Her Mother's Hope (39 page)

Mama admired the plates. “Lady Daisy had plates just like these.” She ran her finger around the edge of a Royal Doulton plate before setting it on the table.

The Martins came over. The house filled up to bursting. Everyone laughed and talked and passed plates of lamb, mashed potatoes, carrots, and peas around the table. Mama had even thought of apple mint jelly. Trip chopped carrots for Charles, who chucked them on the floor, rousing more laughter. “We’re going to have to work on your table manners.”

They talked of more serious matters. Trip asked what Bernie planned to do when the Musashis came home.

“Start packing.”

Everyone grew quiet. Hitch and Donna exchanged a glance. Mama spoke up. “Hitch, you and Donna needn’t worry. We have a contract.”

“We never signed anything, Marta. And Bernie’s your son. . . .”

“I gave my word.”

Hitch looked embarrassed. “Bernie and Elizabeth and the baby will need a place to live. What’re they going to do?”

Mama smiled. “Ask them.”

Bernie took Elizabeth’s hand. “We’ve been talking about moving up to Sacramento and opening a nursery. I’ve got some money saved—not much, but enough to get started.” He gave Mama an apologetic smile. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

Mama stared back. “Did I ever say you couldn’t?” She turned to Trip. “What about you two? Where will you go?”

Trip looked grim. “We can go back to Colorado Springs for a while, until I figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”

Hildie was surprised. “What about medical school?”

“Normandy killed that plan for me. I’ve seen all the blood I ever want to see. No more.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could ever work in a hospital again either.”

Mama picked up a bowl of mashed potatoes and handed them to Donna. “It’ll all work out.” She looked at Hildemara. “Don’t worry about it.”

42

Friday afternoon, Hildemara heard a heavy vehicle coming up the road. She straightened where she had been working in a row of zucchini and brushed herself off. An Army bus pulled up and idled in front of the farm. Hildie swung Charlie up and sat him on her hip as she hurried toward the yard.

Mr. Musashi got off the bus, Mrs. Musashi behind him. George and the girls, all taller, stepped down, looking shy and uncertain. Bernie came out of the barn. Elizabeth opened the screen door and came outside. As the bus pulled away, Mama crossed the street.

The Musashis just stood there, tight together, silent, looking from house to barn to orchard and fields. They looked strange in their government-issued clothing. Hildie felt tears fill her eyes. No one seemed to know what to do, what to say. Bernie approached them. “Everything is pretty much the way you left it, Mr. Musashi.”

They just looked at him, saying nothing. Hildemara couldn’t read anything in their faces. They had never seemed more foreign or more vulnerable.

Bernie looked back at Elizabeth. Hildie handed Charlie to Trip and went to Betsy. She was a beautiful young woman now, a head taller than she had been the last time Hildie saw her. “Let’s bring your parents inside the house, Betsy. You all must be tired. We can make tea. Elizabeth has been baking cookies all morning.”

“You live here now, too?” Betsy looked at her coldly.

Mama stepped in and spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Musashi. “Only until you all got back.” She spoke firmly. “Bernhard moved into your place right after the government relocated you. He worked both sides of the road until I hired the Martins to sharecrop my place. Otherwise, my son would have worked himself to death keeping both places running. My son has done a good job for you, Mr. Musashi. Tell him, Bernhard!”

Bernie blushed crimson. “Mama . . .”

“Can’t you see? They don’t understand! They think you stole their place.” She turned to Betsy. “Explain to your parents right now. The mortgage and taxes are paid up, and there’s enough left from last year’s crops to carry your family through to next year. We’ve been waiting for you. It’s still your place.”

Betsy started to cry. She bowed deeply, her hands fluttering over her mouth. Her father looked at her and spoke grimly. She shook her head and spoke in Japanese. He looked at Bernhard and Mama. He looked at Elizabeth and Hildemara and Trip. He didn’t say anything. Mrs. Musashi spoke quietly in Japanese. Betsy answered. Tears streamed down Mrs. Musashi’s face. Mr. Musashi bowed at the waist, and so did his wife and children.

Mama looked mortified. “What about your brothers, Betsy?” No one else had the courage to ask. “When will they be home?”

Betsy smiled, dark eyes shining, but it was Mr. Musashi who answered. “They both good soldiers, many honors from fighting Germans.” He caught himself. “So sorry, Mrs. Waltert. So sorry. I not think clearly.”

“No need to apologize, Mr. Musashi. I’m Swiss, not German, and Niclas believed Hitler would cause more trouble than the kaiser. He would’ve been proud of your sons.”

* * *

Hildie and Trip moved back to Oakland. They stayed in a hotel until they found a small rental house on Quigley Street. Charlie still struggled with having to share Hildie with Trip. He’d become used to sleeping with Hildemara and having her all to himself. Now that he didn’t, he threw tantrums when put in his own room. Torn between husband and son, Hildie tried to please both. Still, when Charlie cried, she jumped to comfort him. Nights proved long with numerous interruptions. Trip became frustrated. “He knows exactly when to ruin things, doesn’t he?”

