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Somewhere Between Raindrops

By Sandra H. Esch

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Chapter One

Amber Leaf, Minnesota—Late March 1945

“Honestly, what kind of person steals flowers from a cemetery?” Jo Bremley lamented. “Wasn’t last week’s desecration enough?” She slouched back on her heels, emptied the air from her lungs in one long soulful breath, and surveyed the damage. The clay pots on the spokes of the wagon wheel flanking her husband’s headstone had their geraniums stolen. Again. All eight of the blooms. She swiveled around and scoured the small rural cemetery. Floral droppings should have made a striking trail of red. But they didn’t. Whoever sheared off the flowers didn’t drop so much as a petal.
Kneeling beside the grave, she pressed another geranium deep into its violated pot, brushed a disheveled lock of hair from her forehead, then stroked the tender blades of grass cloaking Case’s grave. “Someone stole your flowers again, Case. It’s great knowing there’s life out here so you aren’t all alone, but somehow there has to be better company than flower thieves. Sure wish I could catch the culprit. But what are the chances of that ever happening?”
Casting aside her grief, she reached out to her husband’s shiny headstone and delicately traced its carved letters with the tips of her fingers.

CASE BREMLEY
Loving Husband and Father
July 2, 1918–November 8, 1943

She stared at the stone for a long while, talking to Case the same way she’d been talking to him this past year and a half—as if he were still among the living. “Tryg stopped by the boarding house to see Big Ole Harrington yesterday afternoon. I literally bumped into him in the hallway. Of course, I just happened to be carrying a basket full of dirty laundry.” She squeezed her eyes closed, heat rising up her fair cheeks. “There I was, all decked out in my cotton shift that looks like it was sewn from an old cheesecloth. Cardigan hanging on me like an overused hand-me-down. Hair tucked up in a scarf. No makeup. And there he stood . . . crisp, clean, wearing the finest threads available to man, and smelling like he’d just taken a bath in a tub of Old Spice. I wanted to collapse into a fetal position, but I didn’t. I made sure I held my head high.”

Jo squeezed down the lump rising in her throat, and then continued on. “I’ve got to get away from him, Case. I know he was your best friend, and I know the accident that put you here wasn’t entirely his fault. But the pain I see in his eyes and the grief that overtakes me the few times we’ve run into each other are tearing me apart. Makes me want to rethink our dream of moving to New York,” she said thoughtfully. “You with that job waiting for you at Haskins & Sells and me wanting to get into the fashion industry. One of these days I need to make our dreams come true.” Jo looked up as if she could see her husband peering down through a cloud break. “But I don’t know if I’m ready yet. I can’t leave you, Case. I just can’t.”

A sudden breeze flicked a smattering of cut grass onto the headstone. Jo gently wiped it away with her handkerchief and polished the stone until it reflected its original high gloss. She then returned to busily repotting geraniums.
Not five minutes later, the whirr of a car’s engine droned through the cemetery. Tires crunching on gravel. The harsh shriek of tired brakes. She looked back. A lone soldier was struggling to get out of the backseat of an old taxi. Suddenly that familiar ill-at-ease feeling overwhelmed her again, accelerating her heartbeat and tempting her to flee.

The man in uniform collected his crutches. With a push of his full weight, he appeared to test the ground for softness. He snatched a bouquet of daisies from the back seat, mumbled something to the cab driver, and then hobbled through the rows of headstones. As if he could feel Jo watching from afar, he turned and briefly locked eyes with her.

Sad eyes.

Eyes like Tryg Howland’s.

Jo plucked a blade of grass and picked at its jagged tip as if tearing away at it could remove the conflicting feelings that tore at her heart. Tryg Howland. While her husband was sniffing the underbellies of tulips, Tryg was still sniffing the clean Southern Minnesota air.

With the flat of her hand, Jo lightly patted Case’s grave. Then a curious thing happened. She found herself rambling pensively. “A soldier just arrived, Case. I wish you could see him. From a distance, he looks a lot like Tryg. Has that same Bing Crosby look, only his hair is dark and thick. He’s been wounded, too, just like Tryg when he first came home with that broken leg of his. Just think. It’s been nearly a year and a half already. I heard he wanted to re-enlist, but they wouldn’t take him. He still has that bad limp.” She hesitated for a moment. She had to spill what was chewing away at her insides. “You know, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes I get the feeling he regrets that he didn’t die on the battlefield.”

