Part 2
Nora’s hand fell from her chest. She had been holding it there without realizing, as though Grant’s sleeve might still be under her fingers.
Vivian moved closer, leaving no doubt whom she meant.
“You’ve had your little romance. Now you need to understand that my son’s future isn’t an escape plan for you.”
Arthur looked over. “Vivian.”
She ignored him.
Nora felt the metal keychain bite into her palm. “You think that’s why I’m with him?”
“I think you know exactly what that family connection could do for you.” Vivian’s gaze traveled over Nora’s boots and the small necklace Grant had given her at graduation. “Your mother spends her life shortening trousers for people who can barely remember her name. You can’t expect my son to spend his life rescuing the two of you.”
“He’s never had to rescue me.”
“Then do him the favor of proving it. Let him move on.”
A group of passengers passed between them and the station doors. Nora waited until the scrape of their luggage faded.
“He wants me here when he comes back.”
Vivian gave a slight, impatient tilt of her head. “He doesn’t understand yet how small you would make his life.”
Arthur took his wife’s elbow. “That’s enough. We’re going.”
For a moment she resisted. Then she noticed a woman near the wall looking at them and straightened her coat.
Nora heard her as Arthur led her away.
“A few tears and a pretty face,” Vivian said. “That’s all it takes for him to forget what he owes himself.”
Nora remained beside the empty track until the station crew began preparing for the next arrival. At home, she put the keychain on the shelf above her bed, where she would see it when she woke.
The weeks that followed filled quickly. She began preliminary courses at the community college, hoping to enter its practical nursing program. Helen’s arthritis had become bad enough that some mornings she couldn’t close her hand around a pair of scissors. Nora took more evening hours at the diner and learned to study with the smell of fryer oil still in her hair.
Grant’s messages arrived without warning.
A photograph of boots so dirty she couldn’t tell their original color. A complaint about coffee. A badly framed sunrise. He described the extraordinary importance the Army placed on socks and, once, admitted that even his shoulders hurt when he slept.
Nora kept every message. When Helen’s sewing machine ran late in the next room, she lay with her phone against the pillow, composing answers she hoped would make him laugh.
During a lab demonstration, her instructor caught her glancing at the screen.
“Unless your young man has advice about changing a bed with somebody in it, put him away.”
Nora flushed and obeyed. The instructor hid a smile behind her clipboard.
Vivian left her alone. No calls, no notes, no more sharp little conversations. Nora wanted to take comfort in that, but sometimes she caught herself watching the street outside the diner before she unlocked the side door.
Dean Pritchard was there one night, leaning against his car.
He had known Grant since middle school. His family had money, and he had learned early to expect people to make things easy for him. Nora had refused his invitations often enough that he no longer bothered pretending they were casual.
She stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling her scarf through the collar of her coat.
“Still being faithful to the flag?” Dean asked.
She kept walking.
He pushed away from the car. “Come on. He’s got a whole new life. You think he’s sitting around missing this place?”
Nora stopped beneath the diner’s side light. “Don’t talk about him like you know what he’s doing.”
“I know you don’t have to waste your time.”
“It’s mine to spend.”
Dean studied her, his cigarette glowing between two fingers. “You really believe he’s coming back for you.”
“Yes.”
He gave a small laugh and looked toward the traffic. She walked away before he could find another thing to say.
On the bus home, Nora remembered Grant’s last evening in Darrow.
Arthur had lent him the old pickup. They had driven above the river and sat in the truck bed with a blanket around their legs. Lights from the houses below reflected in the water whenever the wind eased.
Grant had been trying to calculate what a small apartment would cost. Nora corrected his arithmetic twice.
“Okay,” he said, surrendering the pencil. “You handle numbers. I’ll carry furniture.”
“And I’ll finish school.”
“And I’ll make sergeant.”
She looked at him. “And then?”
He took the pencil back and wrote one word beneath the rent estimate: married.
Nora had laughed, embarrassed by how much she wanted it. “You can’t put that in a budget.”
“Courthouse first. Something bigger later, if you want.”
“Mom would make the dress.”
He reached for her hand beneath the blanket. “I’m coming back to build this with you. However long it takes.”
She carried that evening into the next morning’s shift, into her classes, into the days when she could scarcely keep her eyes open on the bus.
By midsummer, Grant’s training demanded more of him. His calls were brief and sometimes so late that Nora answered in a whisper. He apologized for missing messages. She told him to stop wasting their minutes on apologies.
Then her replies disappeared.
At first Grant assumed she was working. Then he assumed his service was bad. He walked around outside the barracks trying different spots, holding the phone up like a man searching for a signal that could explain everything.
Messages stopped delivering. Her accounts were no longer active. The number at Helen’s house rang without an answer.
After nearly three weeks, he called Dean.
A washing machine was running behind him. Grant had stepped into the narrow passage outside the laundry room, where he could hear himself think.
Dean answered with a breathless greeting.
“I need you to go by Nora’s,” Grant said. “Something’s wrong with her phone.”
“Maybe she got a different one.”
“Then ask her to call me.”
“I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Grant pressed his free hand to the rough wall. “You live close enough to walk there.”
“People get busy, Mercer.”
“So you haven’t seen Helen either?”
Dean made a noise Grant couldn’t place. “I can check. I’ve got class right now.”
“You sound like there’s something you’re not saying.”
“I said I’d check.”
The call ended.
A soldier came through carrying a laundry bag and asked whether Grant was all right. He moved aside and said he was. Then he stayed there until the machine behind the door finished its cycle.
Another week passed before he called his mother.
He hadn’t wanted Vivian near this part of his life. Every conversation about Nora became a test he had to defend her through, and there were days when he didn’t have the energy. Now he could imagine an accident, an illness, something worse, and pride seemed a childish reason not to ask.
Vivian sounded pleased to hear him until he said Nora’s name.
Then she went quiet.
“Mom. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I wanted you to get through training without this.”
“Without what?”
“I’ve seen her, Grant.” Her voice softened. “She’s expecting a baby.”
He gripped the phone with both hands. For one unguarded moment he was back above the river, Nora’s fingers inside his, their penciled future lying on the blanket.
Then Vivian said, “The baby belongs to someone else…”
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