The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,90
that old signal lamp from the last war? He used it to call in fire from the Satterlee. The destroyer took out those machine guns to the east. When the Satterlee ran out of ammo, the Thompson took over.”
“Wow.”
“Paxton, Ruby.” Taylor set a hand on Clay’s shoulder. “We’re setting up a perimeter. Let’s go.”
“Me too.” Gene pushed up onto his good leg. “I can hobble just fine.”
Arguments filled Clay’s mouth, but he swallowed them. In the same position, Clay would have done the same thing.
“Come on, buddy.” Clay drew Gene’s arm up over his shoulder so he could support him. “Let’s find a nice spot to watch the sunrise.”
His breath caught. He would indeed watch another sunrise.
CHICAGO
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 1944
Leah pushed Juanita’s baby carriage across the street and two houses down from her sisters’ address. Helen dozed under her pink blanket.
Leah had told Mama and Juanita that she planned to visit the University of Chicago and then city hall so she could obtain her birth certificate. That was true.
But first, Callie and Polly. This morning she’d watch to see which direction the girls went to school, then in the afternoon she’d return and introduce herself. If she did so now, the girls would be late to school and would have a hard time concentrating in class.
Something inside her writhed. Was she wrong to defy their adoptive mother’s wishes? Mama and Juanita were saddened by Mrs. Scholz’s decision but said it was her right.
Leah disagreed. The girls belonged to her as surely as Helen did.
Certainly Clay would agree. Hadn’t he urged her to visit Chicago so she would be reunited with them?
Clay . . .
The news in the papers and on the radio was vague—the landings had been successful but costly. How costly? Had they cost her the man she loved?
Leah pulled out the clipping of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s prayer from yesterday’s afternoon newspaper. With her own thoughts scrambled by worry and anger and distress, it helped to focus on the printed prayer.
The president’s words spoke to her soul: “Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.”
Leah glanced to the Scholz residence, still and quiet, then back to the clipping: “Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.”
Her throat tightened, and she added a prayer that Clay would do the Lord’s will. She read on: “And for us at home—fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas—whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them—help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.”
A breeze ruffled Helen’s blanket, and Leah tucked it into place. Whatever she faced in the coming days, she had to find the good and lean on the Lord.
A door opened—the Scholz home.
Leah tightened her grip on the baby carriage.
Two dark-haired girls trotted down the steps, crossed the street, and headed in Leah’s direction, books in arms.
“Callie!” A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway, waving a paper. “Your essay!”
The taller of the girls gasped, whirled around, and ran across the street. “Oh, Mother! You’re divine! Simply divine.” Callie kissed her on the cheek.
She laughed. “And you’re full of baloney. Off you go. I love you.”
Leah’s feet rooted in place. Something about her sister’s voice sounded familiar, like this city, the church, and the postcard of the library. Was that her mother’s voice?
Callie ran across the street to her twin. “I can’t believe I forgot it.”
“I know,” Polly said. “You worked so hard on it.”
The sisters she’d once known and loved approached. They didn’t look like Leah, but they shared her curls, her coloring, and her build. What else did they share?
“I can’t wait to read it out loud.” Callie grinned at her paper. “I quote a particularly romantic Shakespearean sonnet, and I plan to look straight into Bobby Horton’s dreamy eyes as I recite it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would. Watch me.”
Her sister loved poetry too, and Leah couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe at all.
Callie flung up one arm dramatically. “‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: Oh, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark.’”