BEFORE

And your heart beats so slow

Through the rain and fallen snow

Across the fields of mourning

To a light that's in the distance

Oh, don't sorrow, no don't weep

For tonight at last I am coming home

I am coming home.

"A Sort Of Homecoming"

U2

March 19, 1945

Worcester, Massachusetts

"Chuckles, how're you?" Jack asked as he vigorously shook Chuck's hand as he stood at the front door of Sarah's house.

Well, it's better than Charlie, Chuck thought as he felt a twinge in his shoulder at the exaggerated flail Jack added to the handshake.

Having turned 16 the previous fall, Chuck could now drive himself to Sarah's house. He was driving Casey's car, as Gertrude deemed it a good idea to keep the car running rather than let it sit while Casey was overseas.

Chuck tried to not think about Casey and what he was doing. Chuck and Gertrude still got frequent letters, but they hadn't laid eyes on him for almost three years. That fact was mind-boggling when Chuck examined it. Three quarters of high school and six inches in height had all occurred while Casey had been fighting with the Marines in the Pacific. He won't recognize you, Chuck. Gertrude said that frequently, teasing, but unable to completely hide her anxiety, her fear that, when, and if, Casey returned home, the two of them might not recognize Casey either.

The Battle of Iwo Jima had been raging for exactly a month now and the evening news on the radio was full of war reportage, grisly and horrifying. It was filtered news, the abridged version, and it still sometimes interfered with Chuck's ability to sleep at night. The Allies were winning, he knew, but Japanese soldiers were fanatical, as the news noted. The Japanese knew they couldn't win, but were willing to kill as many Americans as possible before surrender. "Fighting to the last man" was the phrase Chuck heard most frequently.

The last letter Gertrude had received from Casey, over 12 days ago, had placed him on the USS Gunston Hall, an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Gertrude kept her commentary to herself, but Chuck was almost certain Casey was now on Iwo Jima, with the Marines. Gertrude had asked Chuck to drive her to the church every day, as soon as he returned home from school. Every Sunday after mass, she would light a candle in the vestibule in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary. She stayed on her knees after communion longer than anyone seated around them. She is praying with all her might that Casey returns to us safe and sound.

There were times that Chuck wished he had as much faith as she did. He wondered where it came from at times, its source, knowing her life had been more difficult than his own. Was it because she had been raised by nuns, taught to believe and pray, and now it was ingrained, habitual, something she never questioned, done by rote? Chuck questioned it all, wondering why sometimes prayers were answered, and sometimes they weren't.

It's God's will. That was Gertrude's answer when he questioned her.

If it's God's will, then why pray at all? Does He only answer you sometimes, when it pleases him? Chuck had asked, his words bitter.

If he had been younger, she would have punished him for such blasphemy. Now, at 16, and on the verge of manhood, with the potential to enlist in the military himself in another six months, she would only cross herself and mumble another prayer, one to help Chuck's disbelief. It was an endless cycle, looping back upon itself…her praying to a god whose existence Chuck questioned, in order to remedy his lack of belief.

Chuck wanted to pray, wanted to believe. Sometimes he would silently wish, with all his might, for Casey to come home safely, to be alright. Was wishing the same as praying? He didn't know. A wish was just there, a secret hope perhaps anchored to a shooting star or a penny in a fountain. Some of his wishes had come true. Whenever he wished about Sarah…Was it all a random chance? Or had that been God, answering a prayer he never knew he had prayed? Were there unconscious prayers?

"Hel…lo?" Jack snapped his fingers like an onstage hypnotist.

Chuck heard Jack, realizing he had been lost in thought and not listening to Sarah's father. "I'm sorry, Mr. Burton," he replied sheepishly. "I got distracted for a minute."

"Any more word from Mr. Casey?" Jack asked. Chuck was surprised Jack was even aware of the anxiety Chuck had been feeling.

"Not since the last letter, Sir, no," Chuck answered.

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Jack offered, patting Chuck's shoulder perfunctorally. After a brief, awkward pause, Jack added, "She's…uh…practicing, as I'm sure you can tell." He gestured down the hallway to Sarah's room.

Chuck had to strain to hear since she obviously had closed her bedroom door, but he heard the muffled sounds of Sarah's violin. Like a siren song, it moved him away from Jack, his focus changed. As always, her playing made him feel bound to her. The closer he got to her door, the louder, the more distinct the music became. Standing outside her closed door, he recognized the piece Sarah was playing. Bach. He couldn't recall the name…something in D minor. He had heard her play it before; it was her favorite piece to play on her violin. It reminded him of a sad butterfly, fluttering, struggling with a torn wing. Sarah's eyes had turned glassy when he'd told her that.

