The Bungalow by Sarah Jio Page B

her. She must be something else, that woman. Anyway, I met an airman last night. His name is Will, and he isn’t half bad.”
    Liz approached our table with a tray and set it down. “Is Mary still on the mend?”
    “Yes, thank God,” I said. “She’s much stronger today.”
    Liz gazed intently at an envelope she held in her hand. “This came for her today,” she said cautiously. “And I can’t help but notice the name on the return address. Didn’t she say her ex-fiancé’s name was Edward ?”
    I nodded. “Let me see it.”
    I held the envelope up to the light, unable to make out anything significant, just that the sender was indeed Edward. Edward Naughton, with a return address in Paris.
    “Anne!” Kitty scolded. “You shouldn’t read her mail. It’s private.”
    “I will if I think it’s going to compromise her recovery,” I said. “Listen, if this man could leave her, almost at the altar, and send her into such a tailspin that she banished herself to a far-flung island on the other side of the world, imagine what a letter from him could do to her.”
    The other women nodded in agreement, and Kitty softened.
    “Look,” I said, “I’m not going to read it; I’m merely tucking it away until she’s ready. Her heart is weak. She needs to regain her strength first. I won’t let this letter conflict with her recovery.”
    “All right,” Kitty said. “But you really shouldn’t meddle when it comes to love.”
    Is she giving me some kind of warning about her own life?
    I scrunched my nose in displeasure and tucked the envelope into the pocket of my dress for safekeeping. “I’m not meddling ,” I said directly to Kitty. “This is a matter of health.”
    Kitty pushed her plate aside. “Well, girls, I don’t think I can stand another bite of these overcooked eggs. I’m heading to work. Nurse Hildebrand says we’ve got a live one coming in today.”

    I stewed about Kitty’s comments as we walked to the infirmary that morning, but forgot about the interaction entirely when we got word that a medic had radioed from another island that a wounded pilot was en route. The pilot would be our first real patient, aside from Westry, who was mine alone.
    The airman arrived at a quarter past ten. It was as serious a case as any one of us could have imagined—shrapnel wounds to the head. Kitty, first to wheel the soldier into the operating area, worked alongside the doctor with steady hands, removing bits of blood-covered metal and piling them on a plate beside the operating table. Liz excused herself to vomit, yet Kitty didn’t flinch. She handled the procedure with such skill and ease that the doctor requested she stay on for another hour to assist with the patient’s care. She quickly agreed.
    After our shift ended, I walked back to the barracks, eager to escape the sterile infirmary and relax in the comfort of the bungalow. I packed a little bag and tucked in scissors, a needle and thread, and a bolt of pale yellow fabric I’d found in a trash barrel outside the infirmary. Perfect for curtains, I’d thought, snatching it up before the enlisted men could haul it away with the garbage collection.
    Westry wasn’t inside when I arrived, so I retrieved the key from the book, remembering how he’d thought of the hiding place, and unlocked the door, setting my bag down on the old mahogany chair.
    I immediately got to work on the curtains, measuring the width of the windows and calculating the length and width of each panel. I laid out the fabric on the floor, shooing a baby lizard away as I did, and commenced cutting. I listened to the birds’ songs as I hemmed the curtains. I didn’t have an iron to press them, but the seams would be fine for a beach hut, and in time, the warm, misty air would soften their creases.
    As I stitched, I thought of Westry, so spirited and spontaneous, so unlike Gerard and his consistent, measured ways. Why can’t Gerard be more free, more of a lover of life? And yet,