One Lavender Ribbon

Chapter 4

Adrienne crossed town, headed for Leo’s Diner. Her car windows were down, allowing Florida’s salty coastal wind to reach in the windows and muss her hair. She relished it. After all, southern Florida was her dream, with its perfect weather and tropical vibe. She’d wanted to move here since they’d vacationed on Sanibel Island a few years back. It’s what Eric had promised her, but never delivered. So she was committed to enjoying every sunny day Bonita Springs would produce. It was early June now, and splatters of new flowers were beginning to spring up everywhere. She’d been there since March and didn’t think it was possible for everything to get greener, but as summer approached, it had. The rainy season ushered in with it the explosion of new foliage.

She tried to concentrate on what she might plant in her front yard, but thoughts of where she was headed and what she was about to do kept interrupting. Twice she nearly turned the car around and went home. But something compelled her. She knew she was becoming obsessed with this couple, but couldn’t help herself. A nagging thought kept haunting her mind. Where was Gracie? These letters were hers. She would never have left them behind.

Leo Sanderson was a wiry, eighty-three-year-old man who still walked to his diner every day. Early each morning, he trekked the block and a half, turned on the open sign, and greeted his regulars while pouring them a cup of his deadly strong coffee. He stayed until two, made the trek home, and did it all again the next day. As he was a well-known Bonita Springs character, Adrienne had heard the stories. She’d only visited the diner a couple times, but he’d made it a point to greet her and offer her coffee on both occasions.

Already having been warned about the brew, now she’d opted for iced tea. She took a seat near the front door and waited to speak with him. It was nearly two o’clock when he finally made his way over. With an upturned palm, she motioned for him to sit. He put the coffee pot down on the Formica table, as was his custom when he’d visit and joke with customers.

They exchanged pleasantries, but she wasn’t here for chit-chat. She got right to business and handed him the picture. “Do you know him?”

“Sure do. William Bryant,” he said, studying the photo. “I haven’t thought about him in years. But we were pretty tight way back when. Several of us local boys enlisted together.”

Adrienne leaned closer, heart racing at the confirmation that this was the man she’d hoped was William.

Smoke-stained fingers pointed to the girl. “That would be Sara.”

“So, that’s what Sara looks like. Can you tell me about Sara and Gracie?”

“William was like me. Poor. His dad owned a local business, but it went under, leaving the family with nothing. William could play ball, though. Probably had a shot at the big time if he hadn’t enlisted.” He leaned back a little. “’Course, no one knew at the time what the future would hold for baseball. Some said it’d end ’cause of the war.”

She thought back to the letters. “He enlisted to please Grace’s parents?”

“Gracie’s momma. Gracie was her trophy daughter. ’Cause she’d run out of money herself, it was up to Gracie to marry well. William came along and ruined that. Enlisting was his way of being respectable enough to marry. We all had our reasons for signing up.”

Leo slid the photo across the table to her. “Why do you want to know all this?”

Adrienne opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She couldn’t really explain her obsession or why it was so monumentally important to know that this one solitary man got what he so deserved. “I just . . . I found some things in the attic of my house that belong to her. I thought maybe she might like to have them. I don’t think they were meant to be left.”

For a moment he didn’t speak, just studied her with watery gray eyes.

The diner around them grew quiet as the few families that had come in for a late lunch exited the restaurant. She watched a couple of beachgoers slip out the door, the scent of coconut suntan lotion lingering in the air. Her attention went back to Leo. With the deep wrinkles that creased his face and throat, the older man looked every bit of his eighty-three years.

“Gracie’s dead. She died in ’45.”

He continued speaking, but Adrienne heard nothing but the single word that rolled over and over in her mind. Dead. A quick breath escaped her mouth. Regret surged through her, because she’d built the couple a neat little love story in her mind: William returning, the two marrying, having maybe a half-dozen kids, and living out a wonderful life. The tingling sensation started in her nose; tears would follow if she didn’t get a grip. She fisted her hands. She should have just read the letters and left it at that. Of course, in the back of her mind she’d known the likelihood of an eighty-something woman still being alive was a fifty-fifty shot at best. But dead since 1945? That meant she’d died just a couple of short years after William left to serve his country.

Sun beaming in the large windows made the restaurant feel stuffy. Suffocating. “How?” she finally managed.

Leo studied her for a long moment. “Look, I don’t know why you want to know about Gracie. Honestly, she wasn’t worth the time you’re spending on her.”

