Elizabeth nodded as she gave him a glass of lemonade. “I put the envelopes in order first. That didn’t take as long as Gram figured it might. Then I started reading. The letters begin the day Granddad said goodbye to her in Portland. He introduces each fellow soldier he meets like an author introduces the characters in his story—who each of them is, where he comes from, who he loves, who and what he left behind. It’s a diverse group, but they’re united in their commitment to what they’ve chosen to do. Granddad doesn’t portray their journey as a grand adventure. And yet, as they’re crossing the country—and then the ocean—it feels that way. There’s a sense of excitement, of eagerness for what lies ahead.”
“Do you think they know what lies ahead?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “How could they? They’re only eighteen. And, like Granddad, they’ve enlisted because of Pearl Harbor. The country they love has been attacked. They want to defend it. They believe what they’re doing is right and good. And because it is right and good, they also believe they’ll return triumphant and whole. But they can’t, can they? Not all of them.”
“No,” Nick said. “Not all of them. In the letters you’ve read, have they gone into battle yet?”
“Yes. Just. And they all survived. Granddad says it that succinctly, that flatly, without any description of what actually happened.” Elizabeth handed him the letter Charles wrote at midnight on April 13, 1942. “A few hours later, he wrote this.”
Nick’s expression as he read revealed nothing. When he finished and looked at her, his eyes were the color of stone. “What do you think?”
“About the letter? That it’s beautiful. He loves Gram so much.”
“Yes, he does.” Nick hesitated briefly. “I’m sensing you have other thoughts.”
“I get the feeling something horrible happened. He needs to tell her what it was.”
“He won’t. Ever.”
“What?”
“He’ll tell her succinctly, flatly, when one of his band of brothers dies. But he’ll never describe how his friends die, or the way it feels to aim a rifle at another human being and pull the trigger and watch him fall, or how frightened he is, or angry, or if there comes a time when he wishes he could take a bullet instead of firing one.”
“He has to tell her those things.”
“Does he? Why?”
“She’s the woman he loves! The woman who loves him. He can’t hide such important emotions from her. It would be wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Yes.” It was so clear to her. How could it not be to him? But it obviously wasn’t. A new darkness shadowed his eyes. It looked like sadness, she thought. Loneliness. He didn’t agree with what she was saying. And yet, it seemed, he wasn’t going to argue the point. Maybe, if she quit arguing, he’d explain. “Why would he hide what he was feeling?”
“Because he loves her. He wants to protect her, Elizabeth. Her—and them. The love they share.”
“You’re saying he did something in combat that would make her love him less—or stop loving him at all? Because if so, I don’t believe it. Granddad would never, ever, have committed the kind of atrocity that…Never.”
“You’re right,” Nick said. “He wouldn’t have. He’d have died first. You know that. I know that. And he trusts that your grandmother will know it, too. War can’t change a man like Charles MacKenzie, Elizabeth. Not even war can do that.”
Elizabeth heard in Nick’s voice the same emotion she’d heard in Granddad’s when he spoke of Nick. She couldn’t define it. But it was solemn. Important. And very deep. Gram had said the two were alike. And close, Elizabeth realized. Bonded in some special—reverent—way. Maybe Granddad had told Nick about the letters, what he’d shared and hadn’t shared with Clara…and why. Or maybe Nick was only guessing.
Either way, Nick seemed to know.
“You’re not going to find any premeditated betrayal here.”
Nick gestured toward the letters as he spoke. Here referred, of course, to what Charles had written to his love. And yet, for a crazy unsettling moment, it felt as if here—where there was no betrayal—was anyplace she happened to be. With Nick.
“No betrayal,” she murmured. “But you said Granddad wants to protect Gram. And them.”
“He needs to believe that the world he knew before he went to war still exists. That’s the world he’s fighting for, where a girl climbs down a tree to meet the boy she loves, and you don’t have to strain to hear an owl above the sounds of mortar and the cries of wounded men. That’s why he’s fighting, Elizabeth, to protect that innocence, that ideal.”
“So when he writes about Gram being beside him, he’s not bringing her to war with him.”
“No,” Nick said softly, “he’s going home.”
Home felt like here. Crazy. Except, in his blue-gray eyes, the sadness—and the loneliness—were gone.
What filled the void was so unsettling, in a giddy, glorious way, that she turned from him…and started babbling.
“Maybe we should look at your color schemes. Not that I’m going to make any suggestions. In fact, don’t let me. I’d never have come up with the choices you made for Gram’s kitchen, and they’re wonderful…”
“She’s going to love these.” Elizabeth’s assertion, made thirty minutes later, was a grateful one. “The colors you’ve chosen are so cheerful. Just walking from room to room will make her smile.”
“I hope so,” Nick said. “Assuming she can see them.”
“She’s having trouble with her vision?” Elizabeth frowned. “She didn’t say anything about it.”
“I’m not so sure she would, even if she knew.”
He was right, of course. Gram wasn’t one to complain. “She doesn’t know?”
“She’s aware that her vision isn’t what it used to be. But if it’s what I think it is—cataracts—the impairment has come on so gradually she’s adapted to the changes without realizing how significant they are.”
“But you think they’re significant.”
“Very, and probably have been for a while. But because she has adapted, it’s only been three weeks since I first began to wonder.”
“What made you wonder?”
“Because of what happened when she looked at the sky on a crystal-clear night. She grabbed my arm and pointed to the moon. She was alarmed by what she saw, didn’t know what it was. I thought she was confused. But as I was deciding how to suggest that to her, she began to describe what she was seeing. An immense sphere of light, she said, bright and glaring. A UFO, she thought, and was stunned I wasn’t remarking on it, too. When I told her all I saw was the moon, she tilted her head, changing the angle of the incoming light and, with a laugh, chalked it up to her eyes playing tricks on her.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. I did a little reading online and began to notice other things. Her reaction to oncoming headlights, for instance. She squints at them and, sometimes, she even recoils.”
“I didn’t think she drove at night.”
“She doesn’t, and hasn’t for a while. But she’s been a passenger in my truck. I’ve made a point of being a passenger in her car, too, during the day. She’s okay if the ambient light is good and it’s a familiar route. She’s a careful driver. Cautious.”
“But if her overall vision is significantly impaired…What else have you noticed?”
“She doesn’t read the way she used to. Not for pleasure.”
“Or,” Elizabeth said, “maintain what was once a daily e-mail correspondence with Winifred.”
“And that’s after increasing the magnification of her reading glasses to the strongest she can buy at the market. She listens to the radio, and listens to, but doesn’t watch, TV.”
“You said she might not see the colors you’ve chosen.”
“I’m not sure she sees color at all anymore. When she showed me the hatboxes you painted, she was dismayed that they’d faded despite the lacquer finish.”
“They haven’t faded.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Elizabeth searched her memory for what else she’d observed since her arrival. “She uses the railing to go up and down stairs. And she was very eager to turn the letter-scanning project over to me. And equally eager not to be here when you showed me the color schemes. And last night, while we were sitting at the kitchen table, she got up a couple of times to flip a light switch.”
“Only to discover the light was already on.”
“All the lights were on. The kitchen was bright.”
“Her world may be very dark.”
“A visual darkness,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully, “that makes sense to her, feels appropriate to her, given the emotional darkness of losing Granddad. Not being able to see must make that loss, and the prospect of her life after Granddad, seem even more hopeless. But it was her idea, she said, to have you paint the house.”
“The outside.”
“The gold that guided Granddad home after the war. She wants him to see the glow from wherever he is—even though she can’t.” Elizabeth saw a glow then. Or believed she did. A glitter of wanting, of longing, in his solemn gray eyes. In a flicker it was gone. Its impact left her momentarily confused. She forced the moment, and the confusion away. “Gram needs to see an ophthalmologist.”
“She has an appointment for eleven on Wednesday morning. I made it once I figured out what was going on. I called Charles’s neurologist at the Clinic and asked who he’d recommend. Next Wednesday was the earliest opening, but the timing was good. I didn’t want to talk to her about her vision until after you and Matthew had come and gone, and I knew that beginning today I’d be here all the time. My plan was to show her the color schemes I’d chosen…”
“And to gently, patiently, point out to her what she couldn’t see.”
“Something like that. She knows her vision is failing. She just doesn’t know there’s a chance it can be improved. I’m expecting resistance to the idea of seeing an ophthalmologist.”
“Eye surgery is daunting, even for an intrepid climber of trees. She’s been in such wonderful health all her life. As far as I know, she’s never had surgery of any kind.”
“Daunting,” Nick agreed. “And not without risk—assuming my diagnosis is even correct.”
Elizabeth was certain it was, that his research had been thorough, his conclusions sound. And if she asked him whether he happened to be an ophthalmologist, she could predict his stern reply.
No, Elizabeth, I’m a handyman.
“They’re just old,” Gram said when Nick and Elizabeth raised the issue of her eyesight. “I’m just old.”