night. She felt the wall between them, like a physical force.
Charlie wasn’t the only one having difficulties adjusting.
Trip had constant nightmares. He moaned, thrashed, cried out. When Hildie touched his shoulder, wanting to soothe him, he jerked awake. He always came out of it with a jolt, shaking. He wouldn’t talk about what he dreamed. Sometimes he got up and went into the living room and sat with a light on, staring at nothing.
She came out and sat with him. “What do you dream about?” Maybe talking about it would break the grip the nightmares had on him.
“The war.”
“Can you tell me…?”
“No!” He looked bleak and despairing.
Once, she came out and found him crying, his hands raked into his hair, holding his head. She sat down beside him and put her hand on his back. He stood abruptly and moved away from her. “Go back to bed, Hildemara.”
“I love you.”
“I know. I love you, too. But it doesn’t help.”
“If you can’t talk to me about what happened, you have to talk to someone.”
“I’ll get over it in time.”
The nightmares persisted. Trip entered the police academy and that seemed to make everything worse, though he felt called to it. A siren’s call that would destroy him? Sometimes he drank in order to sleep.
Finally Hildie could stand the worry no more. It affected her sleep and appetite. She went to Rev. Mathias.
Sobbing, she told him everything, even how sometimes when they made love, Trip seemed to be trying to drive demons away. “He scares me sometimes. I don’t know what to do to help him. He won’t let me in.” When asked, Hildemara could name all the places to which she had posted letters. Rev. Mathias thought about it for a moment, his mouth a grim line.
“We must have been following in each other’s footsteps. Normandy. Paris. Germany. Berlin. I can guess what he saw, Hildemara. I saw it, too. I was a chaplain.”
When Rev. Mathias came to dinner, Trip looked at her with fury in his eyes, but didn’t say anything embarrassing about a wife interfering. Hildemara took Charlie and went out for a long walk so the men could talk. When she came back, both of them had red-rimmed eyes. After they saw Rev. Mathias out, Trip kissed her the way he used to kiss her. Hildie didn’t ask what they had talked about. She didn’t want to know any more details than she already did.
That night her husband slept through the night without crying out or thrashing. She awakened once and found him so still, she feared he had died. She turned on the light and found his face at peace. He looked young again, as he had before he’d gone away to war. In the morning, he looked rested, but she knew the war had altered him in ways that would never be undone.
He and Rev. Mathias started meeting once a week for coffee just to talk. Even so, there were times when Hildie would see a look come into Trip’s eyes, and she’d know he was reliving the horrors again. Some wounds broke open and had to be stitched closed with patience and prayer. She mourned the loss of the young man he had been-carefree, easygoing Trip so quick to laughter. That man had disappeared on the beaches at Normandy, and in his place another returned hardened by war, cynical about the world, and with a fierce desire to protect her and Charlie from harm.
Trip excelled at the police academy. His college degree and science background made him a prime candidate for forensics. He agreed to a transfer to the new Santa Rita jail, where he would work in a laboratory, studying and sorting evidence.
Rather than be separated by the long commute, Hildie looked for a rental near the prison. They moved into a bigger house with a bigger yard not far from his job. Paxtown, a small farming community nestled in the East Bay Hills, sat two miles away with a grocery store, department store, and theater, among other comforting amenities, including a church.
The cyclone fences with concertina wire at the top and guards at the prison gate disconcerted Hildemara. Trip had seen them before. “This time they keep the bad guys in.” His cryptic comment gave Hildie her first insight into what he had seen, what had haunted his nights for so long. They never talked about those years he served.
The neighborhood women came over with cookies and casseroles and invitations to bring Charlie over to play with their sons and daughters.
Many of their husbands had served in the war, too. They talked about problems the way Mama and Papa had talked about crops, with camaraderie and hope for the future. Hildie and Trip attended block parties, barbecues, and card parties. Hildie invited women over for coffee klatches and teas. People often talked of “those dirty Japs,” and Hildemara talked about the Musashi family and Andrew and Patrick serving in Europe. Some of the women stopped inviting her to their homes.
“I wonder what they’d say if they knew my father came from Germany and my mother is Swiss.” If not for Mama’s correspondence with Rosie Brechtwald, they wouldn’t have known how the Swiss threatened to blow the main tunnel into the country if one German stood in the light at the end of it. But that didn’t stop them from making money off the war selling munitions to the Germans and transporting goods between the Third Reich and Mussolini. Rosie said it was the only way they could remain free. Mama grieved over freedom being purchased with blood money.
“Don’t tell them,” Trip ordered her. “It’s none of their business.”
Trip kept his police revolver loaded and high enough to be out of Charlie’s reach, but close enough to get to it fast. Hildie wondered if working homicides was good for him, but he seemed to relish the work of putting criminals in prison.
After looking at available land in the area, Trip became increasingly discouraged and despondent. “I’ll be retirement age before we can afford to buy property of our own!”
“We could save enough if I worked at the veterans hospital outside Livermore.”
Trip’s eyes darkened. “What about Charlie?”
“I could work a night shift now and then. See how it goes.” She didn’t tell him she suspected she was pregnant again.
43
1947
Hildie gave birth to their daughter, Carolyn, in the spring. Carolyn wasn’t as easy a baby as Charlie. She had colic and cried almost constantly. Hildemara almost felt relieved when she was able to go back to work after two months off.
At first, Trip protested. “Quit, Hildie.” He ran his hand over Carolyn’s downy head. “Think of the baby.”
“I’ll sleep late on weekends. We still need to save a lot more before we can buy land.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“LaVonne said she’d babysit Charlie and Carolyn a couple of days a week. I can change to day shifts. That will make it easier.”
“And when will we be together? Dinnertime?”
“I’m only working part-time, Trip.”
“And what about your health?”
“I’m fine, Trip. Really. I couldn’t be better.”
And it was true.
