Remembering You (18 page)

“Are we going to be able to get to the American cemeteries today?” she asked. A sweeping shot of the cemetery with close-ups of several graves would make for some powerful video.

Dennis shook his head. “I’m not sure we’ll make it, but I have to say I never thought I’d see this part of Belgium. This isn’t Kansas anymore, huh, Jack?” Dennis glanced over his shoulder.

Her grandfather didn’t answer. Instead, he stared intently out the window, his eyes searching, his hands folding and unfolding in his lap.

Ava looked around and blew out a deep breath, reminding herself this was about her grandpa and hoping that wherever they ended up, she’d be able to get some good footage and some interviews. After the night before, she worried her grandfather would once again resist being videotaped. She hoped not.

They passed a small cottage. A woman in a faded dress and apron swept her front step. Chickens clustered around her feet. This didn’t look like promising footage.

“Is there really something out here worth looking at? I don’t remember anything like this on the brochure. Do you remember the name of the last town?” Ava dug through her satchel, hoping she’d packed the brochure. It was times like this when she wished she or Dennis had brought a GPS. They hadn’t planned on driving, or she was sure they both would have thought of bringing theirs from home. They weren’t standard in European rentals.
Maybe helping lost American tourists is entertaining for Europeans
.

“We’re somewhere in Belgium, Ava. I really don’t know where we are.” Dennis’s voice was curt, and she could tell he wasn’t thrilled about this side trip either.

“I know exactly where we are,” Grandpa Jack snapped. “We’re getting close, slow down.” He leaned forward in his seat and patted Paul’s shoulder. “Do you remember, Paul? There was a Y in the road. Our map wasn’t that great, but we studied the mountains. Look.” He pointed to the Y in front of them and then flicked the map on his lap. “Yes, we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.”

Her grandfather’s voice quivered. He swallowed hard. He placed a hand on the window and then pressed his forehead against the glass, like a child peering out. His cheeks were flushed.

“Do you need some water?” She held up her half-f water bottle.

“I think you better slow down, Dennis.” Grand-Paul leaned forward and gripped the dashboard.

“Jack, are you okay?” Dennis sounded confused.

“Jack’s fine. There’s just something we need to see. Slow down.” Grand-Paul’s voice was firm. “See how the road splits? Go to the right.”

“But that will take us south. Germany’s east.”

“Dennis, my boy, don’t pick now to rebel!” Grand-Paul said.

Dennis didn’t answer, and Ava could tell it took all his will-power to head down an even smaller dirt road that looked like an ox path winding through the trees.

They drove another mile, and Ava was sure they’d hit a dead end any minute. Yet the road kept going, and up ahead she noticed a small house nestled in the trees.

“There.” Grand-Paul pointed.

“It’s somebody’s house. We can’t go tromping around private property.” Ava saw Dennis’s jaw tighten.

Even though he protested, Dennis still did as he was asked and parked the car on the dirt area in front of the house. It was two stories but small. Ava thought it was abandoned. The paint was chipped and faded, and a fenced-off area near the side was only half erect. Then Ava noticed the clothesline to the side of the house and the clothes that fluttered in the breeze.

“Someone still lives here. Are you going to try to talk to them? Did you know the family?” Her heart pounded. What was her grandfather looking for? He ignored her questions. Instead, he got out of the car. As Dennis helped Grand-Paul out, Grandpa Jack walked, with shaky steps, to the front of the car and leaned against the hood. Ava joined him.

“They used to keep their animals on the ground floor, but when the Germans moved in, that’s where the family hid. And that’s where I found her.”

“Her?” Ava touched his arm, reminding her grandfather that she was there, standing next to him.

“Do you want me to see if anyone’s home?” Dennis asked.

Ava could tell that Dennis was also confused about what was happening.

“Go ahead.” It was Grand-Paul who answered.

Dennis took the steps two at a time, and when he reached the door, he knocked. Ava wasn’t sure what he’d do if someone answered. He knocked three more times, and when still no one answered, he returned to the car.

“Who was she?” Ava repeated. “Who did you find?” She wondered if she should mention Angeline again.

