Today, however, she wasn't sure about her feelings. Wasn't she supposed to be happy? In the news was word that Fred's company had returned to camp; her heart cried out that it should be reason enough for some joy but her mind dryly countered it with, "What for?" And yet deep inside her, the truth was that she was actually excited. Only, she wonderfully succeeded in covering it up with indifference. She curtly reminded herself that she was meeting up with Jeffrey at her down town favorite coffee shop in an hour so she must start getting ready.
A gentle rap at the door made her walk towards it with uncertain steps. She was aware that she was tracing the very steps her mother made to go open that door to Fred almost at that same hour of the evening - five years ago. She caught her breath as she gave out under a whisper, "Fred!" The next moments held her standing there, taking back the same sort of unbelieving look from the eyes of the Army uniformed man who blocked the doorway tall, dark and handsome.
One of them had to break the spell and so Linda forced herself to the obligation. "Please come in, Fred."
Slowly, the words came forth. "I really don't know if it makes sense for me to say you haven't changed, Linda, but somehow, you do look different from the last time I saw you." It was Fred who kind of started the conversation.
She folded her arms as she leaned back in her chair and answered, "Perhaps, Fred! I've heard that from so many people already that I would not be surprised if you said it too. The only difference now is that I hear it from someone I thought I'd never see again." And she was taken in by recall.
The 'last time' was the night he had taken her to a school dance. She had entertained a partner alone no other than he. And after the affair, she remembered how childish she thought of the gang's usual call for a coffee shop escapade and how she refused - she had asked Fred to bring her straight home. She realized she was then saying goodby to childish ways but that was also the very night he was called back to camp as they were to be shipped out the next morning.
Now she asked him, "How's the army these days, Fred? And about having been so far and so long away from home?" She didn't wait for an answer, though. As if to give him time to make up the answers, she excused herself to fix him a cup of coffee.
Meanwhile, he made himself comfortable. Everything in the living room still stood as it used to be. The sala set, the bookshelf by the eastern window, they were still there. Only the curtains seem to be new. But he also noticed an unfamiliar object - a picture frame on the piano. He moved closer to it - to see for himself a scene reenacted a distance in front of the church altar.... two coffins over a black mantle covered-table set with big candles and a lot of flowers. And there was Linda kneeling on the nearest pew, face buried in her palms. He felt a sting of pain as he empathized with her aloneness at that moment. He censured himself for having not been there for her notwithstanding the fact that he really could not have been there.
At least he was thankful that he didn't have to ask her about her parents anymore. No need really to open up doors to painful memories. They had been so caring as far as their daughter was concerned and he decided that that was perfect - just perfect while he was going to be gone for some time. Was it selfish for him even to consider they'd treasure her for him meanwhile? This wisp of a girl who stole his heart just like that? He remembered the mental discomfiture they were in that last night they had allowed Linda to go out with him. They had only shortly known him! And she was so young then.
"But when could this have happened?" he wondered... and his eyes found the answer at the lower right hand corner of the framed picture: September 24, 2008! He let out a very softly whispered, "Wow! ... the very next day after that night?" And in his mind, he went on: So they never lived to see her graduate from college? Never lived to glory in her successes, one of which was moving on to being appointed Principal of their local High School? He had somehow known about these but only these about her... strangely not about her parents' passing away... nor of Jeffrey's coming into her life. Jeff had been a close family friend, a neighbor, in fact, who tried to stand in as big brother to Linda, so much so for the whole town to conjecture that she would eventually marry him.
Fred stopped short at the realization that the unfamiliar features he noticed in Linda's face were the offshoot of having had to face life on her own.....at such an early age! "And to think I came home to marry a child!"
Linda stirred sugar into the cup of boiling hot coffee. Within the tiny whirlpool she created, she pictured herself: the girl, then the woman. It strengthened her sense of acquired independence. It hardened her heart that overflowed with life's trials. "If I had managed all by myself, I still could," she was trying to assure herself.
Footsteps slowly but steadily came until they stopped a near distance from her back. Only then did she realize she had stirred the coffee almost cold. She turned. Their eyes met. All too suddenly the moment could no longer deny that the magic of last time was still there. In that level gaze, Fred once again noticed those hard lines on her face - an addition to the very same Linda he once knew - because the sparkle in her eyes still gleamed for him. And he loved her more.
For Linda, the same instant opened her eyes to a truth - the coffee without sugar was her without him no matter how she tried to cover it up with pride and bitterness. She could only put blame on circumstances of which he had no part. And in some part of her mind now came the thought of Jeff... but he will understand, she resolved.
Now, for reasons only her heart could understand, she wanted a question answered. "So why has the Lieutenant come back home?"
______________________________
