“He was,” she confirmed, thinking about Will.
“Then you have to go on and live fully. What happened to them wasn’t fair. But one day someone will come along who was meant to be with you, and you’ll start over again.” She still couldn’t imagine it, even more than two years later. But she knew Ed meant well. She smiled. She loved listening to his soft Irish brogue. He sounded so gentle when he comforted the patients, and now he was comforting her.
He left the pub a few minutes later, and the other girls questioned her about him.
“He’s got a crush on you,” Louise said to her, and Lizzie denied it.
“No he doesn’t. He’s just friendly.”
They hooted at her, and she blushed. “I swear to you, he’s not after me. Pru and her other corpsman say he has a million girlfriends.”
“Until he finds the right one,” Alex said, grinning at her. Emma laughed too.
“Where I come from, any girl with eyes in her head would grab a guy who looks like that and hold on to him,” Emma said. Pru had tried to get Emma interested in Ed, but she said she still wasn’t over the boyfriend she had lost in the first year of the war. She didn’t want to get hooked on another guy who might die, and Ed flew dangerous missions. They all did. There were no safe jobs in the war, even for civilians. The building you were in could be bombed at any time, or even the home where you slept at night. They were all at constant risk, and even more so in the RAF, doing what they did. They were all fully aware that they could die on any day, and they were willing to take that risk, for the good of the men they rescued.
After he left the bar, Ed thought about what he had said to her, about opening her heart again, and he realized that it wasn’t entirely without motive. He hadn’t been as attracted to any woman since Belinda had died, and the speech he had made to her was somewhat self-serving.
They flew together the next day, and he tried to stay professional. Pru wasn’t feeling well, but had come to work anyway, and she let Lizzie do most of the work. It was good practice for her, and she was entirely equal to the task. And it threw Lizzie and Ed together more than it would have otherwise. And at one point, without thinking, he gently touched her arm, and she looked up at him, surprised. He took his hand away quickly and moved away from her, on the pretext of taking a patient’s vital signs, but he had just wanted to touch her and connect with her in some deeper way. He was still thinking about it after work that night. He didn’t want to frighten her away, but he was suddenly thinking about her all the time. Pru had noticed it too: how close he stood to her, how often he spoke to her, how gentle he was when he helped her with a patient, or helped her down the ladder at the end of the day. Lizzie took his breath away when he was close to her.
“You’re falling for her, aren’t you?” Pru said to him in the supply closet one day after a flight, and he didn’t know what to say. He just nodded, and their eyes met. “That’s dangerous here,” Pru reminded him. “Any of us could die any day. You’ll get your heart broken again if that happens.” It was something they had to be aware of, and remember every day. And she knew he was more sensitive than he looked. Dating lots of women kept him from getting attached to one.
“You can’t think that way, Pru. Or I can’t. Yes, I got hurt and lost someone I loved. But life doesn’t end there. It can’t. We’re all young, and for most of us, there will be a future. We have to believe in that, or life isn’t worth living.”
“She’s a good woman,” Pru vouched for her.
“I know. I can tell. She should go to medical school. She’d make a terrific doctor. She has great judgment, good hands, and she’s a great diagnostician.”
“You should go to medical school too.” Pru had said it to him before, and he wished he could. But for now, he had to be content with being a corpsman, and maybe an ambulance driver after the war, which was as far as he could get.
They flew a number of tough missions that week, and Pru told Lizzie she thought her breaking-in period should be over, although she enjoyed flying with her. She was going to sign off on her and officially approve her to fly on her own, without supervision.
That night, Lizzie went back to her room, and she and Audrey chatted for a few minutes before she went to sleep. Audrey had gone out to dinner with an RAF fighter pilot, and she told Lizzie about him. They felt like two girls in high school, and Lizzie laughed about it before she went to sleep.
She was already in a deep sleep when Audrey shook her awake two hours later. She’d had a long day and was so tired she didn’t remember where she was for a minute when she woke up. She saw Audrey’s face close to hers and remembered. She wondered if it was an air raid, but it was silent outside when she sat up in bed.
“What’s up?” Lizzie asked her, confused.
“There’s someone downstairs to see you,” Audrey said. “The night warden just knocked on the door to tell us.”
“At this hour?” Audrey nodded, not wanting to frighten Lizzie, but it reminded her of when they had come to tell her mother about Will. “Do I have to get dressed?” She put on her bathrobe, and Audrey shook her head.
“I don’t see why at this time of night.” Audrey hoped it was good news, but she had a premonition it wouldn’t be. Good news didn’t knock on the door at midnight.
Lizzie hurried down the stairs in her bathrobe and slippers, looking fresh-faced and young with her blond hair cascading down her back, when she saw two officers waiting for her in the sitting area reserved for the nurses. Men were allowed to visit them there, but they could go no farther. Both men were in uniform, and it suddenly struck her that they were American. One was an Army Air Forces captain, and the other was a second lieutenant. There were American officers on the base to coordinate their troops with the RAF on their joint missions, using personnel from both armies.
They stood up when she walked into the room and she saluted them, but then didn’t know what to say.
“Lieutenant Hatton,” the captain said cautiously, “I’m sorry to come by at this hour, but your unit commander says you start your missions sometimes at four and five a.m., and I thought it was best to see you tonight.” He pointed to the chair and she sat down, afraid of what would come next. Maybe she was being sent home, or had committed some unpardonable mistake.
“Is something wrong?” He glanced at the second lieutenant and went on.
“I’m afraid we don’t have good news. Your brother, Lieutenant Gregory Hatton, died in a surprise attack on the hospital where he was working in New Caledonia earlier today. They were strafed by Japanese planes and there were a number of casualties, your brother among them while trying to protect his patients. We wanted to make you aware as soon as possible. Unfortunately, under the circumstances, and with the risk of shipping you back to the States, we can’t give you compassionate leave to go home. Of course, you may take as many days off as you feel you’ll need, but you have to stay here.” She nodded, unable to speak, trying to absorb what they had said. It didn’t seem possible. It couldn’t be true. Greg was always going to be there. He was a doctor. He had finished medical school. He was her big brother. He couldn’t be dead.