“Oh, yes. Our backyard is the Mobile Bay.”
“You’re not far from Pensacola or the Gulf of Mexico.”
“No.”
“I know that area. Very pretty. I used to fly around there.”
Fritzi placed the photos down and nodded. “Yeah,” said Fritzi. “I can see that after having such a nice quiet settled life all these years, finding out about this must have knocked you for a loop.”
“Well, yes, it did. You can imagine my shock after all these years. I mean at age sixty, to meet your real mother for the very first time is pretty extraordinary.”
Fritzi reached over and took a cigarette out of a pack, lit it, and looked at her for a long time, then said, “Damn, I hate to do this to you, pal, but I’m afraid I have another shock for you.”
“Oh? What?”
“I’m not your mother.”
Sookie was not quite sure she heard right. “Pardon me?”
“I’m not your mother.”
“But … your name is on my birth certificate.”
“Yeah, I know. But just the same I’m not your mother.” Sookie felt herself suddenly getting light-headed. Fritzi looked at her. “Hey, are you all right? Sarah Jane?”
Sookie realized she must have blacked out for a second, but said, “Yes, I guess so, but I don’t understand. If you’re not my mother, then who was?”
“Well, it’s a long story, kid. You probably should have a drink; you don’t look so good.” Sookie did slug down a scotch and took her smelling salts out of her purse, just in case, and waited with her heart still pounding for Fritzi to continue.
AVENGER FIELD
SWEETWATER, TEXAS
JANUARY 1944
FRITZI WAS IN SWEETWATER FOR A FEW DAYS TO CATCH UP WITH PINKS and Gussie Mintz and have a little visit with her sisters. The first night she was there, Sophie came in from her date with her cheeks flushed and her eyes glowing, smiling and laughing to herself. Fritzi was sitting in a chair, painting her toenails. She looked at Sophie and said, “Somebody must have had a good time. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were as boiled as an owl.”
Sophie sat on the other cot and smiled at her. “No, I haven’t had a drop to drink. Oh, Fritzi, I never knew I could be so happy. I’m in love with the whole world. He’s so wonderful!”
“Who?”
“Jimmy. Jimmy Brunston. He’s the RAF pilot here on special assignment I introduced you to.”
“Oh yeah. I remember.”
“Well anyway, he’s picking me up late Friday night, and we’re going to Houston for the weekend.”
“Whoa. Oh, no, you’re not.”
“Oh, Fritzi, it’s all on the up and up. I promise you. He’s already booked a room for me at the Shamrock Hotel, and he’s staying with some English friends across town. It’s our last weekend together. He’s going back overseas next Tuesday. Oh, Fritzi, I’ve just got to go. He’s gone to so much trouble to arrange everything, and he’s so wonderful.”
“Well, all right, if you’re so crazy about him, go on, but look, kid, don’t do anything you shouldn’t. These guys will say anything. Just remember, they’re all here today and gone tomorrow. Have fun, but be careful.”
“You don’t understand, Fritzi. Jimmy’s not like that. He’s a perfect gentleman. He really loves me, Fritzi. He’s asked me to marry him, and he said the minute the war’s over, he’s coming back to get me.”
“Does he know your family ran a filling station? He seemed like the snooty English type to me.”
“Of course, he knows. I’ve told him everything, and he thinks it’s just charming. That’s what he said. He’s not snooty at all. He’s told me all about his parents, and they’re just regular people, and he said as soon as they met me, they would love me.”
“Fine, but tell Lieutenant Brunston if he does anything he shouldn’t, he’ll have to answer to me.”
THE NIGHT JIMMY AND Sophie flew over to Houston was warm and clear. The clouds below them were like huge silver balls of cotton. When they were halfway there, Jimmy switched channels on the radio and picked up a big band station. As they listened to the Glenn Miller Orchestra play “Moonlight Serenade,” Sophie felt like they were the only two people in the world, all alone up in the clouds, so much in love.
