Remembering the Ghost of You

January 5th, 1945

The letter I got today from Rebecca was hard to read. It was dated the end of November and she was telling me of her plans to spend Christmas with Susan and the baby. I couldn’t read it without my eyes watering. We didn’t talk about it. Frank was extremely quiet and out of it. It made him seem even younger then he was and I wished I was more comforting but I had so much shit to do being one of only two medics left here to look after the injured.
After the fires were put out the troops moved into the houses and other buildings in the village. Our dead were buried, theirs were burned. Some of the women and children stayed, but most fled to other towns. We didn’t treat those who stayed with hostility though and after about three days they were more open. Being here we had more food and supplies which was nice, but the memories that hung around here were crushing.
I was the one who told Ray that Bob was gone. They’d been particularly close and having to tell him was almost harder then when I heard it from Frank. I watched his face sink and then he waved me away. It didn’t help that he’d been his with shrapnel and lost his left eye. He’d been freshly bandaged when I found him and relayed the news. He wasn’t talking either right now.
I was smoking my third cigarette of the day and looking at a drawing Esmerie had sent me. Her letter had arrived from Paris with Rebecca’s letter. She’d drawn me a picture of us by the ocean and she drew Mikey in a cloud above us. It was a sweet gesture. I had heard from the nurses there that she barely remembered her parents. She was just over two when they were killed in an attempted uprising. She had asked me if Mikey was with her parents and I had told her that he was. She had then asked me if Mikey could be her brother too and I told her he would have loved that.
I rubbed my palms against my eyes. I didn’t want to cry anymore so I pushed the negative thoughts from my mind and headed back in to check on the wounded.
“Frankie you’ve got to eat,” I said to him quietly as I redressed his shoulder. If we weren’t in this village he’d have probably lost his entire arm, but being here had allowed me to take extra care of it. Being here with warm fires and food was helping a lot of the wounded heal faster.
He looked at me with large sad eyes and I patted his head before handing him the bowl of watery soup. “Eat,” I coaxed like he was a child.
“Yeah,” he murmured and I hovered until he’d taken four big spoonfuls. I then moved on to other patients.
“Hey Ray,” I said and sat on his bed. He was sitting propped against the pillows with his eye shut and a cigarette in his mouth.
“I can’t wait to get out of this place,” he said and opened his good eye.
“Yeah I know. February they said. We’ll be pushing towards Berlin assuming the German’s stay in retreat,” I told him and he nodded. The German’s were on the run and we were closing in. American’s and British had been pouring into Germany and many said that this was looking like the end of the war. I couldn’t wait.
“And Frankie?”
“Still looking lost and dazed, but his arm is healing.”
“Poor little guy,” Ray murmured as he exhaled smoke. “Shouldn’t you be working? I was told I should be able to help soon.”
“I am working. No one is on the verge of death so I’ve got a few minutes here and there,” I said. “And you should take this opportunity to rest and sleep.” He snorted a laugh.
“I haven’t been able to sleep since we left American soil,” he muttered.
“You should really try,” I said and he rolled his eye.
“Yes Doctor Gerard, whatever you say,” he mocked and I cracked a small smile.
“See you later,” I told him as I stood and he saluted me.

I headed back out to the freezing January afternoon. Everything was ice and snow and the sky was one of the clearest shades of blue I’d ever seen. Some soldiers who’d been left here were huddled around a fire, but I walked past them to the edge of the town that looked to the west. Miles away, enjoying the morning sky or the frigid afternoon, were all the people I held dear to me and was protecting by being here.