I feel like this now, lying in this bed, in this room I do not know. Half of me is still asking: What on earth has happened?

At the RAF base we had a medical and a debrief. Like many others I was diagnosed with emaciation and strain, neither of those being actual diseases I would say, more like two different types of emptiness. The first I could try to fill, the second not. As for God, they were neither able nor unable to diagnose His presence in me, not having the correct instruments, but He was there. Still there all through the war.

Then home, to my mother and broth.

As soon as I could—I wanted to escape the broth—I flew to Egypt, landing at Amiriya where Yvette found me again. We didn’t recognize each other, she in her uniform, me I don’t know how many pounds lighter. Still unable to eat very much, or talk very much, or be capable of anything that might be called courting.

But she was practical: she got to work on me.

In England she had nothing to sustain her except my love and her courage but she had plenty of both. Her English was strongly accented in those days and very, very French in construction but she relished her mistakes. She befriended everyone.

Once I overheard my mother tell Tom, when Tom was in disgrace after some frightful infraction of our parental rules, “We’ll love you forever, Grandpa and I, whatever you do.”

Yvie. I’ll love you forever whatever you did.

But I must know.

I am summoned downstairs by a knock at the door. It’s a fire officer, and he’s holding a plastic bag. He hands it over. “I’m sorry about this nasty bag,” he says. “I couldn’t find anything better for her.” Inside the bag is Yvette’s urn. A slight scratch at the shoulder the only damage.

I like the way he used both hands to give me the bag, the way he bowed his head slightly as he apologized for it, and the way he spoke of “her.”

“I’m very grateful,” I say. I am.

—

After breakfast I sit down and write to Tom. I begin by giving him the Corey farmhouse address and telling him about the collapse of the vicarage, my injury and rescue. Keeping strictly to the physical aspects. I’m not about to start on the spiritual. The God situation, as Tom might very well call it. I continue:

It is true that I lied about the little chest.

I hope that one day I shall be able to tell you why.

—