While their father and two older sisters were hard at work jarring olives at the Pickle Factory, seventeen-year-old Edna slammed her fist on the kitchen table, upending her little sister Ruth’s teacup, and said, “Ruth, you and me – we’re going somewhere.”
Ruth sat back, holding her breath. She loved having a sister prone to eruptions—eruptions that birthed dreams as well as the energy to live them—and felt certain that Edna’s latest outburst would be a doozie.
Edna did not disappoint. She stretched her five-foot ten-inch frame toward the peeling ceiling, leaned into her sister’s face, and said, “We aren’t working in no pickle factory.”
Ruth’s hairline began to sweat as Edna continued, “We aren’t stuffing no olives in no glass jars pimento side out. Ruth, you and me, we’re going somewhere.” Edna stood. She paced the kitchen, peppering her march with excerpts from her latest vision. “I’m a kid wrangler.”
Ruth nodded emphatically. Edna held a neighborhood-wide reputation as the most admired playground counselor. Pied Piper of the local summer camp, Edna mesmerized even the naughty kids into playing cowboys and superheroes.
Edna raised her pointer finger, scolding out her latest scheme. “Ruth, next Friday, I’m walking right off that high school graduation stage and marching myself directly into the admissions office of Harris University – enrolling myself to become a fourth-grade teacher.” She leaned across the old table and glared at Ruth, “And you, dear sister?”
The question rang in Ruth’s ears like a dare. She struggled to breathe. The beads of sweat clustered on her scalp rolled down the side of her face. Her hands trembled as her mind flooded with images of her childhood obsession. Playing Hospital – a daily melodrama starring little Ruth, who, employing exotic medical interventions, saved the lives of well-bandaged baby dolls and teddy bears. With Edna’s challenge unveiling this fantasy, Ruth lifted herself onto quivering legs and shouted, “Nurse!”
Years of daydreams erupt into one word. Exhausted by naming this most intimate and precious truth, Ruth fell back onto her chair, placed her head on the kitchen table, and sobbed.
And so it was. With Edna installed at teacher’s college, Ruth descended her high school graduation stage, caught the Grand Avenue streetcar, and enrolled at the Lutheran Hospital School of Nursing. She graduated valedictorian of her class. Three months later, Ruth was in charge of the Hospital’s General Medicine Ward. She worked on the ward until her extraordinary darning and embroidery skills caught the eyes of the hospital surgeons.
Like her aunts admiring Ruth’s divinely embroidered tablecloths and tea cozies, the consensus among the hospital surgeons – who scientifically pooled their evidence – was this: “Nobody works a needle like Ruth.”
And it was true. Her delicate stitches healed into lovely pink lines, which over time, faded into barely detectible white creases. Delighted patients lifted shirts and pants’ legs, gushing, “Look Doc., bet even you can’t find the scar!”
To a man, each surgeon accepted full credit for Ruth’s gift. Her needlework made them look so grand that they nicknamed her, ‘The Closer.’ And thus, day and night, facing human messes made by car crashes, motorcycle accidents, and bullet wounds, the emergency surgical team paged Ruth, their ‘Closer,’ to polish the scars.
On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Ruth moved the radio from a living room shelf to the center of the kitchen table. With Mildred and Virginia off packing olives and Edna at school caring for baffled students, Ruth and her parents huddled around the radio listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declare war. Ruth sat with her parents, absorbing the horror – her father ashen, head in hands, her mother’s stone-cold white-nailed fingers clamped around a coffee mug.
During that infamous speech, Ruth’s eyes landed on the stump of her father’s ring finger. The top two joints had been sliced off in a pickle-factory accident, but only now, in this frightful moment, did Ruth imagine the gushing blood and hear her father’s gut-wrenching screams. Her nurse’s heart cracked open to the suffering of a nation’s broken, bleeding soldiers.
“I’m joining the Red Cross,” she announced.
Her father stood and slammed his fist on the table. “Hell, you are!” He glared at her, “They’ll send you to that damn mess in Africa. I won’t have Rommel’s animals….” Her father did not finish the sentence.
Ruth did not skip a beat. “If not the Red Cross, I’m joining the army!”
