Liddy wasn’t sure if she would or wouldn’t, but it was out of her control. She took her mail back to her quarters and sat up against the wall on her bed and slit open a letter from Danieclass="underline"
March 11, 1944
Dear Liddy,
How are you? Sounds like you’re getting to fly your dream planes. I was thinking the other day that I might be flying a plane that you moved from the factory before it got shipped over here. I like that thought.
Things are a little crazy here. It seems we just get back in and we’re sent out again. I’m flying bomber escort. We lost two last week. I get really scared sometimes. I want to talk to you in person. I want you to make me feel as invincible as you are. So I do the next best thing. I pretend you’re pitted right behind me and giving me what for and that keeps me on my toes. It’s always a good day to die, right?
A lot of guys are having battle dreams. No one says so, but you hear them in the night. I keep having this dream about an endless line of smelly old ladies stretched out like a river across Crik’s field, and they’re throwing tomatoes at me.
Liddy laughed and cleared the moisture from her eyes and then closed them and looked for Daniel’s face. Before she continued reading, she prayed for him.
What do you think it means? It kind of bothers me, but I’ll take it over the other.
When the infantry guys come through the camp, we hear stories of what they’re seeing on the ground. Train cars filled with piles of bodies that are wasted to just skin over bone and filthy concentration camps that are filled with the barely living and more dead. I’m glad I’m in the air.
Thanks for the letters they always take my mind off things. Celia’s having a hard time with me being over here, and her letters are always pretty sad.
Holly Grove seems a lifetime away. I hope to meet you there again soon,
Liddy put the letter back in its envelope and placed it in the side table next to her bed. Before closing the drawer, she took out a stack of letters tied with string. She ran her fingers over the return address and then removed the last one she had received over three weeks earlier and read it:
February 27th, 1944
Dear Liddy,
How are you? Thank you for the picture I asked for. You look very serious in your uniform, but if I study your face I can see the truth. It’s my favorite face by the way.
My squadron will be moving in a few days, so it shouldn’t be as cold. I’ll be glad to have a break from this air that seems to be made of ice. I’ve tried to think warm thoughts, like walking on the warm sand and feeling warm salt water wash over my feet. I spent much of my childhood in the water, and surprised most everyone who knew me when I didn’t choose the Navy.
Every birthday that I remember, until I joined the Army when I was eighteen, started with being tossed in the waves and ended by a fire that sat in a bowl dug out of the sand. My mother would pack enough food for a week and my dad, brothers and I would eat it all. There were always sparkler sticks in cupcakes after dark.
I’d like to show you the Atlantic Ocean and my birthday beach when I come home. And I’d like you to fly me over the Rockies. The way you described it I felt as though I had never seen them before, and I thought I should take another look.
We ship out to come home the first week in April. Where should we meet?
Liddy curled up on the bed and pressed all of the letters to her belly. How many letters had she written to Reid without getting one back? Was it twelve, fifteen? She wished she had kept track—No, she didn’t want to know. The first week that had gone by without a letter from Reid, Liddy started writing more often. It was as if she was writing for both of them or that she was afraid if she didn’t write it would all disappear, he would disappear. She tried desperately to clear her mind, but couldn’t, and she wished she was flying.
Chapter Twenty-One
The shuffle of boot soles and heels on the linoleum brushed and clicked. Liddy could feel the impatience running through the line that was stacking up behind her, waiting for the phone. She held the phone to her ear and cherished the sound of Bet’s voice.
“How are you, Liddy?”
“I’m good, Bailey. How’s the Army treating you?” Liddy asked.
“Like an ugly stepchild, but who cares. I’m having a ball.”
“I’ll see you in two weeks and wait till you see what we’re bringing in—Very Hot!” Liddy closed her eyes to see Bet’s face.
“I can’t wait! Hey, Liddy, Carla and I found this great dance hall and we’re gonna take you there. We’re all a little worried about you. Sounds like you don’t do anything but work.”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Little Betsy. I’m fine.”
“Hey, did you hear about Joy Lynn? She’s engaged to a Navy flyer from Georgia.”
“No, I hadn’t heard. That’s not too far north of the Mason Dixon Line, now is it?” Liddy joked.
“No, I guess it isn’t. But I can’t see taking Joy Lynn out of the South, anymore than I could see taking the South out of Joy Lynn.”
“I think you’re right about that.” Liddy looked back at the restless line. “Hey, I better go.”
“Bye, Liddy. Can’t wait to see you. ”
“I’ll see you first, from the clouds. Bye, bye, Bet Bailey.” Liddy hung up the phone and rushed to stop at the base post office before reporting to the ready room. She had a letter from Louise, and one from Celia; Liddy stuffed them into her bag and felt pain prick at her heart.
Some ferry assignments required the women to fly back to base on commercial airliners. Liddy and Jenna were suited up in their WASP dress uniforms and waited to board their flight.
“How’s the Major?” Jenna asked.
“I don’t know.”
“He hasn’t written?”
“Not for a month or so, just as well.”
“It might just be—”
“No, it’s just as well.”
They heard the call to board their flight.
“That’s us,” said Liddy and grabbed her bag and walked toward the gate.
As the WASPs walked down the aisle to their seats, a male passenger grabbed Liddy’s arm. “Miss, we need another pillow and my wife needs a glass of water to take her medication.”
Liddy took her arm back and shot Jenna a look of disbelief before she responded to the man, “Sir, I’m a pilot.”
Every chin within earshot snapped toward the women.
“Of this plane?” the man’s wife asked in a panic.
“Only if the men don’t show up,” Liddy taunted.
Liddy and Jenna continued down the aisle and took their seats. A ruckus was growing in the cabin. The women enjoyed the fuss as they watched the stewardess try to calm the panic in the cabin.
This was Liddy’s first commercial return, and the American flight, with the exception of a cargo plane, was the largest plane she had ever boarded. The body was cavernous and when it angled and turned it seemed the earth was turning with it. She pictured Louise and Joy Lynn steering the big bombers around the sky and pondered how it really takes all kinds.
When she returned to the base, Liddy checked her mail first thing. The clerk handed her a handful of letters; Louise Parker, Joy Lynn Calbert, Bet Bailey but nothing from Reid. Captain Charles never wrote Jenna about the men who died. Did he know? If something had happened to Reid, his family would have been told, but she didn’t even know his family. Did they even know she existed? What Liddy knew for sure, was that Reid would have written if he could have, and everything went gray.