“Just in time for some breakfast.” Tuesday met him in the yard, the empty basket resting against her hip. “Coffee’s still hot.”
“Here, let me.” He took the basket, set it on the back porch by the washer, and followed her inside. “Lee said he’d done some sprucing up.”
“You’ve talked to Leroy?” She settled the iron skillet on the stove, added wood to the fire, and reached for the can of bacon grease. “Prop that door open, will you?” Her ol’ wood-burning stove still turned the kitchen into a furnace.
“He’s doing well.” Doc set his hat on the hook, then did as she asked. “He’s a soldier. I think that’s why and how he ended up with the Memphis mob. He needed a cause.” There was sympathy in his eyes as he took a seat at the table. “All your boys will be in Europe before it’s said and done. Best prepare yourself.”
“Then I’ll keep the Starlight shining.”
He smiled softly. “Tuesday, leave that and sit down with me.”
“W-why?” Her legs weakened as she moved to the nearest chair. “You’re scaring me.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a telegram. “I got this the other day. LJ put me down as his next of kin.”
“No.” He pressed it into her trembling hand, but she stood, jerking away. “Do not come in here again as the Doctor of Doom. I won’t have it. Whatever that telegram says, it’s a lie.”
She slammed the skillet on top of the stove, then flung it against the wall. Melting grease puddled on the floor, and the hot handle had marked her palm. “This is your fault.Youlet him go. You gave into his wild ideas. You fixed it with your old commander or your wife’s family.” She ran her hand under cool water, sobbing. “Noooooo!No, no, no!”
Doc took her into his arms. “At some point, every boy becoming a man must test himself. Am I brave enough? Am I strong enough? Am I honorable enough? He must find something to believe in that’s bigger than himself. God. Country. Family. A war against evil. He died a hero, Tooz. He’d want you to be proud. He shot—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I. Don’t. Want. To. Hear. It.”
“—down a Junker headed for London. But when he dove away, he crashed into a Messerschmitt. They both went down.”
She slumped into him with one hammer of her fist against his chest. He braced her with his hand around her waist, but after a moment, they sank to the floor together.
“I want ... I want ... him ... I want him back, Doc.” Shaking, she washed his shirt with her tears. “Get him back!”
“I wish I could, Tooz.”
The fire blazed in the stove while the kitchen turned dark and cold as she wept and remembered.
The sweet, dimply, curly-headed baby with the roly-poly thighs. The toddler trying to run before he could walk, banging into furniture, falling down and getting up again. The six-year-old determined to do it all by himself. The ten-year-old who shot up four inches in one year. The big brother who wrestled in the yard with Dupree, laughing. The teenager who kicked a can down the street as he walked to school with his buddies, his books slung over his shoulder, bundled by a leather strap. The boy who became a man and said to her,“I want to fly, Ma. I want to fly.”
“Doc.” Tuesday dried her face with the hem of her apron. “It wasme. I’m the one who told him to go.” She pushed to her feet and walked out to the porch, faced the Starlight, and dried her cheeks. “He said to me, ‘I want to fly, Ma.’ And I told him, ‘Then go fly.’”
“That’s the best thing you could’ve ever done for him.” Doc stood beside her. “We’re going to need an army of LJs in the days ahead.”
“They have Lee. He’s worth ten men.”
“True enough, from what I’ve observed.” Doc glanced down at her. “You’re worth a thousand women, Tuesday.”
She brushed his shirt where her tears had left a stain. “You’re worth quite a bit yourself, but you absolutely must stop delivering bad news.” The wind snapped the clothes on the line. She’d forgotten all about the laundry or the chores needing to be done. “What happens now?”
“He’ll receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, I’m sure, possibly other medals as well, and the heartfelt thanks of the British people.”
“His body?”
“The bottom of the Channel.”
She swiped away fresh tears. “He loved the water as much as the air, so rest in peace, Leroy Jr.” She wondered if she’d break again, rattled by tears and grief, but the view of the Starlight anchored her.
Life and death were assured, but the Starlight would remain because Immanuel watched over it. He watched over them all.
“Does Lee know?”
A car stopped at the end of the drive, and a man in uniform stepped out.
