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  “I can hardly believe it’s been almost two years since his passing.”

  This subject made me almost as uncomfortable as talking about Charlie, so I stood and busied myself away from her, wetting a cloth in the nearby basin of water. “Are your headaches any better today?” I asked returning to her side.

  “Somewhat. More of a dull ache than the usual sharp pain.”

  I could see it in her eyes, the ache she spoke of. Heavy lidded and dull, they told of the discomfort she lived with on an almost daily basis.

  I dabbed her head with the cool cloth I’d wetted in the basin of water. “Is there anything I can get for you today? Anything from town? Can I cook you something?”

  “Sweet darling, you do enough for this old lady. Besides, I haven’t had much appetite and I still have some of that wonderful bread you baked for me the other day.”

  I gave her a long searching gaze. “Are you sure?”

  “You worry too much about me! I am certain. Thanks for coming by but you should go home now and figure out why you didn’t say hello to your friend after he’s been gone for so long.”

  The directness of her comment caught me off guard and brought a rush of pink to my cheeks. It seemed my efforts to distract myself from the subject of Charlie had failed. “Fine. I will go. Do you need me to come by tomorrow?”

  “My dear, I am old but I am not helpless. I will be fine until you can get back here.”

  Reluctant, I pulled the afghan from the back of the sofa on to her lap. “I’ll see you in a couple of days then.” Departing for home, I let the confusing tangle of Charlie-related thoughts run rampant in my brain, proving only to distress me further.

  Back home in my room, I pulled out the last letter I wrote him. I’d never sent it—it was pointless anyway. I read the last words I'd written him and then fell back on my bed as a hot tear escaped my eye without permission.

  August, 4th, 1919

  Good Lord, Charlie, what is wrong with you? You’ve been gone for several months now, and not a peep. I gave up asking your parents how you were doing because it was humiliating admitting to them I’d never heard from you. All I can think about are my last words to you. "You’re going to die, you know." And now I fear you have. I tell you what, if you’ve gone and died on me, without a word no less, I promise I will be cross with you for the rest of my existence.

  Mother will not stop yammering about my taking over her quilt shop, no matter how many times I tell her I’m going to university in a year. I had a dream the other night I actually did take over the shop. Mother was there bent over with a cane and barely able to move but still barking orders at me. You were there, too, stocking the shelves. Is this your aspiration, Charlie? Shelf-stocker at the good ‘ol quilt shop? I already know the quilt shop is where my dreams would go to die, and now my sleeping mind has confirmed it. And apparently I’m taking your dreams down with my own. The silver lining? If you’re a stock boy at Mother’s—rather my—quilt shop, then you aren’t dead at war!

  Oh! Guess where I’m writing this letter from. Give up? You guessed it—our old fort. I snuck into the woods off your parents’ property and found it. How many years has it been since we played here? Anyway, it’s a pile of sticks now, but it’s the closest I can get to you. I miss your friendship, Charlie, even though you’re being a terrible friend at the moment. But please come home already. I’m dying here and your silence is a big part of what’s killing me.

  Sincerely, Julia

  "Julia, dear?" my mother’s voice called from the other side of the door. She knocked with a light rap of her knuckles and then pushed the door open. "I didn’t hear you come in. Did you get to see Charlie?"

  "I saw him, all right."

  "What’s wrong?"

  "Nothing, Mother. I still need to speak with him is all. He was tied up at the train, so I left."

  She walked into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. Tucking a strand of my auburn hair behind my ear, she said, "I’m sure he missed you too." Her gaze searched mine, as her eyes moistened without spilling over. "But he’s back, and he’s alive. So whatever it is, put it aside. You don’t know how much I wish I could have said what needed saying before your Daddy passed. But you, my love, you can say whatever you need to."

  I took my Mother’s hand, squeezing it. The gesture made the welling tears spill over. "I know you miss Daddy. I do too."

