Front Lines Read Free

in no danger. I’m just on a big old tub no one would waste a torpedo on. “Dirty Japs. Dirty Japs, why did they start this war? Why did . . .”
    â€œShe was always so . . .”
    â€œI’d kill them myself if I could, the dirty . . .”
    â€œ. . . good with the chores and so helpful, and so . . .”
    â€œ. . . Japs. Them and the Krauts both.”
    â€œ. . . cheerful. She must have . . .” She grabbed Rio’sarm. “Why did she go? Why did she enlist?”
    â€œBecause she’s brave,” Rio snaps. Now the tears come fast. “She’s brave, and she wants to do her part.” She will not use past tense for her sister. Rachel is brave, not was. Is.
    Her mother looks at her in alarm. “No, Rio, no.”
    â€œRachel did her part, and now she’s . . .”
    Not that word. Not yet.
    â€œI sit here with my stupid algebra homework.” Rio kicks at the leg of the coffee table. The tea set rattles.
    â€œYou stop that right now, Rio. I’ve lost . . . I won’t . . . I couldn’t stand it. I would lose my mind. And your father . . .” Desperation in that voice, hopelessness, fear, and it all feeds Rio’s anger.
    Rio glances at the door through which her father disappeared. No one has closed it. The street outside is cruelly bright, a gorgeous Northern California morning with palms riding high and lavender flowers threatening to cover the sidewalk.
    Rio’s father will have reached the feed store by now. He will have unlocked the door and turned the Closed sign around to Open. Being a man, that’s what he’s doing, being a man who does not cry because men do not cry. Crying is reserved for women.
    Rio’s gaze goes to the small vertical window beside the door where the service flag hangs, a red-and-whiterectangle with a single blue star sewn onto the side facing the street. There are those flags all up and down the block. All over Gedwell Falls. All over California, and all over America. They show that the family has a member in service. Some houses bear flags with two or three such stars.
    At the beginning of the war there were only blue stars, and it was an honor, a matter of pride, but now in many towns around the country some of those blue stars are being removed and replaced by gold ones.
    A gold star hanging in your window means a family member has made the ultimate sacrifice. That’s the phrase, the approved phrase, ultimate sacrifice . Rachel’s gold star will be the first in Gedwell Falls.
    Rio wonders how it is done. Who switches the blue star for gold? Does the government send you a new flag? How very kind of them. Will her mother have to do the sewing herself? Will she have to go to the sewing store to get the star herself, God forbid, to get the right color thread and to ask the clerk . . .
    If Rio is drafted the flag will bear a gold star and a blue.
    Don’t think of how scared Rachel must have been. Don’t think of the water smothering her as . . .
    â€œI’m not of legal age yet,” Rio says, placating her mother with a touch on her arm. “I won’t be eighteen for more than a year.”
    But her mother is no longer listening. She has withdrawn into silence. Rio sits with her in that silence until, after a few more hours, the news spreads and friends and relatives begin to arrive with covered dishes and condolences.
    The sad and somber rituals of war have arrived in Gedwell Falls.

2
RIO RICHLIN—GEDWELL FALLS, CALIFORNIA, USA
    â€œThis town is so boring. So, so, so boring.” Jenou Castain lolls her head back and forth with each “so” before dropping forward on the “boring.” This has the effect of causing her voluminous blond hair to sway very attractively and earns her appreciative looks from the booth full of boys at the far end of the diner. A fact that Jenou is, of course, quite aware of.
    â€œYou always say that,” Rio points out. She is vaguely