Page 77 of The Girls of Pearl Harbor
Grace gulped. ‘No. She’d be so disappointed in me; she told me not to go, she told me I wasn’t safe, and I rolled my eyes at her and told her to stop telling me what to do.’
Eva shifted beside her and made another lamp flicker to life as she collected up all her clothes.
‘I can’t stop thinking if Teddy hadn’t found me, if Teddy hadn’t been there—’
‘But he was,’ Eva interrupted. ‘Did I ever tell you that it was Teddy who told me about my Charlie? That it was Teddy who held me in his arms after I yelled and punched at him for telling me the news?’
Grace snuggled deeper into her bed. ‘You never told me that.’
‘Well, he did,’ Eva said, threading her needle. ‘He’s a good man, Grace. The world could do with more like him.’
Grace squeezed her eyes shut. Teddywasa good man, and she would never forget what he’d done for her.
And Eva. She was the kind of friend who’d never let her down, no matter what.
April was a good sister, too, the kind of sister who’d risk her own life to save hers. But that’s why she couldn’t ever let her find out, because she’d never forgive herself for letting it happen. And nothing about this was April’s fault.
It was all on her. She’d been the stupid one. And she’d almost paid the ultimate price.
‘Tell me about Arthur,’ she whispered, wanting to listen to Eva speak rather than be left alone with her thoughts.
Eva laughed, just a gentle noise as she leaned in toward her. ‘Arthur is awful,’ she said. ‘But if I don’t laugh about the man, I’ll only start to cry.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APRIL
‘Grace?’ April asked, touching her sister’s shoulder and shaking her gently to wake her. ‘Grace, are you feeling all right?’
April watched as her sister’s eyes finally opened, but unlike their usual sharp, vivid blue rimmed with white, they were shot with red.
‘What on earth did you do last night? You look terrible!’
Grace didn’t move, and April sighed. ‘Come on—you have a shift to get to. If you don’t get up, you’ll miss out on breakfast.’
‘Take it easy on her; she had a late night,’ Eva called out from the other side of the tent.
The other nurses they shared with had already gone down for breakfast, and April wanted to get moving so they didn’t end up at the end of the line.
‘Since when do you think it’s okay to sleep half the morning away?’ April asked. ‘I thought you’d be the first to tell sleepyhead here off for being tardy just because she had a night out.’
She looked between them, wondering what on earth was going on.
‘Is there something I don’t know about?’ April asked, perplexed.
‘I saw Teddy last night,’ Grace muttered. ‘We talked for hours, and it got so late that he had to walk me home in the dark.’
April’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Teddy? How was he?’
She watched as Grace pushed the blankets back, not used to seeing her sister move so slowly. Grace was usually first up, as bright and bubbly as could be when the rest of them were aching to be back in bed again.
‘He was good. He has a few days’ leave, I think, and we just talked.’
‘Did he ply you with alcohol, or was that your own doing?’ April asked, picking up Grace’s jacket and sniffing it. ‘Ugh, this stinks.’
Grace snatched it off her. ‘I’ll air it out for a minute while I wash up and get dressed.’
Her little sister filled her helmet with water from a large jug April had prepared that morning, splashing her face and under her arms. April watched for a moment before turning away and going outside, lifting her face to the sun and feeling the now-familiar warmth spread across her skin. The mornings were always pleasant, before the depth of the heat swept through every room in the hospital and left them all sweaty and desperately craving cooler weather.
