Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (spicy books to read .txt) 📕

new ring shone in the pale light of the snow, and I blinked at the unfamiliar sight of it.

“I’m gonna make you happy,” he whispered into my ear. “I promise.”

The thing about love, Mum’s voice reminded me, is that you can never know until you know.

“I know,” I said, telling both him and myself. “I know.”

July 1944

Dear Molly,

I thought you might like to know that this will be my final letter to you from jolly old England. That’s right. I’m on my way home soon. After Normandy, when that pesky German gunner decided I no longer needed my leg, the Army decided they didn’t need me. What a surprise! I guess there’s not much market for a one-legged soldier these days. It’s just as well, I suppose, because you have a shiny gold band on your finger now, and I haven’t given this man my official stamp of approval yet. Hardly fair of you to go and do that without my say so, Big Sister.

Helen and I would like to welcome you both for a congratulatory dinner once I’m home and settled. I’m learning to get around with the crutches, and I’ve been told I’m up for a new leg when I get home, so you can come and tease me while I stagger around, even clumsier than usual.

Jokes aside, I was very happy to hear of your engagement, and I know we shall love this man as much as you do—almost! I cannot wait to get home and see you.

All my best, your loving little brother, Mark

PART FOUR — 1945 —

twenty MOLLY

I glanced up at the clock, my eyes burning from staring at paperwork all day long. Already 8:35 p.m. I’d wanted to leave hours ago, but Mr. Hindmarsh had asked all of us to stay late because he’d heard that Prime Minister Mackenzie King was going to make an announcement. No one had balked, because we all had a pretty good idea what this announcement was going to be about. Or at least we hoped we did. The news had broken about Hitler’s suicide a week ago, and now it was like watching the very last leaf on a tree, waiting for it to drop.

I leaned over my desk, scanning the recent statistics about homelessness in the city, then scribbled more notes into my notebook. The number of men living on the streets had eased since the Depression had ended almost a decade ago, but I worried. With the number of veterans returning from Europe in various conditions, that issue could easily balloon again. The government had recently proposed plans to help reintegrate these men into the everyday world, so I’d calculated some of the social programme costs, hoping to come up with a substantial article that might forecast what would happen when our surviving men returned at the end of the war, whenever that might be.

I ran my finger down the column I needed and was just writing down the number I’d been searching for when Mr. Hindmarsh stepped out of his office in his usual plodding manner, his arms folded. The rest of us could read him like a battalion reads a general, so we all dropped what we were doing.

“Please turn up the radio,” he said in his deliberate voice. “In about thirty seconds, Prime Minister Mackenzie King would like to speak to you all.”

The blink of silence was followed by a ruckus of chairs being pushed back as everyone flocked to the big radio at the side of the room. This had to be it: the announcement we’d all been waiting for. Seconds later, the prime minister’s voice crackled out of the speaker, his words rising and falling like a minister’s sermon.

“In the name of our country, I ask the people of Canada at this hour to join with me in expressing our gratitude as a nation for the deliverance from the evil forces of Nazi Germany. We unite in humble and reverent thanksgiving to God, for his mercy thus vouchsafed to the peoples of our own and other lands. Let us rejoice in the victory for which we have waited so long, and which has been won at so great a price.”

The war was over. The newsroom burst into applause, and I sank onto the desk, relief flooding my chest and tears burning my vision. The nightmare was over. Our men would finally be coming home.

Ian swept me off the desk and kissed me in front of the entire room, just like in the movies. Everyone cheered louder, and I laughed against his mouth. “Let me go, you brute.”

“Come with me,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me to the window.

The street below was filling with people, cheering, banging pots, making noise with whatever they could find.

Mr. Hindmarsh came to stand beside us, watching the crowds, a rare smile on his lips. After a while he turned away. “All right, all right,” he said in his trademark monotone. “Back to business. I’ll need pieces right away on the treaty, the ships coming back, what’s happening with the wounded—”

Al Jones, one of our salesmen, suddenly jumped on his chair. “I just got a call from the mayor’s office,” he announced, waving a paper like a flag. “They’ve taken out a full-page ad to announce tomorrow’s public holiday!”

As the room erupted, Mr. Hindmarsh leaned closer to Ian. “Mark my words,” he said. “He’ll ask church groups and synagogues and other community organizations to run their own parties. The less on his plate the better. He thinks that by closing liquor stores for the day and banning places from serving alcohol he’s going to keep control.”

Ian snorted. “Sure. Let’s all celebrate the end of six years of war with a nice hot cup of tea.”

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER was to be the headline on the front page, Mr. Hindmarsh said. Surrendered last night at 8:41 Toronto time would be