Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(19)

“So you want money and discretion. Swell. Anything else?”

“You’ll help.”

“Of course I’ll help. You’re my brother. How can I not help?”

“Lots of sisters wouldn’t,” he says.

She goes on shaking her head woefully, face grim, sending him the message that this is serious, sending him the message that he had better not screw up anymore. But he’s Aryeh, so most likely he will.

“If it’s a girl we’ll name it after you.”

“I’m going to slap you again.”

“I have it coming,” Aryeh says.





6

FRANGIE MARR—TULSA, OKLAHOMA, USA

“So, tell me: what is on your mind, Frangie girl?”

The question comes from Pastor John M’Dale, the spiritual leader of Frangie’s family. He’s a middle-aged man, a serious man, a thoughtful man, a scholar even, cursed (or blessed) with a round, cherubic face. His office is all dark wood, books, dust, a big globe on a three-legged stand, a small stuffed pheasant, and various symbols of his faith and position. The chair Frangie occupies is cracked leather and feels vast. She resists the urge to swivel it back and forth.

“I’m signing up, I guess,” Frangie says. “So I wanted to tell you I won’t be singing in the choir anymore for a while.”

M’Dale sits back and takes a long, deep breath, nodding and looking closely at Frangie. “Your daddy still out of work?”

“Don’t imagine he’ll be working ever again, Pastor M.”

He nods. It’s not the first time he’s heard a story like this. “You think you want to fight in this war of white men killing Japanese or else killing other white men?”

“I don’t aim to kill anyone. I aim to try out for medic.”

“Well, that is honorable work, Frangie. But even if all you’re doing is patching up hurt boys, you’d still be part of it all.”

“Yes, sir.”

She gives in to the urge to swing the chair left to right and back, just a small motion but comforting. She looks down, finding his gaze too challenging. There’s a small feather, like a crow’s pinfeather, on the rug, and it’s drifting in the breeze of her chair’s motion.

“I can tell you what the Bible says about that.” He’s forming a tent out of his fingers, sticking the tips up under his ample chin. “First, love. You know that, you know that if you pay attention during my sermons.” He winks at her. “You do pay attention now, don’t you?”

She welcomes his bantering tone. “I memorize every word, Pastor M.”

He laughs. When he laughs, he shakes, and that makes Frangie smile.

“First, love. Love above all. Love for the ones who love you, love for the ones who hate you. That’s pretty hard to follow if you’re in a war.”

“Were you ever?”

The question takes M’Dale by surprise. He sits farther back still and drops his hands to his lap. “No, young Miss Marr, I have not. But I have counseled many men who did go to the last war.”

“Yes, sir,” Frangie prompts.

“Well, they talk about the horrors. But they do also talk about the brotherhood with other black soldiers. I’ve only ever spoken with one who acknowledges taking a life. He says it was either shoot that other man, or be shot himself.”

“I guess that’s what war is,” Frangie says. “But it’s also patching a fellow up after he’s been shot.”

“Our friends of the Jewish faith say that he who saves a single life saves the world entire,” M’Dale says. “I may not have that quotation quite right, but the sense of it is there. That’s not from scripture, but I believe our Lord would agree with the sentiment. But real life can be more complicated than that. You heal a soldier in a war, and he goes off next thing to take a man’s life. How then do you avoid responsibility for that death?”

“Sometimes you have to fight,” Frangie says.

“Sometimes you do. Sadly, yes, sometimes you do. And what would you be fighting for, Frangie Marr?”

“Fighting for?”

The question overwhelms her and she has to think about it, and as she thinks she looks down at the feather, more like down, really, it’s so light. Its little feathery fate rests on the next breeze.

“Should I not go, Pastor?” It will be easier if he forbids it. If he forbids it then she’ll have to find some other way to support her mother and father. Some other way to make her own life better than her mother’s life.

“I can’t tell you go or don’t go,” M’Dale says at last. “I can tell you what the scriptures say. They say to love and not to harm. They say to turn the other cheek. But each of us faces a path with many forks and turns, and that which guides us on that path must be our own conscience, as reflecting the light of Jesus.”

Frangie makes a shaky sigh. She’s just gotten permission, however reluctant.

I am not a feather. I will not be blown this way or that. Not from now on.

M’Dale sees all this. “You pray on it, little Frangie. You’re a good girl. You’re a faithful daughter to your parents and to this church. You pray on it, and if your conscience says go, then you go, and take with you the love and prayers of this congregation.”