((As Elspeth Wise))
A Neighborly Visit
Sunday I didn’t have a lot to do, so I decided to bake some cookies. I don’t know why, but I had a sudden urge and the memory of hot chocolate chips cooling on a counter was just too much of a temptation to resist. It wasn’t as easy since I didn’t own one of those grandiose stand mixers like mother, but I made due; just took a bit longer.
I ended up with way more than I could possibly eat. My modified recipe made almost twice the amount the normal one calls for, but I’ve never tried it halved. Besides, I had a good idea where I could get rid of a few of them.
With a bag in hand, I knocked on the small two-bedroom apartment down the hall. A few moments later, I heard the locks opening and the door cracked. I smiled as the frail eighty-five year old woman peeked through at me.
“Hello, Mrs. Whitman. I’ve come bearing baked goods.” I lifted the ziplock bag full of warm cookies.
“Heavens child.” The door closed. I heard the chains removed before it opened once more, wide with invitation. “Come in…come in. Brenda is still at work.” I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
“That’s alright. I actually wanted to visit with you.”
Lonely as she was, she was more than delighted with the company and invited me to come in and sit. I closed and relocked the door, knowing how she preferred it secured. I noticed a box of mementos open beside Mrs. Whitman’s preferred high-backed leather chair.
“Oh, I see I interrupted something. I’ll leave if you prefer.”
“Gracious no. I get so little company as is.” She started to sit down, but stopped. “Would you be a dear and set these in the kitchen?”
“Of course.” When I got back, she was seated and leaned over trying to pick up her box. “Let me do that for you, Mrs. Whitman.” I settled the box in her lap. I couldn’t help but notice the old yellowing letters and aged photographs inside. “What’s this?
“This is my memory box.” She started picking through some of the things. “Brenda gets upset when she sees me with it, so I try not to pull it out when she’s home.” She glanced up with a slight grin. “Worried her Gran is getting senile I would imagine. Would you like to see?”
“Oh no. I wouldn’t wish to impose.”
“Don’t be silly.” She pulled out a few photos and passed them over to me. As I looked at each one, she told me about them. “That’s me and my cousin, Nancy. She always looked better in her nurse’s uniform than I did. Now that one, I think you will recognize what’s in the background.” Puzzled, I looked at the ship behind the two women. It appeared to be a battleship of some sort. My eyes scanned the photo for some kind of identifying marking.
The number 60 is painted on the bow in pale shades.
“The USS Alabama?” I’m blown away, that couldn’t be the same ship. “This…Was this while she was commissioned?”
“I thought that would get your attention,” she grinned. “That was in the port near Loch Ewe in northern Scotland. Back when she was operating in the Murmansk Run.”
“How…?” I was speechless. It was the same boat that is now anchored in Mobile Bay.
“I was a nurse stationed at the nearby hospital. When that picture was taken I was twenty-two and had been in Britain two weeks.”
I flipped through several more in the stack. The same two were in all of them, with differing backgrounds. The last picture gave me pause. It was a young man in uniform standing at attention. Something about the man nibbled at the edges of my consciousness, something oddly familiar about it.
“Who is this, Mrs. Whitman?” I held the photo out to her. She took it, at a glance she smiled.
“I had forgotten all about that picture. That’s my Henry. Never seen him in his prime have you?” She sighed wistfully. “That was taken in December of ‘44. He was wounded just before the invasion of Normandy in a raid on a fuel depot. When his wounds healed sufficiently for him to travel, they brought him back to London, to the hospital where I worked.” The smile on her face and the glow in her eyes as she stared at the picture spoke volumes. “He won my heart with a dare. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No. I don’t believe you have.” I had known Mrs. Whitman for almost two years and I had never seen her in quiet this state. It was so humbling to remember that she’s lived a lifetime and had secrets of her own.
“Ah.” With a smile she sat back in her chair and her eyes took on a vacant expression as she began to tell me of how the hospital at which she worked ran out of bandage supplies due to a massive bombing. Henry was in for his final checkup and it was dusk. He offered to go get the supplies. “I told him I didn’t think he could do it. It was almost dark and it was dangerous to go out with all the bombing. That darn fool looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Dare me.’ I thought he was out of his mind, but he just smiled that charming smile and said it again.” She shook her head slightly and her smile widened just a bit. “So, I did.” She went silent, staring vacantly forward while drifting on the tide of her memories.
“Did he do it?” I softly asked, afraid to disturb the glow that had taken over her face, but felt compelled to know the outcome.
“Oh.” She pulled herself back. “Oh yes. When he walked through that door with a crateful of bandages and other medical supplies I thought my heart was going to stop. I had never seen anything so glorious in my life. Do you want to know what he said to me when I asked him why he did it?”
I couldn’t help but grin at that twinkling in her eyes. It was so infectious; this mood she was in despite some of the more painful memories it opened up for me; memories that for weeks I had been trying to rid myself of but had thus far been unsuccessful.
“No, what did the knave have to say for himself?” She laughed at that.
“Who dares, wins. Can you believe it?”
“No.”
“That was the motto of his regiment. ‘Stirling’s Men’ he called them. They had another name, but I never could remember it. ‘Stirling’s Men’ is what Henry called them, so that’s what I called them.” She grew silent once more. Unwilling to bring her out of her current mood, I quietly sat beside her. After a little bit, she put the picture back in the box and looked up at me. “Would you be a dear and do me one more favor?” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“Of course, Mrs. Whitman.” A brief smile touched her lips, and then she gently lifted out a stack of yellowing letters that were tied with a faded ribbon. “Would you read these to me? My eyes won’t let me do it anymore and I want to hear his words just once more.”
It took all the skill and iron will I could muster to choke back my own emotions. That look on her face broke my heart.
“Of course, Mrs. Whitman.” I reached for the letters and gently untied the ribbon.
