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  “I guess I should explain.”

  Anna spoke first. “Not necessary.”

  Adeline pulled Carolyn into a comforting hug. “Whatever you need.”

  Carolyn seemed to teeter. “He was the love of my life, until he wasn’t.”

  With that, Carolyn all but melted into the arms of her dearest friends.

  Lost to the world, the girls cried, until the sound of gunfire startled them and brought them back to the present.

  Another crack.

  “I guess it’s a twenty-one-gun salute.” Anna handed out fresh Kleenex to her friends.

  The girls looked around and saw that a couple of hundred feet away, behind a huge tree, a funeral was under way. Full military regalia was on display. Handsome men and women in uniform. Horses to pull the cart with the flag-covered casket.

  Without a word, the girls bowed their heads and showed respect for the soldier and his or her loved ones. Each lost in her thoughts and memories.

  Adeline’s voice was slightly more than a whisper. “Shall we go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?”

  “Please. I promise, girls, no more histrionics.”

  Anna gave Carolyn another hug from the side. “Don’t be silly. If a cemetery is not the appropriate place to grieve, I’m not sure there is one.”

  Carolyn looked down at the shredded tissue in her hand. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you about it when we get home.”

  Adeline stood straight. “If you choose to, but please, do not feel obligated. You are entitled to privacy and a history. You are not required to share.”

  “I believe it will help. This is a secret I’ve held for far too long.”

  The girls wandered around the cemetery for hours. The juxtaposition of human nature was glaring. Some people were somber and respectful; some treated the facility as if it were a day at an amusement park.

  By the time they had watched a tourist jump the chain that holds tourists back from the huge cobblestones surrounding Kennedy’s headstone—to get a quick selfie with the eternal flame—and witnessed a woman that stood in the Memorial Amphitheater caterwauling and laughing, the girls had had enough of the disrespect shown.

  As they made their way to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, each of the girls turned off her cell phone and stepped quietly into the area. They settled on the steps, using them as benches as the rest of those in attendance had done. A guard marched back and forth in front of the monument in a very precise exhibition. All of the symbolism was explained in a brochure that Anna had. The number of steps in each direction, the way everything is done, all of it had significance.

  The people sitting beside Anna were talking. Not whispering. Talking. She wanted to punch them.

  The women sitting just to the left and above Adeline were laughing about something.

  There was a group of young people down and to the far left. They took off their hats and sat in silence.

  An older man sat to the right. Tears fell freely down his face.

  The noise level was increasing.

  Just as Anna was about to say something to the idiots beside her, the guard beat her to it. He stepped out of the line he had precisely followed and barked something about silence and respect.

  There was immediate silence. As he stepped back into his regimented routine, there was a skittering of nervous laughter, but after his instruction it was much more quiet.

  After several more passes, the guard left his precise pattern and went to a little shack to the left. There, he put down his weapon, adjusted his appearance and got a quick drink. He was back in his pattern within a couple of minutes.

  Soon after was the changing of the guard.

  Everyone stood and watched as the guards went through a very impressive display of coordinated movement and planning.

  Then there was a new guard pacing back and forth in front of the tomb.

  After several more passes, the crowd started to disperse.

  Adeline couldn’t help herself. She approached the women that had been laughing and said—very quietly—“I hope you are never in a situation where dignity and respect are not afforded to you by strangers, or worse, that dignity and respect are not afforded to your children. Should you ever find yourself in a situation where someone you love has put everything on the line for an individual’s freedom to comport themselves in such a disrespectful way, I pray you think back on today and remember you were no more sensitive when it was MY child that sacrificed such a great deal, for your freedom. Freedom to act like a complete ass.

  The women weren’t laughing anymore. Before the one on the right could respond, the one on the left grabbed her arm to silence her, apologized for their behavior, and left.

  It hadn’t dawned on Carolyn that visiting Arlington Cemetery might be difficult on Adeline. Her daughter was out of the service now, but thinking about it, about what might have happened to her, what had happened to so many others—to the people buried in this very cemetery—might be difficult for Adeline. All the possibilities flashed through her mind. Friends of her daughter may have been lost in battle. Carolyn had never thought about it. How careless she had been.

  The girls continued their walking tour, taking in the monuments. The number of plain white headstones was mind-boggling. Anna remembered that she had read there were almost six hundred and twenty-five acres of land here. Over three hundred thousand buried. The thought of all those souls pushed on her.

  Had she ever stopped to think about what her freedom had cost?

  Perhaps she had taken it for granted.

  She would no longer.

  Back at the condo, the girls sat with a cup of tea, each lost in thoughts of the past. It was Carolyn who broke the silence.

  “I was sixteen.”

  Anna and Adeline put down their cups, turned toward their friend, but didn’t say a word.

  “He was nineteen. Signed up with the military the day after he graduated from high school. Where we grew up, there wasn’t much else to do. If you weren’t college bound, and most of us weren’t, you either joined the military and moved away, or you just moved toward something better. None of us knew what that would be. Just get away from where we were, mostly.”

