Bastogne 
January 1945

Florence Wilkins possesses a strange beauty.

I thought it long before we became friends, before Normandy when her nails were manicured and curls pinned back in a sophisticated chignon. Before I realized her snobbish attitude was shield against others' judgement about her family's money. 

Other girls consider her features too strong to be lovely. But there is a magnetism to her countenance, in her dimpled chin and keenly curved jawline. Her rare smile occupies nearly half of her face. The viewer can't help be fascinated, even if she is stripping away your dignity with her subtle wit.

The men love to look at her. Honestly, they look at all of us. In this frozen hell, I can only imagine how surreal we must seem even in all our woolen layers. They look at me with my aquiline nose and long face, but they study Florence. Unwashed hair tight in a braid and eyes red rimmed from exhaustion or tears, she remains glaringly captivating.

Hot water sloshes over the lip of the bowl as I come to a sudden stop.

It's the lieutenant that Lawrence brought to the field hospital back in Normandy. I have met Richard Pawloski, called Pops by his men, since his recovery. I like him. His face is gentle, despite the scar on his cheek from the shrapnel, with a voice as tepid as bathwater. The men heed him without question. Cal says that he is a natural leader.

He stands at the immediate entrance to the hospital talking politely with Florence. Pawloski is clutching his helmet too close to his body. Florence grasps the blankets in her arms like she's holding on for dear life. Their conversation fades, but they don't leave. They stand there drinking each other in like wine.

The glint of gold on his bare left hand only confirms what I already know. Lieutenant Pawloski is married. Florence is engaged. I hear a couple other nurses whisper nearby as they notice the obvious attraction between them.

I barrel forward, water splashing to the ground.

"Lieutenant." My smile is stiff. "Are you here to see Cal?"

He clears his throat, his pallid skin tinting a light shade of rose. "Nurse Tucker. I have some mail for him and wanted to see how he was doing."

"He's at the cot in the far left corner." I gesture with my head towards the back. "He could use some company."

My tone is firm, but I'm not worried about hurting his feelings. I dread the thought of something developing that would give substance to gossip. I stand partially in front of Florence as though I'm shielding her from the mild tempered lieutenant. He gives a quick smile.

"Good to see you, Ruth." His eyes skirt behind me. "Florence."

After he leaves, I pull her outside into a snow fall as thick as fog.

"You need to be careful."

Her eyes narrow as she comprehends my meaning. "I don't know what you are talking about," she lies.

"Yes. You do," I reply. "What about Tom?"

"There is nothing going on between me and Rich-" Her gaze drops to the ground. "Lieutenant Pawloski was only asking how things have been at the hospital."

"Florence, he's married."

"I know!" she snaps in a harsh whisper, glancing around to make sure no one can hear us. "Please, you're not my mother."

"What happens if someone starts gossiping?"

"You know I don't care what they think. It'd be lies anyway."

"But you do care what Lieutenant Pawloski's men think of him?" I demand.

The hard dash of her mouth is bracketed by worry lines. "Yes."

"Then do both yourself and him a favor." My voice softens. "Stay away from the man."

Florence shifts the bundles in her arms with a sniff, her eyes cutting past my face.

"You know I would never-"

"Of course," I interject before she can say it.

"Ruth, I can't help how I feel," she chokes.

"But you'll take my advice?"

She meets my eyes. "Yes."

"Give me those blankets and go take a break. You could use one."

Towards noon, Cal finds me packing clean bandages. A few days earlier, he was brought after he caught a piece of shrapnel in the shoulder. It's not the first time he's been hurt. I have heard tales about him barely escaping injury in the past. Witnessing a mishap is disturbing. I don't say anything, but the event has shaken me to the core.

Bundled up in his gear, he wears a sling. My hands hover midair, gauze hanging from my fingers.

"Why are you dressed like that?" I ask, tipping back my head.

His expression is determined, so reminiscent of our father that it knocks the breath from me. "I'm going back to the line."

"Why?"

"Ruthie, come on," he groans. "Do you really think I'd be able to stand it here much longer?"

"Did Pawloski tell you something? Did he make you feel guilty?"

"Of course he didn't. You know that's stupid." He runs his free hand over his face. "I can't leave the boys on their own like that."

I perch a fist on my hip. "And who do you think you are? General Patton?"

"Shit. I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Damn right I don't." The curse word from me grabs his attention. "You're the one that's stupid, ain't even healed up yet."

"I'm fine."

"Like hell you are."

"Stop cussing."

"Only when you do."

Cal swallows a grin. It only infuriates me. I throw the bandages into the container, breathing hard through my nose. Passing a shaking hand over my hair, I grip the sides of the box.

"Do whatever you want." Nauseated, I stride away without another word.

When we were in high school, our mom always complained about how bull headed my brother could be at times. I thought it was funny when he'd stick to his guns at the dinner table. Being on the other side of the argument is much more aggravating. And sobering.

I know it's his duty as much as mine is patching up soldiers, but I have seen too many torn bodies. I have witnessed too much blood pumping from ripped arteries, empty cavities where organs used to be, and burns beyond the mending.

I stop in the yard, holding the wooden box tightly to my chest. German POWs are herded past the field hospital in their blinding white uniforms. Their faces blur, their strange tongues drone into the maddening thrum of war drums till all I see are vicious animals clawing the world to pieces. They are nothing, but desperate predators without names.

I have never felt true hatred in my life before now. It leaves me wilted, vicious as adrenaline in my veins. It rots in me like those dead horses in the summer sun.

∆∆∆

"Why the long face,sweetheart?" The teenager winks at me with a green tinged, black eye.

The red head with a split lip and gunshot wound to the torso grins as I gingerly sit him up on his cot. He's one of the strange, lucky ones. Bullets went through without hitting anything vital. He'll live, but he's being evacuated as soon as possible. There is a transport that evening and he'll be on it.

"You're the prettiest thing I've seen since Paris," he attempts.

"I'm sure." I give him a wry grin and lift his arm. He winces with a sharp intake of breath. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course," he groans with a pained smile. "You're just breaking my heart with that frown of yours."

I sigh, unwrapping the bandage that cuts up around his ribs.

"I'm like the tenth fella' that's used that line on you today, aren't I?"

"More like the twentieth."

His hisses through his teeth as the gauze peels back from his swollen stitches. "I thought I was pretty slick there for a moment."

I give a short laugh as I work. The humor is a welcome reprieve. A patient I tended that morning with the surgeon died of his wounds. He'd lost both legs. I'm certain artillery shells were conceived in hell.

"So where are you from?" he asks.

I open my mouth to answer as Florence and another nurse stride swiftly up to the cot. Their faces are drawn and pale. My heart drops to my stomach. I stand. The other girl wordlessly takes over with the soldier.

"Helen has got you covered here, darlin'," Florence lays a trembling hand on my wrist as we walk outside.

My heart thuds in my ears till all I hear is the shushing of blood. Florence pauses to face me and grasps both of my hands.

"Tell me quick," I gasp. "How did it happen? How did he die?"

Florence lays a cold palm to my burning face. "Cal is alive. But you need to come with me."

"He's hurt?"

Florence doesn't answer, but holds my hand as we walk towards the main hospital tent. We approach a screened corner. I see Lawrence and the medic from their company.

"He's stable," Lawrence states grimly.

Stable. He's stable. My brain is grasping at straws. Florence doesn't respond, but pulls back the screen. My knees lock as I try to understand what I am witnessing.

"Ruthie?"

Cal is on a cot, shaking so hard that it's swaying with his weight. His face is chalky, dark eyes like coal pits. His teeth chatter as he tries to smoke a cigarette.

I cock my head to the side. My gaze lands on the remnants of his leg. The surgeon is packing in a bloody hank of meat at his knee.

Like a turkey neck at Christmas that was hacked by an unsteady hand.

The bile rises in my throat, but I have enough presence of mind to swallow it down.

"Cal." My voice is strangely calm.

Florence has an arm wrapped around my lower back to keep me on my feet.

"Close one, eh? Though I don't know if this is better than being sent home in a box," he chokes out, a cigarette trembling on the edge of his lips.

Lawrence takes the smoke from him, tapping the ash from it before putting it back into his mouth.

"Don't say that," I breathe.

"Ah well. A ticket home is a ticket home, huh? You hear that, Ruthie? I'll give mom and pop your regards."

I'm unable to crack a smile as they lift him onto a stretcher. I should be reassuring him that it's not as bad as it could have been, that he's in good hands. Congratulate him on going home. But I'm useless, arms limp at my sides in accepted defeat. The thing I have dreaded since we got to the continent has finally happened.

"We are getting him out now. They can't wait for the transport tonight," The surgeon tells another nurse.

Numbly, I reach out and grasp Cal's hand. His flesh deadly cold. We rush out into the snowy afternoon. The world is a smudge of grey snow, bone white sky, and red in the cross on the ambulance. He is loaded into the back of the vehicle.

"Don't worry, Ruthie. I'll be seeing you," he calls as they shut the back doors.

The surgeon hits the window and the ambulance drives away into the snow storm. I am standing alone. A pair of hands grip the tops of my arms. I turn into Lawrence's chest and he enfolds his body around mine.

I don't cry. I take in the cold like a tonic. I will myself into ice. I want to dissolve into snow.

I want to feel nothing.

∆∆∆

Zell Am See, 1945

"Sakes alive, Pinto. How did you manage this one?"

George Pinto grins. The split in his lower lip widens, blood mixing with water and trailing down his chin. I dip the bottle of antiseptic into a piece of gauze.

"I missed the jump by this much." He lifts a hand, showing the distance between his thumb and forefinger.

He throws back his heavy, jet black hair, water droplets scattering to the sunlit air. He leans his face towards my hand. I hold the cloth to his mouth.

"Ouch." His nose scrunches up.

"Well... ouch wouldn't be a problem if you'd take it easy on the acrobatics."

Being the shortest, but sturdiest built of the boys of from his company, George Pinto has become quite adept at launching himself into Lake Zell. His flips are impressive and usually he lands them.

"Wow, Pinto. That was something else," Lawrence says behind me.

He rests an elbow on my shoulder as though nothing happened between us the other night. My spine snaps straight, but I force my smile a little harder. Part of me is more than willing to play along.

"Get off me. You're soaked!" I swat him away.

I hand the gauze to Pinto. His dark eyes drift over to the lake side. A couple blondes from the Displaced Persons Camp that they had invited meander down to the water's edge. He stands and sprints towards them.

"Hey! Hey ladies, watch this," he hollers, racing down the stone jetty and doing a front flip into the lake.

I stand, brushing the sand from my nurse's uniform. I am due down at the POW camp in a half hour. My stomach has been in knots all morning. I'm not sure if I am hoping to see Leon or not. I stir, remembering Lawrence's presence.

He has his hands perched on his narrow hips, watching Pinto take another flying leap. Water slowly dries on his bare chest and broad shoulders in the midday sun. I look away, straightening the wrinkles in my uniform. A book falls from my pocket to Lawrence's feet. He leans over and retrieves it from the dirt, leafing his wrinkled finger tips over the pages.

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?" He flips his damp hair to the side. "I thought you'd already read this twice?"

I try to snatch it back, but he pulls it away, holding it over my head.

"Why do you want it so bad if you already know what happens?" He lifts it higher with a teasing grin as I try to snatch it back.

"Lawrence, come on. Don't be annoying." I make another grab for it. "It's for a friend!"

The word friend pops out of my mouth before I can think about it. My stomach twists. How can an enemy become a friend after a few conversations and a shared interest in books? I bury the thought. Saying friend about Leon feels like sacrilege.

Lawrence's brow furrows at my statement, his hand dropping.

"What friend?" he asks with a fading chuckle.

Florence happens by and seizes the book. She hands it back to me. Crossing her arms over her chest, she lowers her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose with the tip of her forefinger. She blows a bubble with her gum, eyeing Lawrence with disdain.

"Now why are you bullying dear Ruthie here?" she demands.

Lawrence is unfazed by Florence's displays of derision by this point. They've never gotten along. They both have strong personalities and clash much too often.

"Why don't you ask dear Ruthie who she is giving the book to?"

"You're lending it out again? I thought I was going to get a chance to read it this time?" Florence straightens the messy bow on my apron strings.

"You hate to read. It'll sit by your bed collecting dust," I remind her.

"I guess you're right. But didn't they make a movie out of it already? You don't even need to read novels nowadays."

"The movie is never good as the book," Lawrence comments.

"And when was the last time you read a book, McNeil?" Florence challenges him.

Before Lawrence can come up with a response, a jeep horn blares from the road. I grimace as I remember that I ran into Lieutenant Pawloski at the Allied hospital in town while dropping off some papers. After chatting about Cal for a couple minutes, he kindly offered to give me a ride up to the POW bivouac for my shift so I don't have to hoof it.

Florence pushes her glasses to cover her eyes once she recognizes Pawloski at the wheel. Her face pales. Brushing a wave of blonde hair from her square forehead, she pats me on the shoulder.

"See you tonight, darlin'." She flounces down to the lake.

Lawrence tugs his lower lip as he studies me. Even with a look of befuddled consternation on his honest face, he is a living archetype. The All-American boy. Lawrence McNeil is everything familiar and safe to me. He should have a baseball bat slung across his shoulders while whistling Yankee Doodle.

I stomp the impulse to compare him to Leon.

"I'll see you later, kid?" He nudges my shoulder with his knuckles like I was a school buddy and not the girl he kissed in the moonlight just a few nights earlier.

"Sure thing, Lawrence." I race the road.

After a couple miles of driving in comfortable silence, Lieutenant Pawloski shifts the gears and gives a quick glance in my direction. "A lot of people down by the lake today."

"It's beautiful out," I agree, tucking the book into my pocket.

He runs a hand over his mouth. "I didn't know Florence Wilkins liked to swim."

I expected him to ask after her. "She's more the sunning type. Though George Pinto did throw her in the other day."

"Did he?"

"She was madder than a cat being baptized." I laugh.

Pawloski gives his gentle chuckle, both hands gripping the wheel.

"I think Pinto is sweet on her. But they all are really, most of the boys. Except maybe Lawrence, but they've never liked each other." 

I peer out towards the mountains. I like Pawloski, it's impossible not to warm to him. But I want him to know that my friend isn't pining after him. I want to save face for Florence.

He drums the steering wheel with his fingertips. "Doesn't she have a fiancé?"

"Had a fiancé," I answer. "She sent him a Dear John letter not long ago."

Pawloski twists his wedding ring with his thumb and goes silent the rest of the drive. He drops me off at the bivouac with a polite goodbye. I brush off the strained conversation.

Going through the motions of my day, I casually make my way down the row of cots only to find Leon's empty. A troubling tick of disappointment drips into my mind, but the copy of Faust on the grass beside the canvas wall. His uniform jacket is tucked almost out of sight.

He's still here. I frown at the relief that floods my chest.

The gold of late afternoon saturates the valley. The man on the stretcher is loaded into the ambulance. I hand the bottle of plasma to the medic as he hops into the back of the vehicle. They drive away. Shielding my eyes from the glare, I peer towards the hospital.

Leon is standing in a group of three by a tent pole. He leans against it almost lazily with one hand in his pocket. The first couple buttons on his shirt are undone. He perches the sole of a tall boot against the canvas behind him. 

The voice of one of the other young men rises in gaiety and Leon gives a real laugh for the first time. As quickly as it came upon him, the light fades from his face. His expression becomes as fallow as a field in November. 

Until he notices me. The corner of his mouth twitches upwards as he flicks his cigarette to the ground. I am drawn forward.

He keeps his eyes steady on me as I approach.

"Hello Ruth."

"Hello." My eyes drop.

The other two shift, unsure of my presence. Leon shoots out what is certainly a brief explanation in German. I hook my hands behind my back as their faces soften in understanding. One of them is so young, I can't imagine him to be anymore than sixteen years old. He still has peach fuzz on his rounded cheeks.

The other is strange looking. His muddy brown eyes are so large, they seem like they might fall right out of his face. He smiles at me. I return the favor and it feels natural even though these are the same kind of men I first saw burying horses in Normandy. The young one holds out a pack of cigarettes to me, lifting his downy eyebrows. I shake my head. After they bid farewell to Leon and saunter away, I study their backs.

"The taller one with dark hair." Leon gestures with a free hand in their direction. "He was on the Eastern front in '42."

"There was something odd about his face-"

"His eyelids," Leon interrupts with calm precision, waving a hand in front of his face. "They were frozen off."

My stomach lurches as I visibly shudder. "How?"

"The cold burns them off like rice paper." Leon takes out another cigarette and lights it.

"What is his name?"

My personal inquiry surprises us both. Leon pockets his lighter, studying me with narrowed eyes as he takes a slow drag.

"Johann Klein." He wets his lower lip. "A farmer's son."

"And what does your father do?"

The corner of Leon's mouth lifts, smoke drifting from it. "He was a banker."

"Is that where your family's money comes from?"

"When did I say my family had money?"

"You didn't. I guessed."

He looks towards the sun and squints. "No, that's from my mother's side. My father lost most of his in the depression. She is from England. I attended school for a couple years over there at Eton. Before the war."

This revelation is both shocking and understandable. His English, though heavily accented, flows off his tongue naturally as though he's been speaking it from birth. Still, I'm intimidated.

I had already guessed he was from the upper class, but the mention of the famed Eton College leaves me tongue tied. I think of my own thread bare upbringing, honest but meager, deep in the Appalachians. I can see my father's face masked with coal dust. The years of economic depression were hard on us as well. We never starved, but the coal company only had dependable electricity installed in the last five years.

"Eton? How did you get in there? I thought it was very... selective."

"My grandfather went there. My mother's older brother as well." The teasing grin at his mouth makes him look boyish. "I know by the looks of me now this sounds strange, but my grandfather was a Lord. The Earldom has since passed to my uncle when my grandfather died before the war. I have two cousins in the RAF, according to my mother. Ironic, isn't it?"

Leon Wagner is fleshing out, like the bare lines of a sketch as they gain color under the hand of an artist. It's disturbing to view one of them this way, after believing the lot of the German army was a mindless collective, cells in the body of the Third Reich.

I can sense us becoming friends.

The impulse to run away sparks in my brain. I reach for the book in my pocket instead.

"I have something for you." I hold out the dog-eared copy, fingertips on the edge of the binding farthest from him.

Taking it, he reads the cover with a placid expression.

"I wasn't sure- I didn't-" I stutter, my hands flapping like wounded birds, curling in and out. "You see, I always have something new to read, but I didn't know what else you had with you."

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." Leon peers back up at me with that probing look. "Thank you, Ruth."

"You're welcome."

I study my palms. My filed thumbnail has left a crescent indent in the heel of my hand.

"Brooklyn. That's in New York City, correct?"

"Yes."

"Is that where you are from?"

"No, my family is from West Virginia." I can't stop a smile at the mention of my home state.

Leon brightens at the sight with an acknowledging hum in his throat. "And what does your father do?"

"He's a coal miner."

"A coal miner's daughter who loves to read." He brushes his nimble fingers through the pages as Lawrence did earlier.

"What of it?" I answer rigidly, defensive after what I've just learned of his privileged heritage. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He tucks the book under his arm. "Nothing. Just who you are. Ruth Tucker."

The same shift occurs behind his eyes that I had spied in Lawrence's gaze the previous night. They flicker over me in what feels like admiration. This is too close for comfort.

"Tucker!" The shrill bark of the head nurse shatters my thoughts. "You are needed in here!"

Without another word, I march towards her glowering red face peeking through the flaps of the tent. I pocket my hands to keep them from trembling.