There Will Your Heart Be

PART ONE

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Matthew 5:7

1

MARCH 1944

The bet that Annalaura has with her cousin Patsy is the reason they’re spending Eddie’s last night at the Lincoln Theater, watching Casablanca for the thirteenth time.

I hope that’s not a bad omen, Annalaura said to Eddie earlier, when they were waiting in line.

Eddie made a pffft sound. I don't believe in omens.

Regardless, it’s her favorite movie. She dips her hand into the popcorn bag without taking her eyes off the flickering black-and-white images.

Ilsa is seated at a table in Rick’s Café Américain. She smiles in a way that tells Sam she knows he’s lying when he says he doesn’t remember the song she wants him to play. She hums the tune till he sings and coaxes As Time Goes By out of his piano keys. Rick enters and blusters over to confront Sam. Why is he playing a song Rick forbade? Rick’s face shifts in an instant. Rage, then shock. Ilsa! He can’t believe it! His eyes hold hers as grief skims his face, then the mask falls again, the pretense of the hardened, unforgiving, sticks-his-neck-out-for-nobody saloon owner.

Poor Rick, Annalaura whispers, like she does every time she sees this picture. Eddie’s fingers dance over hers in the popcorn bag, and she smiles as he hooks her pinky with his. It’s buttery and slimy, but she melts all the same.

Patsy’s face pops up between theirs from the row behind, the actors on the screen in a skewed reflection in the lenses of her glasses. I’m bored. When does he kiss her?

Shush! Their friend Louise says from her seat next to Patsy.

Shush yourself. It’s not a first run, Patsy says over her shoulder.

Annalaura rolls her eyes and whispers back. Wait.

Victor Lazlo and Captain Renault join Rick and Ilsa at the table, all of them pretending they’re not uncomfortable that Rick and Ilsa seem to have been well acquainted long before either of them came to Casablanca. Rick reminisces about the first time he met her, how the Germans wore gray and she wore blue. 

"You saw Wuthering Heights, didn’t you?" Patsy whispers to Eddie.

Worst movie ever made. Eddie puts his feet up on the seat in front of him and flicks some popcorn in his mouth.

Annalaura stifles a smile as Patsy cuffs his shoulder. "Don’t you think the kiss between Cathy and Heathcliff is  more tragic and romantic than Rick and Ilsa’s?

Which one? There’s a lot of kissing in these pictures.

Any of them.

He raises an eyebrow at Annalaura. We have a bet, she says. So far we’re three for three.

How much?

She holds up two fingers.

So I’m the tie-breaker?

Well? Patsy reaches over to scoop some popcorn. He raises both hands in surrender and she makes a low clucking sound before slinking back down.

Searchlights scan the outside of the Café while inside Rick is working a bottle of liquor and combing through some painful memories of his and Ilsa’s love affair in Paris years before.

Eddie leans over till his breath is warm in Annalaura’s ear. Wanna go?

She doesn’t. The brief trip to Casablanca is a welcome distraction. She turns to Patsy, keeping her voice low. Can you ride with Louise? She and Eddie hadn’t brought the car because of the gasoline rationing.

Patsy nods and accepts the popcorn Eddie hands her over the back of his seat. So you don’t have to eat your own cooking, he says, and Patsy makes a face at him.

Annalaura and Eddie gather their things and inch their way along the row.

Hey, Eddie, Patsy says as they start down the aisle. He turns. Don’t do anything stupid, promise?

Louise twists around and offers a cheerless wave.

He salutes them. Scout’s honor.

Shhhh! someone says from the side of the theater.

Patsy sticks out her tongue in their general direction and settles back in her seat.

Annalaura walks backward, catching the scene at the train station. Rick’s memory of their planned escape from the Nazi occupation of Paris.

He’s waiting for Ilsa in the pouring rain, agitated, checking his watch, when Sam hands him a note. The note is from Ilsa, telling him she loves him, but she can’t go with him, and he’s to forget her, and the rain smears the letters into a blur before his stricken face.

