Life Happens- 1941

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when he came home.  It had been thirteen years and I still loved hearing his beautiful voice say my name.   

“Charlotte, are you home?” I spit out my toothpaste.

“Yes, one minute.” I wiped off my mouth and opened the large white door.  Elliot was leaning in the  kitchen doorway in an unbuttoned blue, long sleeve shirt and gray sweatpants.  His magnificent light brown hair looked slightly ruffled and he had a mischievous glint in his dazzling blue eyes.  Ever since the day I met Elliot I felt different.  It’s like he filled a large void in my life.  Even now I feel the same way for him that I did back in October of 1927 when I met him…..

My head was spinning.  Why were those two boys standing over me?  The taller one of the two stuck out his hand and helped me up.  I still remember our conversation perfectly,

“Are you alright?”

“Ummm…Oh, I’m fine.” He looked over at his friend who winked but he elbowed him,

“Now look what you did Dan!”  The other boy smirked and walked off.  He stuck out his hand again “Err…hi, I’m Elliot.” I shook it.

“I’m Charlotte.”  He smiled.  I noticed he had a lot of freckles and a big dimple on his left cheek.  I grinned too.  After a walk around the park and a plastic cup of hot chocolate, I had a feeling we’d be friends for a long time. 

After a while it got colder so he offered me his sweatshirt.  I blushed, but I took it.  I didn’t realize though that the sweatshirt said Virginia Tech (that was the old rival to the Virginia Cavaliers who I supported).  But I couldn’t have cared less.  I never even knew it anyway.  We laughed, we told stupid jokes, and we told each other about our families.  

“Well”, Elliot cleared his throat, “My mom loves to sing but she works downtown at the drugstore.  My dad’s a mechanic down the street.” He smiled and I melted.  “What do your parents do?”  This was the question I had been dreading but there was no way around it.  I didn’t want to lie to him. 

“Well actually, my mom doesn’t have a job and my dad’s….” My voice trailed off, “My dad was in the military for eleven years and, and today he left us.”  I started to sob.  He wrapped his arm around me and I laid my head on his shoulder.  We stayed like that for a while.  I had expected him to look down on me after that but he didn’t.  That was when I knew he wasn’t the boy that you meet on your street every day.  He was someone special.

***********

He wrapped his arms around me.  We rocked back and forth for several minutes.  I didn’t want him to ever let me go.  I noticed over his shoulder on the counter there was an expensive looking bottle of champagne.  He caught me looking,

“Charlotte?”

“Yes Elliot?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“No, I mean I really love you.”  He sounded serious and I retreated from his embrace.

“Elliot, what’s wrong?”

“It’s…” he paused to stroke a strand of hair back from my face.

“Charlotte, I joined the air corps.” 

“Oh Elliot!”  My mouth dropped so wide you could have fit in a yo-yo.

“Charlotte I need to.  I’m an excellent pilot and they sent me a letter asking if…I’m…I need to do this Charlotte.”  This was true and I couldn’t argue.  He had been flying for years.  I should have seen this coming but I didn’t want to admit it to myself.  

“Well, I mean, I’m glad; this is a really big thing for you but do you really have to go?  I just can’t stand the thought of losi-” He cut me off,

“Charlotte, I swear, you will never lose me.  I’m not going to die.  I could never leave you.”  This was the first time in thirteen years that I had ever seen Elliot cry.  He mopped his eyes on his sleeve and kissed my forehead gently, “We’ll work this out Charlotte, I promise.  We’ll find a way.  It’ll work even if we have to make a way.  I swear.”  I began to cry too and buried my face in his shirt.  Then I got an idea, “Elliot”, I hiccupped, “maybe I could be a nurse or something.  I’d always be closer to you and know if you-”

“Charlotte don’t.”

“It could happen.  I just can’t stand the thought.  If you died I think I might die too.  I’d miss you too much!”

“Then let’s worry about that later if it comes.  Okay?”

“Alright,” I sighed.  It was just too hard to think about.  I thought the only thing worse than losing Elliot would be for him to turn out like my dad.  The thought was plausible; war was a strange thing.  It could break a man or build him up.

He popped the cork on the champagne and we sat together at the kitchen table sipping fizz and talking cautiously well into the afternoon.