By the end of his first month home, Trip had had enough. When Charlie wailed, he caught hold of Hildie and held her down in bed. “Let him cry.”

“He needs me.”

“The heck he does. You’re making it worse. He has to learn he can’t have you any time he wants.”

“He doesn’t understand!”

“He understands all right. All he has to do is cry to have his way.”

“That’s not fair. He’s just a baby.”

“He’s
our
son, Hildie. He’s not just yours anymore. I’m his father. Listen to me.”

Charlie’s cries turned to screams of rage. Hildie started to cry. She wanted to cover her ears or scream along with him.

“Don’t give in.” Trip held her close, his arm across her chest, his leg trapping hers.

“Let me go, Trip.”

With a sigh, he did and turned his back on her.

Hildie sat on the edge of the bed, head in her hands, heart in her throat. Charlie’s screams changed. He cried and then stopped, as though listening for her footsteps in the hall. He cried again. “Mama . . . Mama . . .”

He whimpered. Then silence fell in the house. She curled on her side. Trip didn’t touch her for the rest of the night. She felt the wall between them, like a physical force.

* * *

Charlie wasn’t the only one having difficulties adjusting.

Trip had constant nightmares. He moaned, thrashed, cried out. When Hildie touched his shoulder, wanting to soothe him, he jerked awake. He always came out of it with a jolt, shaking. He wouldn’t talk about what he dreamed. Sometimes he got up and went into the living room and sat with a light on, staring at nothing.

She came out and sat with him. “What do you dream about?” Maybe talking about it would break the grip the nightmares had on him.

“The war.”

“Can you tell me . . . ?”

“No!” He looked bleak and despairing.

Once, she came out and found him crying, his hands raked into his hair, holding his head. She sat down beside him and put her hand on his back. He stood abruptly and moved away from her. “Go back to bed, Hildemara.”

“I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too. But it doesn’t help.”

“If you can’t talk to me about what happened, you have to talk to someone.”

“I’ll get over it in time.”

* * *

The nightmares persisted. Trip entered the police academy and that seemed to make everything worse, though he felt called to it. A siren’s call that would destroy him? Sometimes he drank in order to sleep.

Finally Hildie could stand the worry no more. It affected her sleep and appetite. She went to Rev. Mathias.

Sobbing, she told him everything, even how sometimes when they made love, Trip seemed to be trying to drive demons away. “He scares me sometimes. I don’t know what to do to help him. He won’t let me in.” When asked, Hildemara could name all the places to which she had posted letters. Rev. Mathias thought about it for a moment, his mouth a grim line.

“We must have been following in each other’s footsteps. Normandy. Paris. Germany. Berlin. I can guess what he saw, Hildemara. I saw it, too. I was a chaplain.”

When Rev. Mathias came to dinner, Trip looked at her with fury in his eyes, but didn’t say anything embarrassing about a wife interfering. Hildemara took Charlie and went out for a long walk so the men could talk. When she came back, both of them had red-rimmed eyes. After they saw Rev. Mathias out, Trip kissed her the way he used to kiss her. Hildie didn’t ask what they had talked about. She didn’t want to know any more details than she already did.

That night her husband slept through the night without crying out or thrashing. She awakened once and found him so still, she feared he had died. She turned on the light and found his face at peace. He looked young again, as he had before he’d gone away to war. In the morning, he looked rested, but she knew the war had altered him in ways that would never be undone.

He and Rev. Mathias started meeting once a week for coffee just to talk. Even so, there were times when Hildie would see a look come into Trip’s eyes, and she’d know he was reliving the horrors again. Some wounds broke open and had to be stitched closed with patience and prayer. She mourned the loss of the young man he had been—carefree, easygoing Trip so quick to laughter. That man had disappeared on the beaches at Normandy, and in his place another returned hardened by war, cynical about the world, and with a fierce desire to protect her and Charlie from harm.

Trip excelled at the police academy. His college degree and science background made him a prime candidate for forensics. He agreed to a transfer to the new Santa Rita jail, where he would work in a laboratory, studying and sorting evidence.

Rather than be separated by the long commute, Hildie looked for a rental near the prison. They moved into a bigger house with a bigger yard not far from his job. Paxtown, a small farming community nestled in the East Bay Hills, sat two miles away with a grocery store, department store, and theater, among other comforting amenities, including a church.

The cyclone fences with concertina wire at the top and guards at the prison gate disconcerted Hildemara. Trip had seen them before. “This time they keep the bad guys in.” His cryptic comment gave Hildie her first insight into what he had seen, what had haunted his nights for so long. They never talked about those years he served.

The neighborhood women came over with cookies and casseroles and invitations to bring Charlie over to play with their sons and daughters.

Many of their husbands had served in the war, too. They talked about problems the way Mama and Papa had talked about crops, with camaraderie and hope for the future. Hildie and Trip attended block parties, barbecues, and card parties. Hildie invited women over for coffee klatches and teas. People often talked of “those dirty Japs,” and Hildemara talked about the Musashi family and Andrew and Patrick serving in Europe. Some of the women stopped inviting her to their homes.

“I wonder what they’d say if they knew my father came from Germany and my mother is Swiss.” If not for Mama’s correspondence with Rosie Brechtwald, they wouldn’t have known how the Swiss threatened to blow the main tunnel into the country if one German stood in the light at the end of it. But that didn’t stop them from making money off the war selling munitions to the Germans and transporting goods between the Third Reich and Mussolini. Rosie said it was the only way they could remain free. Mama grieved over freedom being purchased with blood money.

“Don’t tell them,” Trip ordered her. “It’s none of their business.”

Trip kept his police revolver loaded and high enough to be out of Charlie’s reach, but close enough to get to it fast. Hildie wondered if working homicides was good for him, but he seemed to relish the work of putting criminals in prison.

After looking at available land in the area, Trip became increasingly discouraged and despondent. “I’ll be retirement age before we can afford to buy property of our own!”

“We could save enough if I worked at the veterans hospital outside Livermore.”

Trip’s eyes darkened. “What about Charlie?”

“I could work a night shift now and then. See how it goes.” She didn’t tell him she suspected she was pregnant again.

43

1947

Hildie gave birth to their daughter, Carolyn, in the spring. Carolyn wasn’t as easy a baby as Charlie. She had colic and cried almost constantly. Hildemara almost felt relieved when she was able to go back to work after two months off.

At first, Trip protested. “Quit, Hildie.” He ran his hand over Carolyn’s downy head. “Think of the baby.”

“I’ll sleep late on weekends. We still need to save a lot more before we can buy land.”

“You’re exhausted.”

“LaVonne said she’d babysit Charlie and Carolyn a couple of days a week. I can change to day shifts. That will make it easier.”

“And when will we be together? Dinnertime?”

“I’m only working part-time, Trip.”

“And what about your health?”

“I’m fine, Trip. Really. I couldn’t be better.”

And it was true.

When she said it.

* * *

1948

Charlie, four years older, doted on his baby sister and liked to play with her. As Carolyn grew, she started climbing out of her crib at night and crawling into bed with Hildie and Trip. Hildie would have to get up and carry her back to her crib. “When is that child going to sleep through the night?”

Trip chuckled. “Maybe we should tie her in.”

They locked their bedroom door instead. Sometimes Hildie got up in the morning and found Carolyn curled up with her blanket outside the door.

* * *

1950

“You look pale, Hildie. You’ve got to get more rest.”

“I’m trying.” Still she couldn’t seem to catch up on sleep, even staying in bed on weekends.

Trip got a promotion. Now a lieutenant, he drew a higher salary. “Quit work. Stay home. We don’t need you getting sick again.”

She knew that better than he did. She might not make it out of the hospital this time. Heeding Trip’s appeal, Hildie resigned. She tried to get more sleep, but it seemed elusive in the face of rising fears.

As a nurse, she knew the signs, even if she’d tried to ignore them over the past months. She started losing weight again. It took a force of will to do even the easier household chores. She awakened with night sweats and fever. When the cough started, she gave up and told Trip she had to go back to Arroyo.

* * *

1951

Hildie had been at Arroyo two months and knew she wasn’t getting any better. Lying in bed at the sanatorium, she saw all of Trip’s dreams going down as her bills mounted. He had to hire a babysitter to watch Charlie and Carolyn until he got home from work each afternoon. He had to get Charlie off to school each day, cook and do the laundry, keep up the house, keep up the yard. Any time left over, he spent with her, leaving the children behind with LaVonne Haversal.

“If I’m going to die, Trip, I want to die at home.”

His face twisted in agony. “Don’t talk like that.”

The doctor had warned them both that depression would be her greatest enemy.

“I pray, Trip. I do. I keep crying out to God to give me answers.” And only one answer came again and again. It seemed a cruel joke.

Trip prayed and came up with the same solution Hildemara dreaded speaking aloud.

“She won’t come.”

“She’s your mother. Do you think she’d do nothing to help you?”

“I told her I’d never ask for her help.”

“It’s the only way to bring you home, Hildie. Or are you going to let your pride stand in the way?”

“She’s never helped me before. Why would she do it now, and under these circumstances?”

“We won’t know unless we ask.” He took her hands. “I think she’ll surprise you.”

Trip called Mama while Hildemara choked on her pride and wondered why God had brought her down so low. Trip thought she feared Mama might say no. Hildie feared Mama would say yes.

The moment Trip told Mama she was sick and asked for help, Hildemara knew whatever respect she had earned from her mother would be gone. Mama would think her a coward again, too weak to stand on her own feet, incapable of being a good wife and mother.

If Mama came, Hildemara would have to lie in bed and watch her mother take over her responsibilities. And Mama would do it all better than Hildemara ever had because Mama always managed everything perfectly. Even without Papa, the ranch ran like a well-oiled machine. Mama would be the one to give Charlie wings. She’d probably teach Carolyn to read before she turned four.

Sick and helpless, Hildemara would have to watch the life she loved be taken over by her mother. Even the one thing at which she excelled, the one area of her life where she had proven her worth, would be stripped away from her.

Mama would become the nurse.