December 30, 1945
Whoever said time heals all wounds had never been truly broken. As Alice stood at the window in the living room, watching as gentle flakes floated from grey skies to half-coated grass, she did her best to think of the positives. But the positives always came back to a single, hard truth; the best part of December 1945 was that it wasn't December 1944. And with thoughts of the past December flooding her mind, she felt cold, and she felt pain.
When Alice closed her eyes at night, she could hear the screams. She'd only been on the line for a single artillery barrage like the ones Easy had endured time and again. But that single cascade of firepower had resulted in the deaths of two close friends. In that moment, with trees splintering and cracking around her, with shells lighting up the sky like some sort of cruel version of Bastille Day's fireworks, her understanding of the siege of Bastogne had changed.
In that moment, Alice had felt terror in a way she'd only experienced twice before; the night in Paris, when she'd been cornered and groped and treated like a plaything had been the first. The second had been when the animals from H Company had grabbed her in the body of the Samaria. In Bastogne, she'd become reacquainted with terror.
Artillery shells screamed when they hurled through the air. It didn't sound like human screams. But it was a scream, a shrill whistle that ended in a massive bang, a visceral thud that shattered bones and splintered trees. Instead of white flurries falling around them, they'd had bits of bark, bits of ground, and sometimes bits of the uniforms of their fallen friends.
Alice slammed her eyes shut. Her most vivid final memory of Skip and Alex was of the two of them joking with George, poking fun at the ineptitude of Lieutenant Dike. Skip had rolled his eyes, Alex had scoffed. But smiles had tugged at both of them. Malarkey had laughed hardest of all, more in disbelief than anything else.
Had she known that George's little tease about Dike would be the last moment she saw their faces, Alice might've rebuked Lip for telling him off. But she hadn't known. None of them had.
At least with Bill and Joe, not only had they lived, but for Bill, she'd been able to say goodbye. Skip and Alex had died while she'd cowered away in a foxhole. She'd smashed her nose into the frozen ground in a desperate attempt at self-preservation.
Foxhole Norman hadn't been stupid. He'd been scared.
Opening her eyes, Alice looked outside again. Behind the gray cloud cover, the sun must've been setting. She gripped the porcelain mug in her hands, knuckles turning white. The warmth had faded. She wondered, briefly, how long she'd been standing at the window like some sort of ghost. Too long, probably.
She sighed. Her warm breath fogged the window ever so slightly. For a moment, Alice just stared. She remembered a different fogged-up window, a different time and a different place. That had been on a train, in 1942. Three and a half years ago. Her breath caught. She looked at the fog fading before releasing another breath, and clouding it again.
In a moment of impulse, Alice poked two little dots for eyes, and a curved line for a smile. It took a moment, but soon she felt the corners of her mouth moving upward involuntarily. Her own tiny smile mirrored the foggy face in the window.
But soon the face faded away. The ambient light of twilight faded away, and she was left with her own reflection in the glass. The scar on her cheek had faded, but had never gone away. Nix assured her that it was only noticeable to those who knew to look for it. It wasn't vanity that made her wish it would go away. Not vanity, but memory.
Alice looked at the girl in the window. Blonde hair, weepy blue eyes, face flushed from holding back unshed tears and unbidden emotion. The perfect Aryan. With a gasp, Alice shied away.
The room around her was mostly dark, lit by a single lap on the side table by a pristine couch. No one ever used the front room. The one in the back of the house, across from the kitchen, that was their space. It had a piano, and a fireplace, and a couch for sitting in, not gazing at. The one in the back of the house had blankets, quilts from Mrs. Nixon and her friends. It felt like home.
Alice padded down the hall, past the staircase until she stood in the junction between the kitchen and the family room. She placed her lukewarm mug of tea on the counter. It didn't take long for her to move into her favorite room. A sharp meow interrupted her thoughts as Spot looked up from his nest of blankets on the far corner of the couch.
"Comfy?" she asked. "I bet you are. You've got all the best blankets, buddy."
She took up the other corner, the one she usually used, closest to the doorway. Even as she grabbed the one blanket Spot hadn't stolen, the small orange tabby stretched his back and joined her. Alice smiled again.
"You know, Bernadette would've really loved you," she whispered. Alice scratched between his ears. When the kitten headbutted her hand, she just laughed through her tears. "Yeah, I think you know that."
As tears filled her eyes, Alice had to slam them shut. Bernadette. At the time, when she'd found out about what had happened to her parents and sister, Alice hadn't had time to process the fact that she'd been alive and fighting while Bernadette had been withering away in a death camp. She had never quite been able to figure out if that was good, or made her feel worse.
