And You Will Find Love

I finally left home and never came back. Except once. After I saw that Jimmy wasn't really my friend, I needed someone to be with. That someone was your mother's best friend. Julia was a very pretty woman, and shouldn't have even looked at me. But she was a nurse and did not let the wounds of soldiers keep her from seeing inside their minds or hearts.

"Your mother, in name only, did not know her best friend and I were seeing each other until afterward. Julia and I had a child together. After she died giving birth to you, I took you home to my wife. I left a note explaining who you were and asking that she forgive her friend and me, and not hold it against you. She brought you up as her own daughter. Did you know any of this?"

"Mother told me some of it. I never knew the rest. But it helps explain many things to me. I'm just sorry she couldn't have loved you."

"She did once, before the war. I've lived the rest of my life remembering that. And not blaming her for not being able to accept me as I changed. War changes most of us, in so many ways. Inside or out. Men, no matter who they are or what they have seen and done, are never the same again after they've been soldiers. Or sailors, or airmen. The closer the war is to them, the more they change. Even if a soldier is not wounded in body, he is wounded in mind or spirit. We need all the help we can get. Some of us get more, others less."

Barbara remembered her mother telling how her father had changed after the war. She had no idea her mother meant he had changed physically.

So these were the ghosts my foster mother tried to exorcise on her deathbed. There just wasn't time to tell me everything. Or, she just couldn't. Even in dying, she could not admit that she had turned her husband away, or why. And yet, now I understand. I'm sorry, for you, father, and for her, and for us all. I don't blame her. She was just not strong enough. "

After Julia died, I couldn't bring you up myself, so I gave you to my wife. Then I left you both, only to come back for special occasions. To watch, or be of help. But I always turned away if you saw me, for fear I would frighten you. I would rather have you not know me, than risk you turning away from me, as so many others had."