  They could see she was back there. In her mind’s eye, she was a young woman again. A child, really.

  She spoke softly. “I begged him not to go. We had been seeing each other for only a few weeks, but I was so convinced he was the one. The man I would spend my life with. He had a lovely smile. His eyes would light up every time he saw me. I’d walk from my parents’ place to his. Something out of an old movie or a silly song, I guess, but it was very real to us.”

  She smiled. “We held hands and walked downtown. Went to two dances in the church basement. My daddy was not happy about him. He was so much older, and officially, I wasn’t allowed to date. I surely wasn’t to be alone with a boy. My momma stepped in for me. Said that I was a good girl and that he needn’t worry. She was right, too. No more than a chaste little kiss now and again. Until he enlisted. I thought we had time. Plenty of time.”

  Carolyn poured herself a bit more tea. “I didn’t even know he was thinking about signing up. He said his father had told him there was a place for him at the factory, and when that fell through, he had no choice. He didn’t even talk to me about it first, just went down, signed up, and then came home and took his parents to dinner. Once that was all done, he came and told me. I was heartbroken.”

  Carolyn looked so fragile, it worried Anna. “We only had a short time before he had to report. We decided I would stay home, and we would write, every day, and when I was old enough, we would marry. That was our plan. I even talked to my mother about getting married before he left—we could have done it if she would sign—but she said if our love was strong, it would pass the test of time, and we would be together in the end.”

  She tried to smile. “I’m sure you have figured out it didn’t work out that way.”

  When Carolyn took a sip of her tea,
she balked. It was cold. Without a word, Anna rose, put on the kettle and came back to the table.

  “So we started writing to each other. I still have the letters. Both his and mine. Some of them are so faded. I wrote to him in pencil because that is all he had to write to me with, and I wanted the letters to be alike. So silly.”

  “I don’t think it silly at all, Carolyn. I think it profoundly romantic.”

  “Thank you, Adeline. Anyway, we wrote back and forth for a long time. Professing our love to each other, you know, how kids do.”

  Anna braced herself. She knew Carolyn was going to say her love was killed in the line of duty, and it would be devastating.

  Carolyn continued. “Anyway, I wrote religiously, as did he. I even made plans to visit once or twice but could never get my parents to agree.”

  “Visit?” Anna’s brows met in the middle.

  “Oh, this isn’t the story of a great wartime romance. He was a file clerk. He wasn’t off to war, he was just out of our little town, and I had no way to get to him.”

  The girls nodded, completely unsure of what to expect next.

  Anna’s radar went off. Why would a file clerk only have a pencil to write with? Why had Carolyn never asked herself that question?

  Carolyn’s voice brought her up short. “We got to know each other in those letters. We shared everything. I was so completely in love with this boy.”

  Adeline put her hand on Carolyn’s arm, which seemed to give her the strength to continue.

  “We were going to get married, he and I. Just as soon as he got home. I’d had my birthday. No one could stop us. I’d gotten pretty close to his sister, and we planned a great surprise. He was coming in on the train. We would meet him at the station. She could drive. Not all that many young women drove in those days, and I certainly didn’t have access to a car.

  “The plot was to surprise him at the station and then whisk him off for a fine meal at the steakhouse. We had reservations. It was scandalous. That he would spend the evening with me before ever seeing the rest of his family? We were quite proud of ourselves, really. His sister had agreed she would somehow extricate herself, and it would be just the two of us.”

  Carolyn looked at her friends. “Didn’t quite work out that way.”

  They said nothing. Allowed her a moment to relive the memory. It was obviously a painful one.

  “He stepped off the train, looking handsome in his uniform. He had matured. Had a firmer jaw. Lost what we called ‘baby fat’ back then.” Her smile was haunted.

  “He turned just before I screamed for him and helped a beautiful young woman off the train. I was so young. So naïve. It still hadn’t dawned on me. Not even when I heard his sister whisper, ‘Oh, no.’”

  Carolyn sat a little straighter in her chair. “I’ll never forget it. She was wearing the most beautiful navy blue suit.”

  Anna shook her head.

  Adeline rubbed Carolyn’s arm lightly.

  “I still didn’t get it. I’m ashamed of it, to this day, but I didn’t understand they were together. I figured he was just being a gentleman to a woman he’d met on the train. I made a complete fool of myself. Of him. Made her welcome into their family so awkward.”

  Anna was the first to react. “You aren’t telling me you felt bad for the guy? He was writing you letters professing his love. There was no way you could have or should have known.”

  “I know that now, but then, I was just, well, broken.”

  “He didn’t deserve you.” Anna’s voice was quiet but firm.

  “It wasn’t like that, Anna. Really. He was far from home. He was lonely. When things happened, he did the right thing. The honorable thing.”

  “How honorable was it for him not to warn you he was bringing home another woman?”

  “He wanted to tell me in person. Tell me that he loved me and that he was sorry.”

  Adeline sounded stern. “As well he should.”

