put me down!"
He put her down. She smoothed the skirt of her dress and smoothed back her hair he'd just mussed. Then she gave him a playful slap against the arm. Suddenly she hugged him again, fiercely, for long minutes. Winonah had meanwhile vanished into the kitchen.
"Mama, what's wrong, Mama?" he asked as he pressed her gently away from him. "Winonah told me your heart is tired."
"I must just take it very easy, the doctor said."
"Old Doctor Wachinsky?"
"That one."
"Okay, just let me get upstairs to freshen up and I'll come down to have your lovely mince pie."
"Good," she said. "Just don't eat everything, okay?"
He kissed his mother, then rushed to his bedroom. It was time to get out of his uniform. His mother, he knew, would send it off to the dry cleaners. He had a month's vacation, all accumulated after four years at the Academy and the last six months at Fort McClellan. He placed his cap neatly on the bed stand. It sported a rank pin on the left and the crossed rifles of the 5th Infantry on the right.
Charles sighed happily as he threw himself down on his bed and looked around his room. Flags, banners, bunting, all in the colours of his high school, rozettes of all his rowing achievements at the University of Washington and accreditations from West Point. Mounted on the wall in a frame just above his bookshelf was his gold medal from the Berlin Olympics.
He still rowed as much as he was allowed to. The Academy had a rowing team and he'd been automatic choice to cox their eights, which he'd done for four years, rowing against other Academies and universities. When he'd arrived at West Point, boxing and rowing were his sports of choice. He loved both, but rowing gave him the kind of freedom he enjoyed - the open water, the wind in his hair, the sun on his face.
He gave a satisfied sigh as he got up and headed for the bathroom. "Ah, a home shower and endless hot water!" he murmured as he let the water stream over his face. "It's good to be back!" Then he broke loose singing, "Heaven! I'm in heaven!"
That was when he remembered suddenly. Lucy loved Irving Berlin songs. Where was Lucy? Where, for that matter, was Edward? Lucy usually hung around the house on those rare occasions that he'd been home. His heart raced. He had to find Lucy to give her the greatest gift!
"Lucy!" he cried out.
Minutes later he was dressed and downstairs in the kitchen. The two women appeared very busy. When they looked up, something registered that they didn't appear surprised, as if they expected him to burst through the door. He stood, hands against the jamb.
"Alright, where is Lucy? And where is Edward?"
Althea Miller looked at him, her eyes growing soft, filling with compassion. Winonah looked guilty. His gaze swept from his mother to his sister. Something was going to punch him in the gut, maybe an awful truth his mind refused to anticipate.
"Winonah?"
"Charles," his mother said, "please, you must understand - "
"Where are they? Are they together?"
When they didn't respond, he said again, "Together, I take it?"
Lucy's letters, all about Edward, Edward, Edward...
Everything inside him seemed to shut down. He could feel his heart rate slowing or racing, what did it matter? It was hurting every time he tried to take a breath. He closed his eyes, trying to wait out the painful stabbing in his chest, trying to breathe slowly - shallow short puffs to minimise the pain. He tried to clear the dreadful deafening sound in his head as if a shell had exploded next to him, physically crying out as the imagined shrapnel hit his body.
When the echoes drifted away, names, places, events came into his mind again.
Lucy. Edward. Crippled Edward. Clever, brilliant, older brother Edward who loved him. Is what he kept thinking. Lucy, sweetheart, sensitive, Lucy who loved story telling. Lucy who loved him. Is what he kept thinking.
At last he managed to open his eyes and look at his mother.
"Mama?"
"You were gone so long, son."
"Lucy couldn't wait for me?"
"It's not that - "
"Shut up, Winonah. You were all in this, weren't you? Everyone deceiving me. Mama, you too?"
"Leave Mama out of this, Charlie."
"Mama?" he asked again, expecting his mother to know everything, to tell him everything. His brother Edward and the girl he hoped to marry, together.
"I am so sorry, Charles - "
"No one wrote to tell me what was going on? To tell me the truth, at least!" he began shouting. He rushed forward, grabbed his mother's arms, oblivious of the yelp of pain she gave. He shook her.
