And then suddenly, finally, two weeks later, it was.
On the eighth of May, five years and eight months after war was declared in Europe, almost to the day, the war was over. Sirens blared, church bells were rung, horns honked. They still transported the wounded for another three weeks, but no one was trying to shoot them down now. They didn’t need a fighter escort. The bodies could repair and the boys could go home. And the air evac crews could fly them back to the base safely.
The nurses of the air evac transport unit were waiting for their final orders and discharge papers. Their families wanted to know when they would see them again. They didn’t know yet.
Dan called Alex from a small hotel where he was staying in Paris. He had a two-week leave and wanted to know if she could join him. And if not, he was sailing back to the States in a few weeks and docking in New York at the end of June. He said she could have her own room if she came to Paris, which made it sound like a good idea to her. She got a weekend off, and Emma said she’d cover for her. They were finally doing fewer runs and flying fewer missions.
They got their orders the day before she left for Paris. There was going to be an award ceremony on the tenth of June to honor the nurses who had been killed in combat. And on the fifteenth they were flying home. Lizzie called her parents to tell them. They were so relieved. They were waiting to hear from Henry. He was still in Okinawa, but he said in his letters that he was sure he’d be home soon.
Alex called her parents, and her mother cried when she told her, which surprised Alex. Louise’s parents were going to meet her in New York and fly home with her. Emma was going to start looking for an apartment in London and apply for a job as a midwife in a hospital. Max got his orders the day after she did, and he had decided to look for a job in London too, probably at a bank.
Alex told Dan the good news when she met him at his hotel on the Left Bank. He had taken a room for her, just as he promised, and filled it with flowers for her. They walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde, and agreed that they’d never seen anything as beautiful. Paris was already recovering from the Occupation, and the city was jubilant, as all of Europe was. The Japanese hadn’t surrendered yet, but the war wouldn’t last much longer in the Pacific either.
“I think I dock in New York about a week after you get home,” Dan told her as they walked to the Trocadero, with its breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower, and sat down at an outdoor café. “And what happens after that?” he asked her, admiring how beautiful she was. She was still in uniform. They both were. There were American uniforms all over Paris.
“I get a job and an apartment.” Alex smiled at him. “I haven’t told my parents that yet. But I can’t go back to living with them. I’d rather live in an army barracks.”
“Am I going to meet them?” he asked her.
“Yes, you are.” She had thought about it. Coming to meet him in Paris was a big step for her. It was a promise of things to come if all went well between them. And what better place to begin than Paris? She wanted her parents to meet him. She was proud to be with him, no matter what they thought. She no longer needed their approval, but she wanted them to meet the man she was falling in love with. “It won’t be fun,” she warned him.
“Will they hate me?”
“No. But they won’t be happy about it. My father will be all right. My mother will be difficult. It’s my life, Dan.” She knew what she wanted. She wanted a life with him in Pittsburgh, whenever they decided the time was right for it, and she hoped it would be soon. They didn’t know each other well enough yet, but he had promised to come to New York as often as he could. They had talked about it as soon as she got to Paris. He wanted to ask her father’s permission and get engaged as soon as they got home.
“You know, I thought Omaha Beach was the worst thing that had ever happened to me,” he said, thinking about it. “Now it turns out it was the best thing. If I hadn’t been sent there, I’d never have met you, and none of this would be happening. I’d be sitting at a café in Paris by myself, watching all the guys with their girls and lonely as hell.” He was smiling as he said it, and he leaned over and kissed her. “I want to take you to Twenty-One for dinner, as soon as I dock in New York. Where are we going to go on our honeymoon?” he asked, and she laughed.
“Shouldn’t we get engaged first?”
“I feel like we already are.” Everything felt so comfortable between them. But she didn’t want to rush things. She wanted to savor it and get to know each other.
“So do I.” She smiled happily. The hard memories were already starting to fade, all the men she’d seen suffering, and the ones who had died. She was going to miss the nurses she had worked with and lived with. They were bonded forever. Lizzie and Louise, and Emma. They all still missed Pru and Audrey. Those memories would never leave them, and the good times that they’d shared. They had all grown up together.
He took her to dinner at the Hôtel Ritz that night. The Nazi High Command had lived there for the Occupation, but there was no sign of them now. Parisians were treating American soldiers like royalty, and the sight of him kissing a woman in uniform made people who walked past them smile. It was a familiar sight. Everyone in Paris seemed to be kissing someone.
She told him when she left that they were the three happiest days of her life. He was coming back to England for their award ceremony on the tenth, right before he shipped out. His ship was leaving from Southampton on the twelfth of June. She was flying home three days after he sailed. It would give her a few days to prepare her parents before he got there. They were expecting her to come home and settle into the life they wanted for her, and instead she was going to marry a wholesale butcher from Pittsburgh. It was going to be a shock. But whether they liked it or not, she knew that it was the right path for her, and he was the right man. He was different from every man she’d ever known.
He took her to the train for Calais, and from there she would take the ferry back to England. She had already promised Lizzie that she would come up to Boston for a weekend before they both found jobs.
It was going to be hard leaving Emma in England. But she had Max now. Things had been progressing nicely for them for the past five months, since Christmas. And Emma was going to spend time with his family in Yorkshire with him that summer. They all had new lives to begin. They all had plans now, and hope for the future.
There were missing pieces and missing people, but there were friends who would always be part of their lives after what they’d been through together. Louise wanted them to visit her in North Carolina.
Lizzie had slipped away to a hotel in Brighton with Ed the weekend that Alex went to Paris to meet Dan.
They walked down the boardwalk arm in arm and felt the sea breeze on their faces. She was looking out to sea when he slipped down on one knee next to her, and she looked at him in surprise. He’d been planning it for weeks and wanted to wait until their weekend away together.