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She was out of breath after climbing the stairs again. “That was the veterans’ hospital. They want us to go there tomorrow morning to talk about a treatment for Jimmy.”
“Is he getting better? Can he come home soon?”
“They didn’t say. But we’ll be allowed to visit with him briefly after our appointment with the doctor.” I didn’t ask Mrs. Barnett if I could go with her, but I must have had a pleading look on my face because she asked, “Do you want to come with us, Peggy?”
“Oh yes, if you’ll let me. If the hospital will let me.”
“They said family only, but you’re part of our family after all these years, aren’t you?”
I wondered if Mrs. Barnett had any idea how happy her words made me. I loved Jimmy Barnett and I loved his parents, too. Their home once held so much life and joy, and I wanted it to be that way again, for my own sake as well as for theirs. During the war, I worked at the IBM plant across the river, building aircraft cannons. I believed that if I did my part, the Allies would win, and Jimmy and his family would be safe, and life would go on. The war was over, and my prayers were answered when Jimmy came home. But nothing was the same as it used to be.
Mrs. Barnett handed me the box of letters she had fetched and we sat down on Jimmy’s bed again. He had enlisted in 1942, and his letters filled a shoebox that once held a pair of Mr. Barnett’s work boots. We only had time to skim the most recent letters, sent from Germany in flimsy airmail envelopes. We didn’t find Gisela’s name in any of them. “You can take the letters home to read, if you’d like,” Mrs.B. said, but I shook my head. Jimmy’s letters belonged here, with his parents. His words were precious to them, especially since he no longer spoke to anyone.
“But may I take this?” I held up the small New Testament and Psalms we’d found in his pack. I wanted to read the verses Jimmy had underlined, thinking they might have been important to him.
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Barnett replied. She drew me into her soft arms for a hug before I left, something we probably both needed.
I hurried across the road and ducked into Pop’s garage before going upstairs to change out of my work clothes. “You need me for anything, Pop? Before I get changed?”
He was bent over a car engine and didn’t even look up. “It’s not like you’re around if I did need you,” he muttered. I handled all of Pop’s paperwork and wrote up invoices for him. He was busy with a lot of car and tractor repairs these days and could have used more help, but I had returned to work at the veterinary clinic after my wartime job at the factory ended. I knew how to replace spark plugs and do oil changes, things I’d helped Pop do since I was a kid. He could have taught me more, but I enjoyed working with dogs and horses and even cows and pigs more than cars and trucks. There was nothing more amazing than watching a baby calf or a foal being born—that miracle of new life emerging into the world after a painful struggle. I never grew tired of it.
Over the years that I’d been working at Mr. Barnett’s clinic, I not only cleaned the dog kennels and horse stalls, but Mr. Barnett showed me how to feed the animals and keep watch over the sick ones until they’d recovered enough to go home. The clinic also boarded animals for their owners, so there was always a dog or two to walk or a horse to groom. A month after Buster’s surgery, I was feeding a newly spayed dog when Mr. Barnett asked, “How old are you, Peggy?”
“Eleven.”
“So tell me. Do you like working here?”
“Oh yes, sir! It’s the best part of my whole day.”
“Well, then. I think it’s time I started paying you for all the work you do around here.” My heart did a little dance. I loved working in the clinic. I hoped he really meant it.
“But... aren’t I still paying you for Buster’s operation?”
“You’ve already paid that debt,” he said with a wave of his hand. “If it’s okay with your father, I’d like to pay you to continue helping me after school. You have a nice way with the animals. They like you.”
I had nearly burst out bawling from his kind words. I had to swallow my tears and blink my eyes real fast. “I-I’ll ask Pop when I go home. But I’m sure he won’t mind.” And he hadn’t minded. The Great Depression still cast a shadow over the country, and many people were desperate to earn a little extra money. But I could tell that Pop was disappointed in me for not taking more interest in the garage that was his livelihood.
“I’ll get to work and write up that invoice for you after I get changed,” I told Pop now. “And let me know what parts you want me to order.” Buster was waiting for me outside at the bottom of the steps to our apartment, his tail wagging in greeting. Pop’s girlfriend, Donna, wouldn’t let him come inside unless I was home, complaining that he stank up the place. I took a minute to greet him and let him know I was happy to see him, too, then told him to wait outside while I flew up the stairs to our apartment to change out of my barn clothes.
“You sound like a herd of elephants coming up those stairs!” Donna griped from her usual place on our sagging sofa. She was still in her housecoat and a haze of cigarette smoke hovered around her.
“Sorry. I’m wearing my work boots.” I kicked them off near the door and opened one of the living room windows. It was nearly suppertime, but a quick peek into the kitchen told me she hadn’t started anything for our dinner. My pop loved Donna, so I tried very hard to love her, too. But I suspected that Donna would be happier if I moved out and she could have Pop all to herself. He’d been lonely after Mama died and had started drinking every night at the Crow Bar, where Donna worked as a barmaid. By the time I was in high school, she had moved in with us. The whole town knew that she lived here and that they weren’t married. And I’d been old enough to be embarrassed and ashamed about it.
Yet I understood Pop’s loneliness and how he’d needed someone to talk to. Mama had been the one who would rub his shoulders after a long day of work and make sure there was a hot meal on our table, even when money was tight after paying the mortgage on his garage. Mama was the one who sewed clothes for me out of hand-me-downs and sent me off to school with my hair brushed and braided. But she had felt very tired on the last morning I saw her, too tired to fix my hair or my lunch. She sat in an armchair in our living room, her swollen ankles propped up on the footstool. “Can you pack your own lunch today like a big girl?” she’d asked.
“Okay, Mama.” I smeared jelly on a leftover biscuit and added an apple to my lunch sack. Before I left for school, Mama took my hand and laid it on her stomach to let me feel our baby kicking inside her.
I never saw her again. Pop came upstairs for lunch at noon and found her sprawled on the floor. He carried her to the car and raced to St.Luke’s Hospital, but it was too late. Mama and our baby both died a few hours later.
Tomorrow’s trip to the veterans’ hospital to see Jimmy was still heavy on my mind as I went downstairs to work in Pop’s cluttered office. The familiar scents of engine oil and exhaust fumes saturated the space. Buster lay at my feet like my shadow as I wrote up invoices and ordered new fan belts and spark plugs. A few bills needed to be paid, but business at the garage was good, and we had more money coming in than going out. All the while I worked, writing checks and adding numbers on our adding machine, I kept reaching down to scratch behind Buster’s ears, and I prayed that the doctors would tell us Jimmy was getting better and that he would be able to come home tomorrow.
Along with Buster, Jimmy had helped fill the hole in my life during those terrible, lonely years after Mama died and everything at home had started falling apart. Jimmy did chores alongside me at the clinic after I started working there, and even though he was four years older than me, he would still take time to say, “How are you doing today, Peggety?” He would always ask me about my day the way Mama used to do.
About a year after Mama died, Jimmy found me slumped in an empty horse stall one day, crying my eyes out. “Hey, hey! What’s wrong, Peggety?” he’d asked.
“Nothing... nothing.” I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve, but when I tried to stand up, he made me sit down again.
“Let’s just sit here a minute and you can tell me about it,” he’d said. He sank down in the straw beside me and waited. He just waited, as if he had all the time in the world, braiding a few pieces of straw together while he did. His patience won me over. My story spilled out with my tears.
