Stars Over Clear Lake Page 26

  He let out a breath and squeezed my hand. “Good. I’m glad. I mean, I only want you to be happy, Lorraine.”

  *

  A few days later, as I pulled the sheets through the wringer of the washer, I stared at the concrete floor and was reminded of the burnt brick walls of the Surf, the empty shell the building had been reduced to. It had been seven weeks since the fire. Would I ever be rid of that awful image, the fallen roof and charred remains? The dress I’d worn that night still smelled of smoke, despite the fact that I’d washed it several times since.

  A knock on the kitchen door startled me. I wiped my hands on my apron, which was stained with egg and mayonnaise, and pulled at my tangled hair, remembering that Scotty would be over soon after work. I checked my watch. Scotty wasn’t due for another half hour. It was probably Mr. Murphy from next door, coming to tell us the cows had broken through the fence again and were on his property.

  I trudged up the basement stairs. I still had to change my outfit and finish the laundry before Scotty arrived.

  As I reached the landing I saw a man standing at the screen door, his hand reaching out to knock again. My eyes followed the thin, long, musician fingers up the arm of the man dressed in slacks and a brown vest, to his face and soft, earnest eyes. It wasn’t Mr. Murphy, and it wasn’t Scotty.

  I stopped, unsure if my legs would hold me up. “Jens?”

  He spoke through the screen door. “Lorraine. May I speak with you?”

  His voice was cautious, as though he expected me to slam the door in his face. I looked toward the sunroom. Was Mom asleep? Could she hear us?

  I opened the door and stepped outside. “My mom is resting on the porch,” I said in a low voice.

  The sight of him was too much. His blue eyes searched mine with an unspoken question. I leaned against the door for support. I wanted to reach out and touch him, make sure he wasn’t a mirage.

  “How are you, Jens?”

  “My name is Sid,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I had it legally changed. I am becoming an American citizen.”

  “You don’t have to change your name to become an American citizen.”

  “Yes, I do. Jens was poor German soldier, a man with little hope. But Sid, he is someone with a future.”

  He took my hand in his, sending a jolt up my arm, as if his touch had resuscitated me.

  “I have thought every day of the fire,” he said.

  “So have I. I can’t believe you risked your life to go back and get Lance. I’m not sure anyone else would have done that. And when you didn’t come out, I thought that you…” The memory still made me tremble.

  “I was scared, too,” Jens said. “But not to go back for Lance. I was scared I would lose you. To do so was unthinkable.”

  I nodded, my throat tight at the thought of what I’d valued most in that critical moment, of what Jens had valued most. “I shouldn’t have sent you away.”

  “We are in agreement on that,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, my mouth tugging into a small smile.

  “I come to tell you. We have need of a singer soon,” Jens said.

  “You want me to sing with your band?” I said, shocked.

  He took a deep breath. “More than that. I ask you to come as my wife. It is not an easy life on the road, but perhaps if we are together…”

  It was then that I remembered Scotty. He would be here any minute.

  “Jens, I’m getting married next week.”

  “Then there is still time.”

  “Time? No…”

  “You’re not welcome here!” I jumped as Mom’s cold voice rang out behind me. “Leave our property.”

  Mom was still in her blue robe, tied at the waist with a double knot. She stood behind the screen door, one hand holding the neckline of her robe closed. Her hair was wound in bobby pins; little black edges stuck out the sides of her head. Her eyes were big and her mouth was tight, as though the pins were pulling her face back.

  “Mom. Give us a moment.”

  Mom tightened her grip on the bathrobe and opened the door. “I most definitely will not. Lorraine, get in here this instant.”

  “I’m not a child.…”

  “Then stop behaving like one. You’re an engaged woman, for God’s sake.”

  I turned at the sound of wheels on gravel. Scotty’s black Ford was speeding up the driveway, kicking up a white cloud behind it.

  Scotty parked next to the barn and bounded out of the car, reaching back at the last second for a bouquet of daisies. His hair was flattened down and he had a spring in his step that disappeared the moment he saw Jens.

  “I’m so sorry, Jens,” I croaked. “You have to go.”

  He took my hand again. “I cannot leave without you.”

  “Don’t touch her,” Mom said through clenched teeth. “You are the enemy!”

  I didn’t expect Mom to be courteous, but her downright malice made me cringe.

  “Mom, go back inside,” I pleaded.

  “I was never enemy,” Jens spoke in a determined voice. “I was forced to fight in a war I didn’t want to be in. Then I was a prisoner of war. And now I will be American citizen.”

  “You aren’t fit to be part of this country!” Mom said, and I looked down, blocking out her words until they became gibberish. I focused on the yellow smear on my apron, the metallic smell of egg that still lingered there. The stain resembled an empty nest, as if a bird had been frightened off by Mom’s screaming. I wondered if Mom’s voice would carry out to the east field where Daddy was planting.

  I looked up to see Scotty smack his oversized hand on Jens’s shoulder. “Take a hike. She told you to leave.”

  Jens broke away from Scotty’s grasp, but not before Scotty pushed him down. Jens sprawled out in the dirt, then stood, putting his fists up. Scotty towered over him.

  I quickly moved between them. “No! No fighting!”

  “Tell him, Lorraine,” Scotty demanded. “Tell him who you’re marrying.”

  I wanted to shrink away and disappear into the tall clover that grew along the edges of the road. I turned toward Jens, who had put down his fists. “You have to go.”

  “I will leave if you tell me one thing,” he said, brushing dirt off his shirt. “If you tell me you do not love me in front of everyone.”

  “Tell him, Lorraine,” Scotty said, his voice wavering.

  I met Jens’s eyes and opened my mouth, but I was speechless.

  “Tell him!” Mom’s shrill voice commanded from behind.

  I stood there, my mouth wide as a barn door. No sound came out.

  In the distance the apple tree had burst forth in clusters of pink flowers, a promise of bountiful fruit. Jens and I had made our own promise beneath that tree.

  I looked to Mom, and tried not to cry, but the words came out in a sob. “Jens is a good man, Mom. Why can’t you see that?”

  Mom’s eyes were black slits, her mouth a straight line. “All I see is my daughter making a fool of herself,” she spat out. “Your behavior is disgraceful!”

  Hot tears ran down my face. Why did she have to be this way? “If I’m making a fool of myself, it’s because I love him!” I shouted before I could stop myself.

  “What?” Scotty looked as though I’d punched him in the gut.

  Mom rushed to his side and put her hand on his shoulder. The bottom of her robe swirled in the breeze. “Scotty, she doesn’t mean it.”

  Scotty shook his head. “Wait. What about us, the wedding plans? You know my cousins are coming from South Dakota. Is this because of what I said at the restaurant, about you not singing? Because we can work this out … we love each other, sweetheart.”

  “I do care for you, Scotty.…” I stopped and wiped my face, realizing how inadequate that sounded.

  Scotty put his hand over his eyes and took a ragged breath. “This can’t be happening.”

  I glanced down at the ring on my finger instead of at his wounded face. I couldn
’t look at him straight on. It was too painful. “I tried to forget him, Scotty. I couldn’t.”

  Scotty’s chin quivered. “Damn it, Lorraine. You took my ring.”

  The small diamond glistened in the sunlight. What could I possibly say?

  “I love you, Lorraine. But I’m not going to beg.” There was a strain in his voice that said otherwise.

  “I wouldn’t want you to,” I said softly.

  Mom put a hand to her pale forehead. “All that time I spent on your dress and veil. Are you just going to throw that away, too?”

  Her voice had softened and her eyes had filled. I faltered and stepped back. She seemed so vulnerable in that moment. I felt the guilt press down on my shoulders at the thought of my wedding gown still hanging on my door, the intricate embroidery of my veil, of all that it represented. Fresh tears slipped down my face. “Mom, I love you. I didn’t mean for this to happen. But I have to do what’s right for me, just like Pete had to do what was right for him.”

  She stuck her hands in the pockets of her robe. “Right? You think because your brother got some posthumous award it made things right?” She scoffed, her tone changing quickly. “You’re only eighteen. You can’t make a decision like this; you’re too young. Why don’t you listen to me for a change?”

  I shook my head. “I’m as old as Pete was. I’ve tried to make you happy, to make up for losing him. It’s never enough.”

  In the distance a meadowlark whistled a carefree tune, and I thought of the day Pete left. I remembered his words when I’d asked him why he had to leave us. “I just gotta go. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  It was no use trying to fight it any longer. My connection to Jens was unbreakable and undeniable. I took off the ring and walked over to Scotty. “I’m so sorry,” I said as I held it out to him. He reluctantly took the ring and shoved it into his pocket.

  “Why?” He sniffed, looking me in the eye.

  I could only offer him the truth. “I can’t live a lie.”

  “You should never have taken my ring.” His words stung, but not as much as the accusing look he gave me.

  “Lorraine.” Mom put her hands on my shoulders as though she was going to force some sense into me. “Don’t do this! You can still come inside and do right by your family and your fiancé. If you leave with that man, I’ll never forgive you. Are you prepared to give up your family and home and everything for him? If you do, I guarantee you’ll regret it forever!”

  Forever. The word hung in the air. I loved Mom, but was my obedience ever going to be enough to keep her alive? What about my happiness? Daddy had told me I deserved to be happy. He’d let Pete go, and I knew he would let me go, too.

  I took a last look at the house, and the barn, and the winding creek where Pete and I had caught crawdads, trying to etch them in my soul the same way my brother was. Then I looked at Mom, whose wild eyes demanded so much of me. Would she really turn her back on her only living child?

  I finally glanced at Jens, who appeared to be holding his breath. My hands shook as I took off my apron, my fingers fumbling with the knot in the back. I gathered all my courage and handed the apron to Mom, then took Jens’s hand in mine, a perfect fit.

  “I know how much you’ve suffered, Mom. We all have. But forever is a hell of a long time.”

  Forty-seven

  2007

  The boy in the picture stares back at me, a smile on his handsome face. My eyes are tear-filled. I’m shivering, overcome with the sight of him and the proof that the boy from my father’s farm really lived here. There’s so much I didn’t know about the camp.

  “Mother. Are you all right?” Daisy asks. Then she peers closely at the picture. “That’s odd. It looks like Dad.”

  I open my purse and take a worn black-and-white photo from my billfold. It shows a young man in a white T-shirt and gray pants bent over a mound of hay. You can’t see his face, but you can see his strong, tanned arms and his muscled physique. I show the tattered photo to my daughter and hesitate to say more. Sid had kept so much of this life private, and now it feels like snooping.

  Finally I muster the courage to explain. “His name was Jens back then. He was a prisoner of war, and he worked on your grandfather’s farm.”

  Her forehead creases. “But who is this?”

  “It’s your father.”

  “Dad came over from Germany after the war was over.”

  “Yes, he did, but he was here during the war, too. Your father was a German soldier who was captured in Italy and brought to Iowa to the POW camp here. When Pete went off to war Daddy hired the POWs to work on our farm. Jens was one of those prisoners. That’s how I met him.”

  She shakes her head. “Why would he change his name?”

  “He wanted to leave his past behind. He chose Sid because when he was a young boy he heard the great jazz musician Sidney Bechet play in Germany and he was inspired by him. That’s why he learned to play the saxophone.”

  “He was a prisoner of war?” Daisy puts her face up to the picture so that her nose is almost touching it. “Oh my God! How is it I’m just hearing about this now?”

  “Your father never talked about his life before we married, except to say that we met at the Surf. We did meet there when he came back after the war. He was playing in the band, and I was engaged to another man. But when I saw him again, I knew that he was the one.”

  “Why would you both keep something like that a secret?”

  “He was ashamed. He didn’t think people would accept him if they knew. He shouldn’t have felt that way, but it was a different time back then. There was a lot of fear and loathing of Germans during the war.”

  “But you lived in a small town. People must have known.”

  “Some did. I sang with your father’s band and we traveled for several years before settling back on the farm. By that time people had forgotten, or at least didn’t talk about it anymore.”

  “So he was ashamed. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I made a promise. But now that he’s gone, well…”

  Daisy shakes her head, her voice agitated. “I can’t believe you kept this from me all these years! How could you?”

  The docent peeks around the display.

  “Look,” I say, lowering my voice, “things were different back then. Your father wanted to be an American more than anything, and I respected his wishes. If that meant leaving out things you didn’t need to know, that was a small price to pay.”

  “But, Mother…”

  “You’ve always taken everything for granted, Daisy. You should be glad you’re here, that your father cared about you enough to safeguard his own American identity. He didn’t have it easy, you know.”

  Daisy’s lips are tight. She isn’t used to having me stand up to her. She looks down at the faded photograph. “He’s so young. What did your parents think of you falling in love with a POW? Your mother, especially? She lost her only son in the war.”

  I hear a bitterness in my own voice. “My mother never forgave me.” I still feel the ache of her final rejection in the hospital, when she barely acknowledged my presence at her deathbed. Daddy wanted me there, but Mom’s grudge had outlasted all her pain. “We didn’t move back to Iowa until after she died. By then I was ready to live on the farm again.”

  Daisy puts her hand over her middle. She looks at me as though it never dawned on her that her own mother had made such choices in her youth. “I wish I’d known this before.”

  “I wish I could have told you before.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Why are you telling me this now? Is it because of your upcoming surgery?”

  “No. Yes. I suppose that’s part of it. I’ve been meaning to tell you since your father died. I just couldn’t find the words. That was, until I went to the Surf again. It sparked the memories, and so much more.” More than I can ever tell her.

  She furrows her brow. “Now that I think about it, when I asked Dad about the war, he always clammed
up. And when he was sick toward the end, he did talk about a watchtower and barbed wire. I thought he was hallucinating due to the meds, or living through some movie he’d watched.”

  “I think for many of the World War Two survivors it is like a movie,” I say. “A way to keep it more distant and less real.”

  Daisy holds the picture out to me.

  “No,” I say, “You keep it now.”

  She puts it in her purse. Her eyes are wet and she wipes them with the corner of her hand. “Thank you.”

  “Look at this story.” I point at a framed picture of two men and the words beneath. “One brother had immigrated to the U.S. before the war and settled in North Iowa, and the other was a POW at Camp Algona. The two men were reunited at the camp and they visited every week during the incarceration. What are the odds of such a thing happening? Your father wasn’t sent here by pure coincidence, even if it appears that way to most people. There were too many strands of fate at work. We were brought together. I believe that with all my heart.”

  “That’s a lovely sentiment, Mother,” Daisy says. “But learning that my father was a prisoner of war isn’t quite so lovely.”

  “Your father’s heritage is nothing to be ashamed of. He was conscripted into the war like so many others. He didn’t have a choice. And if he hadn’t been captured, we never would have met, and you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Like you said, it was fate. But it’s sad that Dad couldn’t share that with me. I feel as though I’ve been cheated somehow.”

  “Yes. I understand. That’s why I had to tell you.”

  Daisy looks disappointed, though. She’s quiet on the way home. I’ve changed her heritage, her view of her own identity. I know she resents that I didn’t tell her the truth before. And I know it will take time to trust me again.

  I think of my upcoming procedure, of my mother’s fragile heart, which gave out on her at a young age. I hope we have that time.

  It’s not until Daisy has pulled up to the curb of my condominium that she speaks. “Whatever happened to the man you were engaged to?”

  “Scotty Bishop? He married a girl who was crowned Miss Mason City, and they moved to Des Moines. I heard they retired to Florida some years back. Why do you ask?”