Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(57)

Rio’s mother reaches to take his hand, but he shakes her off brusquely. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, young lady. Neither of you does. I do.”

“Tam, there’s no point in frightening Rio.”

“The goddamned generals sit up there in their headquarters, and you’ll be nothing but a number to them. Some major will say, ‘We anticipate only ten percent casualties,’ and the general will say, ‘Jolly good, we can manage that,’ but the ten percent aren’t names or faces to them, just numbers. And the generals are fools, most of them. They send young men to . . . to have their legs and arms and faces . . .”

He grits his teeth, angry at himself for losing control, angry at himself for showing emotion.

Rio sees the ruined face of the Stamp Man in her memory. She doesn’t want to see it, has, in fact, pushed it to the far edges of her memory, but it is clear and vivid and real at this moment.

Rio wants to ask her father what it was like for him, his war. She wants to ask him whether he was brave—that question has begun to preoccupy her. And she wants to ask him what exactly happened with the Stamp Man on the terrible night of the fire. But she knows she mustn’t—Tam Richlin’s wartime experience is taboo in this house. It is not something the family is allowed to discuss, and a part of her doesn’t really want to know, because his war was his war. For better or worse, this war is hers. It is hers.

Hers and Rachel’s.

Hers and Jenou’s.

And Kerwin’s, and Jack’s and Cat’s and Stick’s and Tilo’s. It’s even Luther’s war. It does not belong to the men who fought that earlier war, that mockingly subtitled “war to end all wars.” Their war, their fate, will not be hers. She will not live out her days sucking air through an absent cheek. Not her, not Jenou, not Strand.

“Mother, I like your chicken much better than the chow hall’s chicken,” Rio says gamely, moving the conversation to safer ground. Rio can see her father making an effort to be kind, to be patient, but the fear is very specific and very real to him. His fear frightens her because she cannot dismiss it.

Her mother’s fear is no less real, but Millie Richlin’s concerns are somewhat different.

“Just don’t you forget all you learned in Sunday school,” Millie says. “Just because you’re in a uniform doesn’t mean you’re safe. It doesn’t mean boys don’t have certain urges. Secret urges.”

Rio manages—just barely—to avoid grinning at the notion of boys having secret urges. The males in her barracks have urges, all right, but they are definitely not secret. So do some of the females, including a certain Private Jenou Castain.

“Yes, Mother.”

“One mistake can ruin your life. Don’t forget: when this is over and you’re home safe, you still have to find a good man, get married, and make a life together.”

Mrs. Braxton. Mrs. Strand Braxton.

Mrs. Jack Stafford. Lady Stafford.

That’s ridiculous, Jack is not a lord, and anyway, Strand! She’ll be seeing him tomorrow.

“I worry about you.”

“So do I,” Rio mutters, before catching herself. “Don’t worry, Mother, my own sergeant told me the odds of getting hurt are pretty low. Really. And Sergeant Mackie is not what you’d call a ray of sunshine.”

“Is your sergeant going with you wherever you go?”

I wish she were.

“No, Mother, Sergeant Mackie already has another load of soft recruits to inflict pain on.”

That truth causes Rio a pang of regret, a feeling almost like jealousy. Mackie with a whole new barracks full of gawky, awkward, ridiculous recruits, one of whom will be sleeping in Rio’s bunk.

With the dishes done, Rio heads out to the porch. It is unbelievable luxury to have time to slowly digest dinner without needing to study a manual or shine her boots or sew her uniform. At the same time, how strange not to have Cat tossing off some bit of poetry she’s just made up, or Tilo doing his Frank Sinatra impression. Jenou is just across town, staying with her aunt, not her parents, for reasons Jenou has not explained. But the rest of the old crowd are spread here and there, slated to reunite in New York City.

New York City! The very thought is thrilling. New York City and then the slow boat to England. So long as a German U-boat doesn’t spot their convoy.

Rio’s father is on the porch, a cigarette in his mouth, gazing off toward the sun setting behind the church steeple. Rio noticed that he drank two beers with his dinner, not his usual one, and now he’s holding a glass of brandy with the bottle near at hand but discreetly out of sight behind a potted plant.

She senses that he is nerving himself up for what he has to say. She feels him tense when she joins him. He seems at first to regret the brandy in his hand, but then takes a healthy swig. He sets the glass aside, pulls a pack of Luckies from his shirt pocket, and holds it toward her.

“Have you picked up the habit yet?”

“No thanks. Some of the guys have, but not me.”

“Not yet,” he says darkly. “Before you’re done you’ll be smoking and drinking too.” He immediately shakes his head in regret. “Listen, I, uh . . .”

“Yes, Dad?”

He sighs, takes a drag off his cigarette, and exhales a cloud. “Listen, sweetheart. Don’t be a hero.”