Grandpa Jack still didn’t acknowledge Ava. Instead, he pointed to the woods. “We saw some Germans taking off after they saw us coming. My buddy Bill and I got orders to go check the house to make sure there weren’t any Germans left inside.

“Bill headed upstairs, to check things out. I took the bottom story.” He paused. “When I approached the door, I saw movement. I fired into the room—” A sob erupted from his throat.

“Grandpa, are you okay?” Ava wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Then she looked at Paul. She didn’t want to ask what had happened, but she had to know. Paul must have read the questions on her face.

“There were civilians—a couple with a baby,” Paul said. “Jack told me he also saw a woman and a little girl who were dead.”

This wasn’t the story she’d expected. Her heart ached as she imagined it. She looked at Dennis. His eyes were wide. He wondered the same thing: had her grandfather’s gunfire killed them?

Grand-Paul approached his friend. “Jack, I think she needs to hear the rest from you.”

Grandpa Jack stood silent, and just when Ava was sure she’d never know, he lifted his head.

“I checked their pulses. The woman first. She had none, but when I checked the girl, she had the faintest pulse.”

Ava covered her mouth with her hands and for the first time realized they were trembling.

Sobs shook her grandfather’s shoulders. He lowered his head when he talked. “The girl wasn’t breathing, and so I turned her head. We’d learned in training that often breathing stops because the tongue blocks the airway and that turning the head can fix it.”

“Did she start breathing?” Dennis leaned closer, waiting.

Grandpa Jack nodded. “Then she cried, and it was one of the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard.”

“Was she injured?” Ava touched her grandfather’s shoulder.

“Yes. I found the wound. The shot had gone through the back of her leg. The dirty straw under her leg had a puddle of blood.”

The shot. The shot that he had fired. No wonder he didn’t want to tell the story. She was surprised he’d wanted to come here. Ava looked at him, feeling prouder of her grandfather than she ever had before.
He faced his past
.
He shared his heart.

“Was the wound bad?” Dennis asked.

Grandpa Jack didn’t answer right away, so Dennis turned to Grand-Paul. But this time Paul didn’t speak for his friend. Instead his gaze was one of patience and understanding.

Grandpa Jack lowered his head. “It hit an artery. I applied direct pressure to stop the bleeding, and then I put sulfa powder on it and wrapped the wound. And…”

“And then what? Was she okay?” Ava crossed her arms and pulled them tightly to her, almost afraid for him to answer that question.

“Bill went to tell the others that the house was clear, and I went for help… .”

Ava watched Grandpa Jack as he talked about running back to the sergeant, begging him to send a medic. She watched his face and listened to his shaky voice. She could tell this was hard. His eyes were wild, and he had a look of fear.

“They said the medics were busy. They couldn’t do anything.” Grandpa Jack stopped. He pressed his lips together, and she worried he was going to end the story there. Seeing him like this was like discovering a different person.

Grandpa Jack was the neighbor who helped everyone. He prided himself on being a solid rock of dependability. But that was at home. Here, he struggled to stay one step ahead of the memories, but he couldn’t keep up. He was holding back his emotions.
He’s probably spent all these years keeping the sadness at bay, holding it all inside
.

Grandpa Jack pressed his fingers to his eyes, as if willing himself not to cry. Finally, he took in a deep breath, and even though his eyes watered, he smiled.

“I refused to allow them to let her die in that place.”

As he said those words, a new emotion transformed his face. Love. She’d seen that look in his eye as he looked at her mom, at her, and at her grandmother too—when she was still alive. But she’d never seen him react in such a way to people outside their family.

Her grandpa paused, and he turned to Ava, searching her face. “She was so small. I didn’t know where to take her. I couldn’t just leave her there. After all, I had done that to her… .

“I was looking around, trying to figure out what to do next, and then I knew what to do. I prayed. I prayed that God would save the girl.

“Then I heard a truck coming down the road. The girl was crying louder, and she was shivering from the cold. I picked her up and carried her to the road.”

“But it could have been the Germans coming,” Dennis said. “The area wasn’t secure yet.”