"Charles, stop! You're hurting Mama. Don't shake her like that. Stop, please! I'll tell you where Edward lives."
Realising his hold on his mother was distressing her, he released her instantly.
"I'm sorry, Mama."
"Forgive them, Charlie - "
But he'd already taken the note on which Winonah had quickly scribbled an address, shoved it in his shirt pocket and headed for the garage.
"Charlie! Don't! Leave them. Don't do anything stupid!"
But he was already through the kitchen side door, entering the garage. Winonah followed him.
"Charlie, what are you going to do?"
He looked dazedly at his sister, still unable to compute how they could lie to him. His own family. Lucy, whom he wanted to marry because she was so kind, gentle and pure.
"Nothing that will put me in jail, Sis. Go and calm Mama. Go!"
"Charlie, don't do - "
"Now, Winonah!"
"Who will open the garage door for you? Huh?"
In their old pickup that he and Edward had taken turns to ride - they'd always supported the brakes with little pads so Edward could reach the pedal - he lifted the top flap where they stored the ignition keys. Winonah had rushed to open the garage door for him. He was out the minute there was enough space for him to reverse the vehicle into the road. He smelled rubber as he sped off. Ranger Park was not far. In fact, Lucy lived in Ranger Park. He checked the address again. It wasn't her home address. Some other location in that suburb.
He bit back a sob. He'd loved Lucy when he was very young, he'd loved her when he rowed the Washington coxed eights to glory, he'd loved her when he studied his nut off during his Academy days, dreaming of her, wanting her by his side, being teased by his fellow cadets for the picture of her against his locker door. He loved her when he spent days in driving rain and mud slides on maneuvers in secret locations, thinking of her. He'd loved Lucy with youthful abandon. She loved him back, in those heady days when all they did was kiss and cuddle, when all he wanted to do was more than kiss and cuddle, to make love to her. But he'd wanted to wait 'til they were married.
Now Lucy was with Edward. Edward who warned him about chances taken and chances lost. No matter that they were said in relation to taking up studies and pursuing his dreams. Or said in relation to being the best of the best, the cream of the crop; to grab every opportunity at coming greatness, perhaps not even greatness, just the simple act of saving a cadet's life.
Not grab a chance when your younger brother is away, far away!
No, he wasn't going to bawl his eyes out. For that he was too flaming angry.
He stopped in front of a house, not unlike all the houses of the area - white picket fence and wraparound porch. Edward lived here? he wondered idly.
"Edward! Edward!" he started screaming the minute he got out of the pickup, jumped over the fence and rushed to the front door.
Edward Aaron Miller held his breath as he heard his brother's strident voice. He had known Charles would come. They had talked about it, thought it wise that he remain home, that Charles would make his appearance. Mama had been apprehensive, yet so strong, telling them she would be the first line of defence when Charlie came home.
He glanced at Lucy, his eyes tender as they rested on her. People, he reckoned, fell out of love just as easily, as quickly as they could fall in love. And when the love stopped, it was often so insidious that it surprised one, realising finally that there was nothing but ashes left of their dreams. Lucy had loved Charlie since their high school days, in the flush of youth. But Charlie's first love was always the military and water sports. Away at university and the Academy, the few times he had visited home, what quality could there be to keep the flame burning? Writing letters to keep a relationship alive... How often could people successfully sustain a loving relationship through love letters especially when so young? And over great distances?
Edward had watched with aching sadness his brother and Lucy together, their openness, their unreserved affection. He had loved Lucy forever, even when she was still so emotionally tied to Charlie. He could only love her from a distance, never reveal his true feelings, angered whenever Lucy waited for Charlie to come home and he never did. Angry that Lucy was so heartsore when Charlie didn't write back. But she had loved his brother. It was always just Charlie. At school, the girls fell for his attractive brother. He, Edward, seemed invisible to them. And why not?