Patsy’s voice rises above Rick’s memory of having drunkenly chased Ilsa out of his life. "Anybody here see Wuthering Heights?"

The lobby reeks of popcorn and the buzz of voices as people line up for the next show. Eddie holds her coat open, and she snuggles in. She waits while he puts on his coat and adjusts his hat. This is the last night he’ll wear civilian clothes for a long time. Annalaura can’t settle on how she feels. Proud, of course, when she sees him in his army duds, mixed with dread of what lies ahead. But for his sake, she’ll keep up her brave front.

Outside the Lincoln Theater, the March wind kicks up, biting at her bare legs, blowing her victory curls every which way. She puts her tam on and pulls it down around her ears, and wishes she’d worn stockings instead of the usual socks and loafers. She likes to wear flats next to Eddie, because she’s only a hair shorter than he is.

She pulls on her gloves and looks over the coming attractions posters on the side of the movie house. Double Indemnity, Going My Way, Arsenic and Old Lace. Movies won’t be as much fun without Eddie. She’ll have to write and give him the stories in detail.

A furious honking sounds behind them, and they spin around. Eddie’s pal, Buzzy, is driving at a crawl in his ‘35 Nash Ambassador, his head sticking out the window.

Hey, you chumps! How many times you seen that picture?

Eddie musters his mediocre Bogart imitation. Thish many, shhweetheart. He holds up both hands, displaying ten fingers. Annalaura adds three of her own. It’s our Casablanca anniversary, she calls.

Buzzy lets out a long, low whistle. You headin’ back tomorrow, soldier?

Crack of dawn! Eddie hollers back.

Then what?

Shipping out any day now.

Buzzy whistles again, checks the road, and turns back with a sudden bright smile. Hey. Want me to take care of your girl while you’re gone? He wiggles his eyebrows at Annalaura and winks. She giggles. Buzzy is such a dope.

Nobody takes care of my girl but me! Eddie yells.

Buzzy slaps his steering wheel with a laugh. Be square, man! He gives Eddie a salute and speeds off in a voluminous spurt of exhaust.

I’m gonna miss that knucklehead, Eddie says with a sigh.

How come Buzzy isn’t serving? Annalaura says, meaning How come you’re putting your life on the line and he’s not?

He tried. Flat feet.

Oh. Too bad you don’t have flat feet.

She means it to sound like a joke, of course she does, but her tone betrays her. Eddie ignores it, but a frown plays at the corner of his lips. He’d been talking about signing up since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Annalaura bites her lip. She’s been waiting all week to have him to herself, what with his family and friends, everybody wanting to see Eddie, shake his hand, wish him well.

In case he never comes back.

She pastes a smile on. So did I tell you Charlton Heston got married?

A couple times. He smiles at her, his crooked, endearing smile, and she melts again.

They start walking and he hums As Time Goes By, delighting her by whirling her, right there on the sidewalk with street lights shining over them in golden halos, as if they’re Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

See, I wouldn’t be such a superb dancer if I had flat feet, he says.

It should be the first thing we do when we win the war and you come home, she says. We’ll go to the Meadowbrook and celebrate. She has to keep thinking forward. Planning for the future shows faith he’ll come back, doesn’t it?

He transitions her into a dramatic tango that makes her giggle. You should go sometimes, he says as they pause to catch their breath before they continue walking.

Where?

Dancing.

What, without you?

Sure. Get out once in a while. I don’t want you moping around.

I won’t mope.

Riiight.

I won’t. I’ll have plenty to do. I’ll have a ton of homework, I’ve got my tutoring kids, and my volunteer stuff at the canteen. She’d be busy, all right. She’ll be doing anything to keep her mind off Eddie. She’d seen enough war movies to know what could happen to him.

They pass a house with red and black ribbons adorning the windows, the Kearny High School colors. The Kardinals are playing Ridgewood this week, one of the better teams in New Jersey. Bare wisteria entwines the picket fence, bordered with winter jasmine and a few struggling, deep-blue violets. Eddie reaches over the fence to pick a sprig of violets and presents it with a flourish to Annalaura.

