The War Bride #2
His father groaned and stepped into the house. His mother eyed me reproachfully, then followed.
“They’ll come around,” Buck said.
I followed his parents inside. They whispered on the divan, comforting each other as they could. Watching from the doorjamb, neither in nor out, I wasn’t sure what to do. Buck sidled up to me with my suitcase.
“How can we face the Millers?” Mr. Gustafson asked his wife, as if Buck and I weren’t standing there.
Finally, Mrs. Gustafson turned to Buck. “Jenny waited, faithful and true, while you ran around with this French hussy.” She made the word “French” sound like more of an insult than “hussy.”
I looked to Buck to defend me. When he remained slack-jawed, I replied to her accusations. “I had no idea Buck was engaged. I never would have married him, never would have left France—”
“No offense, missy, but according to the news, you don’t have much of a country left.”
First, she insulted me, then my homeland? At the library, I’d worked in a world of words, but now I found myself speechless. How could these people be so callous?
“You have no idea what folks in France have been through,” Buck shot back. “And I tried to tell you about Odile. You wouldn’t listen.”
“At church three days ago, you and Jenny were thick as thieves,” Mrs. Gustafson said.
“I never asked Jenny to wait,” Buck said. “We’re just friends.”
Mrs. Gustafson took a cigarette from a gold case, and her husband lit it for her.
She sucked in greedily before letting the smoke whistle out through her mouth over and over until she snuffed the cigarette out in the ashtray.
She muttered something about coffee and strode from the room.
I felt it was a test and wondered if I should help prepare the tray.
Maman would never allow a guest into the kitchen.
I decided to sit in the armchair, folding my hands like my boss, Miss Reeder, did.
On the couch, Buck and his father talked football, a completely foreign language.
When Mrs. Gustafson returned, pushing a cart with cake and coffee, I offered to serve but was ignored.
Buck and his father stopped chatting. No one spoke.
I missed the questions Maman would ask to keep the conversation going.
I missed Papa and his overbearing ways. I missed my parents, period.
One cigarette after another, Buck’s mother puffed away like the Empire Builder locomotive, until the room was black with smoke and I thought I’d pass out. Still she kept on, explaining, “When Buck… went away, the doctor prescribed them for my nerves.”
Away. She spoke as if he’d gone to take the waters at a spa, not fight in a war.
After an eternity of silence, she looked at me reproachfully and rolled the cart back to the kitchen. I leaned over and whispered to Buck, “When are we going home?”
“We are home.”
“You don’t have a place of your own?”
“For four years, I moved from one theater of war to the next. When was I supposed to buy a house?”
“You’ve been back for months.”
“Recuperating. My folks wanted me with them. Besides, Froid’s a small town. Not much housing to be had.”
I didn’t want to stay where I wasn’t wanted.
I rushed out the front door to the park across the street.
It was freezing, but the fresh air felt good.
Plopping onto a swing, I let my feet dangle over the brown grass.
Buck was probably still in love with his fiancée.
His parents hated me. The land was barren, the town small.
There were no cinemas, no flowers, no library, no life.
I knew I was being unfair, but I couldn’t be fair. Not just yet.
Rubbing my left foot over my right, I thought of my brother, Rémy, and wished he was here, that he was not lost to me.
Oh, Rémy, I’ve made a mistake. I didn’t need to open my purse to know I only had twenty francs.
And after I’d betrayed Margaret and burned down her family tree, it wasn’t right that I could traipse back to Maman and Papa.
When my aunt Caro and her husband divorced, my mother disowned her sister.
I’d left Paul. The reason wouldn’t matter.
My parents wouldn’t take me back. The wine is poured, you have to drink, Papa would say.
Americans used different imagery: you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.
Both expressions amounted to the same thing—what’s done is done. There’s no going home.
Buck joined me. He held the swing steady, hands on either side of me, and looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry, little gal. I tried to tell them. Ma only hears what she wants to.”
That I could believe.
“The time without you here has been an… ordeal,” he said, and we laughed together. “Things will get better. Jenny was my high school sweetheart. I’m not a kid anymore. The war… She’ll never understand like you do. Of everybody, you’re the only one who knows.”
