Free A Memory Between Us by Sarah Sundin

smell, don’t you?” May said.
    “Bichloride of mercury?” Ruth laughed and shook water from a pair of gloves. “Only a nurse would like this smell.”
    May rolled syringes in a pan of the blue green disinfectant. “In the orphanage I had no control over my life, but with soapy water and a stiff brush, I could scrub away the smells and pretend I lived in a castle.”
    Ruth draped the brown latex gloves over a clothesline to dry before being sterilized. “Cleanliness may not be next to godliness, but it beats back the demons of poverty.”
    “That it does.”
    Ruth inspected another glove for holes in need of patching. “Thank you for coming in early. It’s so busy.”
    “Isn’t it? If they keep flying such big missions, we won’t have any beds left.”
    And the Eighth Air Force wouldn’t have any men left. Ruth scrubbed at a stain on a glove. Jack wasn’t in combat yet, was he? She didn’t need that worry, nor did she like the fact that she would indeed worry.
    “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” May said. “I don’t suppose Jack and Charlie will come. They’ve sent up missions every day.”
    “I suppose not.” Ruth kept her voice light although her heart felt heavy. Why was she still disappointed Jack hadn’t come the previous Sunday to visit his men and worship in the chapel?
    “I suppose I shouldn’t pray for bad weather. The more they fly, the sooner this war will be over.”
    “I suppose so.” Yet that morning, Ruth looked up and hoped for clouds. With Jack, she could almost be a normal woman. His looks and personality she could ignore, but not his character, his chivalry, his safety—a potent and lethal combination.
    “We’re doing a lot of supposing, aren’t we?”
    Ruth caught a rosy tint in May’s cheeks. “Should I be supposing something?”
    May snapped up her gaze. “Goodness, no. I don’t want romance, and I just met Charlie. One picnic isn’t enough to base any supposition on.”
    “But …”
    May laughed. “But nothing. Sure, I trust Jack’s judgment, but that doesn’t mean Charlie’s right for me, and that doesn’t mean I’m ready, and that certainly doesn’t make his job less dangerous.”
    “You won’t get an argument from me. You know where I stand.” So did Jack, yet the picnics smelled like a ruse, like a prelude to dating. All the more reason to get out of England and soon.
    “Oh, Ruth, you’d better take your lunch. Are you going today?” May asked, eyes bright.
    “Yes.” Ruth rinsed her hands. She had an hour to ease her growling stomach and keep her appointment.
    “I’ll pray for you.”
    Ruth blinked at the strange sight of someone to talk to, someone who understood. “Thank you,” she said to her roommate and—dare she say—her friend?

    “Another one?” Lt. Agnes MacKinnon lifted her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and looked back down to Ruth’s paperwork on her desk. “I can’t afford to lose another nurse.”
    How many had applied to the flight nursing program? Nausea swept through Ruth’s system as it had minutes before when she’d fled the mess hall. Sausage? She’d never be hungry enough to eat sausage.
    The chief nurse’s sigh made her thin chest collapse under her dark blue uniform jacket. “You’re one of my best nurses. I don’t want to lose you.”
    Ruth shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Thank you, but I need this position. I support four brothers and sisters, and I can’t do so on my current salary.”
    Lieutenant MacKinnon frowned at her.
    Uh-oh. She’d think Ruth wanted the position only for the money. “It’s not just for the extra pay. Flight nursing appeals to me for many reasons: the responsibility, the independence, the chance to participate in a new age for nursing.”
    The chief nurse tapped reedy fingers on the application. “Glamour, romance, adventure—that’s all girls think about nowadays. What about the danger?”
    “No more dangerous than if the 12th Evac were transferred to a combat