Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
The waitress delivered their food—a shrimp basket for Lisa and a cheeseburger for Peyton. Lisa dunked a butterflied shrimp into cocktail sauce and took a bite. “You want one?”
“Nope, I’m happy with my burger,” he said as he sprinkled extra salt on his fries. “You know, Lisa, I’ve heard that pilots make really good husbands. I think I read that in the Army handbook.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, the Army handbook says that, does it?”
Peyton was devouring his cheeseburger. “Sure does.”
“Well,” Lisa said, dipping another shrimp in the sauce, “any pilot looking to marry me will have to let me fly with him now and again, because I’m sure not letting him have all the fun while I stay on the ground, hanging diapers on the line.”
“I’ll alert the Pentagon. No, wait—I don’t want any competition. I reckon those other fellas are on their own.”
Lisa stared at him with those eyes the color of the sea. “Are you just kidding around, Peyton?”
She looked afraid of his answer. Trouble was, he didn’t know whether she was scared of a yes or a no. So he took a deep breath and told the truth. “Never been more serious about anything in my life.”
Now Lisa was smiling. “Good. Me too.”
When Eileen’s suitcase arrived, Kate was home alone. She carried it to Peyton’s bed on the sleeping porch and popped the latches, which opened with a click-whap. Kate had bought the suitcase with her own money, her first paycheck as a travel nurse. And now it held what was left of her life with Marshall, packed into pockets and compartments where makeup and hairbrushes used to go.
She slowly shuffled through the contents of the suitcase: cards and letters, playbills, framed pictures of happier times, many of them made on Tybee—Kate photographed at sunset, Marshall standing in the water, eyes closed, face turned to the sky. He was such a beautiful man. Kate could still see plain as day the line of his jaw, the high cheekbones and tan skin, the strong shoulders and graceful hands—everything.
She unwrapped the few pieces of jewelry he had given her—few but fine. He always told her she was too beautiful to cover up with baubles, but he’d bought her a strand of pearls, which she wore most often, a diamond dinner watch and a gold one for daytime, a delicate necklace here, a bracelet and earrings there—not a lot, but all of it special, chosen just for her.
In a corner of the suitcase was the small brown leather New Testament she had given him when he left for the Pacific. She picked it up and saw something tucked between the tissue-thin pages. It was a photograph of Marshall standing in front of a small stone church, surrounded by children holding candy bars and smiling. The picture was dated August 1945—just a few months before Marshall came home. Kate turned the picture over again and again, staring at the image and hoping each time she flipped it over to find a clue written on the back. It remained blank. Maybe this snapshot captured the key to her husband’s postwar struggles—a soldier’s inability to help the helpless, to save the innocent? Kate had to accept that she would likely never know.