Short Story Collection, A. Einloth [year 7 reading list txt] 📗

A War Story

August 6, 1918
Reims, France
Dear Emily,

I look at your picture fondly knowing that I will soon be home with you. I am astonished that I was not wounded when so many of my regiment were. Thankfully, I wasn’t called to go over the top to no man’s land. The horrible trench I have lived in these many weeks is too far back to throw grenades from. Nor for the shrapnel to hit us. I think about our future, dearest Emily. Being apart from you makes me know that me becoming a doughboy was something I was destined to do. The Allies have won this battle which some say hopefully will be the turning point in the war. My infantry regiment has been pulled back and we are told to prepare our rifles and bayonets in the inopportune case that the Central Powers should attack the city. I do not believe they will, as our artillery is much stronger than theirs. I fear I will always remember the sounds of the machine guns and the screams of the dying, but fear not, my darling, for I shall not be among them. Communication is good among the regiments and it is believed that we will be sent home soon. I cannot wait to hold you in my arms again Emily.

Forever Yours,
William

This was the letter I got from my fiancé near the end of World War I. My name is Emily Louise Carter. He was my first and only love. I saved every letter he sent to me while he was gone just as I know he saved mine. He wrote to me almost every day. He chose to enlist even though his family had told him not to. His family was in the cotton business and he only had one younger brother who didn’t want to take over if something happened to their father. I begged him to stay with me and not enlist but he just kissed me hard and said, “The country needs strong young men to win this war. I love you, but I love my country as well.”

On the day he shipped out he made me promise that if he didn’t come back I would move on and marry someone else. I made the promise knowing that if I did marry someone other than him it would be a long time after. He wrapped me in his arms squeezed me tight and kissed me. A long and sweet kiss to “keep me going for the long time we’re apart” he claimed. I held in my tears until he was on the ship and it was almost out if sight. I wasn’t the only woman who had done this.

Some of those women were month old brides, some were like me a fiancée, and others were only married a few years. We formed a support group of sorts. We met every Saturday at someone’s house. Each week it was a different house. We would bring the letters we got from our men and food, a lot of food. One woman I bonded with most was named Bonnie. She had only been married one year and was pregnant. When her husband had shipped out she hadn’t known yet. She had to tell him by letter. Every month we would measure her waistline and cut a thin strip of material that long to place in the letter she sent. Will told me that they all poked fun at him because each month the strip got longer and he would almost cry because he couldn’t see her. They did it to cheer him up. One said that if it was his wife he would bawl as soon as he saw the letter. Will once wrote, “I’m glad we decided to wait until we were married to make love, for I don’t have Ted’s emotional strength. Each month he gets that material strip and smiles through the tears. Then he ties it around his arm or ankle and checks often to make sure its still there.”

After two years I got that letter. At this time we all did. The letters from our men saying that everyone thought they would be home soon. Bonnie had given birth to a handsome little boy that she named Jeremy after her grandfather. I drew a picture of the two of them for her to send to Ted so that he could see his son. That became the new monthly tradition. That is until Jeremy started crawling on his own he wouldn’t hold still long enough. Ted got mostly sleeping pictures after that.

It was November just two weeks in. I hadn’t got a letter in a few days, but none of us did. I looked at my ring. Remembering the day he had given it to me. It was a beautiful summer afternoon. We were sitting in the shade of an old oak tree next to a small creek. There was a cool breeze blowing. I sat leaning against the tree with his head on my lap. I had been staring aimlessly out over the water. I could feel his eyes on my face. I looked down at him and asked why he was staring at me. He replied, “I see a beauty that made God break the mold because it was too perfect.” He grinned at me and then pulled the ring box out of his pocket. “I have to make sure that no one tries to steal my perfect girl. Marry me?” Tears had filled my eyes and clogged my throat. That’s what he had been doing with my father earlier and why mother thought it was such a good idea for us to be out alone together. I nodded. Tears blurred my view of the ring then as it did now.

The next morning, Bonnie was the first to arrive at my house. She was very excited. When I asked why she said that the ship had arrived in the bay just minutes ago and that everyone was there. All our men had survived this war. Not all of them whole. Some were still recovering from their wounds but they were only minor. No lost limbs, or horrible grotesque facial scars. Bonnie held Jeremy on her lap in my car as I drove us to the dock. We parked a few blocks away and found the rest of the group there waiting for their men. When the first man got off the ship we all rushed forward. As did, apparently, the men. There were hugs, kisses, whoops, and shouts of joy. I stood on the sidelines and watched Ted finally meet his son, who promptly shouted “UP!” and was placed in his father’s shoulders. I was starting to worry that Will had passed me when I felt two strong hands bracket my hips and pull me into a hard male body. “Sir, I am waiting for my fiancé please take your hands off me!” I joked. I knew that it was Will. He then turned me around and kissed me breathless. “I missed you. I must have read your letters a hundred times each in the past two weeks.” His arms rested on my hips and my own were on his shoulders. “I missed you too. I was getting worried that something had happened when I didn’t get a letter from you.” He kissed me again softer this time. He didn’t let go of me as we made introductions to the other men and women that had been a part of our lives for the past two years.

Eight months later we were married. I officially became Emily Louise Carter-Hawkson. The ceremony took place under the very oak he proposed under. Everyone that was at the dock that day had been invited, as well as our families. I couldn’t have been happier. Our life together wasn’t easy. No one’s life is or ever will be. We had 4 children two sons, William Jr. and David, and two daughters, Alice and Michelle. We taught our children that loyalty and strength were important traits to have. Our children instilled our values in their children and hopefully that generation will as well.


A Year of Kara Marie


She watched as her mother popped pills like they were pez candies. Her mother then washed down the half a bottle of Valium with half a bottle of Jack’s. The other halves came next, but much more slowly. Her mother laid down on the bed, slowly she died. Kara knew he would come for her now. Her step-father, a heinous wife-beating, pedophile bastard. Kara wanted to die with her mother, but couldn’t. She knew she was stronger than that. She had to be. For the sake of the baby just starting to grow in her belly. Not her step-father’s baby. Kara had looked up his criminal record on a friend’s computer. He was fresh out of jail for raping a 13 year old when he met her mother. Kara was 17 and in a few months she would be 18...and a mother. He wasn’t home yet. It was payday. That meant he would be home at 2 am totally drunk. He would beat and rape her mother and then pass out. Kara’s mother only married him because of Baby Ricky. Kara closed her mother’s eyes with gentle fingertips and prayed that God would forgive her mother for her lack of strength.
A few hours later, she had packed the essentials and took the money from her mother’s purse, what little there was. A backpack held some of her and Baby Ricky’s clothes and his diaper bag. He was a year and a half old. He hadn’t known anything but the dingy apartment in a bad neighborhood. Kara made sure to pack her mother’s journals before leaving as well. She wrote in it every morning after breakfast. Kara’s father used to say that it was her way of expressing her emotions. Her step-father said it was a dumb waste of money. Kara left the apartment and got on a bus with Baby Ricky. They got off at a stop and found a payphone. Kara called the police and told them what had happened to her mother. They then made their way to their grandparents. Her mother’s parents. Kara’s step-father was banned from the premises. They had security guards. The head of security was a 50ish man named Steve. He was a really nice guy. He had been on his high school and college football teams, and was a big bear of a man. But kindhearted, a teddy bear. He had a son a few years older than Kara. David was the father of Kara’s baby. During the summer he worked at her grandparents house on the security