Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (best short novels of all time txt) 📗

years ago. If I could have gone back in time, I would have held him tight instead of chastising him for going after Max. And while I was there, I would have taken back that impulsive kiss with Max.

“Ready to get up?” I said into his ear, and he nodded.

I straightened gently and helped him to his feet, then I handed him his cane. He caught his balance, then we made the slow walk downstairs. By the time we arrived, the family had crowded into the living room and kitchen. It was so good to see the house full again. Dad was welcomed with hugs and smiles, and I stood back and watched, loving my family so much it hurt. We were different from how we’d been, but we’d pulled through the Depression, my brothers and I were happily employed, and the family was growing. Like in my grandmother’s stories, we’d survived.

Five minutes later, the door opened again, and in walked Richie’s wife, Barbara, her face red, her eyes puffy, and her arms tight around a bewildered little Evelyn. Richie was right behind her, still in his policeman’s uniform. He looked stiff, uncomfortable. I raised an eyebrow at Jimmy, but he only shrugged.

“What’s going on?” Dad asked, breaking the silence.

Richie took off his hat then stepped farther inside the kitchen. “I’ve enlisted,” he said.

eleven MAX

1940

Max shrugged his pack over his shoulder and stepped out of the train onto the frozen tarmac of the Newfoundland Airport. Arnie, David, and he had made quite a journey to get here, sailing to Botwood, Newfoundland, on the Duchess of Richmond, shuddering with cold as they were taken to land by tender, then chugging the rest of the way on a narrow gauge railway. Now he walked toward the army barracks with the rest of the Royal Rifles, and Max wasn’t sure it had been worth the effort. The airport at Gander, Newfoundland, which was connected to the army’s base, was a long, flat stretch of nothing very interesting, set in the middle of a wilderness.

“Sure is cold,” David said, falling into step beside him. David was as tall as Max now, and he’d left his father’s frail physique behind. “That wind is sharp.”

Arnie nodded on Max’s other side, his boots squeaking on the snow. “This place is big. Biggest airport in the world, you know.”

“Somehow I thought that would make it more exciting,” David muttered.

When they’d been told the Royal Rifles were being shipped to the Atlantic coast for duty, Max had been keen to set out. He wanted to get into the fight, and this was the first step.

But once they were on their way to Newfoundland, their sergeant, Sergeant Cox, a slight man in his thirties with short brown hair and a thin moustache, informed them that duty in their case referred to garrison duty. They would not be going overseas after all. They were here to guard this airport.

Construction was going on at what seemed like a frenzied pace, with new hangars and living quarters going up, and another runway being put down. Max imagined the workers were in a rush to finish before the winter storms came, and he shuddered at the thought. It was already freezing, and it was only November.

Crossing the tarmac toward the flat, one-storey barracks, they passed hangars for the Canadian, British, and American air forces, and Max noted the military instalments set up around almost every runway: the pill boxes armed with machine guns, and the uniformed, fully armed Canadian soldiers marching nearby. A fleet of B-18s, what they called the Digbys, were parked along one runway, and barbed wire was set up all around the compound to prevent any airborne invaders from accessing the base.

Max, Arnie, and David had originally joined Toronto’s Royal Regiment, but the Royal Rifles out of Québec and New Brunswick had needed a couple of medics, so Max and Arnie had been transferred. Max wasn’t sure why David had been assigned there as well, but he was glad to have them both with him. Unlike David and Arnie, Max hadn’t had to leave anyone behind. All the married men had been allowed one night at home before setting out for Newfoundland, and when David and Arnie had met Max at the station the next day, their shoulders were sloped with guilt.

“Clara will be all right,” Max assured Arnie. “And Hannah’s just stubborn. Give them time, and they’ll call you heroes.”

Hannah was good at guilt. Max had felt the weight of it as they’d shipped out. Especially since he hadn’t been the most attentive son or brother over the past seven years. During that time, he’d made the trip to Toronto for only a handful of occasions: Hannah and David’s wedding in 1934, the birth of their daughter, Dinah, who had won over his heart a year later, then their son Jacob’s bris last year. Other than that, Max had stayed in Kingston, working in the emergency ward at the hospital. His life was no longer in Toronto, no matter how much he loved the people in it.

Then, at the end of July, he’d taken the train home. His parents were overjoyed to see him, their arms wide open for hugs. That made him feel even worse about the news he was about to share with them.

The next night, when Hannah and David arrived for a family supper along with their children, he almost felt like a stranger around them. He’d embraced his sister, very aware of her belly, round with baby number three, shaken David’s hand, then hugged Dinah and Jacob, exclaiming about how much they’d grown.

All day, he’d smelled his mother’s cooking and tried to stay out of her way so she could get it all done. His patience was rewarded at last with a beautiful meal of brisket with baba ghanoush on the side. She’d even prepared Max’s favourite dessert of rugelach. As the plates were emptied, the conversations filled, and