Page 46 of Timeless
“Well, maybe I was only ever meant to be with you.”
“And Paul?”
“And Paul,” Harriet had said with a smile. “I love that he calls me his mama,” she’d added with a smile. “It means so much to me.”
“To me, too.”
Deb had lowered her lips to kiss her then, and they’d shared another quiet moment together before they’d gone upstairs and found their son trying to climb into bed. Harriet had helped him the rest of the way and sat on the side of the bed, running her hand through his fine, soft hair.
“He looks so much like you,” Harriet had said after Paul fell asleep.
“He’s got JD’s nose.”
“But the rest is all you. I love that. I love that he’s alittle you.” She’d looked up at Deb and smiled softly at her. “I love you both so much. You know that, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do,” she’d replied, taking Harriet’s hand. “Come to bed, my love.”
Harriet had stood up, and as they walked silently toward their bedroom, Deb had felt that something had changed. She hadn’t known back then what it was, but the way Harriet had hardly spoken the rest of the night and the following week, listening to the radio and the war news nearly all day every day, had had Deb worrying that George’s death might have caused worse damage than she’d thought it would.
When Deb opened the door to the man working for Western Union, she had two thoughts at once. He handed her the telegram and walked away, but she couldn’t move her feet. She couldn’t turn the paper over in her hand and read the message that she knew would be there. Having heard how this worked from so many people by now, she understood that when she read the message, that would be it: her entire life would change. Before she read it, both of them were still alive in her mind. After she read it, it would be confirmed.
It was then, for some reason, that her brain gave her an image of two women walking down a busy street in some city she’d never been to. She and Harriet were the women, but they alsoweren’tthe women, which was confusing, and they were holding umbrellas. She didn’t understand why that was what hit her, but she tried to get her mind to focus on the date of Harriet’s last letter.
Almost ten months ago now, as much as it tore her apart to agree to let her go, Deb had given in, knowing that it was something Harriet had needed to do. Still, when they’d woken up a few hours later, after they’d gone to the church at night and made vows to one another in front of God, hoping they wouldn’t get caught, Deb had prayed that Harriet would have changed her mind. She hadn’t. Not long after that, Harriet had signed up and had been sent to training to be a nurse, while Deb had been crying herself to sleep more nights than she hadn’t since Harriet had left.
They’d never been apart for more than a day before, so the first few days and weeks had been the hardest. She’d wanted to be strong both for Harriet and her son, but that was proving to be too difficult. She’d get Paul to school in the little schoolhouse in town, but then, she’d return and go through the motions, trying to use cleaning the house as a distraction. There were also things to do on the farm, and it felt like soon after that, it would be supper time when Paul would ask about his papa and his mama. She never knew quite how to tell him, so she always told him they’d be home as soon as they could.
Every night, Deb had found herself glued to the radio for any news, and after nine months of missing the love of her life and nearly two years of not having seen John David or Jacob, she’d heard the knock at the door. Expecting it to be someone who worked on the farm, she hadn’t prepared herself for the devastating news. So, she stood there, holding on to the telegram, thinking two thoughts. One, that it was John David. She thought about how she’d have to tell her son that his father was dead and raise him without his father. The other thought, though, which had her stomach roiling and her heart breaking, was about Harriet. And if that were the case, Deb’s own life would be over, too. That got her worried about Paul and what would happen to him when she could no longer move out of bed, cook for him, make sure he took his bath, get him off to school, and teach him right from wrong. She thought all that because she couldn’t breathe without Harriet.
Deb had never been able to breathe without her. With her gone off to war, it felt as if a part of Deb had gone, but the hope that she’d be coming home had kept her moving, wanting the days to pass as quickly as possible and this awful war to end so that Harriet would return to her. If she flipped over that telegram and it told her that it was Harriet who was dead, she wondered how she would ever breathe again.
Still, she had to turn it over. She had to know. As she continued standing there, unable to move, she looked outthrough the door at the field, pictured Harriet walking through it to get to her for one of their clandestine meetings, and smiled, remembering Harriet’s words that night about all their lives.
“All I know is that the love I feel for you, it’s not meant to only last as long as we live. It’s the kind of love they talk about a long time later: two people, meant to be before they were even born and long after they both pass. It’s the kind of love where we find each other over and over again, because that’s the only way I can see it. One day, when we both leave our bodies and our souls go to heaven, I have to know that I can find you there. I have to know that we get forever together. I don’t know if that means that we’re reborn here on earth, or if we get an eternity in heaven, but I do know that I will find you wherever we are because that’s the only way I can keep on breathing right now.” Harriet sniffled and let a few tears fall. “One lifetime with you is not enough, sweetheart. I need all of them.”
“She’ll find me,” Deb said to herself before she looked down and turned over the telegram.
She skipped over all the words at the top that didn’t matter – the Western Union logo, where it was sent from, who had sent it – and looked at the body of the message, needing to see the name first.
“Deeply regret to inform you that it is now presumed that the death of your husband, PFC John David Stevens, has occurred on the Twelfth of June, 1944.”
Deb didn’t read the rest of it, where the Marines offered their condolences. She didn’t want them. The telegram fell from her hands, and she went to her knees. She hated that the first feeling that came over her had been relief that it wasn’t Harriet. She hated that all she’d been worrying about was that she’d lost the woman she loved, Paul had lost his other mama, and that her life was over. The tears started to fall for John David, though. She couldn’t believe he was gone. The kindest and best man she’d ever known, the father of her only son, was gone.
“Deborah?”
She looked up and saw Delilah standing on her porch. She was crying and had something in her hand.
“No…” Deb let out.
“I just got this, and I didn’t know where else to go.” Delilah held up the telegram. “He’s gone… Jacob is gone.” She noticed the telegram on Deb’s floor then. “No, tell me it’s not true.”
“They’re both gone,” Deb replied.
Later, after the war and when the dust had settled, she’d find out that John David and the man he loved had died together. JD had been a mortar man, and Jacob had been a machine gun operator. They’d been in battle together. JD had served valiantly, according to the record, saving three men from his unit from Japanese soldiers who had broken through their line. Jacob had helped, aiming that machine gun where he’d needed to. They’d probably thought they’d make it out all right, but the Japanese had been dropping mortars, too, and right when Jacob had run over to JD after the sound of gunfire had started to die down, one landed near them, and they’d perished holding on to one another.
Losing both of them had been like losing her two best friends, but something about knowing that they’d died together had Deb feeling like that was what they’d wanted. Life was harder for two men in love than it was for two women, and having to marry Delilah and put on a brave face had been hard for Jacob. She’d heard him crying in John David’s room more times than she could count, so she took solace in the fact that they could be together now.
She and Delilah actually became real friends after that day. Delilah would bring the kids over to play with Paul, and they’d cook meals together and help each other whenever and however they could. Still, every night, Deb glued herself to the radio, waiting on war news, praying to hear of nothing hitting a hospital in the Pacific. The next day, she’d check the mail, praying for a letter from her love. She’d tuck her son in night after night, reminding him of his father’s love for him and that he was a hero, and then she’d go to bedherself and play with the bracelet on her wrist, recalling their first wedding, and twisting the ring on her finger, thinking of their second.