Through the door, he pictured her, her instrument tucked securely under her chin, her delicate fingers dancing along the strings, her eyes pressed closed in concentration, and her hair fluttering around her face as her head moved. She didn't just play the music in a mechanical manner; to Chuck, it was almost like the music was coming from inside her, her interior life translated into music instead of words. It was a form of expression that suited her, he thought, using a method that required few words but was infinitely expressive.

He hated to knock and disturb her, ending the music that gripped him so, but he wanted to see her. When he was with Sarah, he stopped worrying, worrying about Casey and the rest of the world, even if only for a short while. In her presence, the world shrunk to just the room they occupied, the space surrounding them. It was magical. He had always been waiting for her to change, to find something to love besides the things she had always loved since she was little, but she never did. At 12, she was the same height as him, a woman in almost every physical way, but she loved everything she had as a child, her advancing years only supplementing her knowledge and understanding of the things she held dear to her, teaching and deepening her childish wonder with adult understanding.

He knocked very gently with his knuckle on her door. The music stopped abruptly, surprising him that she had heard the knock over the music. "Come in," she called.

She was putting her violin back into its case as he stood in her bedroom doorway. Her dress was purple, a deep aubergine that provided contrast to her light coloring. She was flushed from playing, as she always was, and her smile was radiant when she looked up and saw him. "Are you ready?" she asked expectantly.

He stepped into her room and shut the door behind him. "I guess so," he murmured nervously. He was here today, specifically, because Sarah had offered to teach him to dance. He needed to learn because he was going to his junior prom in a little over a month, with a girl named Louise, Lou, as everyone called her.

The boys he talked to at school all told them that Lou liked him, and had asked his friends if Chuck had a date, if he was going to the prom. Apparently, she had asked one of his friends to tell him to ask her, because she wanted to go with him. Lou was nice, friendly and sweet, so he had agreed, if reluctantly. It was a fancy dance, one evening, so it was a brief commitment, a one-off, as he understood it. He had a troubling feeling Lou wanted more, that she wanted to be his girlfriend, but he kept that feeling at bay. He wasn't sure why, other than the fact having a girlfriend would mean everyone would expect him to spend less time with Sarah. She was only 12, but he would rather be with her than anyone else on earth. He was young, he told himself. He had time for girlfriends, serious commitments.

The second Chuck had told Sarah about it, she had insisted he should go. She told him she would teach him to dance, a use for all the dance lessons her father had insisted upon for her.

She rushed across the room to her victrola, something Jack required her to keep in her bedroom, since he preferred quiet when he was working. In Chuck's home, Gertrude kept their record player in the living room; she liked to listen to music when she cleaned or cooked.

"That was beautiful…your violin," Chuck said softly. "I hated to knock and disturb you."

She was busy loading a record, pulling it from its sleeve and placing it on the turntable. He saw her blush at his compliment as she gently set the needle down. She flashed him a quick smile, genuine but not undivided. Chuck recognized the song's crackly introduction. Doris Day, singing My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time.

"This is a good, basic song," Sarah asserted quickly as she hurried to face him, giving him no time for further comment. She grabbed his right hand and pulled it forward, resting it on her left hip. Next, she took his left hand with her right and held it up. "This is the form, but I'm leading you. It can be confusing, but if I reverse our hands it will confuse you more. I'm leading, but backwards, so you do the mirror of me when it's for real, ok?" she added quickly.

He was befuddled, logically following her words but lacking the immediate coordination to execute exactly what she wanted. She counted softly, under her breath, as she moved to the music, gently pulling him along with her. He bowed his head, watching her feet, afraid he would step on her toes.

"Don't look at our feet, look up. Look at me," she ordered him softly.

He did as she asked, but the sudden nearness of her, the scent of her, the feeling of her as his partner, overtook him and he tripped over his feet, then landed on her toes. She winced without a sound. "I'm sorry," he stammered, feeling awkward and ashamed.

"It's ok," she assured him. "Don't think about it like it's a math problem," she guided. "You're counting the beat, that's all. That's the end of numbers. Feel the music, the beat, when you move. Let me pull you and follow me. After a while, you'll anticipate my moves. Try again," she coached.

He kept his head up, his eyes fixed on her face. Prepared this time, it was easier. He focused intently, feeling the muscles in her back under his hand, her fingers around his. She tensed, then relaxed, in a pattern he quickly discerned. By the time the next song on the album played, he could tell by her fingers moving which way she wanted him to go. We're dancing.

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" she asked with a sweet smile.