Her eyes met her father’s. She wouldn’t look away. Finally, resigned, he whispered, “At least Uncle Sam will keep you safe.”
They sat quietly for a moment, then he reached over and gently stroked his daughter’s cheek. “My girl, an army nurse, imagine that!”
Losing pounds she couldn’t spare and gaining muscles she did not want; Ruth completed basic training. Military orders sent her to Dibbles General Hospital in California, where she reprised her expert role as ‘The Closer.’
At Dibbles, the surgical teams worked long hours, inventing healing paths for bodies so torn up that medical textbooks were of little use. Long days, week after week, with Ruth loving every stitch. Some surgical victories were so sweet that she’d replay them, draped across her dormitory bed, rubbing her sore and swollen feet. After twelve hours of surgery, an 18-year-old soldier would walk again, and someday, Ruth knew he’d make a lover search for faded scars.
That same evening, Patty’s bossy voice blasted over their bedsheet wall – a nightly broadcast featuring hospital gossip. “There’s this guy from St. Louis. Shot twice. Intercarpal joint and right forearm shaft with interosseous membrane involvement. Ruth, you’re from St. Louis!”
Ruth sneered. Who had time for romance? She rolled onto her side, lacing her arms and legs around her pillow, and then she remembered. There had been a guy. Yes, one afternoon on the beach with a guy. William. Blue eyes, black hair – Will. Just whispering his name made her heart race and her body tremble. A game of beach volleyball. Patty borrowed the swimsuits. Ruth’s was too tight and terribly low-cut. And, therefore, deliciously perfect. The dark-haired, brown-eyed beauty added red nails and red lips to this revealing ensemble.
Four skimpily-clad nurses? Complete magnets for six half-nude flyboys – naval pilots on leave from an aircraft carrier headed to the Pacific. She and Will eyed each other throughout the game. Will nicknamed her ‘Lieutenant Babe.’
Thick salty ocean air, bodies glistening in the warm sun, wild dashing, screaming laughter. Patty spiked the ball into the ocean. Ruth sprinted after it. Will at her back. The two of them crashing into waves – tumbling. Will surfaced with Ruth in his arms – the rescue she did not need, covering her body in goosebumps.
Another wave caught Will, spilling them both, arms and legs flying into a fierce embrace and finally depositing them on the shore. Tangled together, they laughed until, with eyes locked, they kissed. A long delicious kiss that capped Ruth’s first genuinely romantic date. The next day, Will flew into the Pacific skies, and Ruth returned to closing wounds.
Ruth took a deep breath and kissed her pillow passionately. Those moments with Will – her body pressed tightly against his – their lips locked and then opened to each other. A passion so new, so thrilling that the touch of him and the smell of him still flooded her senses. And she promised her quivering body that she would do all of this again – someday, somewhere. Patty was still babbling, “So, Ruth, I told the guy from St. Louis he could catch you – between scrubs – I know you won’t have time, but….” Patty droned on as Ruth closed her eyes and dreamed.
“He’s here!” Patty announced. She tugged off Ruth’s surgical cap, releasing clusters of damp, tangled curls.
“Who?” she squinted.
“The guy from St. Louis!”
“Oh, yeh,” Annoyed at the interruption, Ruth lowered her mask and finished scrubbing. “The intercarpal joint and right forearm shaft with interosseous membrane involvement. “I’ve got like five minutes.”
Patty pushed Ruth out into the hallway, where the soldier waited. He offered Ruth his left hand. His right arm was in a sling.
“I’m Elmer. Feel free to drop the ‘intercarpal joint’ thing. Just Elmer.”
“Just Elmer,” Ruth repeated, teasing.
She liked the smile that took over most of his face, the puffy lips, and how his enormous brown eyes sparkled when he talked and even more when he listened.
She explained. She only had a few minutes – a massive facial wound challenged her team. They’d saved the boy’s eye, but she’d have to do some fancy darning to keep the soldier’s smile.
He told her he’d been wounded twice at the Battle of the Bulge. About wanting to be a teacher. About his discharge and volunteering to escort a blind soldier home to St. Louis. She stretched the interlude for as long as she could until she was called back into surgery, and they were forced to go their separate ways.