She pinched her eyes closed, repulsed by another thought that came too easily. If Tryg had died on the battlefield, you would still be alive.

While stuffing the last geranium into its pot, she heard a light commotion and looked up. The wounded soldier was climbing back into his taxi. He slammed the door and the rickety cab disappeared through the side gate, a whirling puff of gray smoke from its muffler pushing it down the lonely stretch of gravel road.
She lowered her gaze again to Case’s grave. “The soldier just left. I don’t want to imagine what that poor man has been through. The war is winding down in the European Theatre. Looks like we’re winning there, but Japan is still putting up quite a fight in the Pacific. I can’t wait until this ugliness is over with once and for all.”

A distant rumbling beckoned Jo’s attention. She looked toward the far western sky, where thin bolts of lightning danced to the peal of soft thunder. A cool breeze picked up, moaned through the pines, and swiftly permeated the air with the strong aroma of ozone. She pulled her sweater tight around her thin frame to stave off a sudden chill. “Looks like a nasty storm’s heading this way. Guess I’d better get going.”

Jo stood, but thought better of it and knelt once again at the foot of the grave. “Oh, Case, I wish you could speak to me. I don’t know what to do.” She tugged off her work gloves. “I’ve given so much thought these past months to the dim future Brue and I have here in Amber Leaf without you. We have a few good friends, sure, but no lifelong friends. When Brue gets older, I might be able to find a job working as a clerk in one of the local retail shops, but there aren’t any fashion industry positions, not in a small factory town like ours. My job at the O.M. Harrington House? It just isn’t the same anymore. Too many of the old-timers have left, heading off to other pastures that I doubt could be as green. The place has drained of life, lost its pulse. And bumping into Tryg every now and then also makes me want to get out of town. Maybe life would be better that way—better for him, and better for us, too.
Jo shivered at the thought of the soldier she’d seen hobbling through the cemetery. Even he, a complete stranger, reminded her of Tryg and how his careening a car into a ditch during a blinding snowstorm had unintentionally destroyed her life. Reminded her that Case was no longer here. The words, “and would never be ever again,” rolled softly off her lips. That could not be fixed. Ever.

Tryg was a storm she couldn’t outrun.

In a way, the timing for a move would be ideal. New York was her best hope for a new and healthy beginning.

But not this soon.

A fierce gust of wind momentarily knocked her off balance as the sky gave way to a dark shade of midnight pierced with brilliant flashes of lightning. The surrounding black and barren fields ripe for spring plowing quivered beneath the scintillating light. “I’ve got to get out of here. This storm is closing in way too fast. It’s gonna be a bad one.”

She grabbed her gardening tools and raced to her car.

She had another storm to outrun.

Before reaching the end of the gravel road, a torrent of rain dumped on her old ’31 Chevy like water splashing from a bucket. She pulled the car over to the shoulder and stopped to wait out the downpour while troubling thoughts washed over her like the deluge of rain. She thought about the money she’d been saving. She stashed away enough to last at least a couple of months in Amber Leaf. But how long would that last in New York City? And what about the unknowns? What if she and Brue were miserable there? What if she couldn’t get a job? How humiliating to have to return to Amber Leaf a failure. Then what would she do? If they did decide to leave, Jo could always come back long enough to . . .

She shuddered at the thought. A move to New York felt too final.

The heavy car listed in the wind and the rain turned to hail. It pinged loudly at the windshield like marbles thrashing a tin pail, while an accompanying cold draft rippled her arms with gooseflesh. And still the thoughts kept coming. What about Brue? It would be good for her to grow up around family. After all, with Cousin Shirley living there, they would have relatives close by to enjoy the holidays with. But would Brue be happy at a new school? Would Jo and Brue make friends easily in a big city or would they merely get lost in a crowd?
Jo slapped the steering wheel. She knew what she needed to do. She needed to hold on to her dream, keep saving until she was sure she had enough money, and then one day—a year down the road, maybe two—she and Brue would leave Amber Leaf. With little opportunity for a full life here, only memories, they had no other choice.

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