Margaret shrugged. “That just means that next year, we’ll look back on this time and be even more grateful when our families are together again.”
Gladys rolled her eyes. “Cut the Pollyanna act. Even if John comes home, how many people do you know whose tables will be forever empty?”
The doorbell rang and Margaret never had a chance to answer.
Chapter Nine
Tom was jolted from a deep sleep when John snuck up behind him and started blowing kissing sounds in his ear. The morning sun sent bright streaks of light through their attic bedroom and he shielded his eyes from its brightness.
“Get off me, man,” he said. Though it was all in fun. The brotherhood of John, William, and Tom grew every day. And along with it, the teasing.
Tom relished it.
He was the latest target. When William’s pen pal, Margaret, had sent her picture a few weeks ago, Tom felt something lurch inside him in a way he’d never felt before. She had long blond hair that appeared white in the photograph. Her eyes, too, were light—probably blue in person like her brother’s—and her cosmetics perfectly enhanced her already beautiful features. Though she didn’t seem like she’d need them. She was that girl-next-door type that populated his part of rural Virginia, but she had a spark in her eyes that said this was no farm girl.
And that smile. He would love to be the reason a girl smiled like that someday.
William had shared all of her letters with Tom, and through them, he’d come to know this girl whose spirit and heart displayed themselves in black ink on thin paper. He was delighted to discover that she looked as friendly as she sounded in her correspondences.
Tom still wrote the letters back to her, as William’s cast remained in place for the time being. So although they were William’s dictations, Tom felt an affinity for Margaret Beck as well, his soul pouring its way to the page through the ink almost as if it were all his own. And indeed, he’d embellished here and there with a word she might enjoy learning or a turn of phrase he thought might delight her.
He’d also continued to sketch flowers at the end.
William had insisted that they bring her into the light on that point. He thought Margaret should know that Tom was the artist. And so, in the letter they were about to send out, Tom included a postscript, the third-person nature of it being something he grew ever more used to.
P.S. Our buddy Tom has a knack for art, so I told him it was time to come clean and tell you that the flowers are from him.
He hoped she enjoyed those little additions.
John continued with the kissing noises.
Sometime in the night, one of them had taken Margaret’s picture and pinned it to Tom’s pillow. Just like John had Dottie’s.
Tom woke up to the little image of the pretty girl from Brooklyn and wondered what it might be like to wake up next to her for real.
And so, the teasing ensued. John did not seem very protective of his little sister where William and Tom were concerned. Perhaps it was a testament to the trust they had for each other. There was no better way to bond than jumping out of airplanes together. Each time a risk.
Each time, a readiness to die for a brother and for a cause.
Or perhaps distance made the whole thing a dream—and therefore John had nothing to worry about from his buddies where Margaret was concerned.
“Tom Powell is sweet on William’s girl,” John sang in an off-key melody of his own creation.
“She’s not my girl,” William piped up. “She my friend. And your sister could do a lot worse than Tom here.”
“She could do a lot better.”
“Thanks, meathead,” Tom said. “Just for that, you have to take my next latrine duty.”
“Fair enough. But are you thinking about writing her too?” John asked with sincerity as he sat on Tom’s bed. The springs groaned under the added weight.
“Nah. I’ll leave that to William. Though it’s kind of her to remember me in the packages. William told her that my favorite color is blue, and the next package had a pair of socks in a bag with my name. Blue with a red border.”
“I’ve known her for all of her twenty-two years, Tom. I’ve heard the chatter between her and Dottie back when they were schoolgirls. And taken them to the movies. Margaret’s eyes get a special glisten to them when Cary Grant and his ilk are on the screen.”
Tom shrugged. “What’s your point?”
He stood up and started unbuttoning his pajama top. Sobel wanted them on the runway at seven o’clock sharp.
“I’m saying that I think you’d be my sister’s type. Tall. Dark. And, William—is our boy handsome? You’re the better judge of that.”
William grinned. He’d shared his secret with John shortly after he’d told Tom. Tom and John both assured him that it made no difference. He laced up his bootstraps and jumped from airplanes just like the rest of them and that’s all that mattered to them.
Such things were of no consequence when one had pledged to give his life for yours if the situation called for it.
“Definitely handsome,” William assessed as he stroked an imaginary beard. “There is a fine symmetry to his face, a slight divot in his chin, and his jaw looks as if it was chiseled in marble by Michelangelo himself.”
Tom rolled his eyes and walked over to the washbasin. He looked in the mirror above it. He wouldn’t scare any crows from the field any time soon, nor did he think himself to look like a matinee idol. It was difficult to consider oneself honestly. “You two are full of it, you know?” He picked up the bar of lye soap and scrubbed his hands.
Tom knew that all of this was theatrics more than anything. The circumstances of the war made this whole scenario squarely hypothetical and easy fodder for the joking that was common among the men.
John pulled his uniform out of the wardrobe and picked a piece of lint off it. “Okay. Well, that might be an exaggeration on our parts. But you’re no slouch, Tom. I think my sister would rather like that mug of yours. And I can’t think of any guy I’d rather her go out with.”
Tom felt his cheeks warm at the praise and at the very notion that John would seem so sincere with his approval. It was a welcome thought, although it would amount to nothing in the end. Tom’s plan was to stay in the military long after the war was over. He had no idea how a woman would fit into that picture.
“Well, you’ll be waiting a long time,” he told John. “She’s over three thousand miles west of here and as far as I can tell, we’re going to be old men by the time we get back home. Besides. She lives in Brooklyn and even when I return to the States, I don’t think I’ll ever get the country out of my blood.”
“Don’t be so sure. Love conquers geography.”
“Well, the current geography is enough to make this entire conversation pointless.”
He checked his watch. They needed to move faster.
They each began to get dressed. William had become adept with doing the task one-handed and would continue his role as radio support on the ground until he could get up in the air again.
Tom worried that today’s jumps would be especially precarious given the winds howling outside their bedroom window. Not so much that the glider flights had been canceled, but they would have to take extra care to maneuver their parachutes into the targeted landing zone. Winters believed that unless it was inherently dangerous, every jump would go on as scheduled. Hitler didn’t slow his advances based on the weather forecast and neither should they. At least here in England there were no enemies waiting to shoot them down. That was coming, no doubt about it. But for now, their mission was to perfect their skills, no matter what conditions the day brought, so that they’d be ready as soon as Uncle Sam activated them.