Your friend always,
Helen  “I want you to meet my family,” Paul announced a little more than a week after their first date. They’d spent every available moment together; they’d been to the Seattle Center and the Space Needle, rowing on Lake Washington, out to dinner and had seen a couple of movies. Sitting on the campus lawn, he waited for Ruth after her last class of the day. He stood when she reached him, and Ruth noticed he wasn’t smiling as he issued the invitation.

“When?”

“Mom and Dad are at the house.”

“You mean you want me to meet them now?” Ruth asked as they strolled across the lush green grass toward the visitors’ parking lot. If she’d known she was meeting Paul’s parents she would’ve been better prepared. She would’ve done something about her hair and worn a different outfit and…

“Yeah,” Paul muttered.

Ruth stopped and he walked forward two or three steps before he noticed. Frowning, he glanced back.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, clutching her books to her chest.

Paul looked everywhere but at her. “My parents feel they should meet you, since I’m spending most of my time in your company. The way they figure it, you must be someone important in my life.”

Ruth’s heart did a happy little jig. “Am I?” she asked flirtatiously.

A rigid expression came over him, betraying none of his feelings. “I don’t know the answer to that yet.”

“Really?” she teased.

“Listen, Ruth, I’m not handing you my heart so you can break it. You don’t want to be involved with a soldier. Well, I’m a soldier, and either you accept that or at the end of these two weeks, it’s over.”

He sounded so…so military. As if he thought a relationship could be that simple, that straightforward. Life didn’t divide evenly into black and white. There were plenty of gray areas, too. All right, so Paul had a point. In the back of her mind, Ruth hoped that, given time, Paul would decide to get out of the war business. She wasn’t the kind of woman who’d be content to sit at home while the man she loved was off in some faraway country risking his life. Experiencing dreadful things. Suffering. Maybe dying.

“You’d rather I didn’t meet your family?” she asked.

“Right.”

That hurt. “I see.”

Some of her pain must have been evident in her voice, because Paul came toward her and tucked his finger beneath her chin. Their eyes met for the longest moment. “If my family meets you, they’ll know how much I care about you,” he said quietly.

Ruth managed to smile. “I’m glad you care, because I care about you, too,” she admitted. “A lot.”

“That doesn’t solve anything.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed, leaning forward so their lips could meet. She half expected Paul to pull away, but he didn’t.

Instead, he groaned and forcefully brought his mouth to hers. Their kiss was passionate, deep—honest. She felt the sharp edges of her textbooks digging painfully into her breasts, and still Ruth melted in his arms.

“You’re making things impossible,” he mumbled when he lifted his head from hers.

“I’ve been known to do that.”

Paul reached for her hand and led her into the parking lot. “I mentioned your grandmother to my parents,” he said casually as he unlocked the car doors.

“Ah,” Ruth said, slipping into the passenger seat. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why your family wants to meet me. I’ve brought you to my family. They feel cheated.”

Paul shook his head solemnly.

“I really don’t think that’s it. But…speaking of your grandmother, when can we see her again?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, if you like. I talked to her this morning before my classes and she asked when we could make a return visit.”

“You’re curious about what happened, aren’t you?” Paul asked as he inserted the key into the ignition.

“Very much so,” Ruth admitted. Since their visit to Cedar Cove, she’d thought about her grandmother’s adventures again and again. She’d done some research, too, using the Internet and a number of library books on the war. In fact, Ruth was so absorbed by the history of the Resistance movement, she’d found it difficult to concentrate on the psychology essay she was trying to write.

She’d had several days to become accustomed to Helen’s exploits during the Second World War. And yet she still had trouble imagining the woman she knew as a fighter for the French Resistance.

“She loved Jean-Claude,” Paul commented.

Ruth nodded. Her grandmother had loved her husband enough to kill him—a shocking reality that would not have made sense at any other time in Helen’s life. And then, at some point after that, Helen had met her Sam. How? Ruth wondered. When did they fall in love? Family history told her that Sam Shelton had fought in the European campaign during the Second World War. He’d been in France toward the end of the war, she recalled. She wondered how much he’d known about Helen’s past.

Ruth could only hope her grandmother would provide some answers tomorrow.

The meeting with Paul’s family was going well, Ruth decided. His parents were delightful—immediately welcoming. Barbara, his mother, had an easy laugh and a big heart. She brought Ruth into the kitchen and settled her on a stool at the counter while she fussed with the dinner salad.

Paul and his father, Greg, were on the patio, firing up the grill and chatting. Every now and then, Ruth caught Paul stealing a glance in her direction.