  She sniffed, dabbing her eyes with a kerchief she pulled from her sleeve. "In any case, you have a chance to say whatever you need to. Charlie is downstairs on the porch."

  "You could have led with that, Mother!"

  She patted my knee. "I could have, but this was better. Now get downstairs and give your best friend a hug."

  Grabbing a wrap, a host of nerves coursed through me as I walked downstairs. I dismissed those—they were silly—after all, this was Charlie. I found him on the porch swing, looking exactly as he had the night before he left, save for the cane.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked him. My voice was cooler than I intended. I tried to channel my mother’s words to mind, exhaling some of my fury.

  "Fine welcome for someone who defended your freedoms."

  "Thank you for that, Charlie. I’m glad you didn’t die."

  He huffed. "Well, thank you. Me too. Why are you acting so strange? And where were you today? I thought for sure you'd be there to greet me."

  I rested against a large pillar of the porch, pulling my wrap around my body to keep warm and maintaining a safe distance from Charlie. "I was there, thank you very much. Not that I had any idea if you were coming home. I didn’t hear from you once." My words sounded bitter, but I didn’t care.

  "I know. I’m sorry."

  "Anyway, looks like you had quite the greeting committee. I didn’t want to interrupt."

  "You mean Caroline?!" Charlie almost jumped up on his gimpy leg.

  I looked up at the dark sky. "I didn’t know you two were so close."

  "She wrote me a few times while I was away. Her letters were nice, full of juicy town gossip. They made me feel a little closer to home."

  "And what did you say in your letters back to her?"

  "Told her about what we were seeing out there, how I missed everything about home. You know, normal stuff."

  "So you managed to write her back. Interesting." This time Charlie looked down at the ground, his usual jovial expression lost in some distant sadness. "Anyway, you obviously said more than the normal stuff. Looks like she thinks you’re all hers."

  "Does that bother you?" Charlie rose off the swing with his cane and stumbled closer to me.

  I shrugged. "Not one bit. You can be all whose ever you want."

  "I most certainly do not want to be Caroline Davis’s." Another step toward me.

  "Did you get all my letters?"

  Charlie stopped and pulled a stack of letters out of his jacket pocket. They were rubber-banded together, and I recognized my handwriting. "Every one."

  "You didn’t bother writing me back, but somehow you had time to return Caroline Davis’s."

  "That’s true," Charlie said, shuffling closer. "But I didn’t keep hers."

  "Charlie, we have been best friends since we were little. Now, what good reason do you have for ignoring me the past five months?"

  "I couldn’t write you."

  "What, was there a shortage of pens?"

  "There was a shortage of many things." Charlie's face darkened before he snapped out of whatever memory haunted him and back to his explanation. "I didn’t write you because I didn’t know what to say to you. You were so mad at me for going. What was I going to say? You were right? Because you were—it was hell. I saw men die every day, fought off rats the size of cats, starved sometimes weeks at a time. Those of us who weren’t killed by enemy fire were taken by other fevers and infections. I was cold and exhausted. But you know what kept me awake when I wanted to sleep during the worst of times? You know what kept me from turning my gun on myself?" Charlie took anot
her step and now stood in front of me, much closer than we usually were to one another.

  My eyes grew wide as words failed me. Another tear snuck down my cheek, and I did nothing to stop it.

  "You, Jul. Your promise to kill me when I returned if I didn’t die there first. And I knew I had to see your face again." Now Charlie stood directly in front of me, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. "I couldn’t write you because I couldn’t tell you that you were right. If I died, I never wanted you to know what I had to live through first. And it gave me the courage to keep going so I could come home and tell you all about it myself."

  I realized I wasn’t breathing, so I remedied that by inhaling. Now would be a bad time to pass out. Charlie’s words washed away all my guarded anger at him, and I threw my arms around him.

  "I am going to kill you, you know," I said, steadying my voice.

