Together for Christmas Read online

  “Yes.” The word was devoid of emotion.

  “You aren’t going to write me again?”

  “No.”

  This was unbelievable.

  “Call me?”

  “No.”

  She glared at him. “In other words, you’re going to act as if you’d never even met me, as if I’d never mailed that Christmas card.”

  A hint of a smile flickered over his tightly controlled features. “I’m certainly going to give it my best shot.”

  “Fine, then,” she muttered. If he thought so little of her, then he could do as he wished. She didn’t want to be with a man who didn’t care about her feelings, just his own.

  Nine

  TRUE TO HIS WORD, Paul didn’t get in touch with her after their Tuesday-night dinner. The first day, her anger carried her. Then she convinced herself that he’d contact her before he left for Camp Pendleton. Not so. Paul Gordon—correction, Sergeant Paul Gordon, USMC—was out of her life and that was perfectly fine with her. Only it wasn’t.

  A week later, as she sat in her “Theories of Learning” class, taking notes, her determination faltered. She wanted to push all thoughts of Paul out of her mind forever; instead, he was constantly there.

  What upset her most was the cold-blooded way he’d dismissed her from his life. It seemed so easy for him, so...simple. She was gone for him, as if she meant nothing. That hurt, and it didn’t stop hurting.

  Ruth blinked, forcing herself to listen to the lecture. If she flunked this course, Paul Gordon would be to blame.

  After class she walked across campus, her steps slow and deliberate. She felt no urge to hurry. But when her cell phone rang, she nearly dropped her purse in her eagerness. Could it be Paul? Had he changed his mind? Had he found it impossible to forget her, the same way she couldn’t forget him? A dozen more questions flew through her mind before she managed to answer.

  “Hello?” She sounded excited and breathless at the same time.

  “Ruth.” The familiar voice of a longtime friend, Tina Dupont, greeted her. They talked for a few minutes, and arranged to meet at the library at the end of the week. Four minutes after she’d answered her cell, it was back in her purse.

  She was too restless to sit at home and study, which was how she’d spent every night since her last date with Paul, so she decided to go out. That was what she needed, she told herself with forced enthusiasm. Find people, friends, a party. Something to do, somewhere to be.

  Although it was midafternoon, she took the bus down to the waterfront, where she’d met Paul the first night. That wasn’t a smart idea. She wasn’t up to dealing with memories. Before she could talk herself out of it, Ruth hopped on the Bremerton ferry. A visit with her grandmother would lift her spirits in a way nothing else could. Besides, if Helen felt strong enough, she wanted to hear the rest of the story, especially the role her grandfather had played.

  As she stepped off the foot ferry from Bremerton to Cedar Cove, it occurred to Ruth that she should’ve phoned first. But it was unlikely her grandmother would be out. And if she was, Ruth figured she could wander around Cedar Cove for a while. That would help fill the void threatening to swallow her whole.

  The trudge up the hill to her grandmother’s house seemed twice as steep and three times as long. Funny, when she’d been with Paul, the climb hadn’t even winded her. That was because she’d been laughing and joking with him, she remembered—and wished she hadn’t. Alone, hands shoved in her pockets, she felt drained of energy.

  Reaching 5-B Poppy Lane, she saw that the front door to her grandmother’s duplex stood open, although the old-fashioned wooden screen was shut. The last remaining tulips bloomed in primary colors as vivid as the rainbow. Walking up the steps, Ruth rang the doorbell. “Grandma! Are you home?”

  No one answered. “Grandma?”

  Alarm jolted through her. Had something happened to her grandmother? She pounded on the door and was even more alarmed when a white-haired woman close to her grandmother’s age came toward her.

  “Hello,” the older lady said pleasantly. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for my grandmother.”

  The woman unlatched the screen door and swung it open. “You must be Ruth. I don’t think Helen was expecting you. I’m Charlotte Rhodes.”

  “Charlotte,” Ruth repeated. “Helen’s spoken of you so often. It’s wonderful to meet you.”

