Free With Every Letter by Sarah Sundin Page A

moved back to Pennsylvania. Couldn’t take him on the train, Mom said. He got a new dog in Pittsburgh, a spaniel named Molly. He loved Molly, but she could never replace Rufus.
    Love didn’t work that way.
    “My sister wanted a cat,” Larry said. “She’d sneak them into the apartment, and Mom would shoo them out. Mom keeps canaries.”

    Tom laughed. “That would be a disaster.”
    Larry’s dark eyes glittered. “It was. Cat knocked over a cage once. The bird swooped around, the cat jumped at it. Mom chased the cat with her kitchen knife. I never laughed so hard in my life.”
    Tom grinned and took another spoonful. He had a strange sensation of someone standing behind him. Breath on his neck.
    He tensed and turned, his spoon in front of him.
    The little dog stood on the wall behind him, cocked his head to one side, and snatched the food from Tom’s spoon.
    “Why, you little thief.” Tom laughed and extended his hand slowly. The dog consented, and Tom scratched him behind the ears. “Should expect that on the Barbary Coast—Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
    “Barbary Coast was pirates,” Larry said. “Ali Baba was in Arabia. You need to read more.”
    “I read plenty.” The fur felt great to Tom’s fingers, and the dog leaned into Tom’s hand. The mutt needed a friend, a provider. And a bath. Tom offered him another chunk of lamb. “Here, boy. Open, sesame.”
    The dog gobbled the meat and made a funny chortling sound.
    Tom laughed. “Is that your name? Is Sesame your name?”
    “Come on, Gill. Don’t name it.”
    Tom rubbed Sesame behind the ears. If he could give his platoon something to rally around, something to instill identity and pride, the men would work because they wanted to.
    “He needs a name. He needs a home.” Tom flashed Larry a grin. “And our platoon needs a mascot.”

9
    Bowman Field
November 23, 1942
    Mellie shivered. If she could move around, the damp, chill wind blowing over the airfield would be more bearable, but she stood at attention with all the nurses assigned to the 349th Air Evacuation Group. For the last time.
    Her week of grace concluded today, but whenever Lieutenant Lambert came around, Mellie seemed to be alone. Would her efforts be in vain? She shivered again.
    Standing next to her, Rose nudged her. “What’s the matter, California girl? Too cold for you?”
    “So much colder in Virginia, huh?” Mellie whispered, although the visiting brass were still inside the C-47, watching a demonstration.
    “We get snow. We’re hardy folk.” Georgie had a smile in her voice.
    “You?” Rose laughed. “You’re ride-a-horse hardy, not camp-in-the-Yukon hardy.”
    “Six months in Alaska,” Georgie said. “I’m hardy.”
    “Six months huddled by the stove, you mean.”
    “No, you’re mean.”
    Mellie chuckled. She felt more like a referee than a participant in this friendship. Rose and Georgie’s relationship dated to early childhood, complete with the teasing, squabbles, and love of a lifetime together. Mellie would never share what they did, but she was grateful to be included.
    She’d written more letters to Ernest the engineer, describing her blossoming friendship. Too many letters, perhaps. Would he see her as desperate and run away? Or would he be pleased at her efforts, pleased that he’d encouraged her? And would he help her learn how to make friends?
    Rose and Georgie had helped. They’d gently told her the other girls thought she was conceited because she never smiled. So Mellie experimented with a partial smile and prayed it would be enough. Every day, she reminded herself to greet people and make small talk, same as she would with patients on the ward. Overcoming shyness was hard work.
    And Lieutenant Lambert hadn’t even noticed. Mellie’s dream of serving as an adventurous pioneer flying mercy to the battlefield evaporated, leaving her emptier than before the dream came. The Bible was true: “Hope deferred maketh the heart