Timeless

CHAPTER 17

1944

S he got a telegram. Some women got a visit from two men in their dress uniforms, and they often broke down in tears immediately after opening the door because there was only one reason why two men from any branch of the armed forces would appear at their door during a war. Deb didn’t know if it was different depending on which branch they’d been in, but Harriet’s brother George had been in the Navy, and Harriet’s sister-in-law had gotten the two men. Sent to the Pacific, George had been killed by a Japanese sub, and the men had shown up at his wife’s door, who’d been there with their two small children. Like a good mother, she’d told them to go to their room and to leave her alone with the men, and they’d given her the news as if it were a script that they had to follow, which they probably did. Harriet had been called there, and she’d gone immediately, helping with the children while the wives of her other two brothers consoled the poor woman, each of them grateful that they hadn’t been the ones to get the visit, as horrible as that sounded. Harriet had come home that night looking exhausted and like she’d been crying for hours.

“Mama, are you all right?” Paul had asked, sensing that something was wrong with her.

Harriet had sat down in their living room just as the war news of the day started playing on the radio, so after turning off the stove, Deb had hurried into the room and turned the radio off, knowing her wife wouldn’t need to hear anything more about that tonight.

“I’m okay,” Harriet had replied, moving Paul to her lap. “How are you? How was supper?”

“Mama made lima beans. ”

Paul had then given her a face that told them both that he hadn’t cared for lima beans, and Harriet had smiled for the first time since she’d heard the news of her brother.

“Paul, baby, why don’t you get ready for bed? Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Mama,” he’d answered obediently.

“We’ll be right up to tuck you in.”

He’d jumped off Harriet’s lap and moved to the stairs. Deb had watched him make his way up carefully before she’d turned her attention to her wife.

“Did you eat supper over there?”

“No, but there were a lot of pies on the table already, so I had a slice of one of them.”

“How many people stopped by?”

“A few,” Harriet had replied. “No one came with food to eat for supper, though. Just pies. There were all kinds of them. The kids probably love it, but no supper.”

“I made a plate for you just in case. I can get it for you, if you want.”

“Can you sit down with me?” Harriet had asked, sounding even more tired now.

Deb had moved to sit down next to her, but Harriet had patted her thighs. Knowing what that meant, Deb had moved to straddle her instead.

“I know we have to tuck him in, and I’d really like to do that tonight, but can we sit here just for a minute?” She’d moved her face between Deb’s breasts.

Deb had wrapped her arms around Harriet’s shoulders and held her tight.

“We can stay down here as long as you want. You know he’ll fall asleep without us.”

“I don’t want him to. I need to tuck him in tonight.”

“Okay,” Deb had said. “Do you want to do it alone?”

“No, both of us. I want our family there.”

“Okay, my love.” She’d lifted her wife’s face to look into her eyes. “Whatever you need.”

“He was the nicest one,” Harriet had said with tears in her eyes. “He was my baby brother… They’d always wanted three kids, so when they’d ended up with me after my two older brothers, I knew they were disappointed. They’d been hoping for another boy, not a girl neither of them knew what to do with. My mama was the oldest in her family.”

“Oldest of six; the other five were all boys, I know,” she’d replied.

“She helped her mama raise them, and that was all she knew, so when George finally came along, they were so happy that they had their three boys, and I became the extra child no one needed.”

“ I need you,” Deb had said.

“I know that. But it was hard whenever I wasn’t with you. When I was at home with them, no one even remembered I was there, but sometimes, George would ask me something or offer to play with me. When we got older, he sometimes asked how I was doing or something else. It was never much, but when you have nothing, not much is more than something.”

“I hate that they didn’t see you,” Deb had said. “I don’t know how they couldn’t. You’re so beautiful and smart and kind, and you make me laugh.”

“Well, maybe I was only ever meant to be with you.”

“And Paul?”

“And Paul,” Harriet had said with a smile. “I love that he calls me his mama,” she’d added with a smile. “It means so much to me.”

“To me, too.”

Deb had lowered her lips to kiss her then, and they’d shared another quiet moment together before they’d gone upstairs and found their son trying to climb into bed. Harriet had helped him the rest of the way and sat on the side of the bed, running her hand through his fine, soft hair.

“He looks so much like you,” Harriet had said after Paul fell asleep.

“He’s got JD’s nose.”

“But the rest is all you. I love that. I love that he’s a little you.” She’d looked up at Deb and smiled softly at her. “I love you both so much. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do,” she’d replied, taking Harriet’s hand. “Come to bed, my love.”

Harriet had stood up, and as they walked silently toward their bedroom, Deb had felt that something had changed. She hadn’t known back then what it was, but the way Harriet had hardly spoken the rest of the night and the following week, listening to the radio and the war news nearly all day every day, had had Deb worrying that George’s death might have caused worse damage than she’d thought it would.

When Deb opened the door to the man working for Western Union, she had two thoughts at once. He handed her the telegram and walked away, but she couldn’t move her feet. She couldn’t turn the paper over in her hand and read the message that she knew would be there. Having heard how this worked from so many people by now, she understood that when she read the message, that would be it: her entire life would change. Before she read it, both of them were still alive in her mind. After she read it, it would be confirmed.

It was then, for some reason, that her brain gave her an image of two women walking down a busy street in some city she’d never been to. She and Harriet were the women, but they also weren’t the women, which was confusing, and they were holding umbrellas. She didn’t understand why that was what hit her, but she tried to get her mind to focus on the date of Harriet’s last letter.