SOPHIE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHEN, after a couple of months, Jimmy’s letters from overseas became less and less frequent, and then they stopped altogether. It wasn’t like him not to write. He had written her every day. Something must be wrong. She knew he was going on bombing raids over Germany almost every night and that there had been losses. She held her breath every time the casualty report with the names of the pilots came in, but it wasn’t until after three of her letters were returned unopened that she started to panic. She was desperate and sick with worry. He had to come back.
The next morning, she went to the Red Cross office in Sweetwater and spoke to Mrs. Gilchrist, a nice older woman, and showed her the returned letters. She gave Mrs. Gilchrist his regiment number, where he was born, the names of his parents, the name of the town they lived in, and the date he had last called her.
Mrs. Gilchrist wrote it all down and said, “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. As you can well imagine, overseas communications are very difficult right now. But try not to worry. I can’t tell you how many girls have come here expecting to find out the worst, and it was all a mix-up. So don’t give up hope. Tomorrow, you may get five letters.”
TWO DAYS LATER, BACK in the bay, Sophie heard someone yell across the room. “Sophie Jurdabralinski! Phone call!”
Sophie ran over to the phone, hoping it might be Jimmy, but the girl made a face and said, “It’s a female.”
“Oh.… Hello.”
“Sophie?”
“Yes?”
“This is Mrs. Gilchrist from the Red Cross. Can you come by my office? I have some good news for you.”
“Have you located Jimmy?”
“No, but we contacted our office in London, and we have his parents’ phone number, and I have arranged a transatlantic call for you. I’m sure they know where he is and will be happy to hear from you, so come to my office when you can.”
Sophie immediately went to Mrs. Gilchrist’s office. The Red Cross operator on the switchboard placed the call for her and then motioned for her to pick up.
After a few rings, a woman answered, “Hello?”
“Is this Mrs. Brunston?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, hello. This is Sophie Marie, and I’m calling from America.”
“Oh, hello.”
“I don’t know if he has mentioned me or not, but I’m a friend of your son’s, and I haven’t heard from him for quite a while. I was wondering if you knew where I could contact him.”
“Oh, yes, I see, but I’m afraid you’ve reached the wrong number. James’s mother’s line was bombed out.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yes, but not to worry. No injuries. She’s quite safe with friends in Hampshire. But this is his wife speaking, and he’s due home on a short furlough any day now. Hush, darling, Mummy’s on the phone. I’m sorry. Is there a message or a number where you can be reached? Hello? Are you still on the line?”
“Yes, I’m here. Uh … no message.”
“I’ll be happy to tell him you called. Was it Sallie?”
“No, Sophie, but it really wasn’t important. Thank you anyway.”
After she hung up the phone, she just sat at the desk, and when Mrs. Gilchrist walked back in the office, she assumed by the look on the girl’s face that her young man had been killed. She went over, sat down beside her, and took her hand. This was the heartbreaking part of the job she hated. “I’m so terribly, terribly sorry, dear. I was hoping … well. Oh, how I hate this old war, so many young people lost. Is there anything I can do—anyone I can call for you?”
“No, but thank you.” Sophie went back to the barracks and said nothing to anybody for three weeks. But when Fritzi came through
Sweetwater again, Sophie knew she was going to have to tell her.
FRITZI WAS QUIET FOR a moment, then sighed. “How long?”
“Three months.”
“Damn. I know some people, but it’s too late to do anything now. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I guess I thought if I told him, maybe he could get a leave, and we could get married. I don’t know. I guess I was just too ashamed. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you’re not the first or the last gal that this has happened to. I figured that guy was up to no good.” Fritzi lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up in the air and then said, “You know this kind of thing is not good for the WASPs. We have a reputation to uphold. How soon will you start showing?”
“I don’t know. Another couple of months, I guess.”
“Well, the good news is the way those flying suits fit, nobody will be able to tell for quite a while, so you can keep flying. But at the first sign, when you reach the point you think you can’t go anymore, call me. And let me take it from there.”
Fritzi walked into the office of a friend, who was the head nurse of the base hospital. Nurse Joan Speirs looked up, happy to see her. “Fritzi! Hello, you old slug. How are you?”
