Chapter 8 #2
She chuckled. “Lauren burst into the kitchen and asked if I was there. The cook said no, which tickled me to no end. But when Lauren tramped upstairs, Hannah said she used to wish she could switch places with me. When I heard that, I was ready to show myself, declare her my bosom friend, and share everything I had with her.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. Hannah wasn’t finished. She said, ‘Miss Elsa has fine clothes and a million dolls. Her hair is so shiny, and she smells like roses. But I decided for all that, I’d rather not be her.
’ She went on to say it was better to stay who she was and have her mother’s love because she had never seen my parents hug me.
Or laugh with me. She supposed they didn’t even put me to bed.
And she was right. That’s not what we did.
She said she felt sorry for me. And that was before I contracted polio. ”
“My parents didn’t put me to bed, either,” Luke offered.
“No?”
“Nope. The governess dressed me in my best clothes every evening and paraded me in to see them for fifteen minutes before they had their dinner. And then I marched out again, leaving them to dine alone.”
“Yes,” Elsa breathed. “That was exactly it. It never bothered me much, though, assuming that was how everyone’s family was, until I heard that Hannah pitied me.
After that, I wasn’t brave enough to ask her to be my friend.
It probably wouldn’t have worked very well even if I had. How did you and Tom manage it?”
“Honestly, I didn’t talk to him much before I left home for college.
I didn’t realize how much he’d looked up to me until his father told me after I’d graduated.
If I had given any thought to his view of our family—which I can’t say I did—I’d have figured he would have looked up to my older brother instead.
I sure did. Then again, Franklin was usually busy training under my father to help run the business, so he wasn’t around much. ”
“Does he still help with the business?” she asked.
Luke shook his head, and even in the shadows, she could see his expression close off, putting an end to the topic of his brother with as much finality as if he’d already changed the subject. She didn’t push.
An overhanging branch swayed above the glass roof, the leaves acting like a sail in the wind. A small limb broke off and landed with a splash into the pool.
Barney lifted his head at the sound, alert enough to look around a few moments before settling back down again.
“Is Tom going to be all right in this storm without you and Barney?” She’d feel terrible if he needed their support more than she did.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s usually fine when it’s just rain. It’s the cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning that really mess with him, making him think he’s back in the war.”
“But it doesn’t affect you the same way?”
“No.” Luke buried his hand in Barney’s scruff.
“Our experiences were very different. I was already in France in 1914, studying architecture. I had graduated from Harvard that spring, so I was twenty-two when the war began in Europe. I couldn’t sit back and watch.
I joined the French Foreign Legion as an ambulance driver. ”
Elsa wondered if it was typical for salvage dealers to have Harvard degrees in architecture, with studies abroad to match. But all she asked was, “Is that how you know about weak chest and lung muscles?”
He nodded. “Among other things. I got to know a lot of patients that way, checking on them as I could after delivering them to hospitals. Ol’ Barney here was there, too.
He could run low over the ground, carrying canteens of water around his neck to soldiers we couldn’t reach yet.
And he found the living among the dead, men we might have missed.
Saved their lives. He saved Tom’s. Likely more than once. ”
“Why, Barney!” Elsa cupped his chin and lifted it, noting the grey hair on his muzzle. “What a good boy you are.” The dog closed his eyes and rested the weight of his head in her hand. She thought she saw him grin, and a swell of emotion clogged her throat.
Luke stroked the dog down the length of his back, scratching at the base of the tail.
“After a while, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, picking up the pieces of broken men.
I needed to fight the men who were breaking them in the first place.
So as soon as training opened to Americans in France, I became a fighter pilot.
Tom signed up to fight as soon as he could.
He was seventeen. He had no idea what he was getting into. ”
Both of them had been so young. At seventeen, Tom wasn’t a child, but he hadn’t yet grown into a man. No wonder the war affected him so.
“They put him in the trenches. The heck of it is, he said he joined the fight because of me. His father—my father’s valet—wrote to me, begging me to promise to keep him safe.
How I was supposed to do that when we weren’t in the same unit was unclear.
But what could I do? Mr. Lightfoot had given his entire career to my family, and now his only son had enlisted in a horrific war because he wanted to be like me.
His wife had died giving birth to Tom. So what else could I do, but promise Mr. Lightfoot that whenever it was in my power, I would keep his boy safe? ”
Elsa heard in his voice the heaviness of the responsibility he’d accepted. She inhaled deeply and blew out again. “Is that a promise you’re still trying to keep?”
The corner of his lips hooked his cheek. “Trying, yes. I learned not to make promises ever again, I can tell you that much. Not because I don’t want to keep them, but because it’s impossible to know if I can.”
“He’s lucky to have you in his life,” Elsa said.
“I don’t know about that, but we understand each other. I’m trying, at any rate.”
“I know you are.” She leaned her head back against the vinyl lounge chair, allowing her gaze to drift on the water lining the pool. Silver reflections blinked with every drop of rain.
“Well, have I talked enough to give you a chance to recover?” he asked.
A small laugh escaped her. She’d been trying to recover for seventeen years.
But that’s not what he meant. “I overdid it,” she admitted, since there was no point in pretending otherwise.
“I still feel winded, but at least I can talk. But my leg—” She laid a hand on her knee.
The brace she wore was short enough not to show under her hem.
Her first leg brace went from under her ribs to her ankle.
She wouldn’t go back to that. “My left leg is weak,” she admitted.
“Weaker than usual. And now it’s pretty sore. ”
“When was the last time you saw a doctor about it?”
She shook her head. “I’m not going back.”
The rain stopped. As quickly as it had begun, the storm relented. Light fell through the glass ceiling, fractured on palm fronds, and lay in stripes across Luke’s face.
“You don’t like doctors?” he asked. “Neither do I. You don’t want to hear what they have to say? I get that. But sometimes we have to do hard things. If you need a certified ambulance driver to get you there, I know where you can find one.”
She stared at him, surprised at the sincerity in both his expression and his words, then broke from his gaze.
“Thank you, but I said I’m not going. We ought to be getting back to the mansion.
” She pushed herself up to stand with no incident.
But when she attempted the first step with her bad leg, it buckled beneath her.
Luke caught her, holding her firmly against him. “I’ll get the truck.”
Elsa didn’t argue with that.