There Will Your Heart Be by Susan Marie Graham

Author:Susan Marie Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new adult, christian, ww2, romance, love story
Publisher: Susan Marie Graham
Published: 2021-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

34

October 1945

Patsy sits at the edge of her bed with a bird’s-eye view from her window, gnawing on the corner of her thumbnail. A huge banner is draped across the front of the Hennessy house from the eaves of the porch, covering Christmas lights still hanging from the year before. WELCOME HOME EDDIE!!! the banner says in colorful two-foot high curlicued letters surrounded by cartoonish sketchings of American flags and little saluting GIs.

Some of their relatives and neighbors are hanging out on the porch, the front steps and the sidewalk, waiting to greet the hometown hero. A couple of the other guys who returned—Tommy Drescher on Schuyler Avenue and Horace Evans a block over—had come home and were greeted with similar fanfare. All the guys who make it home are heroes. But Eddie has an injury, placing him in a special class. A man with a big camera pulled up earlier in a car with The Observer printed on the side, so Eddie’s homecoming is going to be immortalized in the town paper. The man looks bored, sitting on the porch steps with his chin in his fist, so probably it’s only one in a long line of homecomings he’s covered.

Patsy glances at the clock. The bus was due forty-five minutes ago so they’ll be home any minute, Eddie and his folks. Her feet are doing a little tap dance of their own accord in dreadful anticipation.

He’s gonna blow an absolute fuse.

Not that he doesn’t have a right. She didn’t tell him the half of it in her letters. Cripes, he was in a war, what else could she do? It’s not like it’s all her fault. He’d returned her letters loaded with questions she’d promised not to answer, but she did anyway, mostly. Also not her fault. But now he’d want—he’d expect—the whole story.

Her parents had gotten the whole story out of her, too. She didn’t have the fortitude to keep it to herself. Anybody who thought she could keep something like this a secret was out of their gourd. Her parents had grilled her for a few hours, and she confessed everything—everything—and although that day was the worst of her entire life, things had settled down.

Except for the sadness. She misses Annalaura like crazy. She’s filled with remorse over the whole sorry incident. She wishes she could turn the clock back. Who wouldn’t? Sometimes she dreams about Larry, the sneaky, stalking, stinking creep. She hopes he was sent overseas and died.

Oh, no, I’m terrible. I don’t mean it, God. I don’t. Sorry. Maybe have a foot blown off or something minor, if it’s okay with you.

So now she’ll have to go through it all again with Eddie. Her folks said she owed him the truth. And maybe—who knew?—he’d take it all in calmly, since he’s basically a pretty level-headed guy, right? He’ll be upset, sure, but there isn’t anything he can do about it at this point, is there? He’ll be sad, and grieve for a while, but he’ll have to get over it.

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