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you?”
    â€œI don’t know. The friend. The
cousin
. You tell me.” She leaned forward, taking Caroline’s hand in hers, crushing the letter. “But don’t you see—maybe he didn’t love me! Maybe he thought back to that night and cringed too. I don’t know, I guess I was thinking that if I show this to the judge, he’ll understand the entire thing was a big mistake, and that Linus and I just… ”
    â€œSinned?”
    Esther jerked. Took her hands away. “Yes. Sinned. But I can only ask their forgiveness so many times before it feels futile.”
    Caroline shook her head and folded the letter. “That’s not what I mean, Es. I know you’re sorry. And frankly, I understand.” She handed her back the letter, not meeting her eyes. “Wayne and I were terribly tempted before—well, that’s why we wanted to push up our wedding date and get married at the base.”
    â€œSadie is my entire life. I won’t lose her.”
    Caroline smiled, waved to a huddle of nurses who walked in the front door. “Then show the judge the letter. You’re right, if Linus didn’t love you, then maybe they’ll stop holding on so tight.” She turned back to her. “What did his letter say?”
    â€œI haven’t opened it yet.”
    Caroline stared at her, words on her face that Esther had no trouble reading.
    â€œI—I can’t. I keep thinking… Well, what if he
did
love me? What if his last words were of adoration, and longing, and…”
    Or, what if he knew, had guessed from her veiled letters that she hadn’t loved him back? “I can’t bear that, Caroline. I already stare at the rafters every night and ask what kind of woman hopes the war won’t end? What kind of woman hopes with everything inside her that her fiancé doesn’t come home?”
    The kind of woman who deserved Caroline’s expression.
    â€œSee?” She shook her head. “If he loved me… Oh, Caroline, that makes me even more of a scarlet woman, don’t you see it?”
    â€œA scarlet woman to whom?”
    â€œTo…myself.” Esther’s voice shook and she lowered it, looked away. “Myself.”
    Caroline stood there, saying nothing.
    The music changed, slowed, and the band leader added romance with the bittersweet crooning of “At Last.”
    At last, my love has come along…
    From the open window the fragrance of spring, a lilac heavy with bud, perfumed the night.
    The men at the café table rose.
    â€œI need to get to work.”
    â€œStay for one song, Es.”
    â€œNot this one.” She got up, backing away just as the two men approached. One, she recognized as having spent a month in the ward. He seemed to be walking well, his fractured leg healing.
    I believe he may have shattered all the bones in his leg, including the thigh bone or femur and both bones below the knee, the fibula and tibia.
    What if Linus didn’t die, but came home without a leg? Or a face like Charlie’s? Could she love him then, if she didn’t love him now, her memories of him still whole?
    She imagined him, lying in the darkness, the medic, Peter, beside him, packing his wounds, shivering. At least he hadn’t been alone.
    â€œWould you like to dance?” the soldier she’d seen in the ward asked. Esther shook her head, hating the disappointment on his face.
    â€œI have to get to work.”
    That tempered his expression, and she cast a look at the girls around the punch table. The GI followed her gaze—and her hint.
    On the floor, Caroline danced well in the arms of her partner, her smile fixed, her feet light. In truth, Esther missed dancing.
    She wrapped her arms around her waist, smiling into the music, the memory of the USO club, the American flag turning the club patriotic,the room packed with the servicemen with chili-bowl haircuts, their youthful arrogance creating