Feeling in tune with her, vibrating on the same wavelength, it was the easiest thing he knew. He should have had more faith to begin with. His only concern now was Lou. What if he could dance with Sarah only because they were so familiar to one another, because he was already hyper-focused on the way Sarah moved?

As if reading his mind, she nodded, "Now you lead." She stopped dead, resetting the scene. "She'll be able to follow if you do what I did."

He did the reversal in his mind and started leading. He stumbled briefly, but recovered. She nodded encouragingly, comfortable in his arms as they danced to Doris Day. "So, Lou…is she pretty?" Sarah asked lightly.

He stumbled again, hoping she didn't notice. He almost thought she was jealous, for it reminded him of how she had been when she was little and Carina would sit next to him while they were reading. "I…guess so," he answered hesitantly. Not as pretty as you, he thought, but couldn't say. He had always thought that she was the prettiest girl he knew, but he never knew how to tell her that without feeling strangely about it.

"You guess so?" she scoffed, teasing but serious too. "What does she look like?" Sarah asked.

"Long brown hair, brown eyes. Very short, like, shorter than Mrs. Winterbottom," he told her.

"Do you…like her?" Sarah asked. She was still smiling, but her eyes were cloudy, almost stormy.

"She's nice," he offered, suddenly wishing he could change the subject. "But I don't…you know…like her…not like that," he said, feeling the heat on his neck under his collar.

"Like what?" Sarah asked innocently.

"You know, the way Doris Day is singing about," Chuck replied, hoping she understood without him having to add further explanation.

"Like my father and Roxanne?" she asked.

"No!" he choked out, stopping the dance. He couldn't look at her any more; he was so embarrassed. "No, I mean like…Casey and Gertrude." They were who he thought of when he thought of a couple. Together. In love. Like two halves of the same coin. Definitely not Lou and him. Definitely not Jack and Roxanne, although for a different reason. He did not love Lou. And Jack did not love Roxanne, no matter what was happening between them. "Casey and Gertrude are together. What they have is simple, real." They began to dance again.

If Sarah weren't 12, Chuck would have sworn that was how he felt about her, that was how it was with them, him and her. But that couldn't be right, could it? She was more like family, although there was still a distinction that he had never been able to put into coherent words. His feelings for Sarah were not, strictly speaking, like his feelings had been for his sister, Ellie.

"We've been dancing this whole time…and it's like you're not even thinking about it," Sarah noted. "You learn quickly," she complimented him. She released him; he felt suddenly bereft, with a gap of space between them, his hands unhappily empty.

She was looking at something over his shoulder, out of the window. "Oh, look," she exclaimed as she moved to the window. She leaned forward, her hands pressed against the windowsill. "Do you see them?" she asked, lifting one hand and pointing.

He followed her finger, seeing a bright red bird perched on the leafless branch of a tree that hung over the backyard. A male cardinal, its triangular beak the same fire engine red as its feathers, seemed to wink back at them. It was one bird, but she had said "them." "I see the male," he told her, searching the nearby branches for something else.

"Look, right above him," she added, lifting her finger slightly and pointing again. "It's the female."

He searched and eventually he saw the female. She was a brownish red version of the male, with a slightly orange red colored beak. "I see her now," he told Sarah.

"She's more brown, drab, so she blends in with the nest. She's sitting on her eggs, so they're safe from hawks and owls," Sarah explained.

He had already taken advanced biology in high school. Everything she had always explained to him about the animals they had watched as they grew, he had learned about in class. Yet, somehow, it was far more interesting when she talked to him about it, rather than in a lecture from his biology teacher. He loved thinking about how she knew whatever it was, whether it was remembered from a long ago conversation with her mother, or a book she had read by choice, not as schoolwork.

"Sparrows and finches…they're completely drab brown. Why the little bit of red then, do you think?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know," she pondered. "She has a little bit of him with her…you know, so they can tell they belong together. She carries him with her. They look like they match, right?"

"They do," he sighed, wishing it was just that easy to see matching parts of himself in another person. Too often, he thought, people could see only the differences between themselves and others. Millions of people had died all over the world since the beginning of the war because, basically, people saw only what made them different instead of what made them similar.

From the outside, Lou and Chuck looked like they had more in common than he did with Sarah. He and Lou had the same hair color, and were the same age. But inside, he was nothing like her. She was funny, extroverted, and jovial. She had once told him she hated school, and thought it was a waste of her time except for learning how to cook and sew so she could be a good wife and mother someday. She was pleasant company, but after too long, he found there was not that much to talk to her about.