After a tense evening meal, Buck led me up the stairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Gustafson followed, and I wondered if I would be sleeping with Buck or in a guest bedroom.
I wanted to be respectful of his parents—after all, I was a visitor in their home.
I waited for a clue from his mother, whose beige lips remained pursed. Well, then…
In Buck’s bedroom, badges from his scouting days covered the dark paneling; his shelves held sports trophies, not books.
“Go on and get settled,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Unsure of myself, unsure of my surroundings, I perched on the twin bed. I could hear his parents on the other side of the wall.
“We don’t even know if they’re really married,” Mr. Gustafson said. “Why didn’t you put her in the guest room?”
“She’s French. She’s no virgin,” came the reply.
I keeled over onto my side and drew my knees to my chest. Hoping to drown out the words, I held a pillow over my head.
When Buck returned, he pulled it away. “Little gal, what are you doing?”
He took me in his arms, and slowly, as he kneaded my back, the tension of the day evaporated.
I tilted my head, and we kissed. Through the wall, I heard a cough.
I drew back and moved to my suitcase. Kneeling down, I opened it and breathed in deeply, certain I could still smell home—Maman’s jasmine perfume, Papa’s pipe, the leather of Rémy’s satchel.
I dug around until I found my nightgown, which had been a part of my trousseau.
I imagined Maman bent over the embroidery ring, pulling the pink thread through to create a garden of roses at the hem.
My back to Buck, I took off my red belt and dress and slipped on the gown.
I loved the flowers that flourished at my feet. For a moment, I felt innocent.
“No need to be shy,” he told me. “Let’s go to bed.”
Groaning under his weight, the mattress sank when he slid in next to me. His warmth seeped into my skin. Tight against his chest, I felt like I’d come home after a long, confusing journey.
“I missed you,” he said. “Did you miss me?”
“Yes.” I ran my hands along his back.
“You look pretty in your nightie.” He inched his thigh between mine.
I kissed his mouth. I tasted the salt on his neck.
I opened myself to him. There was so much I wanted to tell him, how much I loved him, how much he’d saved me, how much I loved the feel of his body in mine.
We moved together, to a place where words no longer mattered.
The bed began to creak. Buck thrust faster and faster, then one last time.
There was a crash as the legs at the head of the bed gave, and suddenly our feet were higher than our heads. We giggled.
“What a performance,” I told him. “Isn’t there an expression about bringing the house down?”
“I can’t take all the credit.” He kissed my hand. “You’re a wonderful leading lady.”
A moment later, he dragged the mattress with me on it to the floor.
He flung his arm across my waist and I cuddled up next to him, somewhat surprised to have found a new happiness after Paul.
As my eyes fluttered shut, I remembered one of my favorite lines from Their Eyes Were Watching God: Love is like the sea.
It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.
Buck’s parents had been surprised by our marriage, but they loved him and would accept his choices. All that mattered was that we were together.
In the morning, I slipped on my dress and went to freshen up. When I came out of the bathroom, my mother-in-law jabbed her cigarette in my direction. “Hussy! Can’t you control yourself?”
I felt my face flush with mortification, and I sped back to Buck’s room.
A few minutes later, he and I joined his parents for breakfast.
“Did you sleep all right?” Mrs. Gustafson asked him. “The doctor said you’re supposed to get plenty of rest.”
“I guess two of us on the bed was too much. The legs gave way.”
“You broke the bed?” she asked, masterfully adding a hint of surprise.
“We didn’t break the bed. It broke.”
I admired the way Mrs. Gustafson handled the situation. Deny any knowledge. Spare Buck any embarrassment. If only she’d been kind enough in my case. But she hadn’t. And if I didn’t have a map of Montana, at least I had the lay of the land.
In Froid, there were no lines, not at the post office, not at the general store.
I rejoiced. “Expect things to be different, but try not to compare. Tell yourself it’s not better or worse, just different,” the Red Cross matron at Camp Lucky Strike had said.
Different. Yes, even the texture of the bread, the salty tang of the butter.
The air was drier. So were the people I met on Main Street.
Maybe they were kinder to Buck because they’d known him longer.
They’d warm to me. Hadn’t the Americans at the library been friendly?