1022 Evergreen Place - Debbie Macomber [110]
“Thank you,” Jacob said. “It isn’t often I have a beautiful young woman come to visit.” He clasped her hand between both of his. “That is, unless it’s one of my granddaughters.” He chuckled softly. “Now tell me about those letters. I have to admit you’ve piqued my curiosity. You say they were written during the war years? By me?”
Mary Jo nodded. “Mack and I live in a duplex on Evergreen Place in Cedar Cove,” she said.
“Evergreen Place,” he repeated.
“I believe that’s the house where Joan once lived with her sister.”
“You wrote Joan letters at that address,” Mack told him. “Only it isn’t a single house anymore, but a duplex.”
“Evergreen Place,” Jacob said again, and it seemed that the address had disappeared from his memory.
Mary Jo didn’t know where to start, there was so much to tell. “I noticed a loose board in the closet one day. When I went to investigate, I discovered a cigar box full of letters hidden under the floorboards.”
“My letters?” Jacob hardly seemed able to take it in. “From the war?”
“Yes.” With infinite pleasure Mary Jo gave Jacob the box. She placed it on his lap and, as she started to move away, the old man reached for her hand and kissed it. Tears spilled from his eyes; embarrassed, he wiped them away, but his emotion brought tears to her eyes, too.
“I always wondered where these ended up. Joan never said. She wasn’t close to her sister, and the two of them shared that house. Elaine was jealous of her, I think. At any rate they were estranged until near the end of Elaine’s life, and then Joan went to her and they made their peace.”
Mary Jo was interested to hear this and relieved that the two sisters had finally settled their differences.
“Joan’s diary was hidden in there, too,” Mack told him.
“What happened to Joan?” Mary Jo asked, anxious now for more of the details. “We know she died, but…”
Jacob opened the box and reverently pulled out the diary. “After the liberation of Europe, Joan and I were married.” Jacob looked up from the treasure in his hands and shook his head sadly. “She died far too young. She was seventy-one. We had three children, a boy and two girls. Mark, Margaret and Marianne….” He paused as the reminiscence, the grief, overcame him. He withdrew a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and dabbed at his eyes again.
“Would you tell us about your experiences on D-day?” Mack asked.
“There’s not much to tell. I was one of the fortunate ones. I was herded, along with other Americans, onto a train. It took us to a POW camp in central Germany, where I spent the rest of the war.”
“That couldn’t have been an easy time.”
Jacob sighed. “War is never easy, young man.”
“When were you released?” Mary Jo asked. His imprisonment was clearly a painful memory he’d rather not discuss.
“May 1945. American paratroopers dropped onto the field outside the prison camp,” he said with a far-off look. “Those of us who’d survived were afraid the German soldiers would kill us rather than expose the conditions under which we’d been held.”
“They didn’t, thank God,” Mary Jo whispered.
“No. Instead, they threw down their weapons and ran. Many of them were just boys, fighting a war they didn’t want to fight. Like me, all they wanted was to go home to their families.”
His attitude was one of forgiveness and generosity, which impressed Mary Jo and moved her deeply. “Did Joan know you’d been taken prisoner?”
Jacob nodded. “Not for several weeks, though. She assumed I was dead. She’d moved back to the family home in Spokane to help with her younger brothers and sisters. Apparently her mother had taken ill and she was needed there.”
“How long before you saw her again?”
Jacob sat up a bit straighter. “Far longer than I wanted. When I was rescued I weighed less than ninety pounds. The army sent me home in a hospital ship.” He chuckled hoarsely. “I would’ve gotten well much faster if they’d just flown me back to my family. My mother was the best cook in the world.”
Mack exchanged a smile with Mary Jo.
“At nights, back in the camp, I used