While she'd slammed her face into the frozen dirt of the Ardennes out of self-preservation, Bernadette had slaved away in Auschwitz. She'd not done much research into the camps; her heart couldn't take it. Nothing would be the same with the knowledge that her beautiful, kind, good sister had suffered, believing Alice to be dead, or worse, off saving herself.
She had, of course. That's exactly what had happened. She'd fled Paris. She'd fled her problems and she'd fled her responsibilities. And Bernadette had died alone because of it.
Spot's meow cut through the silent family room. The noise jerked Alice from her thoughts. Her hand had paused. Spot wanted pets. She obliged.
In her mind, Alice knew it wasn't true. Her own actions had been unrelated to Bernadette's death, unlike Marc. In fact, her own actions had in some small, tiny way helped the Allies end the Nazi tyranny. She hadn't been hiding in Bastogne. She hadn't been hiding when she'd slogged her way across Normandy, through rain and mud so thick it sucked off the soldiers' boots. She'd been fighting.
Nix reminded her that every time her thoughts strayed. But Nix wasn't there. Alice looked down at Spot again. The steady vibration of his purr oddly contrasted her memories of the roar of machine gun fire. It hummed instead of screamed. As she used the sleeve of her pajamas to wipe her tears away, Alice shook her head. Nix wasn't there, but Spot was.
Alice glanced at the clock on the wall. Nearly 8:00 pm. With a deep breath, Alice stood from the couch and left her whining kitten behind. The phone in their house rarely rang. If it rang, it tended to be a work emergency for Nixon, some sort of problem he needed to fix or an argument with Stanhope Nixon that the company needed smoothed over.
For her part, Alice rarely used it to call out. Nix had called Dick a few times, Harry once. But Alice hadn't had the courage to dial anyone. Letters had sufficed for her, physical pieces of paper she could store forever. She couldn't hold a telephone call in her hands.
But she could hold a telephone, and she could hear a voice on the other end. It didn't take long for her to dial the operator number she'd memorized, though never used. When she got through, Alice felt her throat clench.
"I'd like to be connected to the Luz residence, George Luz."
"Please hold, I will attempt to dial your call."
Alice held. The switchboard operator did her work, trying to connect her to one of the few people other than Nix that Alice considered family. - Leaning against the wall, she tried not to think too hard.
"Quit thinkin' so hard, Sweetheart."
She shuddered. Bill would have to be the next call. Part of her didn't know how to call him, though, how to ask how he was doing without a leg, having missed all of Germany. She wasn't sure if word had gotten back to him about her sister. She'd not told him. She'd not talked about it with anyone since she'd found out.
"Hello?"
Female. The voice was female, after the operator connected her. But in some strange way, Alice knew it belonged to a Luz. Intuition, or hope, she didn't know. "Hello? Is this the Luz residence?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
The voice sounded young. Not childlike, but not a mother. Victoria perhaps? Or Rita? Suddenly, her throat clenched and she didn't know what to say. Names she'd heard over and over, belonging to stories of faces she'd seen only in a ratty black and white photo, floated in her mind.
"Hello?"
"I'm sorry. Yes, this is Alice, I'm a friend of George. I was wondering," she paused. Wondering what? If he was okay? If he was having nightmares too? If he was there? If he wanted to talk? "Is he able to speak on the phone?"
"So you're Alice." A pause. "Yes, he's here. I'll get him."
A shouted string of words in a language Alice recognized as Portuguese made its way through the phone wires. It made her pause. She'd heard George say a few words here and there, whenever they got on the subject of languages. It had taken him a long time to let her hear it at all; he'd said it reminded him too much of home. Hearing one of his sisters rattle off the lyrical language without a care in the world conjured up all sorts of contradictory emotions. This was his real family. They spoke the same languages.
"Alice?" George's voice came through clearly. It sounded tired, strained.
She couldn't respond at first. But after a moment, she croaked out a simple, "Hey, George."
"Jesus, Alice. How are you? How's Nixon?" He paused. "How's... how are you?"
Her eyes squeezed shut unbidden. Tears filled the corners. "I'm fine."
"Don't lie to me," he chastised. "I can hear you're not."
"You're not doing any better," she bit back.
Silence met her on the other end. For a horrible moment, Alice thought he'd hung up. "George?"
"Yeah, yeah, sorry." He sighed. "Yeah. You're right."
It was her turn to be silent. What could she say? What could anyone say? Finally, she sighed. "So, which sister did I have the pleasure of talking to?"
She could hear his grin in his voice. "That was the one and only Victoria Luz."
Victoria. She now had a name for a voice, and a voice for a face. Somehow that knowledge made her feel more than a little better. Victoria Luz. She'd met, sort of, George's family. "She sounds nice, George. I'm not surprised you love her so much."