“Hiya, pal,” Fritzi said, then she closed the door behind her and sat down. “Listen, I’ve got a situation, and I need a little help.”
A year earlier, before Joan’s husband, Don, was shipped overseas, Fritzi had taken a big chance and smuggled him on a flight from Grand Rapids to Dallas and had gotten Joan and Don a room off base so they could spend the weekend together before he left. He had been killed a month later. She was more than glad to do Fritzi a favor.
About three and a half months later, after a visit to Nurse Speirs, Sophie was officially put on sick leave. Diagnosis: unknown viral infection. Nurse Speirs arranged for her to stay in a private clinic in Amarillo until the baby girl was born.
A couple weeks later, Gussie Mintz asked around and found a couple in Sweetwater who would keep the baby, and as soon as she could, Sophie returned to flying. But every free second she had, she spent with her baby. She said after the WASPs were disbanded, she would probably just go somewhere and get a job. She knew she couldn’t go home, but she couldn’t give up her baby, either. As she told her sister, “Oh, Fritzi! I’ve never loved anything so much in my life.”
THEN, JUST THREE WEEKS before the WASPs were to be sent home for good, the accident happened. It was a midair collision, and Sophie Marie had been killed instantly.
SOLVANG, CALIFORNIA
FRITZI COULD SEE THAT SOOKIE WAS UPSET AT THE NEWS. “I’M SORRY to have to tell you this, but you needed to know.”
“Yes.”
“And I did wonder about you a lot. But to come totally clean with you, I guess the other reason I didn’t look for you was that I didn’t want to have to face you. The truth is, your mother should never have been in Sweetwater in the first place, and it really was my fault that she was there at all. Oh, I wrote her a letter and told her how rough it all would be, but I could have stopped her if I had tried hard enough, and I didn’t. And I should have. I always knew deep down she didn’t belong there, but I think there was another part of me that thought it would be great to have three Jurdabralinski girls flying for the WASPs. It was a show-off kind of a thing. I was always such a damn show-off. If I had been thinking about her, instead of me, she might be alive today.
“Anyway, after I got back to Sweetwater from your mother’s funeral, I found out that the couple that had been taking care of you were moving back to Ohio, and I couldn’t take you home. I had promised Sophie I would never tell our parents what happened. She was always Momma’s good girl. Hell, we always thought she was going to be a nun, and it would’ve broken Momma’s heart if she had found out. So I didn’t know what to do. God knows I couldn’t take care of you, and I wanted you to have a shot at a good life with a real family, ya know?
“Anyhow, my pal Pinks had just seen some movie called Blossoms in the Dust about some woman in Texas that ran an orphanage, so she checked it out. They were full up, but they gave us the name of another place, so she called and set it up, but they told her she had to get there as soon as possible, because they only had room for one more. So that night around two A.M., a friend of mine named Gussie Mintz picked you up and smuggled you onto the base. It was freezing that night, so Pinks and I wrapped you up in a leather flying suit, and Elroy gassed up a plane and had it ready to go. The two of us flew you over to Houston and got back before anyone noticed a plane was missing. I won’t lie to you. I was going to walk in and hand you over and say we didn’t know who you belonged to—that we’d just found you somewhere—but when the time came, I couldn’t do it. You were just so damn little, ya know, and I guess I wanted you to know that you had belonged to somebody, so I put my name down on the birth certificate. I figured if for any reason Momma and Poppa ever did find out about you, it wouldn’t have been such a shock. I was always a wild hare. It’s kinda funny now, because I was never the maternal type, you know? Did I hate to leave you? You’re darn tootin’. But the way things were going, I didn’t know what else to do, so for better or worse, I did what I thought was best. And there you have it.”
“I see.”
“Oh, pal, believe me. You were better off. Maybe if it had been a different time, things might have been … different. But I tried to do the best I could for you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you did. And I’ve had a wonderful life. So … you’re really my aunt.”
“That’s right. I didn’t know if I was going to tell you. But after meeting you, and seeing what a nice sweet kid you are … you deserve to know the truth.”
“I see.”
“Your adopted parents were nice? You liked them?”
