Lone eagle

He'd gotten too busy playing hockey with their friends. And she had gone off to skate by herself. She was very solitary these days. “I still can't believe that he's gone and never coming back,” although she had begun to try the idea on for size recently, and it didn't feel good, and probably never would.

“You weren't even engaged to him, Kate. Lots of people have romances with other people before they get married. Some people even break engagements when they meet someone else,” he grew more serious then, as he looked at her.

“There are going to be a lot of women in your position after the war. There are widows even younger than you, and some of them have kids. They can't just lock themselves away for the rest of their lives. They're going to have to live again, and so are you. You can't hide forever, Kate.”

“Yes, I can.” She was beginning to think that what she'd had with Joe had been so unusual and so special that it would sustain her for the rest of her life, and there would be no one else.

“It's not good for you.

You need a husband and kids and a good life, and someone who loves you to take care of you.” What he was saying would have been music to her mother's ears, but not to Kate's. She wasn't ready to think about anyone else. She was still in love with Joe.

“You deserve better than someone who's in love with a ghost.” It was the first time she had admitted to anyone that Joe might be dead, and Andy thought it was a first step.

“Maybe there's room in our life for a ghost.” Andy felt certain that Kate would eventually let go of Joe one day.

“I don't know,” she answered, sounding vague. But so far, she hadn't actually said no.

“We don't have to get married next summer, Kate. I just said that to see what you'd say. We can take as long as you want. Maybe we could just date for a while.”"

"“Like real people?” she asked, as she looked at him, but she couldn't imagine being in love with him. To her, even at twenty-three, he still seemed like a kid. Joe was exactly ten years older than he.

And they were very different men. Kate had been drawn to Joe from the moment she met him, he was like an explosion of light in her heart. Andy had always seemed like a cuddly person and a good friend. It was what her mother said husbands were supposed to be.

“So what do you think?” he asked hopefully, and she laughed. It was like having a boy ask you if you wanted to see his tree house, or go on a first date. She couldn't take him seriously.