  Her blind defense of this man made Anna and Carolyn keep any other thoughts to themselves.

  “I was heartbroken, I admit that. My mother, bless her soul, tried her best for a day or two, then lost patience with my grief. She allowed as how I’d been saved from a fate much like her own. She felt she was stuck in a marriage that was less than ideal. Of course, at the time, I didn’t understand her message to me. I only understood she had no sympathy for me or my situation and thought I should just let him go. He was now a married man with his first child on the way, and I was a young woman free to play the field a little and find the man of my dreams.”

  “I have to say I agree with your momma.” Anna tried to lighten the mood.

  “I didn’t agree with her, but I saw I really had no other option. He was taken. My father kept pointing out a real man doesn’t treat a girl that way. My mother kept telling me I could do better. My brother was ready to kill him on the spot.”

  Anna shook her head. “I didn’t even know you had a brother.”

  “I lost him to cancer in 1972.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Carolyn.” Adeline’s eyes filled with tears.

  There was still so much the girls didn’t know about each other.

  Carolyn continued. “I dated. Not a lot, but enough. I gave myself the luxury of time. I decided it took me most of three years to fall so completely in love with this man, so I would give myself three years to fall back out of love.”

  Adeline nodded. “Very wise for such a young person.”

  “I look back at it as more like torture than wisdom. I watched. From a distance. I was foolish enough back then to think she never knew. Not the full extent of it. After the awkward introduction at the train station, we were again introduced at church. By my mother’s best friend, of all people. The woman laughed describing me as ‘one of your husband’s old crushes from high school.’ I thought my heart would pound right out of my chest. Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get worse, he walked up. He looked so sad. He had aged so. His eyes didn’t sparkle anymore. He was a man carrying such a heavy load. But I was polite, wished them well, and asked after the baby. Even attended her baby shower since she was new to the area and didn’t have any family or friends. Made the baby a blanket myself. So soft. All neutral colors, like we did back then. They had a boy. A beautiful boy. Even that didn’t erase the sadness from his eyes. They named the child Emerson Baker, Jr.” Her voice seemed to float away.

  After another sip of tea, she continued. “That should be the end of the story, right? The innocent little girl from small-town America and the handsome young man. He leaves. Returns with another woman. She goes off to college and becomes a schoolmarm. It’s a classic tale, really.”

  Anna shook her head. “I would never have thought of you as a schoolmarm, Carolyn.”

  She allowed herself a laugh, but it came out a little more harsh than was her usual. “Actually, it was my intent to run off to college, to escape, and to teach children, because children were innocent and couldn’t hurt me. That’s where I met my husband. At school. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  When Adeline got the call from her attorneys—interrupting Carolyn’s story—she excused herself, saying there were issues that demanded her immediate attention.

  Carolyn took the opportunity to go to her bedroom to lie down for just a few moments. The telling of her story was wearing. She was more tired than she had been in years.

  She lay on her bed and allowed herself to travel back, back to when it was all fresh and new.

  THREE

  CAROLYN LOUISE MARTINSON. She found her name on the list.

  She was terrified. All the confidence had drained out of her the day Emerson had stepped off the train with his new wife, but she wasn’t going to dwell on it. She couldn’t stay at home, not with them living right down the road. Not with that woman running around town with a gold ring on her finger and his last name. His wife, with her pregnant belly announcing to the world what they had done while Carolyn stayed in their littl
e town, professing her love for him.

  She was growing to hate the woman, and that simply wasn’t fair, so she’d applied to school. With her grades, she’d been accepted to teachers’ college and had been given a bit of help financially.

  At first, she was unsure. Her mother was convinced she was on her way to finding a good husband at college and should apply herself accordingly. More than business school, with a teaching certificate, she would be set until she found a man and had her first baby. Then after the children were in school, she’d be able to go back and teach, still home when the children and her husband needed her, but able to have her own interests.

  It was a rather progressive stance, especially for her mother, but Carolyn was beginning to understand all her mother was projecting on her. Her mother was not happy in her marriage and had no escape. She didn’t want that for Carolyn. What she wanted for her daughter was all the security of a loving home and happy husband with a built-in escape hatch should things not work out. Not a divorce, of course, but outside friends and experiences could bolster any woman.

  It would be a perfect life.

  A husband, children, and interests of her own was what her mother told her over and over and over again. Carolyn was no longer certain who her mother was trying to convince.

  Her father was dropping her at school each morning. She took the bus home and had dinner on the table each night at six. Her mother said now that she was grown, she needed to earn her keep, and having the appropriate skills to care for her husband and children could only help in landing the right man.

  There would be no more thoughts of Emerson.

  It wasn’t a stated demand, but it was implied, and it was implied strongly.

  Carolyn had wasted enough of her time and energy on a man who had fallen for the first woman to have thrown herself at him. Everyone in town could do the math. They weren’t fooling anybody. Their marriage was one of necessity, and now the two of them could reap what they had sown. So said everyone in town.

  Everyone but Carolyn.

  She pulled her thoughts back to the list.