Page 42 of The Magic of Ordinary Days

The next morning brought bad news of the war in Europe.

Just when most of us in America could smell Hitler’s defeat, he launched a great offensive in the same region where once he had crushed the Allies and captured most of Western Europe four years before.

The operation, code-named Autumn Mist but later known as the Battle of the Bulge, caught the Allies ill-prepared and split the American and British forces in two.

I pushed my plate away. Perhaps the sense of doom I’d felt the night before was a preparation for this news.

Abby’s Kent was stationed near the fighting.

People all over Europe were starved, sick, and living in ruin.

In addition to unimaginable human loss, once-grand cities lay in rubble, and museums, priceless works of art, artifacts, and rare books had gone up in flames.

Ray rose from the table. “Storm’s coming,” he said. “I’ll be working in the barn. Need to shore it up, replace some boards, and bring in some hay.” He waited before leaving. “You’ll be okay?”

I nodded, but he was still waiting. I tried to smile. “It’s just this news.”

Now he swung into his heavy jacket. “Come after me if you need anything.”

After he left, the cold air that had crept in through the open door closed in around my arms. I went searching for a sweater and pondered what I would do with myself on such a day.

Beyond the bedroom window, I saw low gray clouds moving in from the northwest. Not a good day for driving or walking, as the weather would be dreary.

Instead, I decided to try some holiday baking.

After I stirred up cookie batter and had the first batch baking in the oven, I pulled out extra quilts I found on the top shelf of the coat closet and spread these on Ray’s bed and on mine.

At the bottom of the stack I found an old blanket full of holes and decided maybe I could lay it out on some hay in the barn for Franklin.

But when I mentioned my idea to Ray, he said, “The goat will just eat that blanket.” And I had to believe him that Franklin would be warm enough without it.

Throughout the day, Ray returned periodically to fill his thermos with hot coffee and to catch up as more news reports continued to stream in.

Details of increasing casualties and unexpected defeats caused some of the radio announcers to halt their speeches and gather themselves.

On the few occasions when the radio station played music, I turned up the volume and let my mind dance to the tune of anything besides bad news.

But when the news reports resumed, I couldn’t just click the radio off.

A need to know, to try to understand, still drove me.

We turned it off, however, when Ray started bringing down the remaining boxes from the attic.

The first one he plunked down on the table contained his mother’s buttons.

In one jar, I found plain buttons of all different sizes and colors that looked like an assortment of hard candy or jelly beans.

In the other jars, I found her more unusual buttons—brass and silver ones that had come from uniforms, painted porcelains, black glass and rhinestone-covered ones, even some made with mother-of-pearl.

I found celluloid-covered buttons covered with pictures of MGM movie stars—Loretta Young, Robert Taylor, Errol Flynn, and Myrna Loy.

One button held the image of the Eiffel Tower, and one very old and rare-looking perfumery button still contained a swatch of wool inside that once had been moistened with scent.

In another jar, I found long strings of buttons. Girls in the latter part of the nineteenth century had collected buttons in this way as some kind of good luck charm. I’d have to ask Martha if she remembered the details.

Ray also carried down a box of his mother’s china and a box of Daniel’s things. A catcher’s glove and baseball cards held together with rubber bands topped that box. Inside were a deflated basketball, a few trophies, and some fishing books. “He must have liked sports,” I said to Ray.

Ray nodded. “There wasn’t much Daniel couldn’t do.

He came out on top more often than not. I guess he figured with that kind of luck, he’d make it back.

” Ray sat down for a moment. “I always thought he’d end up married and I’d be the third wheel living around here.

I thought he’d be the one with a wife and children, and I’d be a fine uncle, you know, helping out and watching over the kids while Daniel and his wife went to the picture show. ”

Ray brought down the last thing, an old wooden bassinet covered with yellowed and stained cotton.

After Ray set it down, he caught his breath.

“That’s it.” He pointed at the old bassinet.