“Oh, yes, very much.”
“Took you to church, did they?”
“Oh, yes. And that was another question. Am I Catholic?”
“No. Your mother and I tried to have you baptized, but that damned Irish priest said he wouldn’t do it unless we had a marriage certificate. I’ve been a lapsed Catholic ever since, but now that I’m older, I go every now and then. Take what you like and leave the rest behind, you know. I’m sorry to have thrown so much at you. I could have let you go on believing I was your mother, but you need to know about your real mother. She wasn’t a tough old broad like me. And I’ll bet you’re just like her. A true-blue lady to the core.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve tried to be a lady, whatever that means.”
“No, you’re a good girl. I can tell. You’re more like your mother than you know. She never tooted her own horn, and as pretty as she was, she was never stuck up. If she had a fault, it was that she was too tenderhearted. We used to call her Saint Francis of Pulaski. She was always bringing stray cats and dogs home, taking care of sick birds …”
“Oh, did she like birds?”
“Oh, yeah. One time, she had this old crow that used to eat right out of her hand.”
“Really? I like birds, too.”
“See? And I want you to know something else about your mother. She loved you.”
“She did?”
“Oh yes. You were her entire world, and if she had not had the accident, she would have kept you. She never for one moment thought of giving you up.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. No question about it. Your mother loved you more than you will ever know.”
LATER, SOOKIE CHECKED INTO her room at the little Solvang Gardens Hotel, not far from Fritzi. It was a sweet little room with a small kitchen, and it had a small garden in the back. That night, she looked at the photograph of Sophie that Fritzi had given her. My God, she was, as Fritzi said, the prettiest sister, and she did look shy. Sookie knew that look so well. She had seen it on her own face so many times before.
Fritzi had let her take some books that had been written about the WASPs back to the hotel, and she sat up that night and read all about them and what the
y had done, and she was in awe of all of them.
When she finished, she gave them back and said, “Thank you for letting me read these. Wow, I had no idea. Just think, Fritzi, you are all legends.”
Fritzi laughed. “Well, I don’t know about that.”
“But you are. It must have been quite an exciting time in your life.”
“Oh, yeah, it was, but you ask any veteran of World War II, and they will tell you the same thing. I try not to live in the past like some of these old geezers. I’m pretty happy with the present. But looking back now, I can tell you, those years were pretty damn special. I used to hate it when I heard all that talk about us being the greatest generation. But now, looking back at how young we all were, and when you think about how we started the war with almost nothing, and how everybody pulled together … the soldiers got most of the glory, but it was also those gals and guys working day and night, cranking out all those planes and tanks and ships that won the war. And you know, it’s funny. It never occurred to any of us that we wouldn’t win. So now when I think about all we accomplished in just four years, I have to agree, we were great. We didn’t know it at the time, of course. I was one of the lucky ones. I got to do what I loved and serve my country, too. None of us felt like a hero. We were just doing what everybody else was doing, only we were doing it in the air.
“It was a magic bubble of time. You knew you had to live for the moment, and we all felt so alive. The music seemed like it was written just for us. Hell, we thought we were saving the world, and in a way, we did. Who can say what would have happened if we hadn’t come into the war when we did? We could all be speaking German or Japanese right now. Who knows? But as hard as it was, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
“It seems like we were always moving. I don’t remember ever getting more than two or three hours’ sleep. None of us did. I think we lived on adrenaline. We were too excited to sleep. None of us thought much about what would happen after the war, and then when we were told the WASPs were being disbanded, and it was all over, it was tough. Of course, it wasn’t only us. It was all the gals that had stepped in during wartime and gone to work at the factories and everywhere else where they were needed. And now we were being told to go home and be happy to be housewives again. Some of them were glad to go home, but a lot of the gals found out they liked being independent and on their own and wanted to keep working, but they were told that it was unpatriotic to take a job away from a returning soldier. It was quite a kick in the teeth, particularly for the WASPs. All that we did to prove ourselves didn’t mean a thing. They just wanted us to go away and pretend it never happened. Even our records were classified.