Chapter Nine
Franklin
South Kingston, RI
1941
T he bus stop is near my family’s store, so I go there first. My mother cries when she sees me and hugs me so hard I drop one of my crutches. She retrieves it quickly but slows to look at where my left leg used to be before handing the crutch back to me. I should have let the military hospital inform her I’d been injured, but I was angry—with myself for stupidly walking where I shouldn’t have and with the doctors for not trying harder to save my leg. Angry at God for letting war happen. Just angry.
I needed time to heal both what was left of my leg as well my head before facing my family so I didn’t allow them to be contacted. I’m by far not the only soldier who’s been sent home broken, and I’m told that one day I’ll feel lucky that all I lost was an appendage... but I feel like I failed my unit, myself, and the world.
I probably wouldn’t have returned if it weren’t for Susie and the promise I’d made her. Some men married their high school sweethearts before they left, but I wanted our wedding to be a celebration that war didn’t overshadow. I wanted Susie to have the perfect day she’d always dreamed of.
My mother gives me a soda and the sandwich she brought for her own lunch. I haven’t eaten since the day before so both are welcomed. It has been a long trip home, but I am back. “I should call your father. He might be able to leave the factory long enough to drive you home.”
I give her cheek a kiss. “I’ll see you at home later,” I say, “but you know there’s somewhere I need to go first.”
She chews her lip with concern. “It’s been a while since any of us have heard from you, Franklin. Don’t you just go dropping in on Susie. She might be working in the yard and want to get all prettied up before she sees you.”
I make my way to the door. “She doesn’t have to try to be pretty, she’s perfect just the way she is.”
“Franklin—”
I turn, halfway out the door, because my mother’s tone is distressed. “Yes?”
She shakes her head. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Susie’s house is only a few blocks from my family’s store. I’ve broken a sweat by the time I reach her porch and my upper leg is throbbing, but I’m too excited to see her again to waste a second on physical discomfort.
I stop at the bottom step and take a deep breath, steadying myself. My chest is tight with nerves, but my heart’s pounding with anticipation and hope—also fear that nips at me that she might consider me less of a man now.
The sound of the crutches hitting the wood of the steps as I climb them echoes through me. I stop at the top. This is exactly where I stood the last time I saw Susie and we promised each other forever.
I knock, the sound louder than I’d meant, and hear footsteps inside. Her mother opens the door. Mrs. Taylor’s eyes flicker down to my crutches, my missing leg, then back up to my face. Her expression softens, but not in the way I’d hoped.
“Franklin,” she whispers, stepping onto the porch, wringing her hands as she closes the door behind her. “You came back.”
My smile falters. “Just like I promised, Mrs. Taylor. Is Susie home?” I shift my weight forward on my crutches.
Mrs. Taylor reaches out, her fingers wrapping around my arm. “Franklin, sweetheart, you should go.”
“Go? Is something wrong? Did something happen to Susie?”
My gaze whips past her, through the window beside the door, and that’s when I see Susie. She’s wearing one of her favorite bright dresses and flashing that smile of hers that I dreamed of so many times when I was away .
But she’s not alone.
There’s a thin, young man sitting beside her, his arm draped over the back of her chair, leaning in close.
And they kiss.
They fucking kiss.
I tear my arm away from her mother’s grasp and retreat in revulsion, tumbling backward down the porch steps. Mrs. Taylor cries out my name. Susie and the man she’d kissed appear at the top of the steps.
For a moment, I can’t move, caught in place, exposed, helpless, unable to run.
“Franklin,” Susie says, her voice is raw. “I thought you were dead. You stopped answering my letters and...”
I force a smile, tight and brittle, as I gather my crutches and struggle back to a standing position. “I promised I’d be back,” I say in a raspy voice.
The asshole at her side doesn’t have the decency to walk away. He puts his arm around her, asking if she’s okay.
Her wide eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry, Franklin.”
“Sorry?” I growl. “Sorry?”
Her mother places herself between us. “Like I said, Franklin, you should go.”
I look over her head to where Susie looks distressed, but is not pushing the man beside her away. “I love you, Susie.”
Tears begin to run down her face.
A car door slams behind me. “Franklin, get in the car,” my father says in a stern voice .
I can’t. I can’t leave her. This can’t be true. She and I have an entire life planned together. We’ve named our future children.
My father removes one of the crutches from beneath my arm, takes my weight onto himself and half drags me to his car. I don’t fight him when he opens the passenger door and practically shoves me inside.
I’m staring at Susie, waiting for her to step away from the man she found comfort in while I was gone. Waiting for her to run to me.
But she doesn’t.
Part of me dies that day as my father drives away.
I didn’t know coming home could be worse than going to war.