She smiles at the drops of moisture—her mother would have called them angel tears—sparkling on the petals.

It matches your eyes, he says. She tucks it in the top button hole of her coat.

The air is raw, so they duck inside Whelan’s for a soda and wave at Annalaura’s friend, Millie, seated on a stool behind the counter, bent over a book. The place is empty, except for Joey Busco and Annette Hansen necking in the back booth, no doubt inspired by "In the Mood '' playing on the jukebox.

They pick a booth midway, shed their coats and gloves, and slide in on the same side. Annalaura rubs her frozen nose as Millie rises with a groan and walks over to them.

This place is dead tonight, thank God, she says, leaning a hip against the table, hovering a pencil over her order pad. You’re the only ones interrupting my calc homework.

Annalaura laughs. Sorry. You ready for the test tomorrow?

She shrugs. Doesn’t matter. I never pull more than a C.

I could tutor you, Annalaura says for maybe the hundredth time.

Naw. I complain, but all I want is to make it through the year and get the heck out. Did you guys hear Mount Vesuvius erupted? What a blast. My boss is gonna create a milkshake named after it, so stay tuned. The usual? Millie says, already scribbling it down.

Sure, Eddie tells her, and she sashays away.

So, say, I have... he begins.

Listen, I’ve got... They speak over one another, laugh, and she motions for him to go first.

I have something for you. He reaches into his coat and pulls a small yellow-wrapped package from his pocket and holds it out to her.

Hey, you said no presents. He’d told her to forget about any going-away gifts. He wouldn’t be able to take anything with him.

It’s for your birthday. I won’t be here in June, so...

She ticks at the paper with her nail and unwraps a small box. Aw, Eddie, she says when she holds up a chain with a silver heart. Don’t start bawling.

There’s an etching on the back of the heart. Matthew 6:21. It’s his special verse for her. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I could be gone a long time, he says. It’s so you don’t forget how I feel about you.

As if she could. Her eyes sting. Crying would be a disaster. Crying would make him feel terrible, then she’d feel guilty, then he’d feel guilty and it would ruin his last night home. She turns and blinks the tears away, holding her tawny-colored hair up to let him struggle with the tiny clasp behind her neck.

It’s a locket, he says.

Yeah? What kinda picture should I put inside?

He laughs. Whatever you want.

I want you not to go. She swivels around, fiddles with her purse while she collects herself. I got you something too. That you can take with you, she adds at the objection she knows is coming. She withdraws a small box and hands it to him.

He flushes when he unwraps it and holds up a chain with a silver cross. Gee, that’s swell, Annie. He turns and lets her hook the chain behind his neck, and the cross clinks against his dog tags.

Millie walks over and leaves a root beer float with two straws on the table. Annalaura averts her misty eyes. A long-time friend, Millie doesn’t remark on it, but leaves the order ticket on the table marked Paid in Full. Eddie gives her a questioning look.

My bit for the cause, she says, and bends to give him a quick hug. Stay safe, you big lug.

He gives her an affectionate arm punch, and she retreats behind the counter with her calc book.

Now that they’re alone, after the fanfare of the week; going-away parties, endless photographs and well-wishes from friends, and after her bumbling explanation about the necklace, Annalaura is tongue-tied. What can she say? The entire country had held its breath when Hitler invaded Poland, and watched with restrained anticipation while the rest of the world was dragged, country by country, into the war. President Roosevelt had ordered aid to the Allies but up to then had stayed out of the fray. But then Pearl Harbor, and the horror of it roused the American spirit into defending its own.

Eddie had spent months going through Basic, then Advanced. Now all that’s left is for him to head overseas. There had been a stark dividing line in Annalaura’s life—Before Mommy Died, and After Mommy Died. Now a new one is poised to force its way forward; Before Eddie Left and After Eddie Left.

