Page 12 of All We Thought We Knew
He jammed his hand into his jeans pocket. “Mom moved away after I left. She lives in Chicago now.” He looked out to the pastures. “My dad still lives in the same house, but I haven’t seen him since I got back.”
It seemed Nash and I had more in common than I’d realized. He probably didn’t like talking about his relationship with his father any more than I did.
“I’m thinking about taking Moonlight Sky for a ride,” I said. “Is she out to pasture?”
“You might want to check with your dad before you ride her.”
My spine grew rigid. “If I recall correctly, Moonlight ismyhorse. Just because I’ve been away for a while doesn’t mean I need his permission to ride her.”
Annoyance sparked in his eyes. “No one said she isn’t your horse, Mattie, but Moonlight Sky is due to foal in the spring. We’ve been exercising her, but since this is her first foal, Kurt thought it best if she wasn’t ridden.”
My mouth dropped. “He bred her? Without asking me?”
Nash stared as though I’d gone nuts. “Are you serious? You disappeared after Mark’s funeral. Your parents didn’t know if they’d ever see you again. You have a lot of nerve getting upset because your dad bred a horse onhishorse farm.”
“And you have a lot of nerve judging me, Nash McCallum,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Someone needs to.”
We glared at one another until I whirled and stormed away.
FOUR:AVA
DELANEY HORSE FARM
JANUARY 1942
The old farmhouse creaked and moaned in the biting wind, making me wish I’d lingered in bed a little longer. Gertrude said the almanac foretold a hard winter, and I believed it. We’d already suffered two rounds of ice and snow, making life miserable for us and the two dozen horses we cared for. Dark clouds rolling in from the north meant more winter weather was on its way.
I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the coffee mug in my hands seep into the rest of my body. Yet as good as it felt, it couldn’t penetrate the frozen despair that had taken up permanent residence deep inside me the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. Icy fingers of panic clawed at my heart every moment since, with President Roosevelt’s words after the attack—a radio address the newspapers called hisinfamy speech—making it worse.
I inhaled a deep breath, fighting tears that seemed to hover just below the surface these days. Despite the terrible national heartbreak, most Americans carried on with life, albeit with sadness and anger, as well as a healthy dose of patriotism. I too would have come through the tragedy intact had it not been for the arrival of a telegram three days later. That lone piece of paper ushered in the chilling truth of the devastation Japan’s attack had inflicted upon me personally. The raw terror caused by a handful of typed words destroyed my world just as surely as Japanese bombs destroyed the naval fleet, safe in the harbor... or so they’d thought.
Mrs. Ava Delaney,
On behalf of the Department of the Navy, it is my sad duty to confirm that your husband SN Richard Delaney was killed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7December 1941. He was aboard the USS West Virginia when it was attacked and sunk by Japanese torpedoes.
My eyes sprang open.
I couldn’t spend another day dwelling on all I’d lost. To do so only brought on depression, hopelessness... and guilt. Guilt for not loving Richard enough. Guilt for worrying more about my own future now that he was gone rather than cherishing the memories of our brief time together. While some might not blame me, considering I’d only known Richard a total of three weeks before becoming his wife last May, other people—my mother-in-law—saw my paralyzing fear as nothing short of betrayal.
“My son deserves to be mourned by his wife,” Gertrude declared just yesterday, her disapproving glare fastened on me as I pulled a batch of peanut butter cookies from the oven. “But here is his widow, baking as though she hadn’t a care in the world.”
I’d set the tray on the stovetop, stung by the hot pan as well as her sharp words. “I do mourn him. Every moment of every day I wish he were alive.”
Which was the truth. I grieved for the life we would never have together, yet I had only been Richard’s wife for four blissful days before he left for Hawaii. I hadn’t seen him in seven months. His letters were sweet and full of romance, but I’d often felt they came from a stranger. How was I supposed to navigate the loss of someone I hadn’t truly known?
But I couldn’t tell any of that to his mother.
Gertrude was inconsolable when the telegram arrived. We should have grieved together, but she shut herself in her room. The following day a Navy officer from the recruitment office in Nashville arrived at the farm. She received him, barely acknowledging me as Richard’s wife. Although I couldn’t blame her, I’m certain the officer wondered why I had little to say in the matter of my husband’s death. He’d explained that Richard’s body, like that of so many sailors who’d died in the harbor, would not be coming home, breaking Gertrude’s heart anew. When the man tried to hand a folded US flag to me, Gertrude stepped forward and accepted it. I realized then we would each bear the burden of grief alone and in our own way. Me with my fear, and Gertrude with her bitterness.
The cookie incident was just one of the many times she’d tried to shame me. I usually ignored her, but yesterday I’d had enough.
“Daniel is leaving tomorrow to join the Army,” I’d said, more as a reprimand than a reminder. “Peanut butter cookies are his favorite.”
I knew Gertrude had a soft spot for the teenage boy who came to help with the horses. She’d wept when he announced he planned to quit school and go to war now that he was eighteen. After my comment, she huffed and walked out of the kitchen, but the barb she’d launched with her words hit its mark.
I’d only been a real wife a handful of days, yet I would be punished for the rest of my life for not being a good one.