Inside, Chuck and Sarah were the same. It didn't matter that she was younger. She understood everything. She could look into the wounded parts of him, never judging him, knowing what it felt like without ever having to ask him anything. She was intelligent, and wanted to know things simply for the sake of knowing them. She absorbed everything; he could talk to her for hours about anything…or nothing. He never ran out of things he wanted to say to her, and when she was silent, as she was frequently, he knew she was still listening attentively to everything he said.

They were part of each other, just as Gertrude had told him long ago. He understood what she meant for the first time, standing there, watching the mated pair of cardinals.

"My mother always told me when you see a cardinal, it's a sign that someone you loved who has passed away is watching over you," she told him wistfully.

It was a more superstitious than religious idea at least as Casey and Gertrude would have understood it. He liked the idea though, much better than the idea that he had a guardian angel or something like that. Guardian angels seemed flawed, failures at their sole purpose. No guardian angels had been there to protect any member of his family. Which meant, to him, that they couldn't be real. He stood silently at Sarah's side, watching the birds, listening to their trilling chirps to each other, audible through the closed window.

"Do you think that's my mother? Or maybe your sister?" she asked gently, her voice just above a whisper.

He swallowed over the lump in his throat. "Maybe both of them," he whispered in return, all the strength gone from his voice.

"Would your sister have liked me?" Sarah asked, emboldened, he thought, for she hardly ever brought up his loss in front of him or mentioned Ellie explicitly.

Sarah now, seven years later, was only slightly younger than Ellie had been when she died. The juxtaposition in his mind was disorienting. Ellie would be all but grown now, maybe married and starting a family of her own. He thought about things like that, when he was alone, when he missed Sarah. Sometimes he would wonder if Ellie would think his friendship with Sarah was strange. The more he thought about Sarah's question, though, the better he knew how to answer her.

"She would be very glad that I have a friend like you…and that I could be…happy again, even if it wasn't exactly the same happiness," he told her.

She turned to look at him, smiling at his words, taking them to heart. "My mother would have loved you," Sarah whispered solemnly, not noticing the verb she used until it was spoken. But Chuck flushed like a sunburn, and hoped Sarah didn't notice. She looked away nervously, then back at him, attempting to clarify her meaning. "She would be happy that I wasn't alone anymore."

His reaction had probably been too intense, he thought to himself, too emotional, for she looked away quickly, turning her body back to look out the window. She studied the birds in silence for a long time. "We're both ok now," she whispered, to the birds who couldn't hear her through the glass.

Magically, as if they had somehow both heard and understood, the male flitted away, and the female followed. Chuck kept them in sight as they flew to the edge of the woods at the border of Sarah's yard. Their flight pattern was unique. A few quick flaps, then darting and dipping, then rising and flapping again. The female followed the male into the woods.

The birds were gone, but Sarah continued facing out the window, in silent thought. Chuck heard the distant ring of the telephone, wondering who would be calling Jack on a Saturday afternoon. He couldn't remember the last time Jack had taken a call on a day Chuck was there.

Sarah's pensive mood pulled his attention back to her. "Sarah, are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm just thinking about how…far away…Stanford is," she said, her voice catching in her throat. She tried to disguise it by clearing her throat, but he knew her too well.

"That's not definite, Sarah," he informed her. "I'm not even done with junior year. There are plenty of colleges in Massachusetts where I can go."

She turned to regard him, her eyes narrowed. "Gertrude said because of the endowment your father left to the college in his will that as long as your grades were good enough, your tuition was paid in full for four years. Is Brown or Harvard willing to do that?"

He was first in his class, with a 4.0, so his grades were definitely good enough. He hated when Sarah brought this up, because she was right. Every high school senior with grades like his were competing with him for spots at the best schools; even if he was lucky enough to be accepted, none of the other schools were paid upfront. College was expensive. The custodial fund left to Chuck by his parents was meant to last until Chuck turned 18. The issue, he realized, was that Casey and Gertrude, though they were as much his family as his own parents had been, were employed by the fund. If he spent down the fund for college, the Caseys would have little or nothing. He couldn't risk causing them difficulty.

Before he could answer her, Chuck heard the loud knock on Sarah's door. Jack didn't wait for Sarah to speak before he walked in. Chuck took one look at Jack's face, pale and drawn, and his heart started racing.

In a tone Chuck had never heard from Jack before, he said, "Chuck, that was Gertrude on the phone. She just…got a telegram from Western Union."

"Oh my God," Chuck gasped. He didn't wait for Jack to say anything else; he ran from the room. He heard Sarah's rapid footfalls behind him.

"I'll come with you," she called, panting as she ran behind him.

A telegram meant only one thing: Casey had either been killed, or he was severely wounded.

