The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,101
take orders as well as give them.”
One corner of Wyatt’s mouth twitched. He nudged Adler and took his seat.
“Remember the story of Joseph in Egypt?” Clay pulled his little Bible from the table. “He had every right to say his brothers had ruined his life. They sold him into slavery. He was in a pit, then in prison. Thirteen years. But you know what he said, don’t you?”
Wyatt and Adler nodded with a trying-to-recall-the-verse look in their eyes.
Clay recalled it. He’d memorized it. “Joseph told his brothers, ‘But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.’”
“What good could possibly . . . ?” Adler squeezed his eyes shut.
Where should he start? “So much good. Saved Leah’s life.”
“Who’s Leah?” Wyatt asked.
“My wife.”
They gasped as one. “You’re married?”
“And a father.” Clay pulled out the well-loved photo. “Her name is Helen, and she’s two months old. Aren’t they the prettiest girls you’ve ever seen?”
“Well, I’ll be,” Adler said.
“Congratulations.”
Clay savored the first smiles he’d seen from his brothers in three years. “Neither Leah nor Helen would be alive if you hadn’t done what you did.”
Wyatt’s eyes stretched wide. “What happened?”
“That’s a story for another day.” Clay tucked the photo away. “If I’d gone to college, I wouldn’t have been in the Rangers or on Pointe du Hoc. And that’s where I was meant to be.”
“You really climbed those cliffs.” Wyatt whistled.
Clay shrugged and set aside his Bible. “Only a hundred feet tall, nothing to speak of.”
His brothers laughed, and Clay joined in, then laughed harder at the wonder of it, of laughing with them again.
Adler smiled and shook his head. “Never thought this day would come.”
A twinge of pain in his right side, but the laughter had been worth it. “Reckon we’ll still have moments.”
“Reckon so.” Sobering, Wyatt gestured to the nightstand. “Please read my letter. Adler’s too.”
“Yeah,” Adler said. “Easier to write all that than to say it, and it hurt like blazes to write.”
“I will.”
“I sent my check to Daddy,” Wyatt said. “Three thousand dollars.”
“What?” Clay gaped at him. “Three thousand? I’d only saved two.”
“I charged myself interest and a fine.” Wyatt pulled a notepad from the breast pocket of his white shirt. “Between that and the GI Bill, college and medical school should be about covered.”
“Medical school?”
Adler leaned forward on his knees. “You still want to be a doctor, don’t you?”
“I . . .” Did he dare glance in the direction of that dream? He closed his gaping mouth. “The GI Bill. I’ve heard the fellows talking about it, but I paid it no mind. I thought it had to do with loans.”
“And education.” Wyatt flipped pages in his notepad. “Roosevelt signed it a few days ago. The bill is pretty restrictive, but it seems tailor-made for you. I took notes.”
An accountant to the core, and Clay leaned closer to see.
Wyatt tapped a page filled with his neat handwriting. “You get one year of benefits, plus an additional year for each year of service, up to a maximum of four years.”
If Clay stayed in the service until February, that’d be two years of service—three years of benefits. He tried to make sense of the figures before him, the hope before him.
Wyatt moved his finger down the page. “Five hundred dollars a year for school expenses, plus fifty dollars a month for living expenses.” Then he laughed. “No, seventy-five—you have dependents. Use the GI Bill benefits for the first few years while my check collects interest in the bank, then use the savings. If you work summers, you’ll have plenty.”
Clay did the math in his head. If he couldn’t convince Leah to stay married to him, he’d need to work for a year or two before starting college, but . . . “I could do it.”
“You’d better,” Adler said. “You’re meant to be a doctor. I’d be glad to help out if you need it.”
They thought—both brothers thought he ought to be a physician. For three years he’d assumed they thought the profession was too good for him. Clay’s throat swelled, and he coughed to clear it.
Not a half-breed. Not a half brother.
“If you don’t do this . . .” Adler glared at him. “This time, I’ll beat you up.”
Out of all the misery, a laugh escaped. “I’d like to see you try.”
Wyatt elbowed Adler. “You’d better do it now when he’s weak from getting shot, because—hooey!—look at those arms.”