  "I know, and I’m ready for it." We pulled away from each other, and when I looked into Charlie’s deep brown eyes, I read something in them I never saw before. I opened my mouth to ask what it was when he pulled out of my arms.

  "What’s this?" He grabbed the last letter I’d written out of my hand before I could stop him.

  "Give that to me! It’s mine!"

  Charlie turned his back to me, and kept the letter out of my reach by holding it high above his head. I jumped for it, but it was no use. I was powerless to do anything other than stand by while he read it.

  When he finished he said, "I was in your dreams, was I?" His eyebrows bobbed up and down in a mixture of arrogance and teasing.

  I rolled my eyes at him. "Of course you would pick out that part. What about how I think you’re a terrible friend?"

  "I know you don’t think I’m a terrible friend." Charlie was closing in on me again, and I felt my breath escape. What was this? He had never stolen my breath before.

  "I rather do, at least recently."

  "Well, I’m here now, and I’m going to make it up to you." His words sounded like more banter, but his tone carried the weight of a vow.

  "Since I’m going to kill you anyway, I may as well forgive you so my conscience is clear."

  "I knew you would," Charlie said. I began to worry my eyes were going to explode out of my head from the sheer intensity of the way his gaze searched mine, like he could bore right through me with it. I had to change the subject to something, anything. "Um, so what happened to your leg there?"

  "Nothing major. Just a little sprain. It was dumb, actually. A couple of the chaps and I were racing for fun right before we took the train home, and I tripped and landed on it funny. Wouldn't you know it? I come back from war and my only injury has nothing to do with battle."

  I laughed, relieved to have the mood lightened. "You always were a touch accident prone."

  "No way. I'm as graceful as a kitten."

  "Uh huh. Maybe a drenched kitten trying to escape from a tub of water." A merry silence settled between us, making it feel like old times. "So, what do you think you'll do now that you're home?"

  "Oh, probably help Papa on the farm for now. I have to get it all figured out. But tell me, are you heading to university? I was half-afraid you weren’t there today because of school. Thought maybe you’d already left."

  "I wish," I said. "But no. Mother is reluctant to help me pay for it, so I have to save my money. I don’t have enough yet for a full year."

  "And how are you enjoying work at your mother’s shop?"

  "It’s lovely, Charlie. It’s been my lifelong dream to work in the quilt shop for years before running off to study medicine.”

  He punched me in the shoulder, nearly losing his balance in the process. "Whatever you do, you’re going to do it well."

  "Thank you. Lately I’ve been thinking I’ll travel, see the world."

  "Before you go to school?

  "I don’t know. Maybe for school, maybe once I’m done. All I know is I can’t stay here forever. Maybe I could come back, but I want to see things, Charlie."

  "I’ve seen them."

  "And, other than the war, what do you think?"

  "All I saw was war." I lost him again, the horror translating into his expression.

  "We don’t have to talk about the war now," I said, resting my hand on his arm. He looked down at my hand and then up into my eyes. He held my gaze for an eternity, neither of us speaking, neither of us moving at all. I felt compelled to comfort him, but I didn’t know what he needed from me. I’d never seen him so affected by anything. I didn’t remove my hand from his arm and touching him felt different than it had before. Acknowledging this had me pulling my hand back suddenly, as if I’d been shocked.

  "You all right?" Charlie said.

  "I’m fine."

  "I need to get back home now," he said. "I told Ma and Papa I was going for a short walk. I’ll come see you at the shop tomorrow. I have much to tell you, and I want to hear everything I've missed while I was away."

  "I’ll see you tomorrow," I said, and Charlie hobbled off into the dark night.

  Confusion raged through me, about what I was feeling, about Charlie’s reaction to me. He’d ignored me for five months. And then he came back and stood so close to me—I could feel his breath on my face. It was like no time was lost, but something else was gained by his absence. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he looked at me. Charlie and I had always told each other everything, but now, in his gaze, he held a secret. I had half a mind to march after him and demand an answer, but the other half wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.

