Elizabeth nodded as she gave him a glass of lemonade. “I put the envelopes in order first. That didn’t take as long as Gram figured it might. Then I started reading. The letters begin the day Granddad said goodbye to her in Portland. He introduces each fellow soldier he meets like an author introduces the characters in his story—who each of them is, where he comes from, who he loves, who and what he left behind. It’s a diverse group, but they’re united in their commitment to what they’ve chosen to do. Granddad doesn’t portray their journey as a grand adventure. And yet, as they’re crossing the country—and then the ocean—it feels that way. There’s a sense of excitement, of eagerness for what lies ahead.”
“Do you think they know what lies ahead?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “How could they? They’re only eighteen. And, like Granddad, they’ve enlisted because of Pearl Harbor. The country they love has been attacked. They want to defend it. They believe what they’re doing is right and good. And because it is right and good, they also believe they’ll return triumphant and whole. But they can’t, can they? Not all of them.”
“No,” Nick said. “Not all of them. In the letters you’ve read, have they gone into battle yet?”
“Yes. Just. And they all survived. Granddad says it that succinctly, that flatly, without any description of what actually happened.” Elizabeth handed him the letter Charles wrote at midnight on April 13, 1942. “A few hours later, he wrote this.”
Nick’s expression as he read revealed nothing. When he finished and looked at her, his eyes were the color of stone. “What do you think?”
“About the letter? That it’s beautiful. He loves Gram so much.”
“Yes, he does.” Nick hesitated briefly. “I’m sensing you have other thoughts.”
“I get the feeling something horrible happened. He needs to tell her what it was.”
“He won’t. Ever.”
“What?”
“He’ll tell her succinctly, flatly, when one of his band of brothers dies. But he’ll never describe how his friends die, or the way it feels to aim a rifle at another human being and pull the trigger and watch him fall, or how frightened he is, or angry, or if there comes a time when he wishes he could take a bullet instead of firing one.”
“He has to tell her those things.”
“Does he? Why?”
“She’s the woman he loves! The woman who loves him. He can’t hide such important emotions from her. It would be wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Yes.” It was so clear to her. How could it not be to him? But it obviously wasn’t. A new darkness shadowed his eyes. It looked like sadness, she thought. Loneliness. He didn’t agree with what she was saying. And yet, it seemed, he wasn’t going to argue the point. Maybe, if she quit arguing, he’d explain. “Why would he hide what he was feeling?”
“Because he loves her. He wants to protect her, Elizabeth. Her—and them. The love they share.”
“You’re saying he did something in combat that would make her love him less—or stop loving him at all? Because if so, I don’t believe it. Granddad would never, ever, have committed the kind of atrocity that…Never.”
“You’re right,” Nick said. “He wouldn’t have. He’d have died first. You know that. I know that. And he trusts that your grandmother will know it, too. War can’t change a man like Charles MacKenzie, Elizabeth. Not even war can do that.”
Elizabeth heard in Nick’s voice the same emotion she’d heard in Granddad’s when he spoke of Nick. She couldn’t define it. But it was solemn. Important. And very deep. Gram had said the two were alike. And close, Elizabeth realized. Bonded in some special—reverent—way. Maybe Granddad had told Nick about the letters, what he’d shared and hadn’t shared with Clara…and why. Or maybe Nick was only guessing.
Either way, Nick seemed to know.
“You’re not going to find any premeditated betrayal here.”
Nick gestured toward the letters as he spoke. Here referred, of course, to what Charles had written to his love. And yet, for a crazy unsettling moment, it felt as if here—where there was no betrayal—was anyplace she happened to be. With Nick.
“No betrayal,” she murmured. “But you said Granddad wants to protect Gram. And them.”
“He needs to believe that the world he knew before he went to war still exists. That’s the world he’s fighting for, where a girl climbs down a tree to meet the boy she loves, and you don’t have to strain to hear an owl above the sounds of mortar and the cries of wounded men. That’s why he’s fighting, Elizabeth, to protect that innocence, that ideal.”
“So when he writes about Gram being beside him, he’s not bringing her to war with him.”
“No,” Nick said softly, “he’s going home.”
Home felt like here. Crazy. Except, in his blue-gray eyes, the sadness—and the loneliness—were gone.
What filled the void was so unsettling, in a giddy, glorious way, that she turned from him…and started babbling.
“Maybe we should look at your color schemes. Not that I’m going to make any suggestions. In fact, don’t let me. I’d never have come up with the choices you made for Gram’s kitchen, and they’re wonderful…”
“She’s going to love these.” Elizabeth’s assertion, made thirty minutes later, was a grateful one. “The colors you’ve chosen are so cheerful. Just walking from room to room will make her smile.”