They sip at their straws to ignore the gentle awkwardness between them, but in no time, the glass gurgles empty and then heavy silence. Annalaura rests her hand on his thigh and he lays his hand on hers, caressing it with his thumb. His hand is rough—long hours working at the restaurant. She imagines they’ll get rougher still while he’s away.

Are you scared, Eddie?

He takes a moment before answering. It doesn’t feel real enough to be scared. He leans back against the cushioned seat and looks at her in a way she can’t decipher. I’ll write you every chance I get, Annie.

Me too.

You can keep me updated on how the Hestons’ marriage is going.

She gives him a lackluster smile. Okay, sure.

When I get back we’ll get married, like we planned. A little later, that’s all. You still want to honeymoon in California, right? Collect a bunch of movie star autographs?

She nods.

Right, so keep up on that, going through all those girlie magazines and making wedding plans.

She laughs. They’re bridal magazines, not girlie ones.

Right. He shoots her a sheepish smile. In the meantime, you graduate and get through college. Stay busy. It’ll all be okay, you’ll see. Nothing will change.

But he’s wrong, because everything had already changed. The whole world had changed.

Hey, remember this? Eddie reaches inside his coat. She laughs when he unfolds a photograph of her from two years before, at the Lincoln, the first time they saw Casablanca. Hair in a ponytail, hugging a bag of popcorn, pursing her lips at the camera.

I’m taking it with me, Eddie says.

I didn’t have a smitch of makeup on, she says, frowning. Maybe we can take a new one, with my hair down.

Nope, this is my favorite. You were so happy.

He checks his watch as he tucks the photograph  away. I’ll need to get you home in a little while. Your curfew.

She shakes her head. Auntie Etta and Uncle Curtis are tough about the rules on a school night, but they’ll give her leeway on Eddie’s last night.

He brushes something off the table that isn’t there. Listen. I don’t want you to be worrying all the time or anything, okay?

She sits back and takes the flower from her coat, twirling it, watching the petals blur into one another. Her answer is slow. How can she promise such a thing? They send the boys home for a week before they’re shipped out. Because a lot of them don’t make it home.

I won’t. She’s pretty sure he knows she’s lying.

He puts his arm around her and turns her face to his. Tell me.

Eddie always says that when he knows she’s not being forthcoming. Her eyes fill and she shakes her head. It’s just... I always knew where you were, you know? Fort Dix wasn’t so bad, we still could see each other sometimes. Basic in Texas, not so bad, you could still call. But now you’ll be on the other side of the world. Like, who will I spend an hour on the telephone with every night, and how can we discuss the best date to get married, or the color for my bridesmaids' dresses? She looks down at her hands. The flower lies twisted and broken in her lap. I’m feeling sorry for myself. Don’t worry about me.

He squeezes her shoulder. I’m coming back, Annie. You have to believe that. I’ll say Psalm 91 every day. God’ll watch my back.

I know, she says, because He has to. He has to. And she can’t let Eddie doubt it, so she puts on her best smile and pretends it’s okay.

Pink, he says.

She stares at him. What?

Pink. You know, that color of that pretty dress you wore to Homecoming?

Flamingo.

What?

That was flamingo.

That’s a color?

Sure.

Huh.

Eddie used to have a cowlick that spilled over his left eye and she would whisk the dark  strands from his brow. That was before his head had been shaved to within a fraction of its life. She reaches up now and runs her finger across his forehead where the cowlick used to be.

He takes her hand and kisses the knuckles. Keep up with the Dodgers for me, okay, and write me the details?

Even when they lose?

Listen. When Pee Wee Reese gets back from service, they’ll be back to their old pennant days, you’ll see.

She nods.

Need you to be strong, okay? A squeeze on her hand.

Yep.

You’ll wait for me?

Aw, Eddie, of course I will.

He frowns as he studies her. Eddie has amazing eyes, the striking gray/blue of a stormy sky. When he looks at her, she feels like she’s the most important person in the world. He cocks his head. Okay?

She nods. Okay, and tries a smile.