He was a cripple, a victim of polio when he was a child, forever struggling with braces and callipers, moving about with difficulty. When he got too tired, he had to use his crutches, adding to the monstrous weight he carried. He never complained, never. Only on the water was he Charlie's equal. That had been at their father's insistence. He could swim as well as his brother, had equal upper body strength since he kept up with rigorous exercising, toning his muscles. At night he had taken to massaging his legs so that his calf muscles didn't atrophy. Within his standards, he maintained peak physical fitness. Yet it wasn't enough for the United States army. His ability was never recognised, his disability a disadvantage for any kind of combat.
During their school years, they had gone down to Lake St. Clair where their father had taught them to row. He rowed as well as his brother, or almost as well. He was forever grateful to their father that he hadn't deemed polio or being crippled as a deterrent to any achievement. Their father acted as if he, Edward, didn't have a disability. "Now, son, there is no need to sit about doing nothing. You swim, you sail, you row. That's that."
Those were happy days, when their father, strict but loving, had been alive and they had looked forward to going down to the lake at every opportunity.
Now Charlie, rushing to their front door, seemed like he was on a war path. There was a loud banging on the front door.
He inhaled deeply, then touched Lucy's cheek gently.
"Lucy, sweetheart, give us a minute, will you?"
He saw the apprehension in her eyes, her hand instinctively stroking her swollen belly. She nodded and walked to the kitchen, while he moved through the lounge to open the door. He was pushed roughly back inside the moment the door opened.
Charlie glared at him, dark eyes full of rage.
"Where is Lucy?" he demanded.
"Charles, let me explain - "
"What is there to explain? You all lied to me. Lied to me!" Charlie grabbed his shirt front, shaking him. "Why, for the love of God?"
"You were never home. Lucy..."
"Can come home with me, Edward. Now!"
When he tried to resist the hold on his shirt, Charlie let go one hand and swung his fist. It hit him on the jaw. He went flying as he let go of the crutches, landing hard between the coffee table and the sofa. He gave a cry of alarm when Charlie reached for him again.
"Charles! Charles! Let him go, please! Let him go!"
He had been so angry that he hit his brother. The moment he heard Lucy's voice, he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway between the kitchen and lounge. She wore glasses, making her eyes even larger, now filled with alarm as she reached for Edward. Charlie's heart raced as he gazed at Lucy, the girl he'd loved since high school. When Lucy stood up, bracing Edward, Charlie's eyes widened.
"Lucy? You - you are pregnant?"
"Edward and I are married, Charlie. Yes, we're going to have a child. I'm so sorry. I love Edward..."
Her eyes pleaded with him. Edward's arm encircled her shoulder. They looked...close, Charlie realised absently.
That fanned his rage even more as he blinked hard, trying to imagine that what he was seeing couldn't possibly be true. Edward, his brother, and Lucy, his girlfriend, married to one another, pregnant with their first baby. He felt the familiar contraction in his chest again, grabbed for a moment ineffectually at his shirt front, trying to dim the pain. He looked at them through a blur.
"Why didn't you tell me? I love you, Lucy. We wrote letters, didn't we?"
"You were never home, Charlie. It was so difficult. I guess it was futile to keep up writing, especially when I realised I was falling in love with Edward. Yes, Charlie, I loved you once. But I needed you near to me, I guess."
"And Edward was near? Is that it? Poor, dear, crippled Edward?" Charlie uncharacteristically stressed the 'crippled'. He didn't mean to. It slipped out. "Edward was always home, right?"
"Charlie, I love Lucy; I've always loved her even when she was with you. She fought it, you know that? She fought her feelings for me, always saying how guilty she felt about you."
"You betrayed me! All of you! Mama included!"
Charlie stepped closer to Lucy, who shrank back.
"I always wanted to be with you. Always," he said softly. "There wasn't a moment that I thought I wanted someone else. It was always you. I thought what we had was enough. I thought it was everything. Those times I came home, it was thinking of you that made me rush home. Wasn't that enough? I thought you would wait..."
"Please, please understand, Charlie. I didn't want to fall out of love, but it happened. I am so sorry," Lucy said as Edward pulled her closer to him.
