The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,96
their mother and each other. And I—I said nothing. I let them go.”
“Ah, mija.” Mama squeezed Leah’s shoulder. “That was brave and wise.”
Leah turned to her guests. “I may not be able to meet my sisters, but maybe you can acquaint me with my parents.”
“That’s why I brought this.” Dr. Demetrios opened a cardboard box on the coffee table.
Over the next hour, Leah saw photos of her father at an award ceremony, of her parents dressed as Zeus and Hera for a party, and of the young parents and baby Thalia at a faculty picnic on the shore of Lake Michigan.
She heard stories of her father’s exuberant teaching and her mother’s sense of humor, her father’s clumsiness and her mother’s gift with a needle and thread, and of their love for their girls.
She cried over the article about her parents’ deaths—how Althea had gotten her heel stuck in a crack in the street and had struggled to unlace her shoe, how her father saved his three daughters and shielded his wife when a car careened around the corner.
Leah held in her hands a book her father had written on Greek poetry, dedicated to his four muses.
Dr. Demetrios set newspaper clippings and photographs back into the box. “These are for you, Thalia.”
“But they’re yours,” Leah said, even as she clutched the book. “He was your friend.”
“And I will always remember him dearly.” He slid the box to her. “But he was your father. These belong to you.”
Leah set a tentative hand on the box. “Thank you.”
“If you don’t have plans tomorrow, please come to the university.” Dr. Demetrios settled back on the couch. “I can show you where Georgi’s office was and give you a tour.”
“I’d love that. I especially want to see the library.” Leah picked up her purse, pulled out the postcard, and passed it to her guests. “This is how I learned I was from Chicago. When I saw this, I remembered the library so clearly I could smell it. This is how I found you and my name and my sisters and my . . . my identity.”
Mrs. Demetrios’s face twisted with sweet sympathy. “I’m so glad we could help.”
Leah stroked the dust jacket of her father’s book.
No, her identity had never been lost. At her core, she was the same as she’d been a week earlier. Even without her birth name, without having seen her sisters, without any information on her family history, she’d always been complete.
She always would be.
USS Texas, OFF NORMANDY
THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1944
Gene stood on crutches at the foot of Clay’s cot lying on the deck of the battleship’s crowded sick bay. “You look real good, Pax.”
He found a smile for his friend.
“You didn’t look so good when they took you on board.” Gene tipped to the side and readjusted his crutches. “Doc says you perked right up with oxygen and some blood, and then they took you to surgery. Sure am glad.”
“Me too.” Clay sat propped up against a metal locker, very much alive. “How are you?”
Gene lifted his bandaged leg. “Not too bad. They’re giving me that new penicillin we keep hearing about. Doc says I’ll have a couple weeks in a hospital in England, then back to the front. Sure hope they send me back to the Rangers.”
“Hope so too.”
“Remember that D Company LCA that sank? A lot of those fellows are here too.” He nodded down the row of cots lined up like sardines. “So is Sergeant Lombardi. He’s over there by the wall. They had to take off most of his leg though.”
Clay winced. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. He says you saved his life. Right now he’s real happy to be alive. Bet you feel the same.”
He should, so he smiled. But he felt . . . disembodied.
Dr. Rinehart squatted at the foot of Clay’s cot. What he lacked in hair, he made up for in smiles. “How are you this morning, Corporal?”
“See you later, Pax.” Gene hobbled away on his crutches.
Clay shot a glance upward. “You sailor boys know how to wake a man up, sir.”
“Those 14-inch guns are impressive, aren’t they?” Dr. Rinehart inspected a clipboard. “How are you feeling?”
“Doesn’t hurt as much as it should.”
“We gave you a nerve block during surgery. You already know why.” A big toothy grin.
“So I’ll breathe deeply and cough up secretions.”
“Are you doing that?”
“Yes, sir.” Clay deliberately took as deep a breath as he could, his bare shoulder blades rubbing the locker vents.