There were so many like him. She was careful not to encourage Alfred romantically, but he paid no attention to whatever she wrote and continued to declare his love for her, no matter what she said. She tried to taper off her letters, but he would beg for a response, and eventually she would feel sorry for him and send him a short note. The letters finally stopped and she assumed he’d been shipped off to Europe. It was a relief not to hear from him anymore. There was so little she could do for him and the others like him. She could heal their bodies better than their minds. There were so many broken souls returning from the war, men who would never be whole again. And there would be so many more before it was over.

When Alex finished her nurses’ training, she was assigned to the Presidio in San Francisco. She stopped in New York for a night to see her parents, and flew out on a military flight the next day. Her father hoped that going to San Francisco didn’t mean that she would be sent on to the Pacific. She was happy to be sent far from home. For the first time, she could pursue her own life without being told how peculiar and unlike her family she was, and how disappointed they were by her. San Francisco was a fresh start. She smiled broadly when she saw the city, as she rode into town on a military shuttle bus to the Presidio. She hopped on with her suitcase and her duffel bag, excited to be there. When she got off, it took her a little while to find the nurses’ dormitory. There was a young female private in the office on the ground floor handing out room assignments to new arrivals. Alex made her way up the stairs to the room she’d been assigned. There were two beds in the room, and someone sound asleep in one of them. She assumed it was probably a nurse who’d been working all night. Alex tried to move around as quietly as she could, and put her things away in the narrow closet and an empty chest of drawers. The furniture in the room was old and battered. There were no frills or additional comforts, just the bare necessities. She didn’t mind at all. It was a relief not to be burdened with the luxuries and trappings of her youth. She was like everyone else here. It was a melting pot of all kinds of people.

She found the communal bathroom at the far end of the hall, and when she got back, the girl in the bed was sitting on the edge of it smoking a cigarette. She looked like she’d had a rough night. She’d worked a double shift the day before, which was common.