white outfits adorned with ruffles. The fancier frocks looked almost pristine, but it was a faded pink New York Jets T-shirt covered with washed-out milk and juice stains that almost brought her father to tears. “You just about lived in this the year you turned two.”
“Who bought me a Jets T-shirt?”
“I’m not sure,” he’d said. “You spent most of that summer digging in the dirt.”
She thought back to that little T-shirt and wondered if it had been one of the few things her father had saved in the boxes stacked neatly in his office. For the first time since she had moved back to Bluestone, she wanted to open those boxes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SADIE
Tuesday, March 3, 1942
Bluestone, Virginia
The war is gearing up. Towns as small as Bluestone have sent boys down to Fort Benning. We hear the daily reports about what’s happening in Europe and the Pacific, and we’re all itching to jump in the fight. From what the brass is saying, once we get to Europe, it won’t take long for us to end it. Can’t beat an American fighting boy.
Sadie stared at Johnny’s sure-and-steady handwriting, and she pushed the letter across the kitchen table to her mother. “He sounds full of fire.”
The letter went on to say that some of the boys had already been in air raids throughout Britain. He was openly worried about Danny. The war was much different than he had imagined.
But she did not read this part to her mother. Johnny knew their mother could not read and trusted Sadie to use her discretion.
Her mother took the letter and smoothed her hands over the page, as if touching the ink was her way of hugging her son. “Are you sure he didn’t say anything about Danny?”
“No, Ma, no mention of Danny.” Unlike Johnny, who wrote almost weekly, Danny had written only one letter since he had joined the army in 1938.
“I sure do miss those boys. When do you think they’ll be home?” Her mother carefully folded the envelope and tucked it in her pocket. Later it would go in the cigar box with the others for safekeeping.
“I don’t know. But I sure hope it’s soon.” The ground was still hard from the winter and would not thaw for another few weeks. That was when she and her mother would begin tilling the soil for the kitchen garden.
Sadie smoothed her hands. “You heard what I read. I wish he wouldn’t worry about how I mix the mash for the moonshine.”
“He worries because you always add too much sugar.” Smiling as if she and Johnny had shared a private moment, her mother picked up one of Johnny’s socks she had been darning. The sock was at least ten years old and now too small for Johnny, but that did not stop her mother from sewing up the hole and then carefully removing the threads over and over. The stitches never seemed to be perfect enough for her boy.
“What does Miss Olivia say about England?” her mother asked. “She should know.”
“She talks about the gardens mostly. Her parents had a greenhouse by their home in the country.” The greenhouse was no longer filled with flowers but with vegetable plants. Two days ago, they had driven into Charlottesville, and Miss Olivia had mailed a package to her parents. It had been stuffed with canned milk, tea, potted meat, and tinned biscuits.
“I heard Mr. Sullivan saying the Germans are still bombing England,” her mother said.
“There seems to be no end in sight.”
A frown furrowed her mother’s brow. “It’s a dangerous place to be.”
“Johnny won’t be near London.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked Miss Olivia,” she lied. “Miss Olivia said he’d be staying in a safe place. Besides, he’s tough. He’s outrun enough revenuers and the sheriff. No German is going to catch him.”
Her mother’s scowl softened a little. “He is the quickest boy I ever met. Remember when Mr. Brown was kicked in the head by his horse? Johnny ran five miles for the doctor. Saved Mr. Brown’s life.”
“I remember.” Her mother had told the story a dozen times since Johnny left.
The clock on the wall ticked, and when Sadie glanced up at it, she said, “I’ve got to go. Driving Miss Olivia today.”
“You girls sure do get around. You’ve been to Charlottesville and Lynchburg more in the last couple of months than I’ve been in my entire life.”
“She gets restless. Finds it hard to sit in the big house alone. Dr. Carter is always away at the hospital, working.”