Lovely War

But when a furniture rearrangement took place, on a whim, leaving Hazel’s right side on display, James decided he liked that view even better. She was his, from every angle. The scars were a reminder that she came back.

“As Ares says, they die, you know.”

The god of fires nods. “They do. But the lucky ones live first.”

“Grief is not a contest,” she said. “What happened was horrible. No one should face it. Especially not from their own countrymen. It’s a crime against humanity. Against decency and reason.”

Everything had changed. He had no desire to go back to war and die for Bobby. He wanted to live for Bobby, and for Maggie, and especially for Hazel.

Let it be me, he told the sky. I’m damaged, but he’s free. Make me better, and send me back, so I can die instead of Bobby. He has a future. Send me back where I belong.

“My Frank was a fine one for writing letters.”

“Because he missed you,” Hazel said, “and he loved you.”

She
was very much attached, even if her beloved was no longer.

Where was her fear of performing for others now? Gone, along with so many other childish things. Whatever else her future held, she would play the piano. Because she wanted to. Not because anyone expected it of her.

I will never hurt you, Hazel Windicott.

Oh, God.

Better that he hurt her once, now, than prolong her hurt, or even allow her pity and kindness to lock her into a commitment that would pain her for the rest of her life.

If he loved her, he must leave her alone.

He watched her until a bend in the road took her out of sight.

Even Cobb, who had made a living peddling in Jim Crow stereotypes, and knew it, was moved by Johnson’s heroics. He put a curious coda on his own article:

. . . as a result of what our black soldiers are going to do in this war, a word that has been uttered billions of times in our country, sometimes in derision, sometimes in hate, sometimes in all kindliness—but which I am sure never fell on black ears but it left behind a sting for the heart—is going to have a new meaning for all of us, South and North too, and that hereafter n-i-*-*-*-r will merely be another way of spelling the word American.