After a long day in the operating room, with the soldier’s smile saved, Ruth headed back to the nurses’ dorm. Passing the picture window that overlooked the hospital exercise yard, she heard the steady bounce of a basketball on the pavement. With the afternoon sun painting the sky lavender and pink, there he was, the guy from St. Louis, shooting baskets with his one good arm.
Ruth pressed her weary head against the cool glass and studied him – tall, thin, thick head of brown hair, muscles nicely sculpted, now peppered with sweat, and distinctly on display in a pea green sleeveless army undershirt. Beautiful. She whispered. White clouds of her breath dotted the window pane; this one was beautiful. She watched him dunk basket after basket, cringing with every shot. Determined, she thought. And suddenly, there it was – head to toe – a flood of yearning so deep that she understood Will chasing her into the waves – the heart’s chemistry lesson: spot the one you want, chase, touch, hold, kiss. But this one, the guy from St. Louis with the fractured arm, was the one she wanted to chase, touch, hold, and kiss. And she promised herself she would. After morning rounds, she’d take out her sassy blue dress, the one that danced at the top of her knees, lace a red silk scarf through her curls, steal a dab of Patty’s Channel No. 5, dust off her pumps, and find him.
Arriving at his bedside, she found a stripped mattress and an empty cubby. She sent letters. They came back marked, ‘Return to Sender.’
The war ended, and operating rooms emptied. Discharged from active duty, Lieutenant Ruth hopped a cargo plane for St. Louis and reprised her role as ‘The Closer’ on Lutheran Hospital’s trauma team.
Edna turned down pleas to leave her fourth-grade classroom for a Principalship, bought a car, and then learned to drive. Freed by wheels, Edna and Ruth spent their weekends exploring the world.
One Saturday afternoon, Edna twirled into the kitchen – a wild glint in her eye. “Chuck Berry’s playing down at the Blueberry Hill Café. Guess who’s going?” Edna tap-danced around her sister, waving tickets.
Ruth hopped to her feet. Edna jiggled car keys, “One tiny glitch, Sis. We’re taking the streetcar. Old Leaping Leana needs a lube job.”
As the sisters waited for the Delmar Boulevard streetcar on that muggy September afternoon, Ruth spotted a guy racing down the hill, yelling and flailing his arms, seemingly desperate to catch the streetcar.
Ruth squinted as the guy sprinted closer, feeling a tinge of recognition. She quivered. I know this guy – he’s the guy from St. Louis, the intercarpal… the one-armed basketball player!
Coming closer, arms flailing, she could hear him. He was not yelling for the streetcar but shouting, “Ruth, Ruth!” and looking as if he’d seen a ghost. Ruth trembled with disbelief; it was him –tall, sandy-haired, massive smile plastered over most of his sweet face, dreamy brown eyes.
Goosebumps ran down her neck and then up her arms as she recalled her head resting on the hospital window, watching this guy toss baskets. Promising herself that…. And she realized she was wearing her sassy blue dress, the red silk scarf was laced through her curls, and her neck was dabbed with Channel No. 5. Only the heels were new.
She kicked off those pumps and sprinted down the sidewalk as if headed for Homebase, flying directly into his open arms. He lifted her; they twirled in circles, dizzy with destiny. When they stopped spinning, Ruth placed her cherry-laced fingers on his cheeks. Their eyes locked, and she kissed him—one passionate, pillow-practiced, way overdue kiss.
“It’s you!” Elmer whispered, peppering her face with soft kisses.
“And it’s you,” Ruth smiled, “the intercarpal right forearm shaft with membrane involvement.”
He laughed, pleased that she remembered, “Or Just Elmer. But, Lieutenant Gorgeous, you can call me whatever you want.”
“I like ‘Just Elmer,’” she teased, relishing what she knew to be a miracle.
Her hands cupped in his, he asked, “Ruth, are you going somewhere?”
“Why yes, Elmer,” she sighed, relishing the tenderness of his touch. “I am going somewhere.”
“Well then,” Elmer swallowed hard, his voice cracking, “I’m going somewhere too.”
Holding her hand, he helped Ruth step onto the Delmar Boulevard streetcar, and they went somewhere – together.
MARY-FRANCES SCHNEIDER 