Flying Angels(16)

She went through the motions at work and barely spoke to her parents at night. She felt as though a part of her had died with Will on the airfield at Pearl Harbor.

Ellen and Audrey didn’t celebrate Christmas, and Lizzie worked on the holiday in Boston. She had nothing to celebrate that year. There was a jubilant mood among those who had enlisted and wanted to celebrate before going off to basic training. Lizzie already knew how it ended, and she couldn’t let herself be swept along. She kept to herself at work, and took care of her patients, but there was nothing she cared about now.

   They finally sent Will’s body back shortly after Christmas. There were so many bodies to send home to families all over the country, and others who had gone down with their ships in the harbor and remained there. Divers brought up as many as they could, but there were a vast number they hadn’t reached yet.

Lizzie went back to Annapolis for the small funeral service Audrey arranged for her brother. His classmates from Annapolis were all over the world now. His childhood friends had moved on too, and a bigger funeral would have been too much for her mother. Audrey, Ellen, and Lizzie and a few of their old friends attended the service in the church Audrey and Will had gone to as children. Ellen hadn’t been well enough to go to church for years, and Audrey no longer saw her old high school friends. She was too busy taking care of her mother. Lizzie was her closest friend. They buried Will in the cemetery at Annapolis with his father. Will’s grandfather and grandmother were there too. There would be a place for Ellen next to her husband, Francis, when she died. It was grimly depressing standing at the cemetery, as they lowered Will’s casket into the ground, and two navy pilots handed Ellen the flag from his casket. Her hands trembled violently as she took it and pressed it to her chest.

They went back to the house for a quiet meal afterwards, and Lizzie shocked Audrey with what she told her after they put Audrey’s mother to bed. Her health had deteriorated markedly since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Will’s death. It was as though she didn’t care enough to put up a fight anymore. Audrey was fighting to keep her stable, but Ellen didn’t seem to care one way or another. Lizzie could understand how she felt, and Audrey did too.

   They were sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of wine when Lizzie told her. Lizzie looked tired and had lost weight in the last month, and the light had gone out of her eyes, as though everything was dark inside her. Audrey didn’t look much better, but she was busy with her mother. They were both young to have suffered so much loss.

“I’m going to enlist,” Lizzie said so quietly that Audrey didn’t hear her at first, and then it hit her.

“You’re what?”

“I’m going to enlist in the army as a nurse.” She said it as simply as though she had said, “I’m going to the store tomorrow to buy a quart of milk.”

“They’re not drafting women, Lizzie, for heaven’s sake.” Audrey was shocked.

“Maybe they will eventually. Probably not. I’ve got nothing else to do, and at least I’ll serve some useful purpose. I’m not doing anyone any good emptying bedpans in Boston and living with my parents. Why not use what we learned in nursing school? When you see what happened in Hawaii and what a mess it was, how many wounded there were; they’re going to need as many medical personnel as they can get. I’m not married, I don’t have kids. I have no reason to stay home. I’d rather go where they need me and do someone some good. The patients I take care of won’t miss me. They can get plenty of old nurses to do what I do. I might as well enlist now and let them send me where I’ll be useful. I’ve been thinking about it, and it really makes sense.” Nothing else did now. She was calm and matter-of-fact about it, and Audrey could tell she had made up her mind. She could also tell that Lizzie didn’t really care if she lived or died at the moment, which worried Audrey.

   “Have you told your parents yet?”

“No, I’m sure they’ll have a fit when I do. But I don’t really care. They won the battle against medical school. They won’t win this one. I know I’m right. The army is going to need as many nurses as they can get. Lots of nurses are married and have kids and can’t go. I can. I have nothing to hold me back. My brothers will be going, so why shouldn’t I?” And she wanted to honor Will in some important way.

“Aren’t you scared, Lizzie?” Audrey asked her, and Lizzie shook her head. She looked like a different person since Will had died. She seemed empty and cold. All the joy and life and hope had gone out of her.

“No, I’m not scared. They probably won’t put nurses on the front lines anyway. I’m going to tell my parents when I go back to Boston now, and then I’ll sign up.” Audrey wasn’t sure if she was right or not, but she didn’t want to lose her closest friend. She couldn’t think of joining her, because she had her mother to take care of.

“Where would you go?”

“Wherever they send me. They’ll probably send a lot of the wounded back to the States. They might not send me anywhere, except an army base somewhere in the U.S. Either way, I’m willing to go.”

“I’m impressed,” Audrey said quietly.

   “It just feels right. The country is at war. I think young people should go. Women as well as men.” She believed in equality for men and women, which wasn’t a popular point of view.