Taking a Chance on Love (15 page)

“She's what they call a ‘blue baby,'” Amy said. “The doctors hope to repair her heart when she's a little older. They say that Johns Hopkins is having success with a new operation. The babies become pink again.”

“It must be hard for you not to have her with you,” I said.

Amy thought about it. “No, not really. She looked so blue and all wrinkled up when I first saw her that I didn't really believe she was mine … She's not the kind of baby I'd pictured having.”

“What's her name?” I asked.

“Helen. I named her after Glen's mother. He wanted me to.”

As soon as Amy felt strong enough, she and Rob Pryce drove back to Ontario to visit Glen's father. “Once the old man meets me, he'll change his mind,” Amy said. “He's got piles of money. There's no reason why he couldn't be helping Glen and me. Rob and I will stay with him for a couple of weeks. That should be enough time for me to win him over.”

“Or not,” I said.

She looked at me, surprise sharpening her eyes. “You'll see,” she said, confidently. “I have a way of changing men's minds. In the meantime, Rob and I can have a holiday. All this visiting TB patients back and forth is getting to us.”

“How is Rob's wife?”

“She's okay,” she said. “She'll be at Tranquille for at least a year.”

Provincial exams were coming up in June, and I had been studying for months. I had written the provincials in math and English in grade eleven, but now French, science and history loomed. With Bruce still in the hospital, studying helped take my mind off missing him.

We wrote each other often, and at last came the letter with the news I'd been waiting for.

May 8, 1945

Dearest Meg
,

Good news at last. The war in Europe is over finally, VE Day. Victory over Japan will follow soon, I'm sure
.

Vancouver is celebrating. Fireworks have been going off all day long. The air is blue with their smoke, and it smells of sulphur. One of the nurses took the few of us who are well enough down to Broadway to watch the parade. There were streamers, confetti and girls riding on the tops of cars. Talk about noise! Bagpipes, trumpets, cornets, drums — even old pots were being banged. Everybody was kissing everybody else. When people weren't kissing, they were cheering
.

More good news: the doctors say I will be discharged soon from the hospital. They are pleased with my recovery, and so am I. Most important, everything is working again
.

Other than some shiny-looking patches on my skin, the results are even better than I had hoped for
.

Can't wait to see you again
.

All my love
,

Bruce

My brother, Sam, came home on a brief leave. “As soon as the paperwork goes through with my honourable discharge, I'll be registering at UBC,” he told us, as we sat around the supper table. “The Department of Veterans Affairs has a plan where all veterans can go on to complete their education. I'm going after a degree in engineering. We'll receive a living allowance too, so Olive and I can get married and … It looks like I have a future, after all.”

He said that he'd met Dad recently in Halifax and that Dad was in no hurry to be discharged. “He says he wants to stay in the Air Force,” Sam said.

“The pay's good,” said Mom. “And the wife's allotment cheque is regular every month.”

“Dad likes the Air Force,” said Sam. “It suits him. He gets to travel, and all that.”

“And ‘all that' is right,” said my mother and let the subject drop.

Mrs. Thompson came to visit us shortly after Sam's leave was over. She was holding a letter up to her heart. “It's from the government,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes shining. “They've located my son Douglas. He's been released from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. My prayers are answered, and I've been on my knees thanking God ever since I got the letter.”

“His girlfriend will be happy,” I said.

“What girlfriend?”

“Didn't he have one from Maple Creek? I thought she came to the coast with Doug to visit you once.”

“Oh, did she? I guess that one didn't last.”

Jack Whalan had written a couple of times since he'd moved into Vancouver, and I had answered, trying to keep my letters friendly, but nothing more. Then I got a letter that made me realize I had to set things straight.

June 15, 1945

Dear Meg
,

I'm still writing exams, but when they're over, I'm coming up your way and want to see you
.

I've signed on as chokerman for the summer with a logging camp up Egmont and Earl's Cove way. I should make enough cash to pay for tuition at UBC. I'll have to get another job once I'm at university to pay for board and room. I'll try the library
.

I'd like to see you either before I start the job, or after I finish. I think the logging outfit is running a bus service out of Sechelt to Gibson's, so I'll walk down to your place from there
.

Are you wearing my pin? Please answer this question. If you're not, I'd like it back
.

Jack

I mailed Jack's pin back to him on the next boat. I enclosed a note saying that I'd started going with someone. I wished him well at UBC.

On the last day of school, as I was heading to catch the bus home, I heard my name being called. I turned to see Bruce parked under the maple trees nearby. He got out of his truck and came over to take the pile of books from my arms. I had forgotten how handsome he was. I fell in love with him all over again.

“I thought you might like a ride home,” he said.

“I didn't know you were back.” I was glad that I'd shampooed my hair the night before and was wearing a sweater he'd once said he liked.

Instead of turning the truck left to go home to the Landing, Bruce took the road down to Gower Point and parked above one of the secluded beaches. We took the trail down to the water. Through the trees, we could see glimpses of Vancouver Island, blue in the distance.

