She wanted this. A wedding, a family, a baby.
How could she possibly be granted such grace after an affair? God and goodness and grace demanded change for redemption.
Every moment she spent at the reception, Frankie felt like a liar, a cheat. She drank too much and was unsteady on her feet when Barb and Jere drove off for their honeymoon.
“Are you okay?” Ethel asked, standing beside her, holding her hand, looking at her with love and worry in her eyes.
Frankie couldn’t stand it. Suddenly she didn’t want Ethel to love her, to care about her, to hold her hand. How could Frankie deserve such friendship? She mumbled an excuse, said she was tired, or too drunk, or just plain sad; she couldn’t really remember her words. All she knew was that she needed to leave. Now, before she broke down in front of her friend.
She took a taxi back to the hotel, gathered up her things, and went to the airport, waiting hours for her flight, long enough to sober up, which only made her feel worse.
At home, she sat in her living room, chain-smoking, drinking gin, tapping her foot nervously, waiting for Rye, determined to tell him she’d had enough. She couldn’t live like this anymore.
When he finally showed up, flowers in hand, she made him stay outside.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “It’s breaking me apart, Rye. I’m sorry. I can’t be the other woman anymore. It’s wrong.”
She waited for him to answer; when he didn’t, she took a step back, started to close the door.
Slowly, in the new and broken way he moved, he lowered himself to one knee. She could see how much it hurt him to do. “Will you marry me, Frankie?”
Frankie burst into tears, realizing just then how long she’d been waiting for this, how intensely she needed it. This would right them both, make everything okay, wash her of this sin. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
He climbed painfully back to his feet; she helped him. “I want us,” he said in a gruff voice. “You. Me. A baby…”
“Thank God,” Frankie said, pulling him into the house and back to her bedroom. Her whole body was shaking.
It would be okay. Finally.
He leaned toward her for a kiss. She met him more than halfway.
* * *
Autumn on Coronado Island came late this year, and gradually, a turning of the leaves, a need for sweaters at night, an emptying of the beaches. Once again, the restaurants on Orange Avenue were filled with locals instead of tourists. School buses had returned to their routes in the first week of September; to Frankie these were the things that would always mean fall.
On this cool late November day, almost ten months after Rye’s return from Vietnam, Frankie put on a jacquard-patterned knit dress, parted her long, straight hair down the middle, pulled it back into a ponytail, and then drove to the hospital.
At the director of nursing’s office, she was instructed to wait.
Frankie was ready for this meeting, more than ready. In the two months since Rye’s proposal, she had started to become herself again. They had talked about wedding rings, and honeymoon plans, and a ceremony on the beach. Kauai for their honeymoon, for another week at the Coco Palms. He was ready to merge into her world, talk to her parents. She couldn’t wait to tell her friends and family. Barb and Ethel. Oh, they would look askance at first, maybe wonder at her morality, but she would never tell them that she and Rye had slept together before his divorce. That shame she’d bear alone.
“Frankie? She’ll see you now.”
Frankie stood up. Holding her purse close, she walked into the office and took a seat when directed.
“Hello, Mrs. Stone,” she said, sitting in the ladylike way she’d been taught a lifetime ago when the world had been softer, different. Back straight, chin up, legs crossed at the ankles. She knew she looked better than she had the last time she’d been here. This morning it had taken only one pill to rouse her spirits. In the past month she’d cut back. “I wanted to thank you for suspending me,” she said. “I know that sounds odd, but you were right. I was underwater. I might have made a mistake in the OR, and I couldn’t have lived with that.”
“You’re one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with,” Mrs. Stone said. “But the last time I called you for work, you sounded impaired.”
Frankie hoped she didn’t flinch. “Just before my first coffee. Moving a little slow. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” she lied.
“I know about the pain of a miscarriage. And my husband served in Korea. He’s told me that some … experiences settle in our bodies as well as our minds. Perhaps you need help dealing with some things?”
“I’m fine. Truly.”
“Even if one’s experience isn’t as traumatic as combat, I’m told wartime can rather upend a man for a time.”
A man.
“I’m ready to go back to work, ma’am,” Frankie said. “I may soon even have some good news to share that will put your mind at ease.”
Mrs. Stone studied her for a long moment. “All right, Frankie. In fact, Karen Ellis called in sick today. Can you finish out her shift?”
“Of course. I still have scrubs in my locker.” Frankie stood up. “You won’t regret it, ma’am.”
“See that I don’t.”
Frankie left the office filled with hope.
This was the first step to recovery. She would be herself again in no time. Marry Rye and wear white. Not some off-the-rack prom dress this time. With Rye, she wanted it all: the gown, the veil, the church, the cake.
* * *
A week later, Frankie stared down at a display of wedding rings in the jeweler’s case.
“May I help you, miss?” the clerk asked her.
Frankie glanced at her watch. Her shift at the hospital started soon. “No, thank you. I guess my fiancé has been detained,” she lied. Next time she came to this store, she would bring Rye with her, see what kind of ring he wanted and show him her favorites. There was nothing wrong or weird with her looking by herself, was there?
Leaving the store, she drove across town to the medical center, which rose tall and white against the morning’s cloudless cerulean sky. Inside, she changed into her teal-blue scrubs, covered her long hair with a cap, and headed to the surgical floor.
She assisted on one surgery after another for hours. At the end of her shift, she checked on her patients, and then headed down to the first floor.
In the lobby, she saw a crowd of men in suits gathered around the desk. Most were scribbling in open notepads.
Reporters.
Probably some famous local resident had given birth; like Raquel Welch, who had been Raquel Tejada back when she’d been crowned the Fairest of the Fair at the San Diego County Fair. Or maybe an actor had died.
Frankie headed for the door. As she passed the clot of reporters, she heard someone say, “Lieutenant Commander Walsh.”
Frankie stopped, turned back. Pushing through the reporters, she got to the front of them just as the woman at the desk was saying, “We respect our patients’ privacy. You know that. You may not speak to them yet. I’ve called security.”
“But it isn’t every day a former prisoner of war—”
Frankie edged around the reporters, ducked behind the front desk, and sidled up to one of the women seated there. “The reporters. They want to see—”
“Some famous guy’s wife. A prisoner of war. Walsh.”
His wife. “Is she okay?”
The woman shrugged.
“Where is she?”
“Four-ten B.”
Frankie went to the elevator and pushed the button impatiently. It wasn’t until she stepped inside that she realized where she was going.
The fourth floor.
Ping! The doors opened.
She walked slowly down the hallway, feeling suddenly sick; at the last door, she saw the patient’s name and stopped: WALSH, MELISSA.
Frankie pushed the door open just enough to see Melissa Walsh, sitting up in bed, surrounded by balloons and flowers and baskets of candy. A soccer ball balloon said IT’S A BOY!
A bassinet was at her bedside; through the clear sides, Frankie could see a baby swaddled in blue.