Blue Skies Tomorrow by Sarah Sundin

Author:Sarah Sundin [Sundin, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-05T17:54:23+00:00

Naval Magazine, Port Chicago

Wednesday, November 15, 1944

Helen tapped her fingers on her desk, mimicking the rain on the roof of the repaired administration building. Now that his assignment for the trial was over, Vic had been reassigned to Port Chicago, his punishment for being on the wrong side, he insisted. But Helen knew he had a purpose. His presence had a soothing effect on the men, since they knew he fought for them.

With no surviving witnesses, the Naval Court of Inquiry couldn’t find a conclusive cause of the explosion but decided it was due to the presence of fused ammunition, rough handling, or the failure of a boom.

Helen had finished her typing and filing and had nothing to do until Vic returned from the clemency hearing with Admiral Wright. She hated to use work time for personal correspondence, but she couldn’t stare into space for an hour.

She slid open the bottom desk drawer and removed her letter to Ray. She scanned the page, puffed her cheeks full of air, then blew it out. If any letter would scare him away forever, this was it, but she had to get out the last ugly scrap of truth.

Both Madame Ivanova and Jim blamed me for their abuse. Madame said if I were a better dancer, she wouldn’t have to switch me. Jim said if I were a better wife, he wouldn’t have to beat me. In public he blamed my injuries on polio-induced clumsiness. Even my father believed my clumsiness was to blame. Well, not one of those injuries was my fault.

But Jim’s death is my fault. Oh, Ray, I prayed to be released. I actually prayed for it. When the war started, I saw my chance to be free for the duration. I appealed to Jim’s patriotism, I gushed over the uniforms, and I fretted over what would happen if Uncle Sam assigned him in the draft.

If I hadn’t influenced him, he never would have been on the USS Laffey on November 13, 1942. I killed him as surely as if I’d fired that torpedo myself. And I laughed in relief when I received the telegram—I laughed! Jim deserved to be punished, but he didn’t deserve to die. He deserved the chance to repent, to change, to be forgiven by God and by me, but I never gave him that chance.

A drop of water smudged the ink, and Helen glanced up. Was the new roof leaking? She blinked away haze, and tears dribbled down her cheeks.

Never—not once in the two years and two days since Jim died—had she cried for him.

She stuffed the letter in her pocketbook and pulled out a handkerchief. “Lord, how can you forgive me for murder? Please, please forgive me.”

She stood so fast her chair wobbled. She had to find work. In Vic’s office she straightened his diploma from Boalt Law School and the cross-stitch of Augustine’s quote, then whirled to his desk and sorted pencils. Didn’t even one of them need sharpening?

There! On the corner of his desk, a stack of papers.

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