TDTLBU Chapter Nineteen

 It didn't seem any different from any other day. 

It was a Sunday. A beautiful crisp and clear Sunday morning in early December. It had snowed through the night… a powdered sugar dusting of delicate lacy white. Emma had woken early just to stand by her window and gaze at the beauty of that morning. 

"It had snowed softly and thickly all through the hours of darkness," she murmured dreamily as she ran a brush slowly through her hair. "And the beautiful whiteness, glittering in the frosty sunshine, looked like a mantle of charity cast over all the mistakes and humiliations of the past." 

Setting down her brush, she stretched and yawned luxuriously. Katie rolled over in bed, brushing tangled locks out of her eyes and smiling lopsidedly at her sister.

"It snowed last night, didn't it?" At Emma's enthusiastic nod, her smile grew wider. "Then Jerry will want to go sledding after church. Mm… it's going to be a good day."

And so they all thought. Ronnie came in from the milking that morning whistling and rattling the milk pails and altogether making an awful racket. He was happy. And why shouldn't he be happy? He was just a young boy in love. He had taken Lissie to Christmas caroling the night before and kissed her too. Life was good.

In fact, Mickey was the only one out of sorts among the Stewarts that morning. He had lost a tooth at supper the night before and… tragedy unequaled! Had swallowed it along with his mashed potatoes. How on earth mashed potatoes had been the final end of the tooth, no one could fathom. But the fact remained that the tooth was gone and one small boy was made miserable by its absence.

"It's times like these that I feel sorta left out," Emma grinned confidingly to Josh when she met him in the church foyer later that morning.

"Whaddya mean, Em?"

"Them." Emma nodded towards Jerry and Katie who were standing shyly together in a corner beside the coat rack. "And them," she nodded again in the opposite direction to where Ronnie and Lissie were absorbed in deep conversation, arm-in-arm, oblivious to the entire world.

"Oh, well, if that's the way you feel," Josh grinned, a teasing gleam suddenly flickering in his eyes. Emma knew that look well and drew back in warning, but not quickly enough. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek before she could utter a word. She stared at him a moment, confused, and completely speechless for once in her life.

"Come on, Mickey," she said finally, her voice only a trifle unsteady. "Let's go in. Hey, Scout," she called back over her shoulder as she walked away. "That's not what I meant."

Yes, a normal Sunday by all appearances. It wasn't until near the end of the service when the realization that it wasn't normal at all began to penetrate minds. It took a while for the fact to sink in that something was truly, horribly wrong.

It was the appearance of Jason Collins, the local telegraph operator, in church that morning that first drew the public's attention. Jason Collins hadn't darkened the doors of a church since his wife had died nine years ago. But he was there that Sunday. Albeit very late.

Just as the pastor announced the final benediction, the sanctuary doors flew open and there stood Jason Collins, a yellow paper crumpled in his fist. His eyes were alight with fire as he stood there… just returning the stares of the congregation. They had turned as one when he entered and now waited, with bated breath. For they knew that Jason would never have entered a church if it wasn't a matter of… life and death.

"Are you daft?" He called out indignantly. "Blind, deaf, and dumb? What's the matter with all you people, sitting here in church like nothing is happening? Don't you know there's a war going on?"

"We are well aware of that," the pastor returned drily. "The news is hardly anything new."

"No, I mean a war as in… we are at war. The United States!"

Anxious whispers erupted throughout the sanctuary, rippling up and down the aisles and across the pews. Jason Collins strode down the aisle. Every eye was pinned fixedly on him. He paused in the very center of the aisle, lifting the crumpled telegram almost menacingly.

"This morning," he began slowly, drawing out every word. In the silence, you could fairly hear the crackling of nervous tension. "This morning, Japanese bombers attacked our naval base at Pearl Harbor. Estimated over 2,000 men dead. Several ships sunk. Congress is calling for a declaration of war."