Almost ten months ago now, as much as it tore her apart to agree to let her go, Deb had given in, knowing that it was something Harriet had needed to do. Still, when they’d woken up a few hours later, after they’d gone to the church at night and made vows to one another in front of God, hoping they wouldn’t get caught, Deb had prayed that Harriet would have changed her mind. She hadn’t. Not long after that, Harriet had signed up and had been sent to training to be a nurse, while Deb had been crying herself to sleep more nights than she hadn’t since Harriet had left .

They’d never been apart for more than a day before, so the first few days and weeks had been the hardest. She’d wanted to be strong both for Harriet and her son, but that was proving to be too difficult. She’d get Paul to school in the little schoolhouse in town, but then, she’d return and go through the motions, trying to use cleaning the house as a distraction. There were also things to do on the farm, and it felt like soon after that, it would be supper time when Paul would ask about his papa and his mama. She never knew quite how to tell him, so she always told him they’d be home as soon as they could.

Every night, Deb had found herself glued to the radio for any news, and after nine months of missing the love of her life and nearly two years of not having seen John David or Jacob, she’d heard the knock at the door. Expecting it to be someone who worked on the farm, she hadn’t prepared herself for the devastating news. So, she stood there, holding on to the telegram, thinking two thoughts. One, that it was John David. She thought about how she’d have to tell her son that his father was dead and raise him without his father. The other thought, though, which had her stomach roiling and her heart breaking, was about Harriet. And if that were the case, Deb’s own life would be over, too. That got her worried about Paul and what would happen to him when she could no longer move out of bed, cook for him, make sure he took his bath, get him off to school, and teach him right from wrong. She thought all that because she couldn’t breathe without Harriet.

Deb had never been able to breathe without her. With her gone off to war, it felt as if a part of Deb had gone, but the hope that she’d be coming home had kept her moving, wanting the days to pass as quickly as possible and this awful war to end so that Harriet would return to her. If she flipped over that telegram and it told her that it was Harriet who was dead, she wondered how she would ever breathe again.

Still, she had to turn it over. She had to know. As she continued standing there, unable to move, she looked out through the door at the field, pictured Harriet walking through it to get to her for one of their clandestine meetings, and smiled, remembering Harriet’s words that night about all their lives.

“All I know is that the love I feel for you, it’s not meant to only last as long as we live. It’s the kind of love they talk about a long time later: two people, meant to be before they were even born and long after they both pass. It’s the kind of love where we find each other over and over again, because that’s the only way I can see it. One day, when we both leave our bodies and our souls go to heaven, I have to know that I can find you there. I have to know that we get forever together. I don’t know if that means that we’re reborn here on earth, or if we get an eternity in heaven, but I do know that I will find you wherever we are because that’s the only way I can keep on breathing right now.” Harriet sniffled and let a few tears fall. “One lifetime with you is not enough, sweetheart. I need all of them.”

“She’ll find me,” Deb said to herself before she looked down and turned over the telegram.

She skipped over all the words at the top that didn’t matter – the Western Union logo, where it was sent from, who had sent it – and looked at the body of the message, needing to see the name first.

“Deeply regret to inform you that it is now presumed that the death of your husband, PFC John David Stevens, has occurred on the Twelfth of June, 1944.”

Deb didn’t read the rest of it, where the Marines offered their condolences. She didn’t want them. The telegram fell from her hands, and she went to her knees. She hated that the first feeling that came over her had been relief that it wasn’t Harriet. She hated that all she’d been worrying about was that she’d lost the woman she loved, Paul had lost his other mama, and that her life was over. The tears started to fall for John David, though. She couldn’t believe he was gone. The kindest and best man she’d ever known, the father of her only son, was gone.

“Deborah? ”

She looked up and saw Delilah standing on her porch. She was crying and had something in her hand.

“No…” Deb let out.

“I just got this, and I didn’t know where else to go.” Delilah held up the telegram. “He’s gone… Jacob is gone.” She noticed the telegram on Deb’s floor then. “No, tell me it’s not true.”

“They’re both gone,” Deb replied.

Later, after the war and when the dust had settled, she’d find out that John David and the man he loved had died together. JD had been a mortar man, and Jacob had been a machine gun operator. They’d been in battle together. JD had served valiantly, according to the record, saving three men from his unit from Japanese soldiers who had broken through their line. Jacob had helped, aiming that machine gun where he’d needed to. They’d probably thought they’d make it out all right, but the Japanese had been dropping mortars, too, and right when Jacob had run over to JD after the sound of gunfire had started to die down, one landed near them, and they’d perished holding on to one another.

Losing both of them had been like losing her two best friends, but something about knowing that they’d died together had Deb feeling like that was what they’d wanted. Life was harder for two men in love than it was for two women, and having to marry Delilah and put on a brave face had been hard for Jacob. She’d heard him crying in John David’s room more times than she could count, so she took solace in the fact that they could be together now.

She and Delilah actually became real friends after that day. Delilah would bring the kids over to play with Paul, and they’d cook meals together and help each other whenever and however they could. Still, every night, Deb glued herself to the radio, waiting on war news, praying to hear of nothing hitting a hospital in the Pacific. The next day, she’d check the mail, praying for a letter from her love. She’d tuck her son in night after night, reminding him of his father’s love for him and that he was a hero, and then she’d go to bed herself and play with the bracelet on her wrist, recalling their first wedding, and twisting the ring on her finger, thinking of their second.

“When I say I want all my lives with you, I mean it,” Harriet had said just before she’d kissed the bride.