She glanced up at her husband and smiled. Charlie felt excluded, a giant fist seeming to hit him hard against his chest. He actually felt winded. The great rush of anger and hatred deflated. Where was his fight? Wasn't he supposed to fight for his girl? The same girl who now stood, her hand clasping Edward's so trustingly that he remembered the old days when she had stood that way with him.
That was the moment he realised it was finally over.
"Go to hell," he said as he turned and left the house, got into the pickup and began driving.
Married! Baby! Lucy pregnant with his brother's child! Lucy married to his brother!
He drove through the city, his mind in a whirl. He'd trusted Lucy, he'd trusted Edward to keep an eye on Lucy, to look after her. His heart was sore with a deep, aching pain that wouldn't let go of him. Trust! What did it gain him? Nothing!
Except on the base. He trusted his fellow officers and they trusted him. That was where he felt safe, covered by their loyalty to him and his to them. He knew where he was on, he knew where he was off. There was no duplicity, no betrayals.
No more girls for him, except if they sold their services in seedy holes in the belly of the city.
When he eventually came to a stop, he was surprised to feel the cool breeze of Lake St. Clair fanning his fevered face. As if he'd woken from a bad dream, the lake came into view, gleaming in the late afternoon sun, its water still, with hardly a ripple on its smooth surface. A perfect day for rowing, he decided as he got out of the pickup and walked down the embankment to the Claremont boathouse. There were about twenty rowing boats stored along the narrow strip of beach. Theirs were the second and third. Their father had been a keen rower in his day and his work as an engineer had more than paid the fees for housing boats, university education.
Yes, they were probably better off than many in the post Depression economy. Their two shells lay side by side. He flipped the yellow shell and gently pushed it towards the water's edge. The oars lay along the length of the boat. As soon as he was in the boat, his hands firmly on the oars, Charlie gave a huge sigh. The oars were old friends as he pulled the blades in the water, the first catch just a few metres from the edge.
Soon he was on the open water, the blades rhythmically in a catch- release-finish action. Charlie leaned a little forward as he exerted the catch-release action, the boat cleaving the water smoothly. He kept rowing, for how long he didn't know as he allowed his rage to suffuse him again. On and on he pushed and pulled the oars.
The water sprayed his face, so he was never sure whether he was crying or allowing the water drops to simply run down into his neck.
He wanted to marry Lucy. The ring he'd bought her was still in his pocket. He thought she loved him. Yet, if he thought about it, her letters had become infrequent, mostly just greetings and never about how she felt about him, like in the early days. In her last letters, Edward's name had cropped up once too often. How had he not seen the signs? Or read the signs? How could he have been such a prize fool for not realising what was happening?
His shoulders were beginning to ache, a lameness settling in his arms. When he looked about him, he realised he must have rowed almost three miles.
"Damn!" he muttered as he continued rowing, ignoring the cramps, the muscles unused to the rowing action. On a long curve he moved the boat in the opposite direction, back to where he started. He felt the old exhilaration as he picked up speed, rowing faster, push-pull, catch-release, straining against the pressure as the blades hit the water.
When at last he was too tired to do anything, he let the shell glide slowly back towards the boathouse. He had to let Lucy go. Lucy was his beginning, Lucy was his end. So he took the ring from his pocket and threw it in a wide arc to land with a tiny splash in the lake.
By the time he was back in the pick-up heading for Claremont, he felt slightly better. It was over for him. Lucy was no longer his. She belonged to another. There was something irrevocable about it.
"Mama," he said as he entered the house, "what's for supper?"
After that first day, Charlie left every day in the early morning and no one saw him for the entire day. No one asked where he went, what he did after dark, why he sneaked into the house in the early hours of the morning. He never said a word, except to greet his mother and Winonah, take an apple from the fruit bowl and leave.
One day he went down to the boathouse. He saw the boat already in the water, primed for two rowers. Edward was sitting in the front seat, hands on the oars, ready to row. Charlie glared at his brother.
