THE WAR BRIDE CLUB by Soraya Lane

her. The smiles were wavering, unsure of what she was going to say. She could have cut the air with her mother’s cheese knife.  
          “I’m scared that I’ll get off the ship, that you’ll all run into the arms of your husbands, and there’ll be no one waiting for me.”
          “Oh Madeline! Don’t say that.” Alice switched seats to put her arm around her and June came to her aid too.  
          “He’ll be waiting for you, Mads, don’t even think that.”
          “There, there,” said Betty, hands on her stomach. “I’d give you a hug too but my ankles are too swollen to get up.”
          “I know,” said Alice, fingers tickling along Madeline’s arm. “How about you tell us all about your man, Miss Secretive, and we’ll help you decide if he’ll be waiting or not.”
     
    * * *
          
    There was a reason Madeline was attracted to Roy. He wasn’t the most handsome man, he wasn’t the most charming, but he was the first who’d asked her to dance. And he was the first to come to her door with flowers. The first to ask her father if it was acceptable to take her out on a date. And then the first to ask for her hand in marriage.  
          She knew she was attractive – the smiles and attention directed her way at Church every Sunday weren’t just because her father was the local butcher. Maybe no one had ever had the courage to ask her out. Or maybe no one in the village thought of her that way. She was only seventeen, so it wasn’t as if she’d been available for very long.  
          But when Roy had made his interest clear, a butterfly in her stomach that she’d never felt before had started to beat its wings with fury.  
          She loved her family, but it was like the touch of Roy’s skin, the drowsiness of his kisses, had spellbound her. Even seeing her father with tears in his eyes when he knew she was going to accept Roy’s offer of marriage hadn’t changed her mind. Her strong, manly father who never showed his sadness, nor his fear, only his happiness.  
          Sometimes she wondered if she’d been drugged. For her to say yes to leaving her parents, her sisters, even her little nieces and nephews… it was such a huge decision it was a wonder she had ever been able to make it.  
          Sometimes she hadn’t been sure. Sometimes she thought all she wanted was a nice local boy, so she could move into a home nearby and raise a family, like her sisters had. But when he’d asked her, she’d forgotten all that. Then suddenly they were married, and there was no backing out. Not even when the reality of what she’d committed to had sunk in. And not when he’d left to go back to war after their wedding, and she hadn’t seen him again before she’d had to get on the ship and say goodbye to everyone she loved.  
          
    The night air sent a chill across her shoulders and Madeline wished for Roy’s warm coat. She had a cardigan slung over her, buttoned under her bust, but it was no match for the cold that had swept in with the dark.  
          “You still haven’t told me about your home,” she said. Madeline could count how many times she’d asked Roy about America, but he seemed reluctant to talk about it.  
          “I’ve told you, Maddy, I come from a farm in New York.”
          She fought to wrap the cardigan even tighter around her. It was like a tiny fly constantly landing on her leg. A niggle that just kept persisting. Every time she brought up his home, they went from happy-go-lucky and fun to quiet. Silent . Did it hurt him that much to recall the home he’d left behind?
          “But what’s it like? What is your house like? What are your family like?”
          A look she couldn’t identify passed over his face, but it disappeared so fast she almost wondered if it had ever been there at all.  
          “Honey, what do you need to know?” He took her