He smiles and kisses her. His lips still taste of butter as they brush against hers and she forgets about everything else, about Casablanca and Wuthering Heights, about college, about the hushed murmurings of Joey Busco and Annette Hansen in the back booth, and what color her bridesmaids dresses should be, and all the other things that seemed worth the trouble before now. Now is only Eddie, and his buttery kiss. Then he buries his face in her hair, and they both allow a few tears to fall, and she thinks maybe he’s right.

Maybe it will all be okay.

HELLO?

This is the operator. I have a call for Annalaura Ward from Edward Hennessy.

Yes! Please put him through.

One moment, please.

The click of silverware on china halts as her aunt and uncle freeze and stare at her over their dinner plates. Patsy stops with the icebox door open, milk bottle in hand.

Annalaura opens the pantry and strains the short cord from its coiled position on the wall to its full capacity as she enters and shuts the door behind her.

Annie.

Eddie! You sound so far away. Cacophony behind his voice makes her struggle to hear him.

I’m in Portland.

Maine?

Oregon.

Oh. Gee. Here it is. She crouches down, staring at the light bleeding through the louvered door, creating stripes across the shelves of canned goods and jars of apple butter. She lays a hand on her stomach. She wills the right words to come, but her mind can’t focus on anything but the smell of meatloaf leaking through the slats.

This is it, Babe, he says. We’re boarding now.

Boarding. She tries to process. Boarding? She holds a finger to her free ear, as if it will quell the hubbub on Eddie’s end.

A ship, Babe. They’re separating us from the 12th.

He’s talking too fast, she can’t process. She thought she was prepared for this.

She’s not. 12th? I don’t—

I sent you a letter about it but you won’t get it for a few days. He’s raising his voice over the yelling in the background, many voices competing with one another, the resounding bleat of a ship, a maelstrom of rising and fading noise.

Where are you going?

Can’t say.

What! But how will I write—

"Please deposit five cents," the operator says.

Annalaura waits while Eddie jingles in a nickel. Look, never mind that, he says, I only have a minute. I wanted to say, you know, I love you, Annie.

I... She clutches at the heart on the chain around her neck. I love you, too.

What?

I said I love you, too!

Hey, remember—

Yes?

Flamingo, okay?

She swallows. Right, flamingo. I’ll remember. Eddie, I’ll—

I gotta go, Annie. I’ll write as soon as I can.

Okay, but... The line is already dead. She huddles there inert, holding the receiver in her hand till the operator comes on the line.

Number, please.

She rises and opens the door, hangs the receiver back on the wall. Patsy is still standing in front of the open icebox door, and Uncle Curtis isn’t even asking her if she’s trying to cool down the whole house. He and Auntie Etta have stopped eating, holding hands on the table between their plates. They all look at her like three wide-eyed hungry baby owls.

He’s going to the Pacific, Annalaura says.

He said that? Uncle Curtis asks, because troops are forbidden to reveal their movements, for fear of enemy intercept.

Annalaura shakes her head. He didn't have to. He's boarding a ship in Portland. If he was heading for Europe, he'd be on the East coast. He's going to fight Japan.

Annalaura turns to Auntie Etta. May I be excused? I’m not hungry. Auntie Etta nods and Annalaura retreats upstairs to the room she shares with her cousin, to envision in solitude all the unimaginable things that could happen to Eddie.

2

17 April 1944, Cpl. Edward R. Hennessy, Troopship Kota Baroe

Dear Annie,

Did you catch that Cpl? Yeah, they kicked me up a couple of stairs. How about that? Sarge says anybody handles a weapon like me ought to at least be a corporal. It’s not hard to get the hang of. It’s easy. You just aim and shoot.

Sorry to write so much. Not much else to do around here. I knew we were in for a long trip, but we’re going a little stir-crazy.

Eddie pauses to noodle with the radio, trying to stop the fading in and out. It’s talking about the U.S.S.R. and its success in reclaiming Crimea, but it’s almost time for Canteen Girl, when the guys can listen to a little American music. He’d written to her with a song request before they left Camp Barkeley, but so far had heard nothing. Tonight, with a storm outside, reception is spotty. Won’t it figure if tonight is the night she plays his song.

