“What are you doing?” she said, looking startled.
“You said not to ask you till the war was over and we were both alive, so here we are.” He smiled at her. “Elizabeth Hatton, will you marry me?”
“I…yes,” she said softly, and he stood up and kissed her. As soon as they came up for air, she asked him a question. “Where are we going to live?” She didn’t want to move to Ireland. She had to go home to Boston, for her parents. They had lost one child, they couldn’t lose two, if she moved away. That didn’t seem fair now.
“My cousin is going to sponsor me.” Ed smiled at her. “He’s already started on the paperwork. I want to apply for citizenship. And I can get veterans’ benefits, to pay for medical school,” he said calmly, and kissed her again, and she was smiling too.
“We have Audrey’s money too, don’t forget. When are we getting married?”
“As soon as your father says yes. My cousin is sending me a ticket, and he can give me a job at his restaurant. I’ll fly to Boston as soon as I get released by the RAF, probably in the next month or two. You can start planning the wedding as soon as you want.” She knew her parents would be shocked, but she wasn’t going to give them a choice. They were both going to apply to medical school and go through it together. They had so much to look forward to, and they had survived the war. That was the greatest miracle of all. So many hadn’t. They walked back to their hotel then, disappeared into their room and closed the door. It was what they had dreamed and hoped for since the day they met, and now it was all within reach. They were just sorry that Pru and Audrey weren’t there to share it with them, but their memories would live on forever in their hearts.
* * *
—
Alex went to look for the others as soon as she got back from Paris. She found Lizzie in her room. She had just come back from Brighton.
“I’m going to marry Dan,” Alex said as soon as she walked through the door.
“I’m engaged!” Lizzie countered, and they both laughed.
“What are you two sinful women up to? You should be ashamed of yourselves!” Emma said as she stuck her head through the doorway. “Sneaking off to hotels with your men, although it does sound very romantic,” she conceded.
“We’re getting married!” Lizzie announced.
“To each other? Now that should be interesting,” Emma said, grinning at them. She was happy for them, and she wasn’t surprised. Louise joined them a few minutes later.
“How was Paris?” she asked Alex. But she could see from the smile on her face and the light in her eyes.
“They’re getting married,” Emma told her. Louise was happy for them, although they all still felt the absence of their lost friends. Lizzie knew Ed did too. He talked about Pru all the time. And Lizzie missed Audrey. They had been through so much together.
They had dinner in the mess hall that night. And they were flying their last missions in the next week.
The entire squadron was going to attend the award ceremony five days before the American nurses were due to start going back to the States. They were flying back on military transports. There was so much to do, and so many papers to fill out before they left. The dormitory was exploding with life, with women packing and seeing friends, spending time with the men they’d been dating, and promising to visit each other once they got home. They all wondered if there would be enough jobs back home for all the nurses returning from the war. And some had boyfriends at home they hadn’t seen in three years. They wondered what that would be like. They had all changed so much. They were grown women now, not girls.
They had all learned so much, and life at home had moved on. Nieces and nephews had been born whom they’d never seen. Parents had died, relatives had gotten married. They had to fit back into a world that many of them had outgrown. Many had plans to marry men they hadn’t seen in years. And wartime lovers were being left behind. Soldiers were leaving babies they had spawned or trying to bring women to America to join them, but they would have to wait for their papers. They were leaving their new world and going back to their old one and wondered if they would still fit in after what they’d seen and done for nearly four years. There were so many who would never come home again and had died overseas in Normandy, and England, Italy, and Germany, and in the Pacific, like Lizzie’s brother. The world would never be the same again. War had changed all of them, and the returning men and women were going home as the new people they had become, while their friends and families waited for the old ones to return. It was going to be an adjustment for all.
* * *
—
Louise was walking back to the barracks from the airstrip after her last mission, wondering if her world had changed or if she was going home to the same prejudices and restrictions, when she saw a tall man watching her from the end of the airstrip. She had seen him as she came down the ladder in her flight suit. There was something familiar about him. She wondered if he was one of the men they’d saved, who had come to thank her and say goodbye. Many had. And as she walked toward him, he smiled at her, and then she saw the piercing blue eyes and knew who it was. She would have known those eyes anywhere.
“Bonsoir, Louise,” he said to her in French when she reached him. “I told you I would come and find you. We made it safely to Switzerland after we left you. You saved my life.” It was Gonzague.
“Oh my God,” was all she could say as he pulled her close to him. She felt as though she were dreaming.
“They tell me that you’re going home. I will go home soon too. Come, let us sit. We have a lot to talk about.”
They found a log under a tree and sat on it. He held her hand and kissed her. He wanted to know everything. When she was leaving, where she was going, what she would do now.
“You don’t know me. But I know you. I knew you that night, and everything I needed to know.” It had been ten months since she’d seen him, and it suddenly felt like only days. She had been so sure she would never see him again, that it was only a dream. “The Germans took my home and have been living there for the entire Occupation. I’m going home to reclaim it,” he explained to her. “I’m sure the German pigs who lived there didn’t treat it with respect. I go now to make it livable again. But I wanted to see you first. And then I want you to come and see it, to tell me if you think you could be happy there. It’s in the country, near Provence. My family built it three hundred years ago. And you live where?”
“In North Carolina. Raleigh. My father is a doctor. And my mother runs a school. I’m a nurse,” she said, not knowing where to start, and he laughed.
“I know. I remember. You are very good at what you do. And you wish to continue? Would you live in France with me? Married, of course.” He scarcely knew her, but he had no doubt in his mind. He had known it the night they met, when she got him on his feet to escape the Germans and saved him. “I’ve been asked to work with the new government, with General de Gaulle. Some of my skills and experience of the past six years could be useful to them in the Department of the Interior, as a minister of the government, which means some time in Paris, and some time at home in Provence. I would like to meet your family.” She was frowning, wondering how realistic he was about the problems he would face with a woman like her. It all felt like a dream, and maybe he was dreaming too. He sounded certain about her, even though he barely knew her. He was going purely on instinct and his powerful attraction to her. He had been living by his wits for nearly six years, and trusted what he felt for her.