As she neared her place, an old man in a civil uniform rode up on a bicycle. Ransom, from the telegraph office.
“Mrs. Knight. I’m so terribly sorry.” He stretched the yellow telegram envelope toward her.
Tuesday kept walking toward her porch. “I don’t want it, Ransom. You just take that and go on. It’s not for me.”
“Mrs. Knight, I...” He dropped his bicycle and ran after her. “My condolences.”
“Get away from me.” When he tried to press it into her hand, she tossed her purse at him. “I said I don’t want it!” She thought Doc was the only bearer of bad news until he came along.
“I understand.” There was a sadness in his voice. Of course everyone in town despised the man who brought telegrams of death. “The Scotts over on Calhoun Street done lost three sons. But, Mrs. Knight, wounded telegrams don’t look no different than killed. Read it first.”
She yanked it from his hand. Maybe Dupree was merely wounded. Or missing. Getting wounded wasn’t Leroy’s style. He was all or nothing. Her fingers trembled as she tore away the flap. A thin Western Union note slipped out as Ransom rode off.
The Secretary of War sends his deepest regret that your husband, Master Sergeant Leroy Knight, was killed in action on June 6, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy. Letter to follow. Sincerely, the Adjutant General.
She collapsed to the gravel, her body swollen with a cry she could not release. Crumpling forward until the gravel pierced her cheek, she curled her fingers into the rocks and dug into the dust. Voices sounded around her. A car door slammed. Shouts volleyed over her. This was her end. She could give no more.
Immanuel!Where are you?How could He allow it? Hadn’t she been through enough? Abandoned enough? Had she failed in her devotion in minding the Starlight?
She woke fitfully when thunder rumbled through her room and a gust of wind rattled the cottage. Heavy blackout curtains cut off the light of the heavens and stifled the air.
Still in her dress from tea with Harriet, Tuesday peeled off her torn stockings and lit the candle she kept on the nightstand forwhen blackouts were called. Down the hall, she paused by Dupree’s room. Harriet slept, curled up in her tea dress.
Down the narrow stairs to the kitchen, she found Doc sitting at the table, nursing a cup of coffee, his thick gray hair bearing the ring of his hat. He looked tired in the cold kitchen light. Tuesday tugged the blackout curtains on the kitchen window closed.
“The warden will come by if we let light out.” She cut off the overhead light and set the candle on the table. “So you know?”
“Ransom called. I told him to if you got a telegram. You know Lee asked me to look out for you.”
“I didn’t know you were in any one place long enough for a phone call.”
“I’ve been staying over in Fort Walton. Volunteering where I can.” He nodded toward his cup of coffee and gave Tuesday a half smile. “It’s cold. But I’m starting to like it.”
Tuesday pushed past the creaking screen door to the porch. An inky sky hung over the dark town. Even the Starlight was subjected to blackout regulations. But God’s lightning didn’t care about man’s rules and lit up the whole sky with long, zigzagging electricity. Tuesday liked to think it was just for her because today her world changed forever. She was a war widow.
The screen door creaked again, and Doc stood beside her. “Normandy was a victory for the Allied forces.”
“Is that your version of a pep talk? That I should be glad my husband gave his life for freedom?”
“You know that’s what he’d want. If his number was up, Leroy Knight wanted to go out fighting.”
A single tear ran down her cheek. “How I hate that you are right.”
“If you need me to do anything, Tuesday, just tell me.”
She stepped off the porch without a word and started toward the Starlight, which stood tall against the strobes of lightning.
Only when she arrived at the rink did she realize it was locked up tight. She fell against the wall and slid down to the walkway. Thirty yards away, waves rolled against the shore.
She was void and numb, like one of those cartoon robots at the movies. She screamed, wanting to cry, but her eyes were dry. When a figure emerged from the blackness, swinging a lantern, she knew it was Immanuel. She’d had this dream before. When Granny abandoned her.
He set the lantern by her feet and joined her on the ground. Tuesday slowly slumped sideways and rested her head on his shoulder. “Why does everyone leave me?”
“I’ll never leave you.”
Breathing in the fragrance of the holy man, she whispered, “Watch over Dupree. Please.”
When she woke up again, she was in her room, the blackout curtains pushed aside so the morning light and sea breeze gushed through the open window.