“I want to help,” Ruth told his mother.

“Nonsense,” Barbara Gordon insisted as she tore lettuce leaves into a large wooden bowl. “I’m just so pleased to finally meet you. It was as if Paul had some secret he was keeping from us.”

Ruth smiled and sipped her glass of iced tea.

“My father was career military—in the marines,” Barbara said, chopping tomatoes for the salad. “I don’t know if that was what induced Paul to join the military or not, but I suspect it had an influence.”

“How do you feel about him being stationed so far from home?” Ruth asked, curious to hear his mother’s perspective. She couldn’t imagine any mother would want to see her son or daughter at that kind of risk.

Barbara sighed. “I don’t like it, if that’s what you’re asking. Every sane person hates war. My father didn’t want to fight in World War II, and I cried my eyes out the day Greg left for Vietnam. Now here’s my oldest son in Afghanistan.”

“It seems most generations are called upon to serve their country, doesn’t it?” Ruth said.

Barbara agreed with a short nod. “Freedom isn’t free—for us or for the countries we support. Granted, some conflicts we’ve been involved in seem misguided, but unfortunately war appears to be part of the human condition.”

“Why?” Ruth asked, although she didn’t really expect a response.

“I think every generation has asked that same question,” Barbara said thoughtfully, putting the salad bowl aside. She began to prepare a dressing, pouring olive oil and balsamic vinegar into a small bowl. “Paul told me you have a problem with his unwillingness to leave the marines at the end of his commitment. Is that right?”

A little embarrassed by the question, Ruth nodded. “I do.”

“The truth is, as his mother, I want Paul out of the marines, too, but that isn’t a decision you or I can make for him. My son has always been his own person. That’s how his father and I raised him.”

Ruth’s gaze followed Paul as he stood with his father by the barbecue. He looked up and saw her, frowning as if he knew exactly what she and his mother were talking about. Ruth gave him a reassuring wave.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” his mother asked, watching her closely.

The question took Ruth by surprise. “I’m afraid I am.” Ruth didn’t want to be—something she hadn’t acknowledged openly until this moment. He’d described his reluctance to hand her his heart to break. She felt the same way and feared he’d end up breaking hers.

There seemed to be a tacit agreement not to broach these difficult subjects during dinner.

The four of them sat on the patio around a big table, shaded by an overlarge umbrella. His mother had made corn bread as well as the salad, and the steaks were grilled to perfection. After dinner, Ruth helped with the cleanup and then Paul made their excuses.

“We’re going to a movie?” she whispered on their way out the door, figuring he’d used that as a convenient pretext for leaving.

“I had to get you out of there before my mother started showing you my baby pictures.”

“I’ll bet you were a real cutie.”

“You should see my brother and sister, especially the nude photos.”

Ruth giggled.

Instead of the theater, they headed for Lake Washington and walked through the park, licking ice-cream cones, talking and laughing. Ruth couldn’t remember laughing with anyone as much as she did with Paul.

He dropped her off after ten, walked her up to the front porch and kissed her good-night.

“I’ll pick you up at noon,” he said. “After your morning class.”

“Noon,” she repeated, her arms linked around his neck. That seemed too long. Despite her fears, despite the looming doubts, she was in love with him.

“You’re sure your grandmother’s up to having company so soon?” he asked.

“Yes.” Ruth pressed her forehead against his shoulder. “I think the real question’s whether we’re ready for the next installment. I don’t know if I can bear to hear what happened to Jean-Claude.”

“Perhaps not, but she needs to tell us.”

“Yes,” Ruth said. “She couldn’t talk about it before.”

“I know.” Paul kissed her again.

Ruth felt at peace in his arms. Only when she stopped to think about the future, their future, did she become uncertain and confused.

Seven

Ruth and Paul sat with her grandmother at the kitchen table in her Cedar Cove house as rain dripped rhythmically against the windowpane. The day was overcast and dreary, often the case with spring in the Pacific Northwest.

Helen reached for the teapot in the middle of the table and filled each of their cups, then offered them freshly baked peanut-butter cookies arranged on a small dessert plate. Ruth recognized the plate from her childhood. She and her grandmother had often had tea together when she was a youngster. Her visits to Cedar Cove were special; her grandmother had listened while Ruth chatted away endlessly, sharing girlish confidences. It was during those private little tea parties that they’d bonded, grandmother and granddaughter.

Today the slow ritual of pouring tea and passing around cookies demanded patience. Ruth badly wanted to throw questions at Helen, but she could see that her grandmother would begin her story again only when she was ready. Helen seemed to be bracing herself for this next installment.