“I only brought that down to clear everything out up there. I’m sure we can order a new one from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. ”

I carefully tore away the old fabric from around the bassinet and found the bent wood beneath. “Oh, no,” I said to Ray and ran my hands around its curved middle. “I’d rather have this one. I can refinish it and make it beautiful again.”

Ray looked surprised, but said only, “Whatever you want.”

That evening, after Ray came in for the last time, we turned the radio back on to listen to updated news while we ate dinner.

Ray always ate voraciously after a day out in the cold, and this night was no exception.

I studied the raw red streaks painted by bitter winds on his cheeks and found myself wanting to smooth out the cracks I saw dried into his lips.

When I looked at him across the table, it didn’t seem possible that he was the same man who once held me in bed.

But then again, it seemed to be him, exactly.

Finally, I dove into my stew.

A few minutes later, a local announcer broke into the news report already in progress.

I listened as the man’s excited voice announced that two German POWs had escaped from Camp Trinidad and were still at large.

Local police officers were on the men’s trail, but the officials were warning all citizens to be on the lookout and to lock their doors.

As those words sank into me, my throat narrowed, and pressure built inside my cheeks. Ray was standing over me now, and I had to make myself swallow the tasteless mass of food in my mouth.

“Go down the wrong way?” he was asking.

I shook my head. I caught my breath and asked myself what had come over me.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Ray was saying. He put a hand on my shoulder. “They’ll catch those prisoners. They always do. Most of them speak such broken English, they never get far.”

Speak such broken English? Never get far?

Now I was breathing regularly again, but I couldn’t eat another bite.

I kept remembering that whirlwind I’d driven through the day before, and then chastising myself for giving any credence to that kind of superstition.

But then I remembered the strong sense of impending doom that had come over me later the same evening, in the bathtub, its sweep of me as deadly as a breath of the gases made at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

What had caused that? In twenty-four years, I’d never known such a strong sense of foreboding to come to me without some reason.

Today, two German POWs escaped from Camp Trinidad and are still at large.

Now I had to stand up and go to the sink.

I ran water and started scrubbing dishes, my thoughts racing around in circles as I rubbed the sponge outside and inside each glass, over and over, getting off every single spot, just as my father had once cleaned those glasses of his.

As I worked, Ray sat and watched me with worried eyes. “Please tell me what it is.”

“It’s nothing.”

I cleaned and dried every dish, then took a broom and swept away new cobwebs that had recently formed in the kitchen corners.

The news continued with a report from the Pacific theater, which wasn’t good, either.

In the Philippines, two more ships were sunk by kamikazes on the way to the island of Mindoro, and a storm hit the island with ninety-mile-per-hour winds, sinking three destroyers and drowning 279 men.

Reports of brutality by the Japanese toward prisoners also came streaming in, with such horrific revelations as Americans ignited with gasoline-lit torches and buried alive.

Ray shook his head. “At least at Pearl Harbor, they died quick.”

I came to him then, sat in his lap, wrapped my arms around him, and held him to me as closely as I could.

I wanted to kiss his eyes, his cheeks, his mouth, but something stopped me.

On the radio, the local news announcer came back on, preempting the nationals and updating an earlier story of interest. The two escaped German POWs, Afrika Korps corporals, had been captured in northern New Mexico after having camped out in a remote canyon.

I stood up and went to the radio. The announcer went on.

A trucker who picked up the POWs hitchhiking on the highway had immediately recognized strong German accents.

Instead of driving them farther south as they had requested, he drove them to the local county sheriff’s office.

The prisoners surrendered without a fight, and according to the deputy on duty, even expressed relief that their ordeal, however short, was over.

They hadn’t known a winter storm was coming, hadn’t worn adequate clothing or brought with them appropriate supplies.

They sat before the stove at the sheriff’s office, warming up, until guards from Camp Trinidad could travel down and pick them up.

Now I knew. They hadn’t spoken a word to me because they couldn’t do it without giving away who they were. But because of me, they did get far.