Halfway down the trail, Bruce stopped. “Wait, Meg. I have to talk to you.” His eyes and face looked concerned, almost anxious. “It's important. I have to be fair to you … I don't think you know what you're getting into.”

“With you, you mean?”

“Yes. You know I care about you. I've had all the plastic surgery available, and I can have children. It's time to think about a future together. I will be able to take care of you.”

I started to say something.

“No, I want you to become a nurse so that you'll always have a profession. The big question is … could you love me?” He paused for the briefest of seconds. “Physically? You may not want to once you see my burns.”

“Well, are you going to show me now?” I said.

His head jerked back.

“There's no one around,” I said. “Let's see what you're talking about.”

His eyes were startled, and I was afraid I'd gone too far. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and let it drop to the trail.

A width of chest, shiny pink patches of healed skin, well-developed muscles — I could imagine the strength of his arms holding me.

“Okay, now turn around,” I said.

A long back. No burns. It's length arching over me.

“You can put your shirt back on again,” I said.

He'd buttoned it. I said, “Okay, now the pants. Drop them. Front and back views, please.”

By this time, he was laughing.

“I have to see what you have to offer,” I said.

He unbuckled his belt and let the pants drop, stepped out of them.

A slim waist, flat abdomen showing a recently healed shiny spot, long muscled legs. I seemed to have stopped breathing. He turned. Tight buttocks.

“Okay,” I managed. “You can dress now.”

When he had tucked his shirt in and checked his fly, I put my arms around him. He pulled me in closer. “What do you think, Meg?”

“There'll be no problem,” I said. “Unless I've scared you off.”

He kissed me then. I had thought about it so often, but I had never imagined it would feel so completely right. The gulls called out from the ocean below.
O-kaay. O-kaay
. Meg loves Bruce. Bruce loves Meg.

July and August were our months to get to know each other. I saw him often during the day as I went about my work at the guest house. In the afternoon, I had a couple of free hours, and we swam, hiked or went out in the boat. Friday-night dances, we went together as a couple. Frank Sinatra had recorded “Day by Day,” and it became our song.

“I'm glad we have this time,” Bruce said. “Once we both start hitting the books in the fall, we'll see each other, but it won't be as often. This summer belongs to us.”

Mrs. Hanson approved, Anna Hanson approved, even my mother approved. “You'll be busy enough, once you start working in the hospital on the wards. Enjoy this time while you can.”

The evening before Bruce and I left the Landing for Vancouver, we went out in his boat. Once we were well off shore, Bruce cut the engine, and we drifted on the crimson and gold ocean that reflected the sunset. Bruce said, “I'd like to give you an engagement ring. You could pick it out at Birks. That's if you're still sure about us.”

“I'm sure. But let's leave the ring until I'm almost finished training. Sister Mary Gertrude made it clear that she expects her student nurses to put nursing first, no distractions … I don't think I can wait three years to marry you, but I guess I'll have to.”

Bruce and I married as soon as I had written my RN exams. I signed up with the private duty registry of the hospital. They hired married nurses, and I could choose my shifts.

We were each other's best friend then, and we are each other's best friend today.

Amy's daughter Helen died before she was a year old.

Glen was pronounced cured of TB and discharged after a year at Willow Chest Centre.

Six months later, Robert Pryce's wife died in the TB Sanitarium at Kamloops from a lung haemorrhage. Robert sold their house and moved away. No one was sure where. The village settled down to its former rhythm.

Glen and Amy went to the States to live. Glen's father never gave his consent to their marriage, and they had to wait until Glen was twenty-one before they married. Whether the father ever helped them financially was never mentioned, but the two of them seemed to manage all right. After the marriage, they had two healthy sons. Glen became a well-known TV personality. They divorced, and he married three more times with children by each wife. Amy never remarried.

Amy and I were friendly when we met, which was sporadic, but never in the same way we'd been in high school.

Mrs. Miller, invalid though she'd been when I first met her, lived into her nineties. She kept her sweetness and ability to make friends until the end.

Mr. and Mrs. Ballard had a little boy they adored.

My father stayed away for longer and longer periods until finally he didn't come home at all. Mom became very active in the church.

Mrs. Thompson sold their place and got a larger apartment in Vancouver. Doug never married and lived with her.

Jack Whalan went on for his PhD and made a major contribution to early work on DNA. He sent me postcards off and on throughout the years, always to do with his scientific interests and achievements.

Anna and her husband moved into the guest house to help Mrs. Hanson run it.

Bruce made a career in the Navy and held a position of high command. I worked as a nurse in cities on both sides of the country. We have two children.

When Mary's three children were in high school, she took a night school course in creative writing offered by the Vancouver School Board and sold an article written in that class. Encouraged, she became a part-time student at the University of British Columbia, studied writing under George McWhirter and wrote an adult novel in a tutorial with Carol Shields. This novel was later rewritten as
Snow Apples
, for young adults, and shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. She went on to have ten more books published, many of them award-winning. Mary's poetry, articles and short stories have been published and broadcast internationally. She has a broad working background in both medical and surgical nursing and was the project worker for an oral history of nursing in B.C. She makes her home in Vancouver, B.C.