He laughed. The laughter sounded a bit lighter. Talking about family, about other people, that was easier. It was certainly easier for her. With another small laugh, he responded. "Yeah, well, I've gotta set a good example for her boyfriend."
"She's got a boyfriend?" Alice grinned. She shook her head. "What's his name?"
"William, if you can believe it. Goes by Will though," he added.
Another laugh escaped her. Blinking away the tears, her hands gripped the phone tighter. "Well, watch out for him. You know what Williams are like."
"Crazy sons of bitches." Almost immediately, the sound of a woman's sharp voice echoed through the phone, and she heard George respond in Portuguese. "Sorry. I still get yelled at for my language."
"You never could keep your mouth shut," she replied. It came easily, the banter. Relief flooded her body. After a moment of hesitation wherein only a small chuckle from George sounded, she sighed. The moments of laughter gave her some sort of small permission to voice her thoughts. "I miss them."
"Yeah. Me too."
"Have you heard from anyone?" she asked.
His sigh sounded loud and clear. "Other than letters? No." After another pause, he added, "You haven't heard from Tab, have you?"
Floyd Talbert. One of two men she'd been desperately trying to track down, and hadn't managed it yet. "No," she said. "No, I haven't."
"Figured." Then he laughed. "He'll write back. You still owe him a dance."
Alice burst out laughing. But tears stung her eyes. "Yeah, I do. Though I don't know how thrilled Nix will be when I dance with Floyd Talbert."
"Eh, he'll understand. Nixon's a good guy."
Before she could respond, she heard the key turning in the front door of their house. Nix. "George, I've got to go." She paused. Footsteps, sighs, and the sounds of a bag hitting the floor pulled her attention away.
"Yeah, so do I. Hey, call me soon, okay?"
"Absolutely." Then, her breath caught. Fear rushed in. "George what if something happens-"
"Hey, stop the overthinking." After a pause, he added, "And we'll always have Paris."
She couldn't stop the laugh. "That's it. I'm hanging up on you."
"I'm shocked, shocked that you would do such a thing."
"Bye, George." Once she'd heard his laugh, she slammed the phone against the hook with her own melancholic grin. As she turned towards the hallway, she found them chatting, laughing.
"Alice!" Blanche's face lit up as she stepped into the room, from happiness or from the lamp, Alice couldn't quite tell. But she grinned and hurried over. "How are you?"
Alice grabbed her into a hug. Her coat was cold from the outside, but her embrace gave Alice warmth from both proximity and comfort. "I'm okay! Glad you're back."
And she really was. As Blanche broke away and stood back, Alice looked her in the eye. If she hadn't been privy to Blanche's health problems from Nix's letters, she would never have suspected that the young woman felt as broken as Alice knew she did. She'd not been to war. War had found her in her mind.
"I'm glad too," she admitted. Blanche turned around, looking back as Nix wandered over. "My brother here was telling me all about your new addition to the family. Where is he?"
It took all of about ten seconds for Spot himself to make introductions. The cat pushed his way through Alice's legs until he stood before Blanche. Meowing and mewling, he tried to weave around her. Not for the first time, Alice worried what it would be like when he was fully grown. Hopefully, he didn't get too big, or he might push them over.
"Hello, friend!" Blanche's grin reached her eyes. She knelt down in her dress, trying to get as close to eye to eye as she could with a ten-inch tall kitten.
Alice moved to the side as she talked to the cat. Nix followed. He shot her a tiny smile, and she returned it.
"You okay?" he asked, keeping his voice low. They moved into the kitchen.
With a sigh, she shrugged. "I've been better. But I called George. That helped."
"That's good. Knowing him, that was probably the best Christmas present," he teased.
Alice started laughing and shook her head. But lowering her voice, her humor fell away as she glanced through the hall where Blanche had knelt with Spot. "How was her Christmas?"
He released a small breath. "Honestly? I don't know. I'm trying-"
"I know you are," Alice said. She stood as tall as she could and pulled him into a kiss. He deflated at the touch. When she finally broke it she grabbed his arm. "Nix, she knows. I promise you, she knows."
"Yeah." He released an unsteady breath. "Yeah. I know."
Alice wasn't sure he did. Not much could make Lewis Nixon visibly unsure, but Blanche was one of them. She seemed to teeter on the edge of his concern at all times. She recognized it; the concern of an older sibling. She'd felt that way with Bernadette, even on the days that she wanted nothing more than to slam the door on her little sister.
"Come on. We should all get to bed," she told him.
It didn't take long for Blanche to agree. Alice watched her make her careful way up the stairs, Spot in toe. And after a drink of wine with Nix, they followed.