He should hate Edward. For a while he did hate Edward.
Edward was waiting for him. He would wait as long as it took Charlie to make up his mind. The last month, Charlie's anger had been fed mainly by thinking of Lucy in the arms of her husband, a woman he couldn't have anymore. To be honest, he'd never had her, not in the biblical sense. Did that not count for something?
Why was he so angry still? Why?
Yet there was Edward, always calm, always so together, always the older brother wanting to protect even though he was hampered by callipers and crutches. Charlie knew that Edward's left leg remained strapped in the leg brace while a crutch lay safely along the length of the boat. Edward held his gaze. Charlie thought for a moment how alike they looked, like their father - jet black hair, dark eyes, dimples when they smiled. They didn't resemble their mother, though Charlie could swear that Edward and Winonah had inherited her nature - fiercely proud, kind, compassionate, loving.
Edward, he knew, was not going to budge. He would sit there all day, waiting for his brother to make a move. So Charles walked down to the water's edge, waded the first few metres and gracefully hauled himself into the boat, behind Edward. He grabbed the oars, felt the old, familiar thrill of rowing doubles with his brother. As if an invisible clap had sounded somewhere, two sets of oars began catching the water, releasing and finishing in unison. They kept up their rhythm, their oars cleaving the water, the boat moving smoothly like a swan unfurling her wings and allowing the breeze to carry her.
So they rowed in silence, the only sounds the occasional cries of birds overhead. Faster and faster, racing an invisible foe. Later his chest burned, the silent metronomic counting in his head forgotten as instinct alone took over. In front of him, Edward's shoulders and upper arms remained resolutely firm. Anyone looking at him from the water's edge would not have thought the rower in front to be physically disadvantaged.
"You love her," Charlie said at last.
"Yes. She is my life."
"You should have told me."
"We knew your anger. Much like when Dad got mad at us. We thought we were doing the right thing."
"I was always in the middle of something - maneuvers, combat training, covert reconnaissance missions."
"I know. I'm sorry that we hurt you, Charlie."
"Yeah," he said, "I'm sorry, too."
On the second last day, he ordered Winonah to get Lansing's Pontiac to drive him to the airport. He said goodbye to his mother, hugged for what seemed like forever.
"I hope you have wrestled your demons, son. Your father would have said - "
"Get on with your life, son. That's that," Charles said. He saw his mother's eyes widen.
"You sounded just like him!"
He smiled for the first time. "Forgive me, Mama. I've been a prize boor. Edward and Lucy... It was a hammer blow. I have accepted the reality."
For a moment he became morbid, hugging her again fiercely. When he released her, there were tears in his eyes.
"Take care of yourself," she said tearfully.
"Don't worry, Mama, I have yet to use the first of my nine lives!"
She gave him a playful slap on the arm. He wondered whether he'd be seeing them again soon. Training would not be on US soil this time, as the scuttlebutt had revealed. It would be even more difficult to maintain contact.
"Promise us you will write," Althea Miller said.
"I will try my best, Mama."
He kissed the top of her head, stood back and saluted his mother.
Writing letters would be sporadic at best and would reach their destinations perhaps months after they were sent. He wasn't very hopeful. There wasn't much, other than his mother and sister, that could keep him in the United States anymore. He'd lost Lucy and that was now a past chapter of his life.
He said goodbye to Winonah, holding her tightly to him as if he knew he was never going to see them again.
"Take care of Mama for me, okay?" he said as he gazed at her.
"You just come back home to us. We'll have another Pontiac waiting for you."
"Gee, thanks, little sister!"
He'd never bothered to visit Edward and his wife at their home again. He didn't say goodbye to his brother and tried to blank out the image of a loving Lucy in the arms of her husband.
On the last day of the month he reported for duty at Fort McCoy, where he received new orders, another commendation, and the promise of early promotion to captain.
On a cold day in October, Lucy Miller gave birth to a son. There was no doubt in the couple's minds that they would name their baby boy Charles Anson Miller.
END CHAPTER TWO
TBC CH 3