“But it wasn’t the enemy, it was one of our ambulances. I flagged them down, ran to the back, and put the girl inside. Then I ran off—”

“Oh, you did something else too,” Grand-Paul’s voice interrupted. “Before you ran away.”

All eyes turned to her grandfather.

He shrugged. “I had a necklace that my sister gave me. It had a small pearl and a silver bird. I carried it in my pocket through training and the war. Alice said it was to remember her, but at that moment I had a feeling the necklace was for the girl. I took it from my pocket and clasped it around her neck before I turned and hurried away.”

The scene around Ava blurred as tears rimmed her eyes. She swallowed hard and lowered her head. “And then what happened?”

“Realizing the Germans were gone, I returned to our commander, waiting to hear what I was to do next.” A thousand questions seemed to fill Grandpa Jack’s eyes. Questions he’d had for decades.

“Did you ever check on her? Was there a way to find out if she made it?” Ava asked.

Paul shook his head, jumping in. “We were on the front line. We had to keep going. Patton wanted his troops to get to Germany first. There was no looking back, no asking. After the area was secured, we moved on.”

“What about the people in the house?” Dennis asked.

“As I carried her away, the people were saying her name. It sounded like they were praying for her.”

“What was her name?” Dennis asked.

“Angeline.”

Chapter Eighteen

Ava had to think of a way to find her.

“I could call the museum in Bastogne again and look online—”

“A first name isn’t much to go on. It would take a miracle to find the right person with the right information.…” Dennis let his voice trail off.

“Just like it took a miracle to find this place?” She lifted her chin and focused on his gaze, and she saw something there—protection. He was afraid to get their hopes up.

Or he was worried that they’d find her, only to discover she’d died. Could her grandfather carry that pain?
Wouldn’t it be better to have even a small hope?
Dennis’s eyes seemed to say.

“Don’t you think we should just head to Darmstadt? That’s the next town on the tour.” Dennis’s voice was low, soft—the same tone her mother used to use when trying to direct Ava’s decision.

Ava didn’t know what to think. She looked at her grandfather. He did look tired. She looked at Paul, who leaned heavily on his cane. They needed to rest. They needed to move on. She looked at the sky, wishing the right answer was written in the clouds.

She turned back to Dennis and nodded, resigning herself to the fact that this trip was producing more questions than answers.

They looked around the farm for a few minutes. Grandpa Jack and Paul pointed out bullet holes and even small craters in the yard behind the home—proof of the battle that had taken place so long ago. After fifteen minutes, they returned to the car.

They were just pulling out when Ava spotted movement in the trees. It was a woman, and she was walking out of the woods with a handful of wildflowers. She looked older than Ava’s mom, but not by much.

Ava’s heart pounded. “Wait.”

Dennis slowed the car. When it stopped, Ava opened the door.

“Ava, what are you doing?” Then he spotted the woman. “Ava, she’s too young, that can’t be her.”

“I know. I’m just going to ask the woman if she knows anything.”

“Do you think she’ll understand?”

Ava paused. “You’re right. I don’t speak French.” But even as she said the words, she remembered someone who did.

Ava climbed out of the car, pushed speed dial on her cell phone, and smiled as she approached the older woman.

The woman seemed curious but not alarmed. She smiled back and said something Ava didn’t understand.

“Hello.” Ava extended her hand. The woman took it, but her smile faded.

“No English.” The woman shrugged. She had dark hair and wore it on top of her head in a loose bun. She looked curiously at the cell phone in Ava’s hand, and her eyebrows V’d. Ava’s guess was she didn’t get many visitors, especially foreigners.

Just then Tana answered the phone.

“Thank goodness you answered.”

“Ava, are you lost, broke down, in the middle of nowhere?” Tana said.

The older woman before her said something else Ava didn’t understand.

“One minute.” Ava held up one finger to the woman, unsure if she understood, and then she turned her attention to the phone.

“Tana, I’m okay, really. I am in the middle of nowhere, but I’m with Dennis, and I really need your help. We’re at a farm in Belgium and there’s a woman I need you to talk to.”

“A woman? Okay, what do you want me to say?”

“I need you to tell her that my grandfather knew someone here, and I want you to ask her if she’s related to the people who used to live in this house.”