Love Never Dies Read Free Page B

anyway. While I was in training, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We went to war with a vengeance. Only then did I realize I had loved the most beautiful woman in the world, and I might never see her again. Would probably never see her again. I wrote, giving her my sincere protestations of love and telling her that before I shipped away to Europe or the Pacific, I would return and we would marry. I begged her to wait for me. For all the three brief weeks left in my training, I never heard back."
    "Was she so angry she ignored you?"
    "I sometimes wondered if her family — they were very protective of her — intercepted my mail."
    Areila nodded. "In those days, with women as restricted as they were, that is definitely a possibility. Did she wait?"
    "I don't know because I never returned. I never returned." As I said those words, pain swept me, and I shut out the world.
    When I returned, morning's light lit the sky and Areila was gone.
     
    Eugene Park
    Thursday Afternoon
     
    The following afternoon Areila braved the constant drizzle in a puffy yellow raincoat. From a distance, she looked as harmless as a day-old baby chick perched on the bench, and I had the thought I shouldn't involve her in my day-to-day hell. Yet I wouldn't hurt her and as to the danger that stalked the park . . . I would know if she was menaced and warn her. Somehow. Even if it broke every rule that bound me.
    So with that noble resolve, I joined her. "I'm sorry I abandoned you so abruptly last night."
    She pulled her hood closer around her face and did not look into my face. "You were . . . shimmering."
    "I found I was unable to continue my story."
    "Oh." Her expression fell. "I had hoped you would tell me what happened to you. And her. Your love. Did she ever know what happened to you?"
    "No one knew. Not her. Not my family."
    "You died?"
    "I was murdered."
    "How . . . ? Why . . . ?" Her distress gave me a real comfort.
    No one had ever asked me my story. Most people had never seen me. The ones who did . . . had their own problems. How to tell this girl, sheltered by her family, by school, by time, about the difficult days of the thirties when I grew up? To me, she was a child. A lovely child, bright with promise, but a child nevertheless. How to make her understand without scarring her? I picked my words carefully. "It was the beginning of the war, but more than that, it was the end of the Great Depression. People had starved. Men had been unable to support their families. They had run away from the shame. They had killed themselves — a coward's way out, but sometimes fear can last too long and all the world is dark and hopeless. Children were orphaned. Women — daughters and wives — were left alone to fend for themselves. They were prey to bad men who roamed the country, shysters and opportunists who saw them as targets."
    "Heartbreaking times," Areila said.
    "Yes. After I finished training, I got my orders. I would be fighting the war in Europe. I had ten days free before I was due to ship out. I took the fastest way home I could find, via freighter to Port Angeles." He had been so close. "But we ran into a winter storm and we had to dock in Virtue Falls. The crew intended to spend the night in the harbor's safety, get a warm meal and a dry bed. I told them I had no time to wait, that I would try to hitch a ride to Port Angeles. They wished me luck and told me if I wasn't able to get a ride, to return to the dock and they would gladly take me to my destination."
    "That was so nice!" She smiled.
    That womanly smile steadied me, prepared me to tell her of the remembered horror ahead. "At that time, civilians would do anything to help a soldier going off to war."
    "As it should be."
    "I came into town. Right away, I found a ride, a trucker heading to Port Angeles with a load of lumber. While I waited, he bought me a hot meal and when I asked, told me I had time to purchase some flowers. My darling loved flowers, and I dreamed of how I would kneel