  “You, too,” Charlotte said, taking Ruth’s hand. “I’m happy to make your acquaintance.”

  Ruth nodded, but she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “Is anything wrong with my grandmother?”

  “Oh, no, not at all. We’re sitting on the patio, talking and knitting. Helen’s counting stitches and asked me to get the door. She assumed it was a salesman and my job was to get rid of him...or her.” Charlotte laughed. “Not that I’m much good at that. Just the other day, a Girl Scout came to my door selling cookies. When I bought four boxes, she announced that every kid comes to my house first, because I’ll buy anything. Especially for charity.”

  Ruth grinned. “I think my grandmother must be like that, too.”

  “Why do you suppose she sent me to the door?” Charlotte joked. “Your grandmother’s knitting a Fair Isle sweater. It’s her first one and she asked me over to get her started.”

  “Perhaps I should come back at a more convenient time?” Ruth didn’t want to interrupt the two women.

  “Nonsense! She’d never forgive me if you left. Besides, I was just gathering my things to head on home. My husband will be wondering what’s kept me so long.” Charlotte led the way through the house.

  As soon as Ruth stepped onto the brick patio, her grandmother’s eyes lit up with pleasure. “Ruth! What a welcome surprise.”

  Ruth bent forward and kissed Helen’s cheek.

  Charlotte Rhodes collected her knitting, saying she’d talk to Helen at the Senior Center on Monday, and left.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Helen urged, motioning at the chair next to her. “Help yourself to iced tea if you’d like.” Strands of yarn were wrapped around both index fingers as she held the needles. One was red, the other white. “You can find a glass, can’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, but I’m fine,” Ruth assured her, enjoying the sunshine and the sights and sounds of Cedar Cove. The earth in her grandmother’s garden smelled warm and clean—the way it smelled only in spring. Inhaling deeply, Ruth sat down, staring at the cove with its sparkling blue water.

  “Where’s Paul?” her grandmother asked, as if noticing for the first time that he wasn’t with her.

  Ruth’s serenity was instantly destroyed and she struggled to disguise her misery. “He went to the marines’ camp in California.”

  “Oh.” Her grandmother seemed disappointed. “I imagine you miss him.”

  Ruth decided to let the comment slide.

  “I liked him a great deal,” her grandmother said, rubbing salt into Ruth’s already wounded heart. Helen’s focus was on her knitting, but when Ruth didn’t immediately respond, she looked up.

  Ruth met her eyes and exhaled forcefully. “Would you mind if we didn’t discuss Paul?”

  Her request was met with a puzzled glance. “Why?”

  Ruth decided she might as well tell her. “We won’t be seeing each other again.”

  “Really?” Her grandmother’s expression was downcast. “I thought highly of that young man. Any particular reason?”

  “Actually,” Ruth said, “there are several. He’s in the military, which you already know.”

  Her grandmother carefully set her knitting aside and reached for her glass of iced tea, giving Ruth her full attention. “You knew that when you first met, I believe.”

  “Yes, I did, but I assumed that in time he’d be released from his commitment and return to civilian life. He told me that won’t be the
case, that the military’s his career.” In for the long haul, as he’d put it. Granted, she’d known about his dedication to the marines from the beginning, but he’d known about her feelings, too. Did her preferences matter less than his?

  “I see.” Her grandmother studied her.

  Ruth wondered if she truly did. “What really upsets me is the heartless way he left. I told him I wasn’t sure I could live with the fact that he’d chosen the military.” The memory angered her, and she raised her voice. “Then Paul had the audacity to say I wouldn’t be hearing from him again and he...he just walked away.” Ruth hadn’t planned to spill out the whole story minutes after she arrived, but she couldn’t hold it inside a second longer.

  Her grandmother’s response shocked her into silence. Helen smiled.

  “Forgive me,” her grandmother said gently, leaning forward to give Ruth’s hand a small squeeze. “Sam did something similar, you see.”

  The irritation died instantly. “I wanted to ask you about my grandfather.”

  A peaceful look came over Helen. “He was a wonderful man. And he saved me.”

  “From the Germans, you mean?”

  Helen shook her head. “Technically, it was General Patton and the Third Army who saved us. Patton knew what Buchenwald was. He knew that a three-hour wait meant twenty-thousand lives because the Germans had been given orders to kill all prisoners before surrendering. Against every rule of caution, Patton mounted an attack, cutting off the SS troops from the camp. Because of his decisive move, the Germans were forced to flee or surrender. By that time, the German soldiers knew they were defeated. They threw down their guns and surrendered. Sam was with Patton on the march, so, yes, he contributed to my rescue and that of countless others. But when I say your grandfather saved me, I mean he saved me from myself.”

  “I want to hear about him, if you’re willing to tell me.” Ruth straightened, perching on the edge of her seat.

  Her grandmother closed her eyes. “I cannot speak about the years in Buchenwald, not even to you.”

  Ruth reached for Helen’s hand, stroking the soft skin over the gnarled and prominent knuckles. “That’s fine, Grandma.”

  “I wanted to die, wished it with all my heart. Without Jean-Claude, it was harder to live than to die. Living was the cruelest form of punishment.” Tears pooled in her eyes and she blinked them away.

  “When the Americans came,” Helen continued, “the gates were opened and we were free. It was a delicious feeling—freedom always is—but one never appreciates it until it’s taken away. The soldiers spoke English, and I went to them and explained that I was an American. I had no identification or anything to prove my claim, so I kept repeating the address where my parents lived in New York. I was desperate to get word to them that I was alive. They hadn’t heard from me in almost five years.

  “One of the soldiers brought me to their headquarters. I was completely emaciated, and I’m sure my stench was enough to nauseate anyone standing within twenty feet. The young man then took me to his lieutenant, whose name was Sam Shelton. From that moment forward, Sam took care of me. He saw that I had food and water, clothes and access to showers and anything else I needed.”

  Ruth shuddered at the thought of her grandmother’s physical and mental condition following her release.

  Her grandmother paused to take a deep breath, and when she spoke again, it was in another language, what Ruth assumed was German. Pressing her hand on Helen’s, she stopped her. “Grandma, English, please.”

  Her grandmother frowned. “Sorry.”

  “Was that German?”

  She shrugged, eyes wild and confused. “I don’t know.”

  After all those years inside a German camp, it made sense that she’d revert to the language. In her mind she’d gone back to that time, was reliving each incident.

  “Go on. Please,” Ruth urged.

  Helen sighed. “I don’t remember much about those first days of freedom.”

  Ruth could easily understand that.

  “Still, every memory I have is of the lieutenant at my side, watching over me. I was hospitalized, and I think I slept almost around the clock for three days straight, waking only long enough to eat and drink. Yet every time I opened my eyes, Sam was there. I’m sure that’s not possible, but that’s how I remember it.”

  She picked up her tea with a trembling hand and sipped the cool liquid. “After a week—maybe more, I don’t know, time meant nothing to me—I was transported out of Germany and placed on a ship going to America. Sam wrote out his name and home address in Washington State and gave it to me. I didn’t know why he’d do that.”

  “Did you keep it?” Ruth asked.

  “I did,” Helen confessed, “although I didn’t think I’d ever need it. By the time I got back to New York, I was still skin and bones. My own parents didn’t even recognize me. My mother looked at me and burst into tears. I was twenty-four years old, and I felt sixty.”

  Ruth was in her twenties and couldn’t imagine living through any of what her grandmother had described.

  “Five months after I got home, Sam Shelton knocked on the door of my parents’ brownstone. I’d gained weight and my hair had grown back, and when I saw him I barely remembered who he was. He visited for two days and we talked. He’d come to see how I was adjusting to life in America.”

  Ruth had wondered about that, too. It couldn’t have been easy.

