If she sat there long enough, maybe they’d whisper the answers she was looking for.

Sitting on the rocking chair she’d moved out there, she opened the journal to the next entry. She hadn’t read any more since the first one, but that day, she was looking for inspiration any way she could get it.

As before, the next entry started as a letter to her grandmother’s mystery man.

Dear Jack,

The world looks so different these days. The changes are scary, but some of them are also exciting. Factories all over the country are hiring women to fill the positions vacated by the men. The San Francisco Bay Area is in desperate need of workers to weld ships and rivet bombers. I know you would hate to think of me working to further this war, but I’m considering it.

The war is happening all around us, and peace is just a dream. No one is vacationing these days. Young families are either struggling to pay the bills or the mothers are leaving their homes to fill these vacant factory positions, so the coast has been quiet. I had one guest here last month, and I fear I won’t be able to keep the inn open much longer.

The idea of closing the doors and selling it makes me tear up. This is my home. This was the place we first fell in love. You being away is hard on my heart, but at least I feel you here. You’re everywhere—in the ocean air, whispering through the leaves, in the rain falling from dark clouds.

If I leave here, I’m afraid I’ll lose you even more.

But going to work in the factories would mean being able to afford to keep the inn and just maybe, I’d feel even closer to you through our mutual efforts in this fight for peace.

No matter what I decide, you will be in my thoughts and in my heart.

Stay safe. Come home to me.

Yours in love,

Dove

Tucked inside the journal behind the entry was a tattered, faded propaganda ad for Rosie the Riveter. A shiver ran through her simply holding the first real feminist empowerment movement. The strong, powerful message resonated with her now more than ever in this turbulent social and cultural climate. She knew from her grandmother’s stories that she had closed the inn and gone to San Francisco for a year, working on the dock factories, welding ships.

She’d done it to save the inn and to feel closer to the man she loved.

Sarah closed the journal and sighed. An eerie sense of history repeating itself washed over her like the waves on the sand in the distance.