Eddie lays the letter aside and crouches on the floor in front of the radio which is bolted onto a small table which is bolted to the floor. The ship is rolling pretty good, making his handwriting questionable anyway, and he wasn’t comfortable on his bunk. They call them bunks, but truth is they’re hammocks, four to a column. The Kota Baroe is one of many civilian freighters that were revamped as a troopship for the war. The hammocks get to swaying when the water is turbulent, but Eddie is one of the lucky ones. Slattery, in the bunk above him, has spent much of the voyage so far in a state of green-faced motion sickness, curled up with a pillow over his head and a bucket cradled against his chest.

Brancato swings his legs over the side of his bunk alongside Eddie’s, lights a cigarette, and looks at the picture of Annalaura that’s pinned up on the wall amongst various wives, girlfriends and pin-ups of Jane Russell and Betty Grable’s Million Dollar Legs.

Your sweetheart’s some kinda doll, ain’t she? He blows out a puff of smoke. Ruthie’s home ready to pop a kid and I’ll be all the way over on the edge of tomorrow.

Eddie kisses his forefinger and taps it on the snapshot. So far the radio isn’t yielding much beyond static.

McJeffries—who everybody calls Jeff even though his name is Norman—is on his back in the hammock above Brancato, thumping against the wall a baseball he claims is signed by three of the Boston Braves, but that’s been in dispute since they sailed. Tell you what. First thing I do when I get back is drag Frances to the Justice of the Peace. Never thought I’d miss that dame so much.

Brancato jumps up and knocks Eddie’s hand from the radio. The show’ll be over by the time you’re done monkeying around. Lemme show you chowderheads how it’s done in San Diego.

He dips into the pocket of his coat that’s over the bunk and extracts a small piece of tinfoil from a gum wrapper. He swipes it across his tongue as if he’s rolling a cigarette and fashions something of an extension to the tip of the antenna, bending it this way and that till the crackling becomes the soothing voice of Canteen Girl.

The men gather around to listen. The precious fifteen minutes of the show afford them a wistful glimpse of the home that’s already a good six-thousand miles away.

Eddie leans back into his hammock, listening to Canteen Girl’s sweet voice, and turns a longing look at Annalaura’s picture, missing her and everybody and everything. He hopes they’ll be able to get the show wherever they end up.

She sings a few songs, reads a few letters, and the fifteen minutes is over.

Hey, Hennessy, Wilkins, a little blonde-headed guy from Milwaukee, she didn’t sing your song.

Maybe next week, Kovaleski says Maybe she didn’t even get your letter yet.

Yeah, mail gets held up all the time, Brancato says. Murmured agreement all around.

The men are quiet as they shuffle back to whatever had occupied them earlier. Then, a muffled warbling from under the pillow on Slattery’s bunk, the words to As Time Goes By.

The barrack breaks into the Casablanca theme song and Eddie sits there, shaking his head. Then he stands, snatches the baseball from McJeffries, and pitches it at the pillow, and the barrack explodes in laughter.

You know, Annie, you asked me if I was scared. I am. First, though, it doesn’t feel like scared. First it feels excited. Then after excited wears off, it just feels ready. Then it feels scared. Funny, right? All I wanted since Pearl was to be a soldier.

I wonder sometimes what God thinks of this war. Remember that story, when the Roman soldier asks Jesus what he should do? Jesus didn’t tell him to stop being a soldier, right? In the psalms David says God teaches his hands to war. I don’t know, Annie. Maybe it’s necessary sometimes. Like for everything there is a season and all that. I figure whatever worked for David should work for me.

I don’t know when this will reach you. I love you, Annalaura. That will always be the most beautiful name I ever heard.

Pray for us.

Yours, Eddie

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid, he whispers to her photograph.