  “I hadn’t done very well. My parents owned a small bakery and I worked at the counter, but I had no life in me, no joy. Now that I was free, I felt I had nothing to live for. My husband was dead, and I was the one who’d killed him. I told this American soldier, whom I hardly knew, all of this. I told him I preferred to die. I told him everything—not one thing did I hold back. He listened and didn’t interrupt me with questions, and when I was finished he took my hand and kissed it.” The tears came again, spilling down her cheeks. “He said I was the bravest woman he’d ever known.”

  “I think you are, too,” Ruth said, her voice shaky.

  “Sam told me he was part of D-day,” Helen said. “His company was one of the first to land on Omaha Beach. He spoke of the fighting there and the bravery of his men. He’d seen death the same way I had. Later, in the midst of the fighting, he’d stumbled across the body of his own brother. He had no time to mourn him. He didn’t understand why God had seen fit to spare him and not his brother.

  “This lieutenant asked the very questions I’d been asking myself. I didn’t know why I should live when I’d rather have died with Jean-Claude—or instead of him.” She paused again, as if to regain her composure.

  “After that, Sam said he’d needed to do a lot of thinking, and praying, and it came to him that his brother, his men, had sacrificed their lives so that others could live in freedom. God had spared him, and me, too, and it wasn’t up to either of us to question why. As for Jean-Claude and Tim, Sam’s brother, they had died in this terrible but necessary war. For either of us to throw away our lives now would be to dishonor them—my husband and Sam’s brother.”

  “He was right, you know.”

  Her grandmother nodded. “Sam left after that one visit. He wished me well and said he hoped I’d keep in touch. I waited a week before I wrote the first letter. Sam hadn’t given me many details of his war experiences, but deep down I knew they’d been as horrific as my own. In that, we had a bond.”

  “So you and Grandpa Sam wrote letters to each other.”

  Helen nodded again. “For six months we wrote, and every day I found more questions for him to answer. His letters were messages of encouragement and hope for us both. Oh, Ruth, how I wish you’d had the opportunity to know your grandfather. He was wise and kind and loving. He gave me a reason to live, a reason to go on. He taught me I could love again—and then he asked me to marry him.” Helen drew in a deep breath. “Sam wrote and asked me to be his
wife, and I said no.”

  “You refused?” Ruth asked, incredulous.

  “I couldn’t leave my parents a second time.... Oh, I had a dozen excuses, all of them valid.”

  “How did he convince you?”

  Her smile was back. “He didn’t. In those days, one didn’t hop on a plane or even use the phone unless it was a dire emergency. For two weeks he was silent. No letters and no contact. Nothing. When I didn’t hear from him, I knew I never would again.”

  This was the reason her grandmother had smiled when Ruth told her she hadn’t heard from Paul.

  “I couldn’t stand it,” Helen admitted. “This soldier had become vitally important to me. For the first time since Jean-Claude died, I could feel. I could laugh and cry. I knew Sam was the one who’d taken this heavy burden of pain from my shoulders. Not only that, he loved me. Loved me,” she repeated, “and I’d turned him down when he asked me to share his life.”

  “What did you do next?”

  Helen smiled at the memory. “I sent a telegram that said three words. Yes. Yes. Yes. Then I boarded a train and five days later, I arrived in Washington State. When I stepped off the platform, my suitcase in hand, Sam was there with his entire family. We were married two weeks later. I knew no one, so he introduced me to his best friends and the women they loved. Those four became my dearest friends. They were the people who helped me adjust to normal life. They helped me find my new identity.” She shook her head slowly. “Not once in all the years your grandfather and I were together did I have a single regret.”

  Ruth’s eyes were teary. “That’s a beautiful love story.”

  “Now you’re living one of your own.”

  Ruth didn’t see it like that. “I don’t want to be a military wife,” she said. “I can’t do it.”

  “You love Paul.”

  Ruth noted that her grandmother hadn’t made it a question. Helen knew that Ruth’s heart was linked with Paul’s. He was an honorable man, and he loved her. They didn’t need to have the same political beliefs as long as they respected each other’s views.