This Is How I'd Love You by Hazel Woods Page A

of honesty that may feel like a dagger for each of us. Will you do me the honor?”
    “What in heaven’s name are you talking about? Are you feverish?” He placed a hand on her forehead.
    Hensley pulled away. “You haven’t signed up at all. You will be sitting here, drinking your coffee, cultivating new fans, the whole time I’m away. The whole time the others are dying, really and truly dying, before they’ve had the chance to love their girl the way they long to. You never had any intention to protect or defend anyone but yourself.”
    Lowe closed the space between them in one large step. He was sweating across his top lip. His hands, too, were damp, as he held her face between them. Breathing heavily, he squeezed her cheeks hard. “If you’re finished with the dramatics, I would remind you that lies are the currency of human society. They are written in every newspaper and spoken on every corner.”
    Hensley could not believe how easily and swiftly he moved from guilt to self-righteousness. There would be no apology. Hensley shuddered with remorse and shame and a new understanding. His hands still held her cheeks firmly and just as he was about to utter some other justification, the subtle beginning of the kettle’s whistle interrupted him. He let go of her face and moved across the room, his head held high.
    She followed him. “You are a filthy coward,” she said, surprised by her own voice. “What could be worse than lying about your service in order to seduce me? It’s rotten and horrid. I hate you and your stupid rotten baby teeth.”
    He smiled as he unscrewed the sugar tin. This gesture was as vile as anything he’d done. “Seduction,” he began, but Hensley couldn’t stand it. She picked up the hot kettle, still screaming, and dumped its contents on top of his bare feet. The water steamed, nearly hissed, as it hit the tender tops of his toes. Then she threw it back on the stove and ran out, his cursing and shrieking making her at once glad and terrified.
    Downstairs she grabbed Marie’s hand and the two girls ran out onto the street together. Through their huffing and puffing, she told Marie that Mr. Teagan had suddenly tried to kiss her when she handed him the scarf, that he was crude and untrustworthy. Marie listened, quietly nodding. As they walked arm in arm past the huddles of pigeons, fluttering in the gutters, vying for scraps, Marie said only, “But it’s over?”
    Hensley had nodded, certain that it was.
     • • • 
    N ow, she stands and watches two black birds crest and dive on the blue horizon. They could be bits of trash carried by a fickle current. As they recede from view, chasing some unknown desire, Hensley imagines that she can hear their wings, flapping, moving against the thin air, pushing away all of their options but the one that says, Fly .
    Once again, she is reminded of the letter from Mr. Reid.What scraps of her life will she send to him? What will be left of her if she returns to a life of humiliation—becoming Lowe’s wife, knowing that even from the very beginning, it was all false?
    Will she send that piece of herself to Mr. Reid? Tell him to hold on, to stay alive, to fight for his sanity and dignity because if he does, if he survives, he can return home for—what? Just the ashes from a different fire, the remains of another kind of warfare?

C harles drives the King George, full of casualties with injuries so serious they’ve not yet been fully addressed at the CCS, to the nearest train station where an ambulance train is to arrive, ready to transport the men to proper hospitals and eventually home, if they make it. Rogerson sits in the passenger seat, whistling a tune Charles doesn’t know. They’ve been together nearly four months, but it feels like forever.
    The terrain between the CCS and the train station is flat and muddy from the previous evening’s rainstorm. As they drive, the mud splatters up and into the open windows, pocking their arms and