Adrienne’s eyes widened. How could he say that? Gracie was the woman William Bryant fell in love with, the woman that kept him from giving up during the war.

Leo was perturbed—maybe even angry—and Adrienne felt like she’d somehow opened an old wound.

Scratching his balding head of sparse springy white hairs, he pushed himself away from the table, piercing gray eyes locked on the window pane.

Maybe she didn’t have the stomach for this. “I’m sorry.”

Leo remained silent.

She shook her head to clear her fear. “I have some letters written by William. He talks about Grace like she was an angel.”

Leo flashed a disgusted smile. “Yeah, she was good at making people think of her that way.”

Adrienne’s eyes fell to the photo. “I thought she loved him.”

“Oh, she did.” Sarcasm edged his words. “Until he left. Then she quickly fell in love with the new guy in town. William deserved so much more. He’s a good man.”

Her journey and the hope of William and Gracie ended right here with Leo. For all she knew, they were both dead, and there’d been no one in the upstairs window of Will’s house. She’d probably imagined it, just like she imagined a neat tidy life for William and Grace. Then Leo’s words sank in. “Did you say he is a good man?”

But Leo was taking his own trip into what was proving to be a painful past. “He came home to learn that Gracie had run off with a traveling salesman—a draft dodger no less—and that she died in a car wreck not a hundred miles from town. William lost everything for her.”

“The picture. Was it Grace on the other side?”

“I suspect.” His hand touched the jagged edge. “Probably tore herself off to give to that poor excuse for a man she ran off with.”

Adrienne’s head began to pound with slow rhythmic force. She needed to leave. Just go home, stop prying, but even as her mind agreed, her mouth was asking more questions. “What do you mean William lost everything for her?”

“He came home crippled from the war. A hero, though,” he added as an afterthought. “Screaming Eagle, one of the best.”

The twinkle in Leo’s eyes made him seem younger. Or maybe it was a mistiness that accompanied wizened old men as they chatted openly about difficulties most people would never endure. Either way, it was rare. Beautiful, tragic, and very rare.

“I’d like to know more about him, if you don’t mind.”

Leo shot a glance up to the wall clock. “Sorry. Past my nap time.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “If you want to know more about William, maybe you should go ask him.”

“He is still alive, then? Do you think he’d be open to talking with me?” Adrienne blurted.

“Sure. Can that little sports car make it to Naples? Far as I know, he still lives there.”

“Naples,” she echoed. Her car could make it. She’d just been there last week. “He lives with his grandson, doesn’t he?”

Leo nodded. “Need directions?”

“No.” She could find William Bryant’s house without directions or the help of her GPS. Will Bryant. She thought back on the conversation the two had shared. He had never said he didn’t know another William Bryant, just that he couldn’t help her. “Men,” she mumbled. Maybe the younger generation was all the same. In Chicago and here in Bonita Springs, telling half-truths whenever it suited their needs. Like Eric telling her they’d move to Florida. That one wasn’t even a half-truth.

Before buying the house, she’d never heard of Bonita Springs, Florida, but had found it while searching property for sale on the Gulf Coast. She’d always wanted to live by the sea. But Eric had refused after promising her in college. Chicago was the only place for a brilliant young cardiologist. Plus, it was on Lake Michigan, so she convinced herself it would almost be like living on the coast. But a lake, even a massive one, was vastly different from the ocean. She’d grown to love the city but never sank roots. Her heart yearned for something else. Someplace with sand and salt.

“Thanks for your help, Leo.”

“Good luck.”

Adrienne bid Leo good-bye with a new zeal squelched only by the pang of sadness about Gracie. But William had returned from the war, and now she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d come home to. It had been a bittersweet homecoming, no doubt.

A whole new barrage of questions accompanied her as she drove the palm-lined streets toward home. How could anyone not love a man like William Bryant? Someone with something to hide? The letters were left in the attic. Someone with a secret? It still seemed like they were hidden, not just left behind. Leo assumed Gracie had removed herself from the photo. Sara and William were still in the picture. That was her sister and her boyfriend. But why tear it? Maybe Gracie had given it to someone else, or maybe she’d done it in anger. Adrienne would probably never know.

It was time to put this to rest. Go home and let her imagination finish the story where the letters left off. The reality was no fairy tale. William and Gracie had lived. And as she had so achingly come to understand, especially in the last several months, life was messy. Ugly, even.

But her heart went out to the brave young soldier who’d gone off to fight a war in the hopes of earning the respect of his girlfriend’s mother. She wondered if he had recovered from Gracie’s betrayal and from the wound that left him crippled.

Adrienne pulled her car into the driveway. She stared at the house. Her house. Perhaps she had learned enough about its history. It was the future she was interested in, not the past. She’d dealt with enough drama in the last months leading up to her divorce. She didn’t need to stir up more. She’d keep the letters she’d read, but return the rest to the attic. The words were the treasure. More drama, she couldn’t handle.

She turned off her car engine and listened to it tick. Beyond the windows, she could hear birds, but right now their song wasn’t soothing. Adrienne understood wounds, scars. She could identify with the kind of pain he must have felt. She and William Bryant had one thing in common. And it was beginning to cut a little too close to her own heart again. Only six years ago, she had thought her world was going to be fairy-tale perfect. But there was no “happily ever after.”

As she exited the car, the Florida sun shone down on her, showering its approval of her decision. The front door no longer groaned when she opened it. She’d purchased the lubricant and tightened the hinges herself. The house was her project, not a mystery from half a century past.

But when she stepped inside, there on the little table next to the door were the letters. The letters that read like poetry. And she couldn’t help herself as her fingers reached out and snatched them up. She went to the kitchen, made some iced tea, and stepped out onto the back deck, to her favorite chair.

The afternoon breeze glided over the water, and rays of light peeked from behind a smattering of clouds. She gazed up at the burning ball, awaiting an accusation, but instead found its warmth kissing her cheeks. The water-cooled air drifted up to her with the aroma of summer riding its wings. She leaned back in the lawn chair, hair dancing across her shoulders and arms. She hoisted the stack of letters to her lap, a contented smile on her face. It was a perfect day to sit and read.

September 1944

Dear Gracie,

Even as I write this, I am reluctant to pen the words. I have walked so many miles since I’ve been here, and thought of you with each step. You are what keeps me alive and keeps me moving forward when my heart would cry out to stop.

The camp is quiet, most are sleeping or what we’ve come to know as sleeping. Our numbers have diminished. There is constant shelling from the Germans. But it is not that which scares me. I think what frightens me the most is the dark hopelessness that stalks among the trees, lurking in the shadows. I dare not dwell on it. It is death. No less than a grenade, a strategic bullet, or artillery fire. We have become mechanical in our work. I think this is a blessing. When we watch a friend fall in battle, we grieve, then move on. There is no choice. We must keep moving on.

Gracie, I have a favor to ask of you and Sara. Please don’t give up. As long as I know the two of you believe in me, I am able to conquer any foe, be it one German foot soldier or the entire German Army.

Thank you for your last letter. I received it just as we were shipping out. When we invaded Normandy, other letters were lost, as was all of my gear when we made the jump. I am so sorry. Each one is golden to me. But I reread them in my mind over and over. It may be some time before our mail catches up to us again, but please have words for me. Tell me you love me, and remind me of home.

How is sweet Sara? Tell her I often think about the day I found her at the swimming hole. She’d been crying, and my heart went out to her. I’ve never known a more tender soul than sweet Sara. Please, Gracie, don’t forget to let her know that. If you see my parents, tell them I miss them. Like you, they didn’t want me to come here, but I will not let them down.

Gracie, you have all the love that’s in me.

Forever yours,

William

Adrienne tried to imagine where Grace had sat while she read the letters. Alone in her room? Outside by the shore? And Sara, the tender soul: How did she handle losing William, her friend, the one who found her crying at the swimming hole? Adrienne took a break from the letters to make a sandwich, focusing on William, not on Gracie’s betrayal. Soon, she found it easy to approach the letters with the same innocent wonder that first drew her to them and to the heroic stranger she read about.

Enjoying a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich and cold milk on ice, her gaze fell on the phone directory, where she’d first discovered the address for William Bryant. Leaning against the sink, she balanced her weight on one foot and crossed the other in front of her, then stopped when she realized it was the same posture the man, William—Everyone calls me Will—Bryant had assumed when he stood at the doorway of his home in Naples. Slowly, she lifted the sandwich to her lips and took another bite.

Her mind drifted back to William Bryant, the war veteran. Each time a pebble landed in the water, there was a ripple effect. This was a ripple she wasn’t sure she could contain. But she knew it was inevitable. Sooner or later, she was going to go back to that house in Naples to knock on the door again. She was too nosy. If she didn’t go today, it was only a matter of time. And time, when an eighty-plus-year-old man was involved, was not to be wasted. At the end of the day, the letters belonged to William. He should have them.