Lizzie looked at Ed before she left him.

“Thank you,” were the only words she could find to say to him. She could never have gotten through the day without him. He gently touched her cheek and nodded.

“I’m here if you need me. Send for me if I can do anything to help.” But they both knew he couldn’t. There was nothing any of them could do now. Greg was dead and nothing would change that.

Audrey walked her up the stairs to their room, with her arm around her, and gently lay Lizzie on the bed in her flight suit. Lizzie lay there and sobbed until she finally fell asleep. Audrey covered her with a blanket and turned off the light. It was all anyone could do for her.

Chapter 11

In the weeks after Greg died, Ed followed Lizzie like a shadow, and was always nearby when she wanted him. His attention wasn’t oppressive. His gentle compassion and kindness, and Audrey’s, and that of the other nurses were what kept her going, and able to function at all. Ed got her to take a few days off, and she called her parents on the day of Greg’s funeral. There was no body. There was nothing to bury after the explosion that killed him. They had a service at St. Leonard’s church in Boston, and were going to put a headstone in the Hatton family plot at the cemetery. Her parents were trying valiantly to be brave, but every day was filled with terror for them, worrying that either Henry or Lizzie would be killed too.

When Lizzie felt strong enough to do so, she began flying missions on her own, as the nurse in charge. It forced her to focus. She missed flying with Ed, Pru, Charlie, and Reggie, but she was proud to have a crew of her own. She met up with Ed every day after work, and they either had dinner at the pub or the fish and chips shop. She needed him now just as she needed to breathe air. He infused her with his own strength. They were walking home from the pub one balmy night in late May, and when he kissed her, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. It felt to both of them as though it had happened before, and their being together was their destiny now. It didn’t surprise their friends either. From the moment Greg had died, Ed had become Lizzie’s source of strength and her protector.

They were walking back from the airstrip a few days later when he turned to her to make a suggestion. The idea had been gnawing at him for weeks, and he had talked to Pru about it. She liked the idea too, and told him to tell Lizzie. They talked about everything now: the future, the past, the present, their dreams, their worst fears. Without meaning to or trying, she had found her soulmate.