He barely remembered leaving Sarah's house or getting into his car. He was just driving, almost blindly. What grounded him was Sarah, sliding across the passenger seat to sit close as he drove, her hand on his shoulder. She said nothing; what could she say? She couldn't tell him everything would be alright; she knew all too well that sometimes, maybe even most times, things weren't alright. Bad things happened–they had both lived this. But she was there, beside him, which was all he could hope for. All that he needed.

Chuck flew into his house, taking the front steps three at a time while Sarah trailed behind. He ran through the foyer, ducked around the corner, to the kitchen. He came to a screeching halt, feeling Sarah collide with him as she ran.

Gertrude was at the kitchen table, her arms folded across her body, buckled forward in the chair like she was struggling with physical pain. On the table in front of her was a bright yellow envelope with black hash marks around the edges. The telegram. Upside down, he could still read it. It was from the United States Marine Corps. It was unopened. She hadn't read it yet; she had called Jack and waited for Chuck. She wanted him here with her when she did.

She didn't say a word, just looked up at Chuck, her eyes full of unshed tears. Chuck couldn't recall a time he had ever seen her so upset…except when his family had been killed in the hurricane. "I'm afraid to open it," she murmured. "It will be real…when I open it."

Gertrude had never been afraid of anything. But Chuck knew, deep down, she was terrified of losing Casey. He was her entire world, her only family. Chuck never counted himself as part of her family, although she was his. It didn't make sense, but it was just how he saw things. Trying to be brave for her, he picked up the envelope, determined to read it out loud to her.

His hand trembled when he lifted it. He turned it over in his hand, carefully pulling at the seal. He made a wish…or maybe he prayed…that Casey was still alive. How much more do I have to lose in my life? It wasn't fair. Why was all the tragedy stacked upon him while others seemed unburdened? He pulled out the telegram, closing his eyes, forcing himself not to peek until it was out and open. He felt Sarah's hand on his shoulder, squeezing, holding, squeezing.

He opened one eye first, bracing for the worst.

Wounded. He scanned it again, quickly. Casey had been wounded.

"Gertrude, he's alive," Chuck breathed in relief. "He's been wounded." He scanned down the form. "At Iwo Jima." The scenes in his head from listening to the news now haunted him, wondering what had actually happened to Casey, what he had seen. "He's on the AH-5 Solace. A hospital ship."

"Oh, thank you, Lord Jesus," Gertrude gushed, crossing herself quickly, then folding her hands under her chin as if in prayer.

Chuck wanted to read it again, absorb all of the details he had only skimmed, but Gertrude reached for it, and he handed it to her. It was only then that she even became aware that Sarah was with him. Gertrude reached out her hand to Sarah, pulling the girl close to her as she read the letter for herself.

"Injuries are no longer life threatening," Gertrude read out loud. "He's coming home!"

From utter despair to overjoyed relief in five minutes, Chuck thought. He collapsed, shaking, into the kitchen chair across from Gertrude.

"Thank you, Chuck," Gertrude said sincerely, stressing each word. "That was very brave of you. Let's all pray that he stays safe, and comes home soon." She turned to Sarah. "You came with him, dear. That was so kind and brave."

"I couldn't let him leave like that," Sarah said softly, looking at Chuck even as she talked to Gertrude about him in the third person. "No matter what, he needs me."

The tears brimming Gertrude's eyes streamed down her cheeks, now in gratitude. "That's good thinking, Sarah," she said in a scratchy voice. "I know he does."

Chuck thought he saw Gertrude wink at him, but it could have just been his overtaxed imagination playing tricks on him.

A/N: Thanks to Zettel as always for pre-reading. Historical notes: The Battle of Iwo Jima waged from February 19, 1945 to March 26, 1945. It remains the singlemost costly battle for the USMC in history. Seventy thousand men were deployed, 24,000 of them wounded, over 6,000 fatally. In that same time frame, over 22,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. Later that same year was the Battle of Okinawa, which was less costly for American lives, devastating for the Japanese at over 110,000 fatalities. These two battles cemented the belief that the atomic bomb was required to stop Japan and their "fight to the last man" mentality. The USS Gunston Hall was an Ashland-class dock landing ship stationed in the Pacific at the time of Iwo Jima. The AH-5 Solace was a hospital ship that treated soldiers wounded at both Iwo Jima and Okinawa. My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time was a number one hit for Doris Day in March of 1945, so it was at the height of popularity during this time. It wasn't until after the Vietnam War that the Armed Services delivered news of death to a next of kin in person. WWII and Korea both had only telegram notification. Casey's lengthy, uninterrupted deployment was common as well, sometimes 80 days on with only two days off and almost never an opportunity to return home. They don't call them The Greatest Generation for nothing. :) Love to hear from you.