Ruth could understand that easily enough.
“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 bone. My own parents didn’t even recognize me. My mother looked at me, covered her face 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 arrived, Sam Shelton knocked on 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 back 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 barely 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.
“When I’d finished, 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, hardly able to believe it.
“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 bear 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 lifted 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. Winifred and Clara 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 remained 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 adamantly. “I can’t do it.”
“You love Paul.”
Ruth noted that her grandmother hadn’t made it a question. She knew that Ruth’s heart was linked with Paul’s. He was an honorable man, and he loved her. They didn’t have to share the same political beliefs as long as they respected each other’s views.
“Yes, Grandma, I love him.”
“And you miss him the same way I missed Sam.”
“I do.” It was freeing to Ruth to admit it. The depression that had hung over her for the past week lifted.
All at once Ruth knew exactly what she was going to do. Her decision was made.
Ten
Barbara Gordon answered the doorbell, and the moment she saw Ruth, her eyes lit with delight. “Ruth, it’s so good to see you!”
Ruth was instantly ushered into the house. She hadn’t been sure what kind of reception to expect. After all, she’d disappointed and possibly hurt the Gordons’ son.
“I was so hoping you’d stop by,” Barbara continued as she led the way into the kitchen.