When the Clouds Roll By by Myra Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

she was so beautiful, so very beautiful. And when he looked into those wide brown eyes so filled with love, he could almost forget he’d come home half a man.
    He’d never hold her in two strong arms again. He’d never stand beside her on two good legs. He’d never carry her over the threshold into their married life together.
    At the far end of the ward, she turned with a smile and a cheery wave before slipping out through the swinging double door. He yearned to cry out, to beg her not to go. Though twenty other patients filled the ward, Gilbert had never felt so alone, not even when he lay blown to bits on a bloody field in France.
    He clawed his good hand through the hair at his temple. A thousand cannons exploded inside his skull. “Nurse. Nurse!”
    A flame-haired girl in a white apron hurried over. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
    “The pain—I need my injection.”
    The nurse checked his chart and frowned. “I’m so sorry. It’s too soon.”
    “There must be something—”
    “Let me find a doctor.”
    He wanted to tell her to forget the doctor and fetch him a loaded pistol. He was ready to do anything if it would take away the pain.
    Why couldn’t You let me die on the battlefield, Lord?
    Even a slow, painful death would have been so much easier than giving up the love of his life.

6
    H appy endings. Was there any such thing?
    Annemarie tossed the pulp magazine to the foot of her bed. The story she’d just read, a romantic adventure about long-lost lovers reuniting on a tropical island, left her teetering between scornful laughter and sentimental tears.
    She normally didn’t go in for such fluff, but sleep eluded her tonight. Ever since she left the hospital, worries over Gilbert had consumed her. As disconcerting as his most recent letters had been, seeing him today only heightened her sense that the war had stolen away the man she loved. This was not the same Gilbert who only a year ago, home on leave before shipping overseas with his division, had kissed her under the mistletoe and sworn his undying love.
    Beneath the glow of the bedside lamp, she gazed into the fire-and-ice shimmer of her engagement ring, Gilbert’s gift to her last Christmas. “Wait for me,” he’d said. “Keep a light in the window and a prayer in your heart.”
    But today she’d seen no light of love in her Gilbert’s eyes. When he looked at her at all, it seemed as if he looked right through her.
    A rap sounded on her bedroom door before it creaked open. “Annemarie?”
    “Come in, Mama. I’m awake.”
    Her mother tiptoed into the room, whisking the door closed behind her. Wrapped in a thick flannel robe, she motioned Annemarie over and crawled under the quilts next to her. She snuggled Annemarie beneath her arm. “An exciting day for you, wasn’t it? And now you can’t sleep. I don’t blame you.”
    Mama smelled of lavender and talcum powder, her loose braid of coffee-colored hair showing glints of silver. Annemarie found the end of her own thick braid and twined it with her mother’s, taking comfort in the satiny feel and the interplay of hues. “Is it wrong for me to be happy Papa didn’t have to go to war?”
    Mama looked surprised. “Of course not. Why would you say such a thing?”
    “Only because so many others didn’t have a choice.” Annemarie sat up and hugged her knees beneath her chin. “I can’t help thinking about our friends who are never coming home. Ollie Lang, Howard McNeil, Francis Ferguson, so many others. If I’d lost Papa, if I’d lost Gilbert—”
    “You mustn’t dwell on such thoughts. Just thank the Lord your papa was too old for the draft and our prayers brought Gilbert home alive.”
    “I do thank God, but—” How could she reconcile the seeming absurdity of believing their prayers had protected Gilbert when surely every parent, sister, wife, and child had prayed just as fervently for their own loved ones’ safe return?
    Tossing aside the covers, Annemarie scrambled to the other