The Courage to Bear: A Band of Brothers Fanfiction

August 14th

"I thought with the news we could have ourselves a little celebration..." Anna's voice trailed off as Grandmother turned a stark glare on the woman.

Daisy and her mother exchanged concerned glances as the tension rose in the hot air. Grandmother cleared her throat and set down her fork and knife. Wiping her mouth with a napkin, she stood from her seat.

"You know very well that we have nothing to celebrate in this house, Anna," she chided in a voice both as sharp and brittle as ice. "You may take my portion home if you like and celebrate with your own family there."

Picking up her walking stick, Grandmother left the dining room, her old fashioned, high button boots clicking down the hardwood. Anna bit her bottom lip, still gripping the platter of corned beef. Mother held up her plate.

"I'll have a little more," she said softly. "It's delicious. Thank you for this treat."

Anna gave a silent nod and sliced another slab for both mother and Daisy when she held up her own plate with a quiet smile. The cook left them to their dinner and the lonely echo of the antique clock.

"Sometimes-" Mother's voice broke. She covered it with a soft smile, the dim light of the electric chandelier overhead filling the laugh lines around her mouth, reminding Daisy of a time when her mother had once been happy. "Sometimes, I wonder if it was prudent of me to move here after your father died."

"Where else would we have gone? And Grandmother had no one. Dad was her only child."

"I know. I know. It was sensible, but was it healthy? Did you feel like you had a nice childhood growing up in a home both as stuffy and cold as this one?"

"Mom. There was a Depression on. We had full bellies, new school clothes every year, you didn't have to work your fingers to the bone to keep a roof over our heads. We had more than we could ever ask for during such a time."

Mother gave a vague nod, twirling the dinner knife between her slim fingers. "I suppose you are right."

"You have nothing to feel guilty about."

Her dark eyes, that matched both of her children's, flickered up to her daughter's face. "Neither do you, Daisy. No matter what your grandmother says."

***

Back in January, on the day it happened, Daisy had brought the telegram to her grandmother in her sitting room. Grandmother took her afternoon tea in the parlor by the fire, in winter or summer. She always complained of being chilled, no matter the season.

Mother was inconsolable. Anna held her on the kitchen floor, the two of them rocking back and forth as they wept. This left Daisy to tell Grandmother that her only grandson would never return home to them.

Grandmother did not look up from her embroidery stand. The needle pierced the cloth as she painted a picture with thread, flowers spilling over her canvas. She sewed every piece purely from her imagination, envisioning colors and figures as she went. Daisy watched her for a moment in silence, comforted by the steadiness of the old woman's skeletal hands. She wished to God that her grandmother had been one to show love easily.

"You bring bad news."

Daisy wet her lips, drawing a hand over her damp cheeks. She had been crying silently, but Grandmother knew that without even looking at her. She held out the telegram.

"This just came," said Daisy.

Grandmother did not reach for it. She did not look up at her. She snipped the red thread with fine, silver scissors.

"This is yours to bear till your death, granddaughter. Yours and yours alone. But I think you already knew that."

That was the last time her grandmother had spoken to her. Grandmother had not said a word directly to Daisy since that snowy day in January. Her silence was meant as a punishment, but for Daisy, it was almost a mercy.

***

Daisy kept the scrapbook in her brother's room. His bedroom had been the circular one at the top of the turret, the perfect place for spotting Huns and flying aces as a little boy with his pop gun. His bookshelf sat by the window seat, a worn copy of 'The Last of the Mohicans' on the cushion where he'd left it two years prior.

Grandmother never entered. She kept it locked most days, saving the key for herself. As though she were hoarding away the memory of her grandson from his mother and sister. But Daisy knew where she kept her key ring and would steal it in the wee hours to sit by the window and look through the scrapbook.

She flipped to the last page where two movie ticket stubs were pasted. One was from a matinee where she and Johnny had seen a news clip about the paratroopers of the 101st dropping into Normandy on D-Day. The second one was the lie. The big lie they had told mother and grandmother.

They were going to a Sunday showing of 'Double Indemnity'. That was the lie. Actually, Daisy went with her 17 year old brother to the enlistment office and signed off for him to join the paratroopers, just as Grandmother had forbidden.

Johnny had been kept from doing so many things as a child. As had Daisy. It was their joint way of finally rebelling against the matriarch of their home. They had practically skipped home after the deed was done.

Daisy flipped the scrapbook shut and held it to her chest. Somewhere, out in the quiet night beyond the open window, someone was playing a slow jazz tune on a trumpet. She closed her eyes and listened.

"We need to start living, Daisy!" Johnny had said while he was trying to convince her to help him sign up. "We live in that place like slabs of frozen beef in a butcher's fridge. We can't let her hold us back anymore."

Grandmother had cut the reins from Daisy. She didn't care what she did anymore.

Resting her head on her knees, Daisy listened to the lonely horn and decided the next time Frances asked her to go to the city for dancing, she would do just that.