medicine. He turned away from a dying man to a man he could save, if he worked fast.”
Crook was on his feet now, headed for the door.
“I’m not through yet,” Susanna said, putting all her conviction behind her words. “You have to understand—doctors don’t look at uniforms. They look at injuries.”
He turned back to her, and she saw the anger in his eyes. In January, his expression would have terrified her into silence. In May, it didn’t. No matter what happened in the next few moments, she knew she would be going home to cook dinner for a wonderful man who loved her; so simple, but so profound to her heart. What General Crook thought of her didn’t matter. She could live with that.
“It happened almost fourteen years ago. I wish you would let it go now. That’s all.” She said it to his back, because he had turned away.
She turned her attention to the papers on her desk. She knew he stood there a few more moments, then she heard his footsteps going through the warehouse. She finished gathering together her end-of-term papers, stacked them neatly on the desk and left the warehouse.
The sun was angling lower now, but the retreat gun hadn’t sounded yet. Holding the rest of the cake, Susanna stood for a long moment on the edge of the parade ground. The new guardhouse was almost completed. Major Townsend must have put more soldiers at work on the building, now that most of the regiment had assembled for the upcoming campaign, and he had more men to work with. Other men policed the grounds, and still others moved more supplies into the other quartermaster and commissary storehouses. There was a fair amount of cussing coming from the direction of the quartermaster’s corrals as mules were introduced to new wagons. She smiled to herself, thinking of the little boys watching on the other side of the fence, who were probably going to dismay their mothers with an appalling increase in their vocabulary. At least her nephew, Stanley, wasn’t there, and Emily was willing now to admit where his bad language had come from.
On the parade ground itself, sergeants were taking their companies through the manual of arms, each company trying to outdo the other. She waved to Sergeant Rattigan, and he gave her a smart salute, which made her pink up. “Maddie, you are a lucky girl to have such a father,” she murmured. “He’ll make your beaux toe the mark someday.”
She shook her head over the shabby red buildings. Too much quartermaster red, too many raisins, liniment by the barrel, but not enough wool socks. Next year the shortage might be tenpenny nails and India ink, and the surplus pickles. “It’s the army way, Suzie,” Joe was fond of telling her as he coped with his own shortages and taught one of the blacksmiths how to make forceps.
Joe’s timing was exquisite. He came through the front door calling, “Bonsoir, mon petit chou” at the same time she took the roast out of the oven and put in the pan of rolls. Stewed tomatoes, humble indeed, made up the rest of dinner. She resolved again to plant a garden in her backyard, almost tasting tender lettuce and a radish or two already, provided the deer weren’t oversolicitous.
She could tell by his squint that he had a headache, so she made small talk about that afternoon’s school program. By the time they reached the leftover cake, the squint was gone, and she knew she should confess.
“I may have done a bad thing, dearest,” she said after he had eaten two bites of cake.
“What could that possibly be?”
She told him about General Crook’s visit. Joe just continued to eat the cake, saving the icing for last, because he liked it so well.
“I told him it had been fourteen years, and he should just let it go.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. I don’t know why he came to my classroom. Do you?”
“Not a clue,” Joe replied. He put down the fork and took her hand, kissing it and leaving little sugary crystals behind. “You’re going to fight my battles for me?”
“You fight mine.”
“Of course. You’re my wife.” He picked up the fork again and finished the piece of cake, then eyed hers. She snatched it away and he laughed.
“Funny thing,” he told her later, when they were both crowded into his armchair. “General Crook came to the hospital, probably after he left you.”