They know they’re headed to the Pacific theater. They talk about it on the regular. Nobody knows much about the string of islands or the archipelago of the Philippines, except Kovaleski, who claims to have done a geography report on Saipan, the largest of the Marianas, in eighth grade.

Eddie has at least one goal to keep his mind occupied and not dwell too much on their chance for survival. Rumor has it that Pee Wee Reese is somewhere in the Pacific, and Eddie aims to track him down and get him to autograph something. 

He passes the letter to the staff sergeant when he comes collecting, and settles back on his hammock, which swings in such a way that makes him feel like a baby being rocked.

A convulsive bout of dry heaves serenades him from above, and Slattery’s hand dangles down toward Eddie.

Man, lemme have your Mothersill’s, you’re not using ‘em. I’m dyin’ over here.

Eddie grabs a wrapper of pink and brown capsules from his duffle bag, hands them up and lays back again.

The ship smells something like shrimp cooked in rubber with a side of rotten egg. He’s so used to it he only notices it in the quiet times. The occasional yaw, creaks and groans make him think about the summer family reunions spent down the Jersey shore when he was younger, and the fishing boat his Uncle Ned kept docked at the marina on Long Beach Island. Ned and Ed, his uncle always chanted as they headed out to the bay, full steam ahead, get back in time or better off dead! Because if they didn’t make it back to their bungalow by five p.m., Aunt Gertrude would disfavor Uncle Ned with a sour puss no matter how many king crabs they brought back. Suppertime was suppertime.

Eddie was the one kid in the bunch who didn’t get bored after they let down the crab traps, with Uncle Ned cracking open a few beers and Eddie sipping Coca-Cola, listening, enraptured, to Uncle Ned’s repeated recitations of his own war stories.

As the surrounding sounds of horse-playing, card shuffling and yammering still, he thinks about home, about his parents and kid sister Winnie. He thinks about his dad having to mow the lawn when summer comes now that Eddie’s gone, and that he forgot to tell him his mom will fuss unless the grass is cut in nice neat rows, and the forsythia bushes trimmed so they’re not blocking the window.

Sometimes, when Annalaura first moved in across the street, Eddie would watch her if she appeared while he pretended not to notice, tilting his head back to take a drink between rows while his eyes were on her. He didn’t want to think of himself as some kind of perv, but heck, she was good-looking even back then.

He thinks about Hennessy’s, their little restaurant where Eddie spent most Saturdays and evenings, dishing out plates of lamb stew and spiced beef with potatoes and his mom’s chocolate Guinness cake, and although he complained from time to time, he loves the crowded little joint and he doesn’t mind all the work, sort of misses it now. He wonders how his old man will manage without him.

He fingers the cross at his neck, and he thinks about Easter and how it will be the first time in his whole life he won’t go to church, and how Annalaura won’t be able to rope him into helping with the Easter egg hunt for the small kids, and how ironic it is that Christ died to give him life because it would be a crying shame if it got cut short so far from home.

He pulls his Bible out and thumbs through to Psalm 91. They’re not allowed to keep diaries that could be intercepted by the enemy, but a lot of the men have Bibles tucked into their uniforms. He writes Take care of her for me in the margin.

What you always reading in that Bible of yours? Brancato turns on his side in his hammock, propping up on his elbow.

A psalm. It’s the psalm of protection. Thought it was a good idea.

Brancato sits up. Go ahead, read it out loud.

Yeah, out loud, Wilkins says from a bunk away. He waves his hands. Everybody shut up. Hennessy’s gonna read the Bible.

The barrack quieted, except for one sound of grumbling from the end of the row. Just what we need, to be stuck in close quarters with a preacher.

Aw, put a sock in it, Peterson, Brancato says. You wanna save your sorry soul, don’tcha?

Peterson scratches his chin. Well, yeah, I guess.

Go ahead, Hennessy. Brancato lights a cigarette and gives Eddie his full attention.

Eddie repositions and clears his throat.

"‘He who dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High

shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust:

his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;

nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;

Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand;

but it shall not come near thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold