CHAPTER TWO ARMY NURSE CORPS
CHAPTER
TWO
Army Nurse Corps
With Jasper gone, everything seemed duller and quieter, and the loneliness Cora had felt since losing Lee, then Benny and Roscoe, echoed even louder inside her, exposing all her emptiness.
She threw herself into her work at Sunshine State Insurance, grateful to have something that shifted her focus from the constant worry.
Mr Griffin had given her a raise to encourage her to stay, and while she appreciated the extra money, she also valued the more subtle gestures, like her full-sized desk by the window and the shared, unsegregated coffee pot.
With just the two of them, there was no more navigating the color line all day long.
She didn’t realize how much it had weighed on her until she didn’t have to do it any more.
In her lunch break and before and after work, Cora wrote letters for Patsy.
She hated the thought of her cousin leaving too, but she’d promised to help, and she couldn’t stand to see the Nurse Corps keep Patsy out for reasons that weren’t even reasons.
She started a letter-writing campaign to anyone and everyone with the power to do something: the Surgeon General of the Army, the head of the Red Cross, even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
When she wrote to Mabel Staupers of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, she got a letter back telling Patsy that serving her country was her right and responsibility as a citizen, and that she and others were already fighting for colored nurses like Patsy.
Every time Cora sat down to write a new letter, she felt a flare of guilt and grief over the one she still hadn’t written.
She owed Lee an explanation. His pleading, apologetic letters tore her in two.
He wanted to hear from her even if she was angry, he said.
He asked her not to give up on them and promised he’d straighten everything out between them when he got home.
He thought of her every day. He missed her like crazy.
He loved her more than anything. She read the hurt and confusion in every line.
Keeping her marriage from him wasn’t just selfish and cowardly, it was cruel.
She had no right to hang on to him at any cost after doubting him when it mattered.
And she was betraying Roscoe, who still didn’t know the first thing about her and Lee.
She wondered how he would react if he ever found out she’d let Lee write her love letters for nearly two years without mentioning she was married.
When her shame threatened to overwhelm her, she finally sat down and penned her gut-wrenching confession of a letter, carrying it around in her purse for a week before she found the nerve to mail it.
The day she sent it off was the same day Patsy finally got her answer.
With pressure mounting, the army raised the nurse quota from fifty-six to a few hundred, and Patsy was in.
Cora didn’t know how much her letter-writing had helped, but she liked to think it had at least made a difference in getting Patsy chosen over the thousands of other Negro nurses trying to get a posting.
The Sunday before Patsy was to report for duty, Cora and Momma picked her and Aunt Teen up in the blue Plymouth and drove them to Saints of Mercy Baptist Church.
Pastor Glen had promised a special blessing for Patsy, and all four women, decked in their Sunday best, linked arms and marched in over the buckled paving stones.
They sat in the front row, the hard pine underneath them worn but polished, the finery of the altar faded but clean.
When Pastor Glen lifted Patsy in prayer, the whole congregation got to their feet, praying safety and protection over her.
They’d done the same for Benny, Roscoe and Jasper, but not for Lee, who had never set foot in Saints of Mercy Baptist and swore he never would.
Cora bowed her head and raised her hand, asking God to protect Patsy, but also and especially Lee, who no one else on this earth was praying for, and please, God, let him forgive her when he got her letter.
And let him not be too angry or too hurt.
And let him not stop loving her, which was wrong to pray for when she was married to another man, but she prayed it anyway.
When the singing and stomping died down, and Pastor Glen and the Holy Spirit decided to let the service end, the whole church crowded around Patsy, congratulating her, hugging her, wishing her well.
Pride showed in Sister Betty Hammond’s glistening eyes and Deacon Gray’s puffed chest and Brother Twiggs’s straight back and Sister Nancy Jane’s upturned chin.
Out of thousands of colored nurses, the army had picked their very own Patsy to care for their brothers and husbands, cousins and friends.
In their smiles, Cora read the gratitude she felt as well.
Patsy would go where they could not and look after their loved ones.
‘My Anthony is out there in the supply troops with the Red Ball Express. They got a lot of our folks and a lot of casualties up that way. Is that where you’re going?’ Sister Delores clasped Patsy’s hand with a hopeful look.
‘I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t guess they’ll tell us until we get there.’
Cora and Patsy made their way outside to wait for Momma and Aunt Teen, standing next to the car under the shade of a hickory tree. As they waited, Patsy peeled back the flaky bark, unusually quiet.
‘You okay?’ Cora asked.
Patsy pulled off a strip and dropped it onto the hard-packed dirt.
‘I know I asked for this,’ she said, ‘and I should feel honored they picked me …’ her eyes drifted across the street to the trees lining the road and then up to the thin clouds streaking the sky ‘… but now that it’s real, I’m scared. ’
Cora wrapped an arm around Patsy’s shoulders and drew her close. ‘Of course you’re scared. You’re going off to war like a damn fool.’
Patsy chuckled, snaking her own arm around Cora’s waist and holding tight to her side.
‘Scared is good,’ Cora said. ‘It’ll keep you safe.’
Patsy nodded, like she was trying to convince herself it was true.
‘And, remember, they don’t need you to fight. They need you tucked safely away from the enemy where you can patch up our men in peace.’
Patsy let out a shaky breath. ‘You’re right,’ she said, releasing Cora’s waist. She pulled another strip of bark from the hickory tree, turned it over in her fingers and let it fall to the ground. ‘I guess it just makes me nervous trusting the army when I don’t know what to expect.’
Cora put her hand on Patsy’s shoulder, turning her away from the tree and locking her in a stare.
‘You know I hate this war,’ she said, ‘but I’m proud of you.
I wish I could do something to help them too.
More than give blood and plant a victory garden.
I’m glad you’re going to be looking out for them. ’
‘I couldn’t have done it without your letters.’
‘Well, then,’ she said, a cocky smile curling her lips, ‘I guess I’m proud of me too.’