  All night long I tossed and turned with a host of emotions eating away at my stomach and robbing me of my sleep. I wished I knew what I was feeling. My anger at his absence had since abated, but the confusion only seemed to compound with every waking thought. And as the hours of the night ticked on, sleep deprivation spun my mind further into confusion’s web.

  Chapter Three

  The Story of Julia and Charlie

  When morning came, the circles under my eyes tattled on my sleepless night, and my body ached all over. My wild, red hair appeared even wilder and redder than normal. Nevertheless, I forced myself out of bed. Mother would be expecting me at work today. Pulling my favorite tweed knickers out of the bureau, I knew full well Mother would disapprove if I showed up to her shop in trousers. But then Mother and I often failed to see eye to eye on such matters. I buttoned my blouse and glanced in the mirror at my unruly mess of hair. Pin by pin I attempted to tame my locks, until every last strand of hair was up and out of the way.

  Barely grazing through the door at the precise minute we opened, Mother looked me up and down, her right eyebrow raising on its own accord, telling me without words what I already knew. Of course, she busied herself dusting the dustless displays and stood back to admire them, wisely choosing not to begin the day with a discussion about my wardrobe choice. The store looked as immaculate as ever, and her displays were flawless. The counter running across the back was clear of clutter and ready to have material cut on it and customers rung out. My mother was talented, no doubt. Not only was she a fine quilter, she had a knack for accentuating them with the perfect finishing touch. Quilts hung at varying heights on the wall, and standalone racks held others on display around the store. Her storefront showed off her most recent work, brilliant patchwork displays of her craftsmanship.

  In a futile effort to engage me in her passion, she often wanted my opinion about where she should hang what, but truth be told, I did not inherit her eye for these things. No, I was almost all my daddy, God rest him. His curiosity about how things worked, his hunger for learning. And despite Mama’s adoration of those traits in him, she failed to recognize them in me.

  "Good morning, Mama," I greeted.

  "Julia, the least you could do is dress like you care to make a sale. You’re a pretty girl. I wish you’d let the world see your beauty."

  "The world ought to value me beyond any perceived beauty."

  "Yes, dear. But still, we represent something
here."

  "I feel you may be missing my point," I said.

  "Never mind that. I suppose you’ll be working the counter most of the day anyway."

  "My thoughts exactly. See, same page."

  She shook her head, but she couldn’t hide her smile. "I wonder what your father would say if he could see you in those men’s trousers."

  "I think he’d find me quite striking in them. He wasn’t one for thwarting progress among women. You of all people should know that, Mother, since he was your number one supporter in opening up this quilt shop."

  "He was a dear man. You would do well to take up quilt-making. You’ll need those skills to care for a husband and children of your own."

  "I have skills. Besides, I don’t need a husband. Once I save up enough money to go to university, I can become a doctor and support myself."

  "You dream big, daughter. Medicine was your father’s work. It belongs to men. You would do better in a setting like this one." Mother motioned around her, and I couldn’t help my eye roll.

  "We’ve been over this. I am not taking over your quilt shop. I hate quilting."

  "We shall see. Oh, Caroline—" The bell on the door rang as my mother announced her arrival, "—Good morning, dear." Mother wore her saleslady hat well.

  Caroline slunk into the store, her hips swaying in time with her steps, her red lips pouted in concentration as she surveyed Mother’s displays. She never bothered me before yesterday with the production she made over Charlie’s return. Like she was laying her claim on him, and it made my insides squirm.

  Also, she looked too perfect. She wore a tailored powder blue dress with three buttons standing in a nice vertical row at the top by her pristinely pressed collar. Her shoes were white heels, and the pearls around her neck matched them. Her hair hung in springy ringlets, not a strand out of place, and she managed to paint her face to look like one of those fair-skinned, perfectly complexioned China dolls. In fact, her whole persona screamed "I'm a porcelain doll!"