Hideaway Home

“Yes, I’m fine.” Bertie had too much on her mind right now. She’d developed too much of a worry habit.

Emma hefted the parts onto Bertie’s table. “What’s got your goat? Keep this up and Franklin Parrish’ll be chucking you out the door.”

Bertie grimaced and picked up a shaft. She placed it in the lathe, tightened it in, and started polishing it. Today her concentration was about as sharp as a possum hanging from a tree limb.

“Got another letter from my soldier last night,” Emma said, leaning her elbows on Bertie’s worktable, obviously of a mind to gab a while, in spite of the whine of the lathe’s motor, and her own just-issued warning about Franklin.

Bertie nodded, wishing Emma would leave it at that, hoping the noise of the lathe would keep the conversation short.

“You heard from that man of yours lately?” Emma asked, raising her voice.

Bertie frowned. “Not for a few weeks. You know how the mail gets bundled up for days at a time, then a bunch of letters comes at once.” Even to her own ears, the excuse sounded overly bright.

Emma gave Bertie a narrow-eyed look. “Red’s never gone this long without writing to you, has he? He still a scout with the Army?”

Bertie suppressed a sigh and turned off the lathe. “He’s called a fire support specialist.”

“I thought it was a forward observer.”

Bertie released her pent-up breath. How many times had she corrected Emma about Red’s title? She didn’t want to sound boastful, but she was proud of Red and what he did. He’d received several commendations for his skills—and his bravery. It was the bravery that worried her something awful.

Emma stepped closer, her pinched face and mouse-brown eyes sharpening with concern. “You don’t think he’s…I mean…you think he’s—”

“Hush, now.” Bertie gently patted Emma’s thin arm. “Honey, you know we can’t start thinking that way. Gotta have some faith that God’s in charge. Our men are helping to win this war. Besides, bad news always seems to travel faster than good these days. If something had happened to him, we’d know by now. I got a letter from his mother a few days ago.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed even more as she nibbled on her chapped lower lip. “That man that got killed? You know, that reporter out in the Pacific? He wasn’t even a solider, Bert! It’s dangerous all over, and men are being killed every day, and what with our own president dying, it feels like everything’s out of control.”

“Nothing is out of control,” Bertie assured her. “President Truman knows what he’s doing. He’s a Missourian, born not too far from my hometown. He’ll see things through. We Missourians are made of tough stock.”

Emma didn’t seem to hear her. “Lives can be cut short just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “It could happen to anybody.”

Bertie shook her head. She didn’t need to hear this kind of talk right now. “It could even happen to you or me if Franklin catches us chatting instead of working,” she said with a wink to keep her words from sounding too harsh. “He’s already threatened to fire me once today.”

To Bertie’s relief, Emma nodded, sighed and returned to her cart. Bertie turned on the lathe again, which she shouldn’t have turned off in the first place; there was no standing around talking except at break time.

At least once a week, poor Emma got all perturbed about her soldier. Every time, Bertie prayed for them both. She’d offered to pray with Emma, but that seemed to be going too far.

As it was, Bertie often felt overwhelmed with the amount of work she and Edith Frost had volunteered for these past months. During her free time, Bertie signed people up for war bonds, and she and Edith helped with the blood drive, which included giving their own blood as often as they could.

So many of her hometown friends had left for the war as boys and had returned as men. Three men from her hometown had returned in caskets.

She switched her attention back to the shaft in her lathe, trying her hardest to shake off the worry that Emma had helped stoke like the cinders of a woodstove.

Red sat with his feet planted firmly on the floor in the swaying railcar, growing more and more conscious of the cane he’d shoved beneath the seat and the attention of his friend, Ivan Potts.

It would be easy to reach down and pull out the cane and show it to Ivan. Everyone in Hideaway would know about it by tomorrow, anyway, so why not show it first to someone he knew he could trust?

But something kept him from it. It was almost like another bad dream—if he kept pretending the problem wasn’t there, maybe it would disappear.

Like the war?

Ivan peered out the window, then stood and gestured to Red. “Why don’t you come up to my car with me? I’ve got to collect my things before we get off. Dad said he’d be waiting for me at the station, and I bet Mom will be with him. You can catch a ride with us.”

Red hesitated for a few seconds, then declined. Ma would want to pick up Red herself, so they could spend the long ride back home catching up, just the two of them.

“Thanks, but I’ve got a ride,” Red said. “Ma told me she’d see to it I got picked up.”

Ivan nodded, then grinned. “Lilly probably cooked your favorite meal, knowing you were coming back today.”

“If she had time. She’s been awful busy.”

“But if I know your mother, she’ll have her famous chicken and dumplings waiting at the table for you as soon as you walk in the door.” Ivan licked his lips. “And blackberry cobbler with enough butter in the crust to make a grown man cry.”

Red couldn’t help grinning at his friend. “Could be.” Ivan loved a good meal, and though his mother was brilliant and kind and an excellent hostess, her finger pastries and cucumber sandwiches didn’t exactly stick to the ribs.

“Think Lilly could be persuaded to set an extra place at the table for me?” Ivan leaned toward Red, looking like a hound about to tree a coon. “My mom has a party planned for my homecoming tonight, but man, oh, man, Lilly’s chicken and dumplings for lunch would make the whole ordeal worth enduring.”

Red sometimes kidded Ivan that he was not his mother’s son. Arielle Potts was a cultured lady—an accomplished hostess, who loved to entertain. She was a savvy political wife who enjoyed helping her husband campaign for mayor of Hideaway—not that there’d been much campaigning to do. Gerald Potts’s only opponent had been Gramercy Short, who likely didn’t get more than a total of ten votes, all from his relatives, and there were probably at least two dozen Shorts in Hideaway.

Ivan, on the other hand, would rather go huntin’ with Red and his coon dogs any night than socialize with the town’s high and mighty.

“Sure,” Red said, “come on over. Even if Ma hasn’t made chicken and dumplings, the meal’s bound to be good.”

Ivan nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Ivan had the kind of face that revealed his thoughts several seconds before he spoke them. And he always spoke them. He didn’t believe in keeping things to himself. As long as Red had known him, there was most often a hint of humor in Ivan’s eyes, not quite mischief, but almost.

As Red watched, all humor left Ivan’s face, and the darkness entered his expression again. Red didn’t have any trouble knowing what was going through his friend’s mind.

“Red, the war’s taken something from us that we might never get back.” He glanced up and down the aisle at the other passengers.

Red waited without speaking. This wasn’t the time to talk about it. Not now. Not on this train with other people listening. Besides, he couldn’t help thinking that if he spoke aloud what had been on his mind the past few weeks, it would make everything that happened over on those deadly fields too real.

“I think it’s hit you harder,” Ivan said at last. “Hasn’t it?”

Red swallowed. “Not sure what makes you think that. We’ve all been through a lot.”

Ivan leaned closer and waited until Red met his gaze. “Because I know you, buddy. You bury things down deep inside. Me, I sit by myself and write my poetry and get it out of my system. You should see the stack of poetry in my duffle bag. I’ve probably sent poems to half of Hideaway, and several of Bertie’s friends in California.”

“You oughta try to get them published. You’ll be rich.”

Ivan laughed out loud at that. “You think there’s money in poetry? My Daddy taught me how to make a living, don’t you worry. And don’t change the subject.”

“Thought the subject was poetry.”

Ivan sobered. “You’ve lost something, Red.” His words were soft and gentle, but they felt like broken strands of chicken wire digging into Red’s heart. Ivan didn’t know the half of it. “It’s like all the laughter’s dried up inside of you.”